Hungarian Rhapsody

With a myriad of distractions, some that couldn't be helped, and others that should have been, I wandered far from my good intentions of keeping a regular blog.  That doesn't mean I stopped reading.  Not by a long shot.  When at last I decided to take matters in hand, I began with a recommendation from a dear friend.  A very fine way to begin any project, I should think. 

Bolshoi Ballet in London - The New York Times

Russian Winter is Daphne Kalotay's first novel, in which she manages to combine classic romanticism; her characters ripe with mystery and allure, and historical fiction, with details of the era sharp and precise to the finest details of the weather and the articles of clothing worn.  She is a gifted story teller of the old school, for she knows how within a few pages to lure the reader in.  An old woman, a young woman and a solitary man.  What is their link? 

Nina Revskaya, a prima ballerina come to fame in Stalin's Soviet Union, is at the end of her days a lauded artist, living in her cherished seclusion in her Back Bay Boston flat, with few companions, and overwhelmed at the painful decay of her body, once an instrument of incomparable physicality, and beauty.  She is haunted by painful memories of a people and places long since past.  In an attempt to be shed of these dreams she liquidates her possessions, among them the treasured jewels she has been gifted with from admirers, lovers and her late husband, the Russian poet, Viktor Elsin. 

Despite her crustiness, and pain, she is a smart witty woman, and asked by a tv reporter for the umpteenth time about fleeing Moscow to escape communism the octogenarian replies "People think I fled Russia to escape communism.  Really I was escaping my mother-in-law." 


Into her sheltered world comes, Drew Brooks, a young divorcee devoted heart and soul to her work at the auction house handling the sale of Nina's jewel's, to the exclusion of any gratifying personal life, takes special interest in this sale. 

"The Revskya project meant more to her than most, not only because of how she loved the ballet.  There was also that one haphazard branch of her lineage that to this day remained something of a question mark.  And so it did not bother her so much that as usual all the work (yes, all of it) would fall into her lap,..."

Using skills, Sherlock Holmes would have employed had he the available technology, Drew spends most days authenticating other peoples treasures with the help of experts in every imaginable field of study.  As one might imagine, this is the perfect job for one looking to get lost in their work.  And while Drew focuses this intense devotion to uncovering the providence of Nina's jewels the reader is given lessons in jewelry design, mineralogy, and Russian history. 

What Drew can't predict, the human element, is appearance of Grigori Solodin, professor of foreign languages and the translator of Viktor Elsin's poetry.  As a newly arrived student to America Grigori Solodin came to Boston seeking to confirm what he believed was the connection between himself and Nina.  Now all these years later, newly widowed, without an emotional anchor and still without answers, Nina has taken pains to keep him from her at all costs.  But why? 

A reader can't ask more than to be surprised, challenged and delighted.  I certainly was throughout this marvelous first novel.  Kalotay reminded that the beauty of dance is fought for with blood, sweat, tears and toil.  She also, has whetted my appetite to attend an auction.   

In Calamity and Other Stories Daphne Kalotay's earlier work we are in a whole different genre but in the same delightfully deft hands of a writer who knows how to weave a common thread from story to story in her debut collection. 

In "Serenade", two young girls watch the adults in the neighborhood gathering for a suburban backyard evening drinks party to which the affectations, flirtations and strange habits of friends, acquaintances and spouses will leave much to be commented on & dissected afterwards.  One of the girls, Rhea,  will be the common thread linking one story to the next.  She is a quirky, angry, introspective creature, with a spectacular inner life and her interactions with other people, when she does attempt them, are not wholly successful.  I loved  her.

In the next "A Brand New You" we meet Annie, and through Annie we come to hear about her best friend, Eileen.  These two kicky ladies will pop again and again in this collection of short stories, in different stages of life, but always friends.  Reminding women, of a certain age, as we so gently call middle-age, of our own stalwart women friends, that see us to the prom, the bridal altar, the baby shower, the divorce court, the menopause.  But in this first tale, Annie is finding herself in bed with her ex-husband whom she has run into on a New York City street and wondering how she got there.

