Károly Méhes

A Book of Cakes

From the Secret Recipe Book of a Transylvanian Woman
(Short story)

Passion Meringues!

Beat 140 grammes vanilla-flavoured castor sugar with the whites of three eggs, add 140 grammes walnuts, left whole. Place the bowl into a pan of gently boiling water and cook until the juice of the walnuts has evaporated. Place tiny heaps of the meringue mixture onto a greased baking sheet and leave to dry. They dry very quickly!

Today, despite the piercing cold, the whole party went down to the shore of the lake. The snow that fell the day before yesterday has for the most part melted, but this new spell of cold weather has hardened, frozen what was left of it. Everything was as brittle as glass, the branches we touched, the leaves crackling underfoot, the thin coat of ice on the puddles. When we reached the shore Károly said that if this hard weather held, the lake would soon be frozen over and we'd have the skating-sledges out again! Yes. I glanced across the lake to the other side; to the little wooden shack where they hire out skating-sledges, of course it hasn't been opened yet. But last winter the place was bustling, lively, especially after the New Year's ball, in January. Behind the shack, in the woods so dense and dark they seemed almost black, I could swear I saw the thick-trunked oak against which Béla Sándor pushed me and kissed me, pinning down the hands I raised in feeble defence. His mouth burned like fire. He did not say a word, just kissed me. Then I made out that I had to go, though I am sure I should have stayed! And he never said a word, just let go of my hands, and let me slip out from between his arms and the trunk--I did not turn round, I could feel his gaze warming my back so!

He spent the rest of the day drink ing with the men, got quite drunk
on mulled wine; the snowbound countryside resounded with their raucous laughter. It was only later in the afternoon, when it was getting dark, that Mici got up the courage to tell me what everyone else had already known, that Béla Sándor had made a bet with the boys, sometime before the New Year's ball, that he'd kiss every girl before the carnival dance! You were the last, said that stupid Mici, sniggering, but he pulled it off, didn't he!
I was the last. I haven't the heart to go skate-sledging again, not this winter either.

Wartime Chestnut Cake!

Beat the yolks of six eggs with 400 grammes vanilla-flavoured sugar. Add a little grated lemon-peel, 100 grammes ground walnuts, 500 grammes baked potatoes passed through a sieve, and the whites of six eggs, beaten stiff. Divide into three portions and bake each layer separately in a greased cake-tin. Filling: Mix 120 grammes ground walnuts with a few spoonfuls of hot milk, stir until it thickens to a soft paste. When cool, add 120 grammes of sugar and 120 grammes butter and continue to stir for half an hour. Spread this mixture over the layers and the top and sides of the cake as well. Sprinkle with ground walnuts mixed with sugar.

We were sitting down to lunch when a servant-girl came running across the square, screaming that the Romanians were here! Well, this proved to be the truth, so much so that by night-time there was a Romanian captain resting in Daddy's and Mummy's bed with his booted feet up on the footboard, and his batman sitting in the kitchen, a pious lad, for he drew a tiny Bible out of his pocket and began reading it aloud, mumbling to himself in an undertone, in Romanian, of course, so we did not understand a word. We just sat around the table, totally taken aback, staring at him, as at some unearthly apparition.

The next day the horrors continued. When I went into the room to clear the breakfast table, what did I see but our billeted soldier with his foot up on the arm of the chair, polishing his boots with our precious silk curtains! Seriously, I almost cried. And he, taking advantage of my helplessness, seeing as I was holding the loaded tray with both hands, took hold of my chin with two fingers, and forced my face towards his. I expected something terrible would happen, that he would want to kiss me, or worse, but he just asked me--in impeccable German, by the bye--to make him some kind of dessert for lunch, chestnut cake if possible, as that was his favourite.

Dear God, what kind of chestnut cake could you make in war-time! Impossible! I worked on it all day. Of course it didn't come close to what it should have been like, but what can you expect, chestnuts can't be had for love or money these days, we can count ourselves lucky to get potatoes!

