Anna Porter - The Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies

THE STORYTELLER

ALSO BY ANNA PORTER

Hidden Agenda
Mortal Sins
The Bookfair Murders

A MEMOIR of SECRETS, MAGIC and LIES

ANNA PORTER

Copyright Anna Porter 2000, 2006

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

First published in hardcover in 2000 by Doubleday Canada, and in paperback by Anchor Canada in 2001.

This edition published in 2006 by

Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V5T 4S7
www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Porter, Anna
The storyteller: a memoir of secrets, magic and lies / Anna Porter.Rev. ed.

ISBN-13: 978-1-55365-220-5 ISBN-10: 1-55365-220-7

1. Rcz, VilmosFamily. 2. World War, 19391945Hungary. 3.
HungaryHistoryRevolution, 1956. 4. HungaryHistory20th century.
I. Title.

DB955.6.R33P67 2006 943.905 C2006-903062-6

Cover and interior design by Ingrid Paulson
Cover image Antar Dayal/Getty Images
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
Printed on acid-free paper that is forest friendly (100% post-consumer
recycled paper) and has been processed chlorine free

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

For Catherine and Julia,
in memory of Vili Rcz, the Storyteller.

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER I have been writing this book for forty years, most of a lifetime. It is impossible to thank everyone who has added to the stories I have set down here. Nevertheless Id like to acknowledge the extraordinary memories of Maria des Tombe, my mother, and her formidable friends, Anna Gellert, Bora Pallay, Magda Szenttamasi, Margit Csepeli, Martha Fairfield, Ivan Vassey, Lorand Wanke, George Nagy; the kindness of Kati Balogh in sending me the Hungarian ChroniclesA Magyarok Krnikjaand the book of Hungarian kingsA Magyar Kiralyok Knyve; and my friend Istvan Bart who waded through an early draft and took the trouble to correct names and spellings, and to argue with me over Vilis interpretations of Hungarian history.

It was Andy Sarloss great enthusiasms for things Hungarian that took me back to Budapest to revisit some of our shared memories. Andy helped erect a statue of Imre Nagy close to the place I had hid during the 56 Revolution, in front of Parliament Square. On a hot summer day in 1996 we stood around the lifesize bronze Nagy, listening to speeches about those times past, then the haunting sounds of Va, Pensiero from Verdis Nabucco, and everyone was crying. Thanks, also, to Hal Jones, Andys partner back then, for helping me get to Transylvania.

I am grateful to George Jonas for his encouragement and for sharing his insights; to the librarians at the Magyar Hz on St Clair Avenue in Toronto for allowing me access to a range of their more obscure books; for The Tragic Fate of Hungary by Yves de Daruvar, A Short History of Hungary by Zoltan Halasz, Memoir of Hungary by Sandor Marai, Magyar Mult, Magyar Sorsok by Laszlo Pusztaszeri, A Ket Hunyadi by Dezso Dummerth.

Most of all, I thank my husband, Julianhe of English heritagefor being moved by these ancient tales of another culture; and my daughters for listening to the stories and coming on my strange journeys.

MY GRANDFATHER VILI had a particular weakness for the Gerbaud girls. The Gerbaud was then, much as it is now, a wonderful place to meet. It was a glittery, overproduced spot on Budapests Vrsmarty Square, where you went to be seen as much as to see who else was there. Around the turn of the century it was already a Baroque period piece, a coffeehouse in the Viennese tradition with touches of Turkish influence, and it was one of Vilis favourite spots as a young man. The Gerbaud girls had been a challenge for his amorous advances. Though young and inexperienced, they had been well-trained by Madame Gerbaud in the art of evading the eager hands of pushy customers. Vili succeeded in charming them with silk stockingsa rare luxury even among the wealthy and unknown in the countryside where most of the girls had come from.

Years later, in 1949, when he took me to the Gerbaud for the first time, he told me that once he had fallen in love there.

The three high-ceilinged rooms had been restored, except for the crystal chandeliers (smashed by the Germans, the pieces taken home by the Russians), and there were the blood-red drapes, the lion-footed tables, the discreet murmur of grown-up conversation, the hand-painted counter, the glass-enclosed confections, chocolate tarts with whipped cream caps, tortes with marzipan, vanilla swirls, candy-covered cakesit was the pinnacle of all my best dreams.

Vili pulled the chair out for me to sit onIts how gentlemen do it, he told meand when I couldnt slither up or hop onto it, he lifted me into the whooshing, soft, maroon velvet cushion. The sound of magic.

For me, he ordered chestnut pure over vanilla whipped cream with drizzled chocolate topping. For himself, espresso. The woman who wrote this down onto her cream-coloured notepad was slender and her smile was warm, her lips like wilted rose petals. Her face flushed when Vili spoke to her. She tried to tuck her auburn wisps of hair under her white cap as she turned to him and asked how he had been.

In those times, a simple question like that carried the weight of other unasked questions. I knew he would sigh when he answered. What can you expect in these times, he said and didnt disappoint me about the sigh. And I knew that these times meant the bad times we were all enduring, the times when the streets were full of rubble and our old house on the other side of the Danube, Buda, had been taken from our family by a government that had no use for people like my grandfather and me.

The Gerbaud waitresss name was Klara and she came from Kolozsvr (now called Cluj), one of the oldest Hungarian cities in Transylvania. She rested her hand on Vilis shoulder while she put the small coffee cup in front of him, and I thought perhaps he hadnt noticed when she ran her red-nailed fingers lightly through the little tuft of hair on the back of his neck.

He soaked sugar cubes in his coffee and offered them to me on his silver coffee spoon. Ive known her for some years, he told me. She was just seventeen when she came up to Budapest. Slip of a girl. Hoping for a good man.

Did she find one? I asked through a mouthful of chestnut pure and whipped cream. Though I was only five, I knew Vili didnt think finding a good man was quite the solution to a girls problems, but I was cautious enough not to say so and risk spoiling the moment.

Some. But they werent good in the right way. Leaning over the white tablecloth, his massive elbows heavy on the rim of the table, he said with great seriousness, Now, youoffering me the coffee-soaked sugar cubeyou must get an education.