[...]

One day I went out to the Devecser meadow to hunt down some shepherds. There were no longer any shepherds there, however, only smoking hillocks and sorts of poor devils who baked bricks among the hillocks, and Johann Schank, the lucky Kraut who had the fortune to jump up from the ranks of the poor brick-baking devils and was now building a brickyard of his own. It wasn't worth taking a closer look at them: they were all filthy, reeked of smoke and were ugly, even Johann Schank with his own factory. I was loafing around dejectedly on top of one of the hillocks, the grass on which had been totally shrivelled by the smoke from the brick kilns, thinking I would push off back to the Soldier-with-the-Flower at the Calvary when a long way off on the stubble of the wheat fields, near the Bangó spread, I spotted two flocks of sheep. So I set off in that direction, though I feared that I would not find genuine shepherds there either; maybe the Bangós had turned their sheep out to graze next to the farmstead. And, indeed, that was where the Bangó twins were keeping their sheep, but not far from them, next to another flock, I also noticed a skinny, raven-haired boy of roughly my age. I had no wish to meet the twins, I already knew them well because every winter they would move back from the farm to their house in Tuk, and I knew them to be sneaky, bad-tempered customers, so for preference I headed in the direction of the unfamiliar black-haired boy. The twins saw me from far off and, what's more, they recognised me, so they ran whooping over to me, and when they got close they promptly asked,
"Did you bring your zither?"
"No, I didn't," I said listlessly, then I asked them, "And who's the boy with the black hair?"
"Pity you didn't bring your zither," the twins said. "If you come this way another time, don't forget to bring it."
"Fine, next time I'll bring it," I said, and again I asked, "Who's that boy?"
The Bangó twins looked at each other, curled their lips disdainfully, then one of them said,
"He's one of those raggedy-arsed Green Streeters. He works for the Szegis; it's their sheep he's looking after."
"What's he called?"
"Ádám Török, or Gimpy Ádám Török," they said, now sizing me up suspiciously. "Was it him you wanted to see?"
I assured them that I had not come to see anyone in particular, I just happened to be going that way. On that they took me over to their own sheep, regretting that I had not come the day before, because yesterday they had been extracting honey. Meanwhile they were pointing something out to each other, but I wasn't watching because I was still keeping an eye on Ádám Török, and I remarked,
"As best I know, all the Gimpy Töröks are redheads."
"He's the only black-haired one," the twins fumed angrily. "That's even worse than red hair. He's always driving the sheep onto our fallow."
"So why don't you chase him off?"
They shuffled their feet in discomfort but did not reply and rather asked:
"Do you like honeycomb?"
I wouldn't let it go at that, and I put the question again,
"Why don't you chase the Green Streeter away?"
"He's got a long spike at the end of his crook," they said grudgingly. "He drove a long nail into the tip of his staff and then sharpened it."
"I get it!" I said. "You mean, you're afraid of him!"
"It's not him we're afraid of," they protested vehemently. "But once he even threatened to skewer our Dad."
"So you're afraid of him, then!"
"What the hell do you want anyway?" they fumed. "We asked you if you like honeycomb."
"I do," I said.
"We'll bring you some straight away," they said with a smirk before racing off to the farmstead.
I was left alone by the sheep, which is when Ádám Török came over, leaned on his crook and stared curiously at me. I took a good look at him too, but he didn't look anything like the Soldier-with-the-Flower; he wasn't even a shepherd, just a hand on the Szegi spread, but I was impressed that he wasn't rattled by the Bangós and was letting the sheep graze so near to their farm. I would have liked to strike up a conversation with him, but before I knew it the twins were back and slapped a big, wrapped-up chunk of honeycomb into the palm of my hand.
"Smash it back in their mug!" Ádám Török said at this.
I was completely dumbstruck, standing there with the sticky honeycomb in my hand. The twins were not smirking any more but darted dirty looks at Ádám Török and said:
"No one asked you for an opinion, Gimpy!"
"I'll give your mother Gimpy!" Ádám Török flung straight back at them, still leaning calmly on his crook, before repeating,
"Smash the honeycomb back in their mug! You can bet they've stuck bees in it."
I carefully pulled back the wrapping. Two small bees were wriggling, stuck to the honey; they were barely alive, but they would still have stung me if I had taken a bite. I didn't smash the honeycomb in their face but threw it down at their feet.
"Feed your own faces."
The Bangó twins were livid that their trick had not worked; it was obvious they would sooner have given me a good hiding, seeing that they were both a bit older and stronger than me, but there was no way of telling what Ádám Török, who had drawn quite close with his spiked crook, might do.
"No one asked you to come over," they finally sputtered out. "Neither you nor the Gimpy."
I edged towards Ádám Török, and then both of us left the furious twins to their own devices. A bit further away from them, we sat down on the meadow. That was when Ádám Török said,
"I hate those Bangós. They try to trick everybody and make fools of them."
"You put the wind up them, though," I said.
"I can well believe that," said Ádám Török, showing me the spiked end of his crook. "They don't have the bottle to start any funny games with me, though it really eats them up to see me driving the sheep over here. Anyone else they will pick a fight with. They even took a pot shot at young Gili once."
"The little swineherd?"
"Yes. Know him?"
"I see him every day from Calvary when he drives the pigs off to the pasture in the morning."
"And what do you do up at the Calvary every morning?" he looked at me in amazement.
I just shrugged my shoulders, having no wish to speak about the Soldierwith- the-Flower, and said only,
"I just watch people. From the Calvary you can even look into the houses."
"Useful to know that," said Ádám Török and stabbed the crook into the ground as he pondered. "So, you can even look into the houses?"
"Yes," I said. "And I also see young Gili every morning, but I never knew that the Bangós had taken a pot shot at him."
"That was a long way back," said Ádám Török, "when young Gili was still working for the Szegis. The twins also got him to eat honeycomb, then they chased him off from anywhere near their spread, but even that was not enough for them. Even back then young Gili didn't have all his marbles; he talked to himself and played with his fingers, and when that had a hold on him he noticed nothing, even bumped into trees. The Bangós have an old musket so the twins charged it with gunpowder and hid with it in the cornfield. When young Gili came near, playing with his fingers, they took a shot. There was no ball in the musket, of course, but it went off as loud as a cannon and young Gili had the fright of his life, his heart may even have stopped beating. Old Szegi found him late that evening and had a hard job bringing him to and had to give up employing him because young Gili was now afraid of the corn field. Old Szegi took it upon himself to arrange for young Gili to be taken on as a village swineherd because there are no corn fields out where he watches the pigs.
"I'm really sorry to hear that about young Gili. And I too detest the Bangós."
"Rotten Tukers!" Ádám Török flipped a hand dismissively but then glanced at me. "But you're a Tuker too, aren't you? What do they call you?"
"Tatty István Gallai."
"Why Tatty?"
"Because even my granddad was a shepherd," I said with pride, "and he wore a fancy frieze coat. But why the Gimpy?"
"That's because my granddad was crippled," said Ádám Török indignantly. "But I'm not crippled and I'm not Gimpy either."
"I don't mind the Tatty," I said, getting ready to launch into the story of my shepherd ancestors, but Ádám Török was upset by any mention of namecalling so he promptly changed the subject.
"There's lots of rich folk in Tuk, aren't there?" he asked.
"Not that many", I said. "There are a fair few rich peasants, but most of the people are poor, a lot poorer than they show themselves to be. These days, more and more people are moving into Calvary Street."
"But some of them are rich. And you can see into the houses from the Calvary."
"The richest of those whose house I can look into is Godly Mihály Bibic."
"It was a serious question."
"And I've given you a serious answer. I'm quite sure Godly Mihály Bibic is the richest. Every day he brings back two loaded carts, and every Friday he carts to market and sells the produce that he's filched from the fields."
"Mihály Bibic," he muttered incredulously. "The Godly malefactor. Who would have believed it!"
"One of these days the Tukers are going to be gobsmacked," I said. "One fine day, when Godly Mihály Bibic opens his purse. They won't laugh at him then."
Ádám Török looked at me respectfully, patted me on the shoulder and said,
"One day I'll have to come with you to the Calvary. I'll see this Godly Mihály Bibic for myself."

[...]

Nándor Gion (1941–2002),
a novelist, was born in the village of Srbobran (Szenttamás, Vojvodina, Serbia), the
setting of his novels. He was managing director of the Hungarian theatre in Novi Sad
(1983–85) and worked for the Radio there (from 1985). He moved to Hungary in 1994
where he lived until his death. His major work is a tetralogy—a family saga recounting
the story of Vojvodina from the end of the 19th century until after the Second World
War, reviewed by Zsolt Láng on pp.121–127 of this issue. The excerpt published here is
from the first part of the tetralogy (1973).