He ate almost all of the cake anyway, sending just a thin slice to the batman in the kitchen. There was a toothpick drooping from the corner of his mouth when I went in to clear the table, but he whipped it out when I stepped in. He stood up, nodding several times to show that he was satisfied with our wartime chestnut cake.

Suddenly, a feeling of contentment warmed my heart: I had given pleasure to this tired-looking, dark-eyed young man; what's it to me if he happens to be the enemy?

And then, as he strolled over to the window to stand with his back to me, what did I see but the little silver-handled brush we use for sweeping the crumbs off the table sticking out of the leg of his boot!

This war is such a terrible affair!

Baronial Pancakes!

Beat the yolks of six eggs, 60 grammes castor sugar and 60 grammes butter to a cream, add 400 ml milk, 60 grammes flour and the whites of six eggs, beaten stiff. Begin frying at once, but do not turn over when one side is done, just slip the pancake onto a plate with the uncooked side up, and sprinkle with ground walnuts. Continue adding layers until the batter is all gone. Sprinkle the top pancake as well. Best eaten hot!

Today I am very sad.
They say every girl dreams of getting married, and the sooner the better. Well, I don't! I am only nineteen years old, and in these hard times Mummy and Daddy need me. And I them.

Ever since the New Year, Teofil Szapáry has become a regular visitor to our house, supposedly to play chess with Daddy, but if that's so I just don't know why and especially how he contrives, in these terrible times we're living in, and in the dead of winter at that, to arrive with twenty-five white and red roses every time? They're not for Mummy, a deep bow and the most humble of hand-kisses is her due, but for me. Why does he do it? And I had to sit there, in the single room that is left to us, and watch the gentlemen not play chess after all, because all this Teofil Szapáry did was stare at me all the time, while Daddy picked off his queen and rooks and knights one after the other, and checkmated him any number of times in a row!

You have to know that fate has not been kind to "poor" Teofil Szapáry; as a young man he was wounded in a duel, shot in the ankle, and he walks with a limp to this day. As well as that, he has buried two wives and five children, which really is a tragedy. He has lost most of his property through the war-loans, and has now retired to the plain nearby where he has a manor house, for many years left unattended and fallen into disrepair. They say he spent the winter dropping in on people every evening, as there is no proper heating in his house. He is at least sixty if a day, wrinkled, bald and with a pot-belly. His eyes are cloudy, purplish almost, like when you put permanganate of potash into a basin of water.

And today he proposed to me. I refused him.
What really distressed me was that Daddy promised me to him without asking me first. Like a horse.
What's the good of having someone "love" you who shouldn't, when those whose hearts should tell them to love you do not?

Simple Corncake!

Beat together the yolks of seven eggs, 250 grammes sugar and the juice and grated rind of a lemon, stir in the whites of the eggs beaten stiff, and 120 grammes cornflour sifted through a fine sieve. Divide into two portions and bake separately. Prepare the following filling: mix a small plateful of ground walnuts with a large spoonful of castor sugar, then keep adding sweet cream and stir until smooth. Spread over one layer of the corncake and place the other on top!

They have buried Gyuszika--I can't help it, I can't call him by any other name.
I did not go to the cemetery.
I hadn't seen him for a long time when we met again last autumn. He'd always been a bit simple, even as a boy. He never could catch anybody when we were playing tag, and if we played hide-and-seek he was sure to be the seeker for the whole of the day. They say he served on the Galician front, was shell-shocked and lost his hearing. He was hospitalized for a long time, then shuttled to and fro until he finally found his way home. He went back to his father's haberdashery, I used to see him there almost every day.

Well, if he used to be a dummy, he'd now become deaf and dumb for real, poor man. Since he couldn't hear, he hardly ever spoke, even though he could have, if he wanted. He just stared at you with those dark, coal-black eyes so hard his gaze almost hurt.

Whenever he caught sight of me he'd leap to serve me, and, as a mark of special distinction, would force out a Young Madam! between his teeth--what foolishness! I would give him my shopping list and Gyuszika would spring from shelf to shelf, moving stiffly, gawkily, and pile everything up before me on the counter. He never smiled as he did this, as tradesmen usually do, but went about his business with a kind of determined and--or so I felt--expectant expression on his face, as though awaiting praise.