Although, all the stories were not to be skipped, I was most taken with "All Life's Grandeur" a sad story about 13-year-old, Geoff, who finds himself stuck at a lake house for the summer with his Dad, his Dad's girlfriend, (his mistress of the last two years) following his mothers suicide attempt upon learning of her husband's infidelity and their separation.  For companionship he has thrust upon him 11-year-old local worm-seller, Valerie.  Valerie of the fishin' worms turns out to be a fine little companion for the summer, once Geoff gets past her gender and age deficits.  They manage to make the most of their days together, until Geoff takes a deeper look at his new friend and the seemingly harmless pranks they pull together.

"The Man from Allston Electric" had some of the most memorable lines of the entire collection.  Rhea, now a post-doctoral grad student living in a run-down apartment watches the repairman trying to fix the electric outlet, and then declare it dead "...Rhea felt a small rush of pleasure.  she was grateful for any admission of failure.  She was tired of everyone always saying, of course it can be done,...".  Rhea, newly dumped by her long-time boyfriend, having fallen madly in love at a conference, and unable to get anywhere professionally is quite justifiably depressed, and in Lonny, the repairman divulging his fears and inadequacies about his life, she finds another soul bumbling around the universe, not quite sure where he's going wrong, and they bond, at least in Rhea's mind.  In "Sunshine Cleaners" Rhea meets Sergei the Manager of the Sunshine Cleaners, but language prevents any human connection despite their common loneliness.  Sergei narrates the story of his frustraton as the stranger in this Massachusetts town condemned to spend all his time among Russian emigres like himself, when he longs to reach out to the Americans he sees around him. His inadequacy with English limits him to only vague responses when Rhea complains about the washer or dryer breaking down.  Which incurs her wrath and anger, not at all what he wants to do.  It is a quirk of fate (and a writers wit) to bring these two together and Kalotay does it quite skillfully.

In "Calamity" the story from which the collection takes its title, Rhea is at her deadpan best, on a flight to Massachusetts to be the Maid of Honor at the wedding of her best friend to the man she's like to have married herself.  On the way she is seated next to an elderly woman when the plane they are aboard experiences mechanical problems and prepares for an emergency landing.  The conversation that ensues between the two of them is worth the price if the book alone.  "Rhea thought for a moment and said aloud, "Don't women ever get to be captains?"  The standby woman took only a moment before saying, "No, no, I don't think so."  Rhea nodded, mystery solved.  That was what Rhea liked about older women.  You could count on them for the truth because they had lived it."

As a reader you continue to run into Rhea, Annie, Eileen, and Geoff, and other characters throughout this collection, and they seem like old neighbors, and you pick-up with them where at each new stage of their development.  And at each encounter, there is something new to discover and something endearing to remember.


Julie Orringer's first novel The Invisible Bridge covers in depth and breadth the years that live in infamy on the continent of Europe.  Through the Lévi brothers and their co-coreligionist in France and Hungary the reader experiences the encroaching horrors that eventually overcome the Jewish population. 

However, "The Invisible Bridge" is so much more than a war story, it is the story of a great love, born under desperate circumstances and like the persons of that time, it fights to survive. Andras Lévi, born in rural Hungary, is the son of Lucky Bela, who runs a small lumbar business and his wife Flora. He knows he is fortunate as a poor young man to have gotten a secondary education as a boarder in Debrecen, and even more fortunate to have received a scholarship through the Budapest Jewish Community to study architecture at the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris. In 1937, He departs Budapest and his job as an illustrator at the magazine, where his fine detailed work showed talent and eventually led to his receiving the scholarship to study in Paris. Andras is about to take his leave of Budapest, when quite by accident he makes the acquaintance of Mrs. Elsa Hász, a prominent member of the Jewish community of Budapest, who upon understanding he is departing shortly for Paris, requests he take a package to her son, Jozéf, who is also in Paris studying at the Beaux-Arts in the Quartier Latin, very near his own school. It is when Andras arrives at the Hász grand home to receive the package he makes the acquaintance of the elder Mrs. Hász, Jozéf's grandmother and Elsa's mother-in-law, who also requests a favor of him. She gives him a letter and asks him to post it once he arrives in Paris, much to the consternation of the younger Mrs. Hász, who notes her husband, György, the bank director will disapprove. The elder Mrs. Hász insists and Andras takes the letter which is addressed to C. Morgenstern. Who is C. Morgenstern, what is the connection to the elder Mrs. Hász, and why can't she simply post the letter from Budapest to Paris. All these questions Andras takes with him as he begins his journey.

