Let's get in the mood for the Holidays with excerpts from the Life in the Barracks! Chapter 9: Home for Christmas - part 2.

Laszlo Hopp: Winter village scene

This is the second installment of Chapter 9 from the "Life in the Barracks." Here we learn more about Tibor and his father from their conversation. At bed time, on the night before Christmas Eve, Tibor re-reads an old letter his mother had written to him for his confitmation, and finally Tibor drifts to sleep recalling memories of old Christmases

Chapter 9 - part 2.

“I found a nice Christmas tree this year. It’s in the attic now,” his father said as he slurped the steaming golden-yellow chicken soup, Tibor’s favorite.

   Tibor remembered their nook in the communal attic of the building and could vividly imagine the tree waiting for the big night in the cold, half-covered in snow that drifted in through the gaps between the roof tiles. He knew that his father had picked the tree with the utmost thought, and that the next day, carefully negotiating the narrow landings of the stairs, they would move it down together to the living room.
   “I took out the decorations already. They’re all on the sofa bed. Tomorrow you can put up the tree while I make the Christmas dinner. I bought the oranges and the chocolate, too.”
   “Did you get the chocolate mother used to buy?”
   “I did. It felt so strange to purchase them—your mother always did that for us. To think that only last year she was still with us.” Tears filled his father’s eyes.
   Tibor quickly changed the subject. “How lucky we are with the snow this year. I can’t remember the last time we had a white Christmas. The highway is unplowed. You can’t even see the road; it simply became an extension of the field. I might just try to cross-country ski tomorrow.”
   “On the highway?”
   “Why not? No vehicle, short of a sleigh, can negotiate it now with that deep snow.”
   “It’s lucky that the factory will be closed down between the holidays. Nobody could make it from the villages,” his father said.
   “That’s great! So we’ll have a lot of time together. I’ll have to be back on the base by New Year’s Eve. If they clean up the roads, I’d like to go to the city one day with you. We need to buy some new clothes for both of us. We should also visit Uncle Zoli if the buses can make it there in this snow.”
   “Everything in time, Tibi, in time. Right now, I want to hear about your life as an officer of the Hungarian Army.”
   “Father, you know I don’t like the army. I don’t like people in uniform. I don’t like holding a gun except for target shooting and I particularly don’t like the loud and morose sergeants yelling at me like I’m an idiot.”
   “But you’re through with that, Tibi, aren’t you? You are a junior officer now. Can’t you tell me something good about being a soldier? There must be something! Do they treat you well? Is the food good? Have you met any pleasant fellows?”
   “In fact, I have; one of the medics. His name is Peter Lantos. He’s very smart and reliable. He helped me find my way around the infirmary. We are pretty good friends now. He’s married but his wife doesn’t mind if we go out for a few beers now and then.”
   “Do you drink a lot?”
   “More than before, but you don’t need to worry about it, Father, I know my limits.”
   His father frowned.
   “A few beers in good company can’t hurt,” Tibor added, trying to reassure his father.
   “Do you see many drunks there?”
   “Surprisingly, I don’t see many drunk soldiers. I guess they drink in secrecy, in their quarters. But I see officers. Many of them are heavy drinkers. For all I know, some of them could be alcoholics. They have a local wine there I’ve never heard of. They call it Nova.”
   “I’ve never heard of it either.”
   “It’s a very sour white wine, and quite refreshing. They say it can cause blindness if one drinks too much of it. There must be methanol in it, or something.”
   “Have you seen a blind soldier yet?” Tibor noticed a dry smile on his father’s face. “Remember, Tibi, I made it through two years in Russian captivity without a single drink.”
   “Didn’t they give you vodka?” Tibor jested.
   “Vodka? We picked up bread from the streets to eat.”
   “For sure, our food is better than that on the base, but I eat out a lot. Just so that I can get out in the civilian world. It gets claustrophobic on the base. And can you believe I got into gypsy music?”
   “You? Into gypsy music?”
   “I know. I, myself, was surprised. Before it had always annoyed me but now I like it. Go figure. Just like when I had prepared for my bachelor finals, do you remember? During that whole month I listened to classical music although before that I couldn’t stand it. Mother thought her son had gone crazy under the stress.”
   “I remember, Tibor. And I also thought something went wrong with you, it was such a sudden change.”
   “Yes, music somehow does have a peculiar impact on me. As I get older, my music interest keeps expanding. Not changing, but expanding. I still like rock and roll music. At any rate, they have a good gypsy band in the hotel restaurant. We go there for dinner on weekends with Peter whenever we can.”
   “Girls?”
   “Here and there.”
   “Anybody serious?”
   “Hmm, I don’t know yet. And how are you doing here by yourself, father?”
   “The gardening takes my mind off your mother. Hard to believe; she was so healthy right up until the last days.”
   “I guess the vegetables in the soup came from the garden, didn’t they?”
   “Yep, I had plenty of everything. This was a good year for the potatoes too.”
   “I asked Lali Demeter to help me get out of Kisliget to be closer to you. He said he’ll ask around, but I don’t know for sure yet.”
   “Try, Tibi, try! I’m so lonely.”