On one occasion he slung the bar of scrubbing soap on the counter with such vigour that it slid off and fell to the floor. He threw himself after it like a madman, leaning precariously over the wooden counter, but I, who was standing on the right side of the counter, proved faster and picked it up. In his confusion, a strange guttural cry escaped from his throat, then he straightened up. I had to smile at this, and with my arm extended, handed him the soap so he could put it with the other things. But Gyuszika kept staring at me as he reached for the soap and so took hold of my hand instead. His palm was rough, like a rasp, and cold. He kept hold of my hand, still holding the soap, and I felt his grip grow tighter and tighter until it became quite unpleasant, even painful. I firmly pulled my hand out of his grasp and placed the soap on the counter. I hadn't the heart to be really angry with him, but for a moment I thought, well, well, perhaps he isn't such a simpleton as he seems?

How things stood became quite clear the following day. Gyuszika threw every item on my shopping list forcefully before me on the floor. His eyes gleamed blackly, his mouth hung half open. He hoped, poor creature, that I would pick every object up, one by one, and hand them over to him, extending my hand of course, so he could clutch it to his heart's content. Nothing doing.

That someone should hang himself with the chain of the draw-well, as Gyuszika did, was simply unheard of. It was his father who found him one frosty morning. Now everyone is saying that the simple-minded lad had hung himself because of me, because I led him on. Ridiculous. I hadn't even set foot in the shop for weeks. They're saying now that Gyuszika might have been a simpleton, but he did have a heart, and wasn't it unfair to make a fool of his heart as well?

All I did was reach for the scrubbing-soap.

Jubilee Cake!

Cream together 140 grammes sugar, the yolks of 7 eggs and one and a half bars of fine chocolate in a dish and stir for half an hour. Beat the whites of the eggs and add to the creamed mixture with 100 grammes flour, then bake in a greased cake-tin. When it has cooled, cut crosswise into three neat layers. For the mocca creme filling: Cream together 6 tablespoonfuls castor sugar, 4 tablespoonfuls milk, 6 tablespoonfuls strong black coffee and four whole eggs in a whisking bowl, place for a couple of minutes over gently simmering water, stirring with an egg whisk all the while, then leave to cool. Now cream 150 grammes butter and blend with the mixture until it is smooth and frothy. Spread the mixture over the layers and the top and sides of the cake, then sprinkle with 200 grammes chopped roasted hazelnuts.

I begged Mummy and Daddy for us to spend this wonderful evening, their 25th wedding anniversary, together, just the three of us, since poor dear grandmamma didn't live to see this day, and not invite any guests. They say they had a wonderful day for their wedding, back in 1897, they'd been having an oppressively hot spell and the rain that fell before the ceremony was very welcome; it broke up the sultry weather and made everything fresh and fragrant, almost excessively so. One of the bridesmaids stepped on Mummy's veil, and they came close to falling, both of them; Mummy says she could have slapped her then, she was so vexed, but today the memory makes her laugh, then suddenly she recalls, saddened, that the husband of that Jolán (the bridesmaid) was killed in battle, and that she fled to Hungary with her four children, where they're now living in Makó in abject poverty

Daddy gave a great sigh this morning as he tore yesterday's page off the small kitchen calendar. The war began eight years ago, he said, and it was not that another day had gone by, nor the passing of days that he regretted, but that that one day had to happen.

And so it went on all day. The dish slipped from between my hands and a large portion of the chocolate spattered the wall we had whitewashed this spring. We were sitting down to lunch when we heard these terrible growls, barks, then whines coming from the yard. A big white stray dog had come in through the garden and given our little Flóris a good going over; he was still trailing his right foreleg in the afternoon, and a bit of his left ear is missing.

Fortunately, supper-time was spent in peace. At my request, as always, they related the exact events of that bygone day. But today it was Mummy who spoke more, Daddy was silent, withdrawn, I'd noticed that he'd drunk rather a lot of wine.