Andras bids farewell to his brother Tibor, who is staying behind in Budapest, waiting to earn enough money, so that he may go abroad and study medicine as there were strict enforcement quota laws at that time. Tibor and Andras do all that they can to help the other succeed in his chosen profession. They gladly sacrifice of themselves that their brother will have his dream fulfilled. And they speak with affectionate despair of their younger brother, Mátyás, so different from the two of them. In a conversation with his father, Andras belies his guilt for leaving his family behind to go to Paris.



"What if you get pneumonia again this year? The lumberyard can't run itself."


"Why not? I've got the foreman and five good sawyers. And Mátyás isn't far away if I need more help."


"Mátyás, that little crow?" Andras shook his head. "Even if you could catch him, you'd be lucky to get any work out of him."


Mátyás in secondary school skips classes to perform with a dance troupe and work in nightclubs. His dreams are very different from his studious brothers.

Aboard the train to Paris, Andras makes the acquaintance of Zoltan Novák, a theatre impresario, returning from his home in Budapest to his theatre in Paris (The Sarah Bernhardt). Another fortuitous meeting as Novak like Mrs. Hász will play an important role in his life. It is upon crossing into Austria, that Andras first encounters a country controlled by the German Reich and where signs on shops read "Jews not wanted".


As a student in Paris, Andras first bit of good fortune is to encounter Professor Pierre Vago, a Hungarian native who mentors Andras not only in his professional studies but more importantly in the French language. He also becomes his defender and his chief source of professional contacts. Soon upon his arrival, Andras falls in among a group of 1st year students, Jewish like himself. They represent perhaps the various types of Jews you'd expect to see in a film and this is the only part of the novel with which I had a little bit of trouble. There is Rosen the French Jew, a strong fighter and ardent Zionist, the precursor to the latter day Israeli; then there is Ben-Yakov, also a French Jew, self-knowingly decadent, perhaps representational of last gasp of European Jewry; and then there is the sensitive, artistic, homosexual, Polish Jew, Polaner, Andras' best friend. Despite their stereotypical characteristics, they give the author the opportunity to explore possible reactions to the circumstances of the days when war is declared, your visa is suddenly expired, you do not know if you will be called up to serve and where are your family members.


"The Invisible Bridge" is really two books. There is Andras going to Paris, falling in love and fighting for his love while the world turns upside down.  Then there is the second book, Andras returning with Klara to Budapest where they and their families experience the deprivations of the war and the long separations as Andras is conscripted in and out of the Munkaszolgálat, the Labor Service also called the Musz in which Jews were compelled to serve in rather than the Hungarian Armed Services during World War II. These were mostly horrendous work camps where the men worked on starvation rations in an attempt to serve the armed forces. Andras in his time in these camps, while longing for Klara and his family, meets various types of Hungarian officers, from virulent sadists to kind gentleman, who arrange for him to be released to be at his wife's bedside when she is in hospital. He meets other Hungarians like himself just doing what they can day to day to survive to see the end of the war.

It is in this part of the book that I think Orringer truly succeeds in depicting a world few people have any idea existed and she does so eloquently and deliberately. Here is the voice of Hungary of the Maygar people in this small passage, when Andras overhears General Nagy giving a small speech to young boy soldiers at a military academy.

"Soldiers," he began. "Young men. I won't make a long speech. I don't have to tell you that war is a terrible thing. You're far from home and family, and you'll go farther still before you return. You're brave boys, all of you." Vilmos Nagy had none of the swagger or dramatic fire of the school's commanding officer; he spoke with the rounded vowels of a Hajdú peasant, gripping the podium with his large red hands. "I'll speak frankly," he said. "The Soviets are stronger than we thought. You're here because we didn't take Russia in the spring. Many of your comrades have died already. You're being trained to lead more men into battle. But you are Magyars, boys. You've survived a thousand years of battle. No enemy can match you. No foe can defeat you. You slew the Tatars at pest . You routed eighty thousand Turks at Eger Castle. You were better warriors and better leaders."


