Read Online Under a Red Sky by Haya Leah Molnar - Free Book Online Page B

that all religion is just superstition for ignorant, uneducated people. I suspect Tata agrees with this view despite the fact that he hates the Party. I don’t want to offend Andrei, and I remember Mama’s warning not to tell other children what I overhear at home, so I don’t share these thoughts with him.

THE CLOCK THAT STOPPED
    â€œIF GOD IS ALL-POWERFUL,” my father says, his eyes twinkling with delight, “could He create a mountain that is so big that even He could not move it?” I look at Tata, not knowing how to answer, but just from the twist of his smile I know that this is a trick question.
    My father believes in scientific proof. “If you can’t see it, hear it, touch it, or smell it, it’s probably only your imagination,” he tells me. “Thank God, the Party doesn’t preach religion on top of their propaganda.”
    â€œWhat does propaganda mean?” I ask.
    â€œNever mind. Never utter that word again.”
    Tata looks ridiculously serious as he says this, and it makes me nervous, so I start to giggle.
    â€œYou hear me, Eva?”
    Â 
    THE MOST CONSTANT sound in my life is made by the swinging pendulum of the mantel clock that my father keeps on top of the Biedermeier chest of drawers in our bedroom. Tick tock, tick tock.
I am so used to it that, for the most part, I don’t notice it. Tata found the clock upon his return home from a Russian labor camp. It was one of a handful of other objects that once belonged to his parents. He was thirty-one years old at the time, having spent the previous eight years in various lagers, concentration camps: four years in Nazi work camps, and then four more years after the war as a prisoner of war in the Russian gulag. I’ve only been told the historical facts, not the personal details.
    Â 
    TATA IS HOME this Sunday, having just completed a film shoot on location. He is taking advantage of his rare free time by cleaning out the two drawers that Mama has allocated to him in the Biedermeier chest. Under a bunch of folded socks is a tin box filled with old papers and photographs. I am not allowed to touch any of my father’s belongings, but I watch as he fishes out a dog-eared postcard and reads it in silence. I ask him what it says since I don’t read or speak Hungarian. His face hardens before he answers, “It says goodbye.”
    â€œWho says goodbye?”
    â€œMy mother. Your other grandmother.” He points to a faded signature beneath a few carefully scripted lines in black ink.
    â€œWhy?” I have a feeling I shouldn’t be asking this, but I can’t help it.
    â€œMy mother knew it was unlikely that we would ever see each other again.” Tata’s voice is barely audible.
    I don’t know what to say. Tata looks at me, as if suddenly remembering that I am here. “Someone must have found this postcard on the train station platform and placed it in our mailbox,” he tries to explain. “See, it doesn’t even have a stamp,” he says, pointing
to the spot where the stamp is clearly missing. “This postcard waited in our mailbox for four years, Eva, from April 1945, when my parents were deported to Auschwitz, until late in 1949, when I came home from Russia.” Tata looks up at me. “A small miracle,” he says, forcing a smile.
    â€œHow come you are so sure that they died in Auschwitz?” I’m pushing my luck. “Maybe they’re still alive somewhere and you don’t know it.”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous, Eva,” Tata says, his smile fading. “I know. Believe me, I know.” I notice that the muscles on his forearms are twitching.
    â€œHave you searched for them?” I am relentless.
    â€œLook,” Tata answers, raising his voice slightly, “I’m one hundred percent sure.” The tone of his voice lets me know that this conversation has ended. “Why don’t you run along and