Finally, he put a record on the gramophone and sat me in his lap, the way he used to do when I was small. We sat like that for a little while, listening to the music. Then, from directly behind my ear, I heard Daddy's voice say:

"It's you I'm worried about, my little Edit, always. I pray for you every night, pray for you to find a decent, honest husband, and that you'll love each other. You're not alone yet, but will be soon. An adult doesn't have parents, just the memory of two distant, cherished faces in his heart. That's right. You must marry, and then you'll be able to live happily, as your mother and I do!"

I couldn't stand it any longer, and jumped up. And then I saw that their eyes were brimming with tears. I knew they were mourning for me.

Ruffle Cake!

Beat together the whites of six eggs with 180 grammes sugar until stiff. Blend with the yolks of six eggs, the juice and rind of half a lemon, and 100 grammes flour. Divide into three and bake separately in three layers. Filling: beat together a quarter of a litre milk, two tablespoonfuls flour, 180 grammes butter and 180 grammes vanilla-flavoured castor sugar until creamy and frothy. Fill the layers with this mixture and spread over the top and sides of the cake as well. Brown 70 grammes coarse sugar with 70 grammes almonds and sprinkle over the cake.

It is bitterly cold. But I can't sit at home all day. I walked out over the frozen snow into the cemetery. I barely managed to clamber up to the plot enclosed by wrought iron railings. The black obelisk standing on my grandparents' grave was covered in snow, frozen in such a strange way as to make it seem like black death itself, shrouded in white; it gave me the shivers. Then I made my way towards the brook, to the place where we used to go skate-sledging. How I wish I hadn't! I don't know why, but I did not expect to see people skate-sledging there, just the way they used to in our time. Girls ten years younger than myself, modern girls, some of them in trousers, no less, and a lot of them on skates, which is much more fashionable these days, and more daring too! The little wooden hut is still there, its chimney smoking merrily, and they're probably still mulling wine inside, like they used to in the old days. I did not venture nearer, but turned back towards the woods, from where, passing round huge fallen branches and mounds of packed, frozen snow, it was only with great difficulty that I managed to drag myself out to the road.

Because of the excruciating back ache I've been having since autumn, and at Mummy's incessant urging, I finally travelled to Zilah to see the famous Doctor Kobrizsa, who hemmed and hawed, tapped my back, made me lie on my stomach, then my back, and at last advised me to go to Szováta or Borszék for the waters, the sooner the better.

I was standing in the doorway in my overcoat when he asked me, somewhat embarrassedly, how old I was. I took two years off my age. Upon which he said, anxiously shaking his head, but the young lady is so young!

Sad to say, that's not how I feel.
Then today, coming back from my walk, I heard Mummy and her godmother, old Auntie Ilonka, closeted in the kitchen and whispering-- about me!
"The doctor told us that she's hunchbacked, poor darling! Of course he never said a word to her, just told her to go to a spa. But he confessed that no kind of medicinal water would really prove much help, once the vertebrae begin to collapse, there's nothing to be done."
"So that's why she walks so stooped", responded Auntie Ilonka. "I noticed that Editke's back was getting more and more crooked, but I thought it was these failing eyes of mine playing tricks!"
"Heaven help us," said Mummy, crying softly, "what are we going to do now?"
I just stood rooted until the round-handled umbrella dropped from my hand with a loud clank upon which rapid rustling sounds began to issue from the kitchen, and I heard Auntie Ilonka say, in an overloud voice:
"Well, here's that recipe for ruffle cake, dear! Don't forget to show it to Editke, you know she likes to write them down in her recipe book!"

Floating Islands!

Take 250 grammes sugar, brown half of it, add a little water and leave to cool. Blend the other half with the yolks of 5-6 eggs. Mix together and stir over a gentle heat, dribble in one litre of milk , and at the end one tablespoonful flour. Beat the egg whites until stiff, add a little sugar, and slide them on top to make the floating islands.

