Magyar Egyház, 1963 (42. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1963-12-01 / 11-12. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 15 It took him all his strength to go to their home: there was no home, the house was in ruins. He went to his mother-in-law’s. Of course she didn’t recognize him and when he told it was he she fainted. What happened after, John tried to flash it fast through his mind, it was so painful to remember. His mother-in-law called up Magda, she came over in a hurry. As he opened his arms she drew back. And then he was told that he was dead and she and Little János had a new life, a good life, a promising life. It can’t be changed anymore. Of course, it was cruel but the whole war was cruel and she couldn’t help it. She had already forgotten him, he should do the same. He should go away. “Go away . . , go away . . , go away ...” — her voice still echoed in his ears as it gradually became quite hysterical. He staggered out of the room. IF hen he found himself on the street he realized he could at last have asked her to let him see Little János. But what’s the use. He was told he was dead — little boys don’t like corpses. A< few nights with an old friend. He learned how the new order was shaping up. He didn’t want to have part of it. It was not his order and it wasn’t his world where Magda was happy without him. Now it seemed that the nine years since his return from Russia had passed by so fast — but, oh, they had been so long, so long. He managed to get through the border at Bozsok to Austria. Days of furtive wandering through the Russian occupation zone until he finally got into the American Zone. His knowledge of English as a bank corerspondent got him a job as interpreter with the American Army. By 1950 he was in the States as a displaced person. Sponsored by a church in Upstate New York he was placed as a hospital clerk. His administrative talent brought him the hospital manager’s position after five years. He was well liked and the hospital was his only world. He loved to follow the patients’ courses as they came in sick, half dead, and through the care of doctors and nurses and the power of God they rose again to life. He felt happy that he could be a part of this reviving work although he himself was dead. That what he was, Magda told him so — so many years ago — and there was no reviving process for him. When the 1956 uprising in Hungary was crushed and refugees were flowing over the border into Austria, John couldn’t sit still. He managed to become one of the church service team who worked with the refugees in Vienna. And there, one day, he saw the folder of Magda and Little János. He went to see the Hungarian refugee pastor. He hold him his story and asked him to find out as much as possible about Magda and his son without revealing his being there. He got the whole story. After John left following the painful conversation life was not the same for Magda anymore. She was looking after him without success. She couldn’t tell her husband, of course. But he found out gradually. First because she didn’t allow him to adopt Little János. “So that’s why he still has my name” — John remarked. Life for Magda and Little János turned into a nightmare. Accusations, shouting scenes were made worse by the official life of Tibor Batár: he became a high official of the political police. They were soon separated and when November 1956 came Magda’s only thought was to run. Batár himself was hanged among the first by the enraged revolutionists. When John discovered Magda and the boy through their application they were in the Traiskirchen refugee camp. First he wanted to run to them. He was already sitting in his car when the thought struck him: “I cant go, I am dead for Magda.” She may have fled from her destroyed and failed new life but that still didn’t empower him to make himself resurrect for her. He did, however, everything he could. With the help of the pastor he got them out of the camp and put them in a rented room in Hietzing, a Vienna suburb. The pastor paid their rent, gave them also money to live on and told them that these were all gifts from America. It was true, it all came from John Mészáros, the American hospital manager; the bank clerk from Budapest was dead, wasn’t he? Magda and Little János — a big boy already — were duly interviewed, their papers processed. Few days before Christmas the information came to John’s desk as immigration officer of Church Service Agency that they would soon obtain their visas. They should be called in and briefed on their sponsor and their prospective new life in America. John had a sudden impulse — he just couldn’t let them go to the States without talking to them. If he was dead for Magda what harm could a meeting with him do to her? And for him — it will be like looking down from the skies upon them — sort of a guardian angel. . . His office sent them a letter asking them in for another interview. John set it for the early afternoon hours of the day of Christmas Eve. He wanted to be alone with them with nobody in the office around. So he was sitting at his desk. Christmas Eve, 1957. What seventeen years since that Christmas Party he met Magda! There was a knock on the outer door. His heart was pounding, he could hardly utter the words to say “Come in”. He rose from his desk and there in the door were Magda and the lanky boy. Her face was tired and worn but still so beautiful . . . They just stood there in the door. Little János curiously — he didn’t know who that American gentleman was. Magda was staring at him, she opened her lips but she couldn’t speak. John tried to keep his voice calm: “I am John Mészáros, immigration officer and / am happy to inform you that the American consul will grant your visas right after the holidays so you can shortly leave for your new home. I asked you to come in today, I thought the news would be a welcome Christmas gift.” He couldn’t look at them any longer. He stepped to the window. In the falling dusk there was a flush of light: the lights on the huge Christmas tree in the park before City Hall went on. They threw a bright beam on the nativity scene under the tree. John sensed that Magda was stepping beside him. Her voice was a whisper: “János, what am I and the boy going to do in America?” John looked at her, the eyes were the same as seventeen years ago. He touched her arm and his voice was a whisper, too: “Don’t be afraid. I am going udth you.” They looked at the sparkling Christmas tree in the park. It happened on Christmas Eve 1957 that divine love was reborn once again.
