The Hungarian Student, 1958 (3. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
1958-10-01 / 1. szám
The Trials of a Stone-Breaker BY ZOLTÁN SZTÁRAY The following is a chapter from the author’s book, Under Seven Locks, to be published in the near future. Mr. Sztáray witnessed the life of a communist labor-camp as a prisoner for three years. The Recsk death camp in the Mátra mountains in Hungary still continues to swalloiv up those who, during the Revolution of October, 1956, dared to oppose the red regime. The andesite lies lone and defeated at my feet. It seems patiently to await the crash of my hammer. After confinement from time immemorial, it will now be shattered into fragments. It tries to fly away, but I won’t let it go. I press the stone close to the others with my boots. The pile of broken stones grows slowly under my feet but there is a long way to go yet. Again tonight I will have to give an account of how many stones I have broken. The head of the hammer is of steel, its shaft of dogwood. It recoils only a little after each blow; we are used to each other. I have learned just how far to lift it and it has learned how to fit into the palm of my hand. It bends a little with each blow because it is of dogwood. The tree grew behind the hills of Komló; that I know because I saw the tag on the bundles which were brought in by train. I looked at those tags the way one admires hieroglyphics; symbols at the foot of the Zerge mountains where only stones grow. But today I can read the stones too. I understand the crumbly rocks which once got stuck on the surface and became black from what they had to witness over a hundred thousand years. And I can read the fresh blue stones which were torn out recently from the inside of the mountain; I know their smell, which reminds me of a flint just struck by a piece of steel. How long did the stone need to wait for its redemption by my hammer? A hundred thousand years, or a million perhaps? Who can tell? I have been breaking stones since morning, that is, since very early morning. Since the time I gulped the warm liquid they call coffee. That was a long time ago. My hunger seems to be just as old as the mountains, or perhaps older. I have been hungry from time immemorial. That is why the pile of broken stones increases steadily in front of me. I must break twentv-one cubic feet of stone by this evening. If I manage to do it, then Kreybig, the brigade leader, will let me alone. Twenty-one cubic feet are only half of the prescribed norm, but those who manage to break even that much avoid being reduced to half food rations, to the half rations which are half or quarter rations anyway. If I break more than twentyone cubic feet then I will exhaust my energy and remain at the foot of the Zerge mountains forever. I chop the stones into nice neat pieces, just as Kreybig likes to see them; their edges are not supposed to measure more than two inches. Those who break the stones into larger pieces, land in confinement. It is true that once you are in jail you no longer have to break stones, but you don’t get food either. And all day long you are beaten up; sometimes even at night. So I am careful. From time to time a splinter of stone whistles out from under my hammer. It sounds like a bullet. If it hits someone, of course it inflicts a small wound. My right hand is still bleeding from such a wound, though not too much because the accident happened this morning and it really doesn’t even hurt. My wrist doesn’t hurt either, although it has been creaking for a week. The fact that it creaks proves I have no luck. I have been waiting all week for it to crack. It should crack as if it were only fastened to my arm by a piece of wire; that would be an unmistakable sign of tendon inflammation. But my ailment is only beginning and I show my wrist in vain to the doctor, who won’t bind it in splints. Those whose wrists crack badly get their arms put in splints and they don’t have to break stones any longer. They become water carriers or get some other easy jobs. Without splints a wrist with tendon inflammation might become paralysed. And then who would break 22 the Hungarian student