What happened was that nothing happened. Yet I'd made such preparations!
It was still summer when a letter came from Budapest, and great heavens, written by none other than my old schoolfriend from Zilah, little Lili Hetényi!
I say "little" Lili as I haven't seen her for almost twenty years, but it seems that, just as I have retained fond memories of her, so she must have done of me, since she wants to see me sometime during this trip home.

Strange how old memories seem to gain importance if there are no new ones to take their place! This Lili Hetényi was one of those frolicsome, plump, red-haired, freckle-faced girls, my exact opposite to tell the truth, but perhaps that is what attracted us to each other. She loved to recite, to sing, so no one was surprised when she was given a part in the theatre (especially since her father was the town clerk, but of course at the time, children that we were then, none of us knew that something like that could count, everybody had a father of some kind). They were playing Little Lord Fauntleroy, in which she acted very well, a sight for sore eyes, she was, with those round, rosy cheeks, as she rattled off her part.

Who could have guessed then that she'd really become an actress, and a beautiful, celebrated actress at that! Of course, I haven't seen her since then, on stage nor elsewhere, and we exchanged letters only twice or thrice in the years after we left school, while she was studying at Nagyvárad.

She sent me a postcard of the Fishermen's Bastion, informing me that she was returning home in the company of her husband, Aurél Acsády, the composer (I've never heard of him, but that's probably my fault) and seeing that she'd be in the neighbourhood, she'd drop in to see me on Thursday, to revive the memory of those good old days.

I sent for the hairdresser the day before, and was so glad of an occasion to wear my beautiful violet dress that the dressmaker's just altered at the shoulder and waist (though the thought did cross my mind: what was I trying to do, outdue an actress from Budapest in elegance?)

I quickly whipped up a simple dessert, I'd tried these floating islands once before, on Daddy's last name-day, and it turned out splendidly. Then I sat and waited. Or rather, did not sit but walked up and down, kept running out to the door every time I heard it slam, but nothing.

By six o'clock, when the little islands of whipped egg-white had soaked up all the liquid and sunk into the cream, I knew they weren't coming.

I sat alone, like a floating island, stiff as a rod in the middle of the cold and dark room. And I can't even swim! And sinking you dont have to learn, it happens all by itself.

Non Plus Ultra Moons!

250 grammes flour, 70 grammes castor sugar, the yolks of three eggs, 2O0 grammes butter, a little sour cream, bicarbonate of soda, vanilla; knead all the ingredients together on a pastry-board, roll out thinly, and cut into moon shapes. Beat the whipped whites of three eggs with 250 grammes vanilla-flavoured castor sugar until stiff. Place small mounds on the top of the moons and bake at low heat.

My first birthday completely alone, now that Mummy too has gone. Strange how, in those last days, in a feverish trance, she kept asking me to take the old wall-clock to be repaired at all costs, it had been part of her trousseau, I was to take good care of it. Yet there had been nothing wrong with the clock. Then, on the day of her death--I remember exactly--with all the things that had to be done, I simply did not have the strength for the automatic gesture of winding up the clock, and it stopped. And it's going to stay that way, I've decided, preserving the time when Mummy was still alive. For one, I have no need to know the time, it makes no difference to me, for the other, I am punctual to the minute in everything I do, in this house I am the only real clock.

The parish priest asked me to embroider a new altar-cloth for Whitsun, I am working on it even now. I sit out on the verandah, on the garden side, make myself comfortable in the wicker chair, with a lot of pillows behind my back for support, and sew. It's so hot one has to believe that summer will soon be here. All around me everything is alive, humming, busy, even at evening-time, like now.

Just look at all the stars, and I lower the altar-cloth into my lap. Why is it that the sky can dazzle and blind one so? And just the one solitary little moon. Why? Why isn't the sky full of little moons, like a gigantic baking-sheet?

And someone would whisper, Editke, I made them for your birthday.
There is no one to say it.

Károly Méhes,

a journalist living in the southern city of Pécs, is the author of two volumes of poems and two collections of short stories.