A round of wild cheers broke forth from the officers-in-training; the general waited until the noise had subsided, "Remember," he said, "you're fighting for Hungary. For Hungary, and no one else. The Germans may be our allies, but they're not our masters. Their way is not our way. The Magyars are not an Aryan people. The Germans see us as a benighted nation. We've got barbarian blood, wild ideas. We refuse to embrace totalitarianism. We won't deport our Jews or our Gypsies. We cling to our strange language. We fight to win, not to die."

Holocaust Memorial - Budapest, Hungary

Sadly, Nagy would be wrong. In March 1944 German troops arrived in Hungary as an occupying force and Hungarian Jews, the last of Europe's Jews became subject to the laws of the Third Reich. They lost their property, were herded into ghettos, taken to labor camps and eventually deported to Auschwitz and other death camps. Hungary where Jews had lived for centuries in all levels of society and in all walks of life had quite simply disappeared.  It was impossible to fathom a Hungary without Jews.

I can't recommend Ms. Orringer's book enough. It is a love story, it is a history lesson, it is a mystery, and it is just a darn good read.

Julie Orringer had written her much lauded collection of short stories, How to Breathe Underwater before she made her debut as a novelist.  Having finished her opus I knew this was a serious writer, what I didn’t reckon on was her ability to dexterously change genres and still maintain her unique voice.  From the beginning with Pilgrims a macabre tale set appropriately in a New Orleans suburb told from the point of view of Ella a little girl taken to an alternative Thanksgiving Day among people living a homeopathic existence that includes vegetarianism and meditation rooms and tree hugging.  Things Ella’s mother has embraced to combat the cancer that is killing her.  When she and her baby brother are ushered outside to play with the other children she finds a world akin to Lord of the Flies.  An engaging idea, and wholly unexpected, it was a perfect set off to this collection.

I would imagine that as with most writers, Ms. Orringer, tends to the autobiographical, at least on some basic level.  I feel that most in Note to Sixth-Grade Self.  The idea that we can find that magical mailbox and post a letter to child self, with advice from the adult we become, surely is a fantasy many of us would long to take advantage of.  The helpful reassurance, when we sound like our own parents saying “it will be alright” is not enough, and we know it.  We want to say what Ms. Orringer says, specifically

“At four o’clock, go inside with the others.  Line up against the wall with the girls.  Watch how the boys lineup against their wall, popular ones in the middle, awkward ones at the sides.  Watch how the girls jockey to stand across from the boys they like.  Watch Brittney Wells fumble with the zipper of her nylon LeSportsac.  Don’t let her get next to you with that thing.  Try to stand across from someone good.  Do not let yourself get pushed all the way out to the sides, across from Zachary Booth or Ben Dusseldorf.

In Care druggie Tessa is entrusted with the care of her niece Olivia for the afternoon.  However, her drug addiction is so overwhelming that even common decency, and good sense cannot stand up to it and she loses track of the child.  This was for me one of Orringer’s best stories, for there were so many levels to interpret it.  Who is lost, the child or her aunt or both?  Who is aware of their surroundings; the hypersensitive drug addict or the simple but thoughtful child?  It is a deceptively simple, yet complex and layered story.

