excerpt
The sandy stretch beneath the Mureş River embankment served
as the beach. In summer we went there every day on foot, enjoying
the water, the sunlight, watching the girls and women as though
the order of the world might remain unchanged forever. Back then
the watermill still functioned for a while, the one that had once
belonged to my maternal grandparents. And the Rákóczi-Kornis
castle had not yet collapsed into ruin — it operated as an agricultural
school.
At school we committed every prank imaginable. Teachers were
still permitted to use corporal punishment. We received hard slaps.
Șerban’s method was the cruelest: he grabbed the hair beside one’s
ear and lifted until the tuft remained in his hand. Others struck our
palms with rulers. If we jerked our hand away, we had to stretch it
out again until the blow landed properly. Our hands throbbed for
days afterward. That was why the favorite punishment was being
thrown out of class. Then at least we could find something to occupy
ourselves with.
It was a mixed-language school, with Romanian and Hungarian
classes. Back then the balance was still more or less even. Later the
proportions shifted; the Hungarian secondary school disappeared,
and even in the elementary school fewer and fewer Hungarian
pupils remained. At that time there were no dramatic ethnic tensions.
It amounted to little more than the strongest Hungarian boy,
Józsi Türke — who later became my brother-in-law — testing his
strength against Grecu, the Romanians’ muscular champion. The
children circled around them, each camp proclaiming its own warrior
the victor.
Church holidays meant something slightly different to us children
than to the devout believers. At Christmas we went caroling.
For weeks beforehand we practiced Christmas songs, sometimes at
our house, sometimes at my friend István’s. Amid the many false,
whining voices filling the streets, our singing was beautiful, and
those who welcomed our carols praised us for it.
Manolis Aligizakis 