Mr. Lakatos' Wake

Gabor had to knock on the Lakatos’s door, because his mother was carrying the cake. There was a noise of shoes from behind the door before Mrs. Lakatos ushered them in from the stairwell with clucks and chatter. She lived in the apartment on the first floor. Gabor and his mother lived on the third.

Yesterday when his mother arrived home from work she told Gabor that Mr. Lakatos senior, had finally died. For the past few weeks it was common knowledge in the apartment building that he probably would die soon. He was 98 years old.

After his mother told him the news she decided to bring a cake.  Gabor knew he would likely be going with her to the wake.

“There will be no one there my age,” he said.  He was the only person in the building under the age of 55…a good deal under since he was still in school until May. The other tenants had been living in the building for what seemed liked decades already when he and his mother had moved in three years ago.

His mother was firm, “We’ll both go.”  She baked the cake yesterday evening, and now they were being whisked into the apartment by Mrs. Lakatos with a non-stop stream of gratitude.

In a way this was extremely kind of Mrs. Lakatos. Gabor and his mother were Hungarians, but not in the same way that the rest of the tenants were. Gabor’s grandfather had immigrated to the United States during the 1950s revolution, and Gabor had spent most of his childhood growing up in Cleveland. It was only three years ago, in response to a job opportunity, that Gabor’s mother had decided that they should move back to Hungary to make a go of it.

Gabor had strongly resisted this, because it would mean that he would be leaving behind his entire elementary and middle school experience. However, his mother had insisted that it would look good on a university transcript if he could show that he had graduated from high school in Hungary.  

Most of the experience of the past three years had been good. But there were occasionally the sensitive cultural moments that Gabor didn’t quite know how to interpret. And as he and his mother entered Mrs. Lakatos’ apartment, he was utterly uncertain how to act.  

Gabor was right about the rest of the company. When they entered the living room, he counted  10 other people who had arrived before them. They were all older than his mother. An elderly couple was hunched together on the couch with their tea. Several severe, black-skirted women were posted by the window across the room which looked out onto the street below.

The building was number 26 on Bartok street in the 11^th district of Budapest.  It was built at the beginning of the 20^th century and was generally considered to be a favorable place to live, unlike the post-Soviet apartment blocks that dominated the outskirts of the city. As he accepted a cup of tea from Mrs. Lakatos, Gabor could hear the women at the window talking about the Soviet tank.

“It came right through the alley between the buildings and turned its gun.”

“For over an hour.”

“No, just for a few minutes. Enough, though. We left our apartment and went into the bomb cellar across the street.”

This had apparently happened in the 1950s. The gossip in the building was that the column of Russian tanks had advanced up Bartok street on their way to do something with the rebellion. What was less clear was whether a tank had actually come into the back yard as they claimed.  These stories were easily passed around. But it was likely that something had happened back then. The outside of the building was still pockmarked with old bullet holes.

Mrs. Lakatos and Gabor’s mother joined the black skirts by the window, and Gabor saw his chance. He walked over to the wall of black and white family photographs and busied himself with them. They seemed oddly familiar as old pictures do. There were several pictures of the family. He could see Mrs. Lakatos growing from school-girl to woman. Occasionally Mr. Lakatos senior could be seen in the back row of the pictures. The last picture of him was from two months ago on his birthday. He was sitting behind a table which held a small cake. He looked very frail.

Gabor turned back toward the room. If he waited a few more minutes he reasoned that he could give an excuse to leave. He moved back toward the table to refill his cup. He glanced back toward the front hallway. That was when he noticed. The hallway was lined with stacks of old newspapers.

Gabor left his cup and walked to the hallway. The stacks were in chronological order moving backward. The paper color started to yellow as the rows went back in time. He put his finger on the most recent stack and slowly walked down the hall. He could feel the papers growing more brittle under his finger as he moved.

               When he reached the last stack he was near the wall at the rear of the apartment. Gabor picked up one of the papers from the last row. It was from November 5, 1956. There was a black and white picture on the front page that showed several young people walking down a street in a foreign country. They were carrying a large home-made sign which read, “Helpt Hongary”. The faces on the people seemed eager and excited. But he could not tell what they were thinking.

At that moment Mrs. Lakatos came down the hall with a tray of empty cups. Gabor straightened and looked up at her. She paused and glanced at the rows of papers. “Oh, they belonged to father. But they’ll have to go. Fire danger.”

               She looked down at the newspaper he was holding. When she saw the picture on the front she smiled and gave a small shrug. .