What We Save comes back to the theme of a dying mother told from the point of view of her teenage daughter this time.  Helena and Margot and their mother and father are ironically in the happiest place on earth Disney World where her father is delivering a lecture at a medical convention.  Besides being a strong girl for her ailing mother and being the elder sister to for Margot to lean on, Helena is thrust into place as witness for her mother’s reunion with her long lost high school love, Brian, a highly successful engineering professor, with a picture perfect family.  The day at Disney World becomes a series of insults and embarrassing moments for Helena, as once again a child and adult change places, and the child seeks to shelter the parent rather than the other way around.  I was haunted by this story and its theme, as I was with the others in the collection, but none more so than the last piece Stations of the Cross when a pregnant woman on vacation in Mexico receives news from her mother back home in Louisiana of the death of a young man she had known.  Dale Fortunot has been killed in a terrorist attack in Nablus while on a writing assignment.  Startled by this horrific turn of events, she remembers their meeting long ago when she, a young Jewish child, attended his cousin Carney’s First Communion and how his appearance at that event was cause for alarm.  Dale’s mother had been shunned for having a child out-of-wedlock and a child of a mixed race at that.  That was enough to set the pot brewing for the friends and family.  When Carney, a spiteful and manipulative child, takes charge of the party that afternoon events turn strange and unforgettable.  Orringer bookends her collection neatly with Pilgrims and Stations of the Cross both set in Louisiana where children reenact the evil they witness in the world of adults.

Julie Orringer is a distinctly refreshing voice on the literary scene.  I’m anxious to see what direction she will take in her next writing effort.

While reading Kati Marton’s memoir of her childhood, Enemies of the People, about the dramatic and frightening time she survived in Communist Hungary, I recalled throughout my school days the map of Europe was much simpler, than it is today.  There was the free west and then there were the Iron Curtain nations of the East strangled by the Soviet Union.  This is where Hungary fell, following its “liberation” by the Soviet Union following the defeat of the Reich in World War II.  If the lives of the Hungarians had not been completely shattered by the First and Second World Wars, then it was virtually brought to its knees by almost half a century struggle with Communism.

Endre and Ilona Marton were not in any way your average parents.  Ardent Hungarian nationalists, of Jewish backgrounds, with two PhD’s between them, they survived the Second World War on their wits and good luck.  Endre was a dashing character, a journalist, anglophile, a brilliant man, a fencing champion, a linguist and a devoted father and husband.  Ilona was a clever woman, with a taste for the finer things life could offer.  She was always elegantly dressed and her company was much requested among the diplomatic community.  To paint a picture of just how different they were from your average Hungarian during the Cold War era, Marton reveals in her introduction “At a time when there were roughly two thousand private cars in all of Hungary, our family drove a white Studebaker convertible!” 

The Hungarian Revolution 1956

They and their two daughters, Kati and Juli, lived in Budapest, where Endre worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press and Ilona was a correspondent for the United Press.  They were the last two remaining independent reporters in Hungary, as all other worked for the State run press.  As such they had entry to the U.S. diplomatic mission, for press briefings, where no other Hungarian could go without then being picked up by the AVO (Hungarian Secret Police Agency) and being charged with spying for the West.

Indeed, the Marton’s had quite a number of contacts within the U.S. diplomatic mission, and the Press Corps, which would serve them well when they fell under suspicion and were taken into custody by the AVO.  They are interrogated under harsh conditions, they and their families are threatened constantly, kept cold, and not allowed to sleep.  Endre remains steadfast, only confessing falsely when he fears Ilona will be taken prisoner.  Ilona and the children live under constant surveillance, as the Marton’s had lived for years.  Their phone conversations are listened to, their maid and nanny report on them to the secret police, their neighbors watch their comings and goings.  And in prison the cellmate is used to pry a secret from Endre or Ilona after they have withstood hours of intense scrutiny by their interrogators.

Kati Marton, a well-known writer and journalist in the United States, upon receiving an award from her native Hungary, applied, as was her right under the new post-communist government, to review the AVO records of her family.  In this book she reveals what she learned from the Secret Police records and what she remembers. 

Kati’s descriptions of her parents are not only heartfelt, but complicated.  It is after all difficult to understand or criticize the Endre or Ilona for the choices they made considering the world they lived in and survived, but because of their choices, Kati too has gained or lost part of her legacy and she has a need to ask why; as any child does of their parents. 

It is important that children in school today know of the courage and the persecution of the Marton’s. and thousands like them behind the iron curtain.  Twenty years is not so long ago, but it can easily be brushed under the rug, if we didn’t have writers like Kati Marton to illuminate it for us.  Not only do I recommend this book, but I highly recommend it for secondary school libraries.

Budapest Day

Budapest at night

To learn about a fabulous trip to Hungary this summer

Click on "Re-Discover Your Hungarian Heritage" on right.