One may imagine it as it was in reality—from the weir-keeper's cottage at Keselyű the mulberry-tree lined road leads to the church square in Szekszárd (some eleven kilometres), and, once there, we find ourselves in Alisca, which the Romans founded, only later gaining the name Szegzárd, though it is a mystery why. Of course, it is not clear either why the Romans consider Alisca the most appropriate name. Still, this may well be the homeliest name for those born at the time in the Bartina, Little Firkin and Mealies, or out by the Hermitage or Ambleway, or at the foot of Calvary Hill. Even then, however, Bald Hill cannot be compared with anywhere else. For a long while it is more a haunt of wolves, till they realize that arrows are fleeter than them, so they move off to other forests where there are fewer tracks, only to rove onwards from there, when they realize that bullets are even fleeter than arrows. The Romans light their beacons, flaring far and wide, on the summit of Bald Hill. On the North-South military road, which leads across today's church square, copper-scaled horses draw war chariots where later tanks will run out of diesel fuel, and it is here that they set fire to their plunder if suddenly forced to flee, here they eat their own horses, if there happens to be nothing else. Meanwhile, throughout all this, the sun shines and the moon rises, as they have ever since. It is as well to bear this in mind if one sets off from the church square towards Bald Hill, clambers up to Bati Cross, turns left along the crest and, from shooting range, surveys the battle plain. No trace is left of the bloody clash now, though the waters down in Turnkey Valley still wash out bones, only they can't be told apart. Since then mainly foxes whelp their cubs round here, and only in winter, when snow blocks the valleys and gullies, and fires burn in the wine-pressing sheds—only then might one mistake the mist-dogs padding under the windows for wolves. If Fekete, the hill shepherd, were still alive, he would certainly know more of the details, but he's not been seen around for more than forty years, so we shall have to make do with what can be learnt without him. If we turn east out of Alisca's town-gate, towards the Danube, where there is not yet a weir-keeper's cottage and mulberry-tree-lined road, only reed beds, islets of black poplars, the river's impassable flood basin, we can follow a narrow tongue of land that later fishermen of the Sárköz region throw up to dam the water and catch fish. From here it is not far to the road-mender's hut, a few steps away from which is the Paradise Farm brick-drying yard. Not a particularly notable place, though it may just cross our minds that Podrács, the bandit from Upper Ireg, rests here a few days, having lain low for several weeks, and, growing extremely bored, slaps together a clay foal, then pins on it a label saying that he has ridden on this so far but will now continue his journey on foot, like other poor folk, for he too is such. The foal is preserved for a long time in the parish hall, later the town hall and, still later, county hall, but it has crumbled to dust by the time the municipal museum is built. Nor has there been an equestrian statue in Szekszárd since; and as to what might stand in Alisca's main square (that of some emperor)—we know not even that much. About King Béla IV, though, we know (by chance) somewhat more. On one of his military campaigns, he marches through this way with his troops— who are soon to be massacred by the Mongols, though they are not to know that yet—and the King takes up quarters in the convent building, praising the fresh water from the spring, which has dried up since then, we no longer remember even its site. Only Káldi, the other field-guard, swears that the spring may be in Castle Lane, if the water were actually to well forth. Now the narrow lane is full of ice-chilled fish, as the sun's noon rays shine into it only between one and two o'clock. That much heat is not enough, however, for the slimy ice-glaze to melt off the catfish and perch; only the market-trading fishermen are sweating, and they are sprawled on their bellies on rush-covered carts up above. Meanwhile an intermittent engine-note carries across even to here from the Rendás garage. In August nineteen thirty-four an antiquated, red Alfa Romeo is broken down into tiny bits here. Mister Rendás goes back again to the garage at night, and in the yard he again takes stock of the components parts under the canvas awning. These nocturnal inspections are part and parcel of Mr. Rendás, and it can be no accident that sick Fords and Mercedes arrive here even from as far away as Pest. The garage's back yard, incidentally, was an important ferry landing-stage on the flood plain in its time, it's hard to say exactly when; but whenever the Danube's water level rises, the ground water instantly gushes up here as well. From this it can also be taken for certain that the site lies outside the former town gate. Alisca's inhabitants settle here from Lombardy, so the spectacle of flood waters and flood plains is not unusual for them: the Po still spills its banks every year since then, floating off the cattle and, before that, the carved yoke-spars, and there, too, clay just cakes on the metal mirrors of brides-to-be that the water tosses onto the bank. A couple of years ago a few such mirrors were likewise found north of Lake Gurgler, but excavations were discontinued on account of the last, Great War; yet where one mirror has come to light no doubt more are also lying. Mister Perczel, the museum's porter, is not troubled, however; it even tickles him to think that the ground is full of such mirrors, and that they preserve the faces of those brides-to-be. We recollect another sort of mirror, from the Harangi confectionery, and that could be described in words (a hopeless task in any event) as follows—that narrow doorway, for example, through which a cream cake is being brought out on its oval, silver platter. That door can be seen not just in a single edition but in at least ten versions, according to where one happens to sit and the angle at which one glances up at the vaulted ceiling with its overlaid row of bluish-green mirrors. In other words, through ten doors ten cream cakes on ten silver platters approach the table simultaneously—provided one does not forget the ceiling. That kind of thing, though, is just an incidental marvel, temporarily part and parcel of a town's past and future. (To say nothing of the present, for who knows what is happening right now?) It may be more important to mention the remnant half trunk of the walnut tree that toppled over in eighteen hundred and seven, which apprentice-lads who wander this way hammer full of clout nails, as a memento that they passed by. In more recent times nothing at all can be seen of the wood, so overlaid has it become with the heads of nails. Mr. Zelenka, the mathematics teacher, gets his pupils to count the number of nails once, but no two of them come to the same answer. Later they perform complex calculations in their maths lesson, by comparing the variable results of the counts, as to the probability of the number of apprentice-lads who have turned up in Szekszárd; then the same operations are performed by his students the next year. Remarkably, the result arrived at is never the same, always different. Then, one winter morning, Mr. Zelenka the teacher also dies, and under the terms of his final will they intend to bury the apprentice-lads' tree alongside him, since it will have to be cut down sooner or later, because at that very spot they erect a high-tension electricity pole with a transformer, for which they are unable to find a place elsewhere. (The simple truth, of course, is that tree and teacher do not end up directly next to one another, after all, because prior to that the spring inundation of the River Sió uproots the mouldering stump and sweeps it away, no one knows where to.) The electricity pole, however, is lowered without trouble into its concrete cradle, and it still stands on its place today. Of course, it's questionable whether it will still be standing there in a hundred years, and whether it will be remembered like Mr. Zelenka the teacher, or the clout nails. But it is not our business to conjecture about matters that we cannot decide. More certain—and such is its voice that it might be heard even in Alisca, were they to awaken—is the Giant Hill cloud cannon. Its constructor is Moses Szomjú, a Nazarene carpenter, now deceased. The squat gun barrel is a hand mortar of Turkish origin, which has already been lying a long time, in several pieces, in Benedict Gully when Moses Szomjú comes across it and from it contrives the cloud cannon. The town council designates a site for it on Giant Hill, in a crumbling wine cellar, which they refurbish and fit with a log door. If a hailstorm cloud approaches from over Sárpilis, Sióagárd or Bonyhád way, two men from the council troop out with Moses Szomjú to Giant Hill, stuff an appropriate quantity of gunpowder into the muzzle, tamp it down, light the fuse, and aim at the heavens, or rather the clouds. This only fails to produce an effect if, for some reason, they arrive too late; otherwise there is no known instance of hail falling on Szekszárd—at most on Sárpilis, Sióagárd or Bonyhád. Giant Hill, incidentally, is three hundred metres high, but it could not have been much more than that in older days (erosion over the course of several millennia amounts to a few metres, provided larger earthquakes or landslides do not intervene)—and if it goes on this way, it will be neither lower nor higher henceforth. Thus the triangulation point (and occasional look-out as well), constructed of creosoted beams of timber, will provide a reliable reference point for many a year to come for those approaching Alisca from Pest-Buda so as not to miss the rural festivities and be present at the sacrifices of ox, wolf and woodpecker, the animals sacred to Mars Silvanus, god of trees and plantations. At the same time, one should reflect that Giant Hill and Bald Hill, both then and since, stand opposite each other, glowering unblinkingly like two wolves, and then behind both of them stretches Dark Valley Forest, where later, on the day of flowers and trees, the customary Whitsun excursions and picnics are organized. And since summer is about to arrive (so they say), an excursion of that kind will probably be timely now as well. For guidance, one may call attention to the following. Trickle Spring lies off in another direction, granted, but it is worth the detour to fill the bottle with water. (Béla IV too may well have praised the water of this spring, or possibly it was another one.) After that, crossing Little Firkin, we draw near to Chapel Square, with Hermit's Chapel, and we do not bear off to the right, towards Short Valley, which is indeed short and so tightly beset by hills that television sets are almost inoperable, though the stars are visible without disturbance; so we don't turn off right but stop on the way at the Chapel garden, where Vendel Balinkó, master weaver (textile artisan, by another name), still lives and works in nineteen thirty-four. There is truly not much to see here, but it is easy to picture Balinkó with his self-constructed loom between the two walnut trees, his blue felt cap, and his three-legged dog, which can unerringly sniff out the right thread from a snarl of them; or the clock flower-bed beside the well, by which one may safely set one's ticking watch. Only after that is it worthwhile to push on to Bald Hill. The path which leads up to the summit, at least five cart-tracks broad, and more of a sunken road, winds between two storey-high banks. Already in Alisca's day these clay walls render admirable service to wolves and soldiers by turns: whoever can take refuge here sooner from the snow-storm comes out better. (As the bones here, too, are revealingly mingled with one another, human and animal.) Up on the summit, by Bati Cross, we do pay no heed to the fact that Giant Hill (over the way) is thirty metres higher; we make do with the height to which we have clambered. From here to Dark Valley there will be less to say than hitherto. Though it would be fitting, on the day of flowers and trees, for one to be happy and talkative, and in point of fact we are; only somehow there is less to say than hitherto. Of course, it's true that the forest really is dark and in no way comparable to the Danube forests, where even the water speaks and the boughs are louder too; yet, as far as possible, we take no breather until the goal of our journey, and already by half past nine in the morning we reach the first forester's abode, which a stout wicker stockade protects from wild pigs. The forester is taciturn; he does not ask us why we have come, only shows his weapons, the stuffed eagles, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers. He recommends that, as far as possible, we enter the forest in pairs, not alone, and later makes quarters for us in the hayloft. We have time, there's nothing pressing, he says, and it will be more than enough for us to return to Alisca at the weekend; only then do the big wolf sacrifices begin, guests are coming in, even from as far away as Rome, with the cheap excursion train from Pest, because it happens a full moon is expected, and maybe they will also light the beacons again...

(1979)

Translated by Tim Wilkinson

Miklós Mészöly
is the author of numerous novels, collections of short stories, collections of essays, two plays, as well as books for children. Some of his fiction has appeared in German, French, and other languages.