Author: Gábor T. Szántó
Original title: 1945 és más történetek
Title in English: 1945 and Other Stories
Publisher: Noran Libro
Year of publication: 2017
Number of pages: 240
Rights sold: English (worldwide), Finland, Italy, Slovakia, China
In this volume, Gábor T. Szántó’s short stories portray life in Central Europe through the perspectives of fragile individuals. Covering the period from the end of World War II until today, his tone is sometimes dramatic, sometimes ironic.
In Homecoming, 1945, two Orthodox Jews arrive in a Hungarian village in the summer of 1945 with boxes marked as containing cosmetics. A village town clerk, who arranged for his son to take over the drugstore of his former friend, the deported Jew, is now afraid and encourages his son, along with the other villagers who benefited from Jewish wealth, to resist any attempts to recover property. While the village is in turmoil, the official’s son rebels against his father, leaves the store and eventually the village. Relationships break down. It is revealed that the two Jews only came back to bury in their homeland the remains of their peers: the soaps. The author co-wrote a screenplay based on the story, which was made into a poignant film directed by Ferenc Török and starring top Hungarian actors (cinematography: Elemér Ragályi, music: Tibor Szemző). The film won 20 international prizes and distributed in 40 countries included the US.
The Longest Night is set during a 1947 Central European population transfer. An aristocratic Hungarian family, whose land has been annexed by Czechoslovakia, is being relocated to Hungary. Due to a logistical error, however, they must spend a night with the Swabian family waiting to be deported to Germany whose house they will move into. The Swabian peasant crudely rejects the approaches of the aristocrat, who tries to find common ground with him. This story piqued the interest of moviemakers, too.
In Living in Peace, two Holocaust-surviving Jews, the German Max and the Polish Moritz, try to start a new life in 1948 Berlin as they blackmail a German industrialist who participated in the liquidation of Polish ghettos as an SS officer. Their situation deteriorates due to the former Nazi’s resistance. He records the two Jews’ attempts at extortion, reports them to the police, and lands them in jail. One commits suicide, while the other escapes to East Germany and is shot at the border when he tries to emigrate from there.
Love shows the lowest strata of Hungarian peasantry from the 1940s to the 1950s. A troubled single woman tries to raise her deaf-mute and severely intellectually disabled son. The woman is humiliated by yet another man who also beats her son, resulting in their permanent exclusion from the village community. When the teenaged child, in his desperate alienation from human society, tries to find consolation and sexual satisfaction amongst animals, his mother, refusing to accept this, arranges a wedding with his son, sleeps with him, and finally takes both their lives.
The First Christmas tells the story of a Jewish couple dealing with their children’s request to celebrate Christmas in the 1960s. The parents decide to go ahead; the father orders gifts and buys a tree. He then remembers the Christmas of 1944, when he and his peers in labor service had to run for their lives as Hungarian soldiers used them for target practice. The father erects the tree and hands over the present, which turns out to be an air rifle. He then issues the order: they must shoot at the tree ornaments.
Trans introduces the reader to a young man from Budapest who is about to be ordained as a rabbi. During therapy, he realizes that his attraction to women’s clothes is deeper than he previously thought – he also wants to change his sexual identity. He unsuccessfully attempts suicide. While resuming counselling, he comes to understand that he wants to become both a rabbi and a woman. His efforts are found out, and he is expelled from rabbinical school. He turns to a rabbinic court to uphold his rights but loses. He eventually goes to San Francisco at the advice of an American professor to fulfill his double identity.
To Tell the Truth depicts middle-aged brothers András and Dani, a rock musician and a dentist, in the 2000s. They are faced with the realization that a gendarme who participated in the 1944 deportations will be exonerated by a Hungarian court. Bent on revenge, the older and more aggressive brother convinces his sibling, whose identity is still fragile, to kidnap the old man and make him confess his crimes by forcing him to watch Holocaust documentaries in their basement. The old man refuses to admit what he did, and his captivity is dragged out. Dani resolves his turbid romantic life and identity crisis, matures, and finds his first Jewish love. He stays in his basement with their hostage. In the meantime, András, who came up with the plan in the first place, has enough of Hungary and makes Aliyah to Israel. Mirko and Marion is the story of a teenager’s first love. The narrator remembers his most intense erotic experience towards the end of his life. Prior to the matriculation exams, the boy’s English teacher (Marion) has her eye on his best friend, the half-Serbian Mirko. She engages in a cruel and titillating game with the two young men. On New Year’s Eve, he invites both boys over. As the three dance together, inebriated by champagne, Mirko kisses the narrator, who, terrified by homoerotic attraction, runs away. Their friendship thus ends, and years later Mirko dies in the Serbian war and Marion dies in breast cancer. The narrator feels he remains alive only to be tormented by a life-long desire, as he discovers that nothing could surpass the memory of that New Year’s Eve.
Read a short story of the book in English (external link)
Review about te book (external link)
Full English translation available
Finnish translation available