“And what about Vili Csillag?” asked Márti.

“He’s kind of…” Ági’s voice became uncertain. “A nice little boy.”

They giggled.

“Nice little boy, yes, you’re right. A nice little boy!” Márti repeated the phrase like some new slogan.

“It’s his eyes that are a knockout.”

“Right! You’ve noticed, like a kaleidoscope?”

“Yes. Sometimes gray, sometimes green.”

“Even light brown, sometimes.”

The bell rang. Vilmos Csillag did not stir. He would never have dreamed that he would get the silver medal in class. He examined himself in the mirror. Just then, his eyes were river-green.

Almost a year later they were revising French in the flat of Ági’s parents and exchanged a fleeting kiss over the kitchen table.

“You’re not doing it right!” Ági protested.

“But that’s how I usually do it,” Vilmos Csillag lied. In fact, it was his first time. The girl showed him how. Vilmos Csillag proved to be a quick learner. Of the girls in his class, Ági was fairly far down on the attractiveness scale as far as Vilmos Csillag was concerned, but she certainly rose a rung or two for finding him attractive. It was not the girl he wanted; it was the love.

Once it happened that only her older sister, Vera, was at home. She resembled her sister, but she was a fully grown woman, with substantial breasts, the mere sight of which made him break out in a sweat.

“Looking for Ági?”

“Isn’t she in?”

“You can wait for her if you like.”

Vera attended the same school and was just taking her final exams. She complained that she had no chance of getting through maths. “I just can’t remember all these stupid formulae!”

“Make yourself a crib sheet. And hide it in your…” He ground to a halt. He blinked unsteadily at the hem of the girl’s tight skirt, where the darker band of her black stockings could be seen.

“All right, Willie dear, I’ll make one,” she said, stroking his face; the red-painted nails traveled across the boy’s field of vision like five burning aircraft. “Listen… have you been with my sister?”

“You mean…”

“Yeah. Well?”

He blushed and made an uncertain gesture. “I can’t really… I don’t want to.”

“So you haven’t. I thought as much. She’s just blabbing.”

“Is that… what she said?”

“Yeah.”

Vilmos Csillag had no idea how to behave in such an awkward situation, to maintain the self-respect of the male. He began to chew the corner of his mouth relentlessly. Vera’s quick fingers hurried to the spot and separated mouth from teeth. “Don’t… Hey, your eyes have gone green.”

On another visit, he again found only Vera at home. They talked for a long time, about school, the summer vacation, teachers. Vera suddenly changed topic: “You should grow your hair, Willie. It would suit you better.” She brought a brush, ruffled up the boy’s somewhat curly hair and fashioned a Beatles cut for him. They took a look in the mirror in the hall. Vilmos Csillag knew that in the next few months he would not visit the barber’s even on the headmaster’s orders they were not allowed to wear the Beatles’ mushroom-mop.

As Ági grew increasingly unreliable, so Vera became more willing to be a companion. Vilmos Csillag would never dare think of this tight-skirted, slickly made-up woman as one of the “girls” at the school.

“What have you done to your hair, Willie?”

“I’ve combed it. And… I wet it!”

“You’re such a sweetie!” Vera ruffled his hair. “You arouse the animal in me!”

“What sort of animal?”

“A shark!” and she clacked her teeth as if to swallow him up.

Next time she came to the door she said: “No Ági again, sorry.”

“Where is she?”

“Dunno. School play, I guess.”

“Ah.”

“Oh, OK, I’ll tell you the truth. She’s hanging out with Mishi. You get me?”

“What do you mean hanging out?”

“Going out with.”

“Going out?”

“Yeah. With.”

“But… I thought she was going out with me!”

“Typical. Can’t spare the time to let you know that she isn’t any longer.”

“I see.” He had to sit down on the laundry basket in the hall. He tried to summon all his strength not to burst into tears, but one tear got away.

“Oh, my dear Willie…” Vera embraced him, her thumb wiping the tear from his eye. “Come on!” and led him into her room. There she whispered: “Party time!”

“Pardon?” The expression was new to him.

“My parents are away, in Parádsasvárad. Get it?”

When she began to take her clothes off, Vilmos Csillag was embarrassed and at first pretended not to see.

“You too!” Vera gave him a hand. Elsewhere, too.

Vilmos Csillag had imagined the scene a thousand, a million times, but always thought it would last a bit longer.

The girl gave a wry little smile as she rolled off and lay beside him. “More practice needed.” She examined the refractory member, now shrunken and sleeping the sleep of a two-year-old. “Hey, aren’t you…?”

Vilmos Csillag, after a long pause: “Aren’t I what?”

“Circumcised.”

“Why should I be?”

“Because that’s the custom with your lot.”

“What do you mean, our lot?”

“Well, with Jews, OK?”

“I’m not Jewish!”

“I thought you were.”

“Where did you get that from?”

“Ági said. And you look it.”

“Come, come…” and he bit his lip as his father’s turn of phrase slipped out.

Vera explained that on the basis of his looks, only someone who had never seen a Jew would not think him one. Soft lines, dark, wavy hair…

“My lines are soft?”

“Yeah.”

“Pity.”

“No worries, eh! We’re Jews as well, it’s no big deal!” She waited with a mischievous smile for the boy to laugh, but in vain.

“What makes Ági think I’m Jewish?”

“Oh come on, it’s not cool. Perhaps you aren’t after all… Those eyes, sea-green, they’re suspect.”

“You suspect that I am or that I’m not?”

“Yeah, that you’re not.”

Vilmos Csillag could hardly wait for his father to come home that evening. Papa just then was spending more time in the hospital than at home, as the heart trouble that had been bothering him since the war had taken a turn for the worse. He rarely spoke to members of his family, so Vilmos Csillag, too, had lost the habit of sharing his thoughts with him.

The moment his father came through the door he gave a grunt and flung himself on the couch. Vilmos Csillag sighed. “Could I have a word?”

His father was sweating profusely and kept wiping his brow. “Sit down. What’s up?”

“Just between the two of us.”

“It is just the two of us, son. Your mother is in the kitchen.”

“But she might come in any moment.”

“Come, come.” There appeared on his father’s face a look that was partly abstracted and partly blank: the look with which he shut out the outside world.

Vilmos Csillag knew he had only a small chance, but cut to the chase. “How come I know nothing of your past or how things were with your parents?”

“No. Not that.”

“Why?”

“It was a long time ago. It’s of no interest.”

“But it is of interest.”

“End of story.”

Vilmos Csillag flew into a rage. “And what about… is it true that you are Jewish?”

His father jumped up and hit him across the face with the back of his hand. Vilmos Csillag staggered to the bookshelf, for an instant unsure where he was. His lower lip started bleeding and the blood trailed onto his shirt collar. He heard the door squeak open and his mother scream: “Jesus!”

“Leave Jesus out of it,” said his father, offering him a handkerchief.

Csillag Vilmos had never been beaten by his father-not that he ever gave much cause. At school he always managed to get marks that, if not the highest, were always good enough to put him into the bracket of “good” students. But for his poor memory, he would be academically quite outstanding. Alas, often a day or two later he could not remember something he had learned word for word. On the rare occasions that his mother gave him household chores, he washed up obediently, dried the dishes, and went to the corner shop. He could recall only one big slap across the face and that had not been from his father. At the age of six he had got it into his head that he wanted a younger brother or sister and began to pester his parents about it relentlessly. His mother quickly disposed of him: “Ask your father.”