Home Game Read online

  © 2019, Endre Farkas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, without the permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Doowah Design.

  Photo of Endre Farkas by dhfoto.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank Zsolt Cziganyik, Odette Dubé, János Kenyeres, Katalin Kürtösi, Ronald Lee, Judit Molnár, Eszter Patocs and Éva Zsizsmann for their help with my research, advice and proofreading eyes.

  Excerpt from “Light My Fire” by The Doors used with permission from Alfred Publishing LLC.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council for our publishing program.

  ISBN 978-1-77324-053-4 (epub)

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Home game / Endre Farkas.

  Names: Farkas, Endre, 1948- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2019017790X | Canadiana (ebook) 20190177918 | ISBN 9781773240527 (softcover) | ISBN 9781773240534 (HTML)

  Classification: LCC PS8561.A72 H59 2019 | DDC C813/.54—dc23

  Signature Editions

  P.O. Box 206, RPO Corydon, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3M 3S7

  www.signature-editions.com

  For Carolyn Marie Souaid, partner in our adventures in the creative life

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  Glossary

  About the Author

  1

  He was caressing the brownish stain fading into his palm when the officer prodded him. He stood.

  “Tamás, come in,” the chief said.

  The officer prodded him again.

  A man in a dark suit was seated at Chief Barna’s large wooden desk. Three portraits hung on the wall behind him. Tommy recognized Lenin and Marx but not the third. He hadn’t noticed the pictures the last time he was here. A thick black curtain covered the window.

  “Where is Broshkoy?” Tommy asked, looking at a pair of glasses on the floor.

  “Who?” the chief asked. He turned to see what Tommy was looking at.

  “Frog.”

  “Why did you call him that other name?”

  “Because that’s his name. It means frog in his language.”

  “That’s no concern of yours. I ask the questions,” the man in the dark suit snapped.

  Tommy faced him. He didn’t look familiar. He wasn’t the one who had been following him. Was he an AVO pig? That’s what Dezsö-papa called the secret police, the ones, he said, who came in the middle of the night and took you away, never to return, the ones who had stopped the train and ordered them off. Was he one of those that Dezsö-papa had punched in the face?

  “Where did you leave your dagger?” the man in the dark suit asked Tommy.

  The question came from a million miles away in a language he didn’t fully understand.

  “I’m sorry.” He appealed to Chief Barna for help. “I don’t understand what a dagger is.”

  “It’s a small sword.”

  “Oh. The blacksmiths made one for me and one for Gabi. We sometimes hid them in our pant legs because our parents didn’t allow us to have dangerous toys.”

  “That’s not what I asked!” The man slapped the desk.

  Tommy was startled. He thought for a moment. “Oh, in the Nylon,” he said.

  “Don’t joke with me,” the man snarled.

  “That’s what we call the People’s Diner,” Chief Barna said quietly.

  “What I want to know from you is, when you decided to betray the motherland, where did you hide the dagger?”

  Tommy wasn’t used to anybody being so aggressive towards him. What a strange question. He didn’t understand. He turned to Chief Barna again.

  “When you and your parents left, did you hide your sword?”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you stupid?” the man shouted.

  Tommy concentrated, trying hard to remember. “In the well,” he said finally. “It’s not fair that they got caught. I missed him.”

  “Who got caught?” the man asked.

  Tommy sniffled.

  “Don’t disgrace your father.” Chief Barna spoke firmly. “Be a man!”

  He took a deep breath. “Gabi, Dezsö-papa and Emma-mama.”

  “I’m not interested in your family’s traitorous behaviour then,” the man in the dark suit said. “I’m interested in your criminal action tonight. I want to know how it started.”

  Tommy wasn’t sure. It happened so fast. It happened a long time ago. Maybe it began when Szeles whacked the cone full of rock candy from his hand. Or maybe when Mrs. Gombás kicked him out of class. Or when they tried to escape. Or maybe it began with a beautiful goal.

  2

  Like a shooting star, the ball arced across the darkening October sky. Tommy’s calf muscles tensed, coiled, sprang and released him. Defying gravity, he rose. Weightless, as if in slow motion, as if watching himself, as if he had all the time in the world, as if free, he rose.

  He met it at its zenith, felt the thud of leather against his temple, flicked his head, changed the ball’s direction and sent it on its new trajectory into the top left pigeonhole, past the outstretched fingers of the leaping goalie.

  His descent was quick. He lay there on his back being mobbed, barely able to breathe as his teammates piled on.

  The whistle blew. The Sir George Knights were the 1966 Canadian university soccer champions!

  3

  Tommy’s father stood on the sidelines, beaming as his son and Speedy stepped forward to accept the trophy. They held it up for all to see. The thirty or so people huddled behind the home team bench cheered and clapped. In his father’s eyes, Tamás “Puskás” Wolfstein, the captain of the Hungarian national team, was raising the World Cup to the deafening roar of 60,000 in the People’s Stadium of Budapest.

  “My son, the captain. My son, the champion. My son, my son,” his father cried as he embraced him.

  “Hey, Mr. Wolfstein. It’s great, eh?”

  “It is wonderful, Speedy. Congratulations. Mazel tov. Let me shake the hand of a champion!”

  “Hey, I’m cold,” Schmutz yelled as he ran by. “Let’s get changed and party.”

  “Apu…” Tommy’s voice trailed off. He could never call his fat
her Dad. It didn’t feel right. Same for his mother. She was Anyu. Even after all these years in Canada. “The team is going out to celebrate. We said we would, win or lose. I won’t be too late. Okay?”

  “Sure, but not too late. And no drinking.”

  “