  
   At bedtime, Tibor went through his drawer. He found an old letter his mother had written to him for his Confirmation. It was very proper reading for the night before Christmas Eve.


Tibor,

   Hard to believe that you’re already preparing for your confirmation. You’re growing up so fast. After having read about all those Biblical fights and miracles in the children’s Bible books, and having studied in Sunday School for six years, now you’ll have to declare that you’re ready to accept the laws of God as his Son, Jesus, first interpreted them for us a long time ago.
   You won’t be sorry if you take the message of God as your guide for the rest of your life. It is a message of love and care for others. It teaches humbleness without having to give up your pride, gentleness without asking you to be weak, and it gives you hope for the times you need it.
   Tibor, I noticed that all that Jesus had told us and what took great effort for others to learn, came so naturally for you. You’re a very good person; just as God wanted us all to be. I know that you will be a good Christian and you’ll do everything that God expects of us.
   Our family has been lax about going regularly to Church. Although your father has been less concerned about it, this had always bothered me. I tried to keep myself connected to God by saying nightly prayers. I also frequently asked myself what God would want me to do in certain situations. Many times in my life, just asking this simple question made certain decisions much easier for me. If you do it well, a prayer will focus your mind on a clean, benevolent idea, perhaps on an idea that we call God’s message. Remember that the Bible has millennia of wisdom built into it. As a Christian, you must believe that the Bible is the message of God Himself! So, follow it! Try to find out what God’s expectations are for you and guide your actions accordingly.
   Be a better churchgoer Tibor, than we have been. It is important to hear God’s words through His envoys, the priests, who got authority to communicate those words to us through their dedication and diligent studies of the Bible. I hope that you will stay close to the Church when you’re grown and will find encouragement and consolation in knowing that God is always with you in need. But please, Tibor, stay with God also when things go well for you, when you’re not in need!
   For now both your father and I can only hope that with God’s help you will become a successful, happy, and magnanimous man. We also hope that you will find a way to pay back to God the gift of being able to walk on this Earth today and enjoy His greatest mystery, your life!

Your mother


   Before falling asleep, Tibor reflected on the many Christmases they had spent together. For their family, Christmas Eve had always been the most important night of the year. His mother was the soul of the extended family. Every year all available relatives gathered in their small apartment to celebrate Christmas Eve. The rooms echoed with the cheerful cries of children trying out their new toys, and the murmur of their parents conversing around the dinner table.
   Year after year, they ate the same traditional Christmas dinner. It was a meatless spread. The tradition came from the maternal side of Tibor’s family and they were poor. Not lazy, not parasites on society, not incapable, just one family of the millions of plain, sedulous peasants of their days. Meat was an unaffordable luxury for them even on Christmas Eve. We match the simplicity of the Christ Child with His birthday dinner, Tibor’s grandfather used to tell his children. Even as the war years receded into the past like some grim nightmare and meat and other luxuries became affordable for the family, they never changed the Christmas menu. Tibor had never asked why—it was as much a part of the tradition as the songs they sang and the tree they decorated.
   As he drifted to sleep, the flashes of sixteen electric candles and the endearingly kitschy ornaments of past Christmas trees danced in front of his sleepy eyes. He smelled the unforgettable scent of the forest that followed the pine trees into their living room; the last remnant of their origins from the mountains. And beneath the trees were all those cherished presents, glimmering like the precious stones in the mine of the seven dwarfs.
   But not the presents, no! Not the toys, not even the glittering trees, nor his delighted cousins carved those Christmas Eves enduringly into his memory. Tibor knew what really did. It was something very simple, something utterly unremarkable.
   It was a chocolate bar and a few oranges.
   In those days they rarely saw oranges. The chocolate bar of Christmas Eve was special too: dark Swiss chocolate, usually seen on the shelves only around holidays. His mother would only bring these special treats for one night of the year, the night of Christmas Eve.
   After the cousins were exhausted, after the uncles and aunts finished gossiping over espressos and Christmas sweets, the guests all gathered together in their hats and long coats and said their goodbyes, leaving Tibor alone with his parents. That was the signal for his mother to bring out the treasures: a bar of chocolate and a couple of oranges. First, the three of them shared a few pieces of the chocolate. Then his mother would ceremoniously open the oranges and split them evenly into three. The exotic Mediterranean flavor of the orange mixed with the bittersweet taste of the chocolate, the scent of the freshly decorated fir, the flashing electric candles and colorful dangling ornaments all blended into a flickering tapestry. Three faces were indelibly woven into this tapestry. Three faces that leaned close together around those ridiculous chocolate fragments and slices of ordinary orange. Faces that radiated in perfect harmony and unequalled happiness as the three of them, his mother, father, and he, felt a bond. A bond that would never be broken—never, not by time, not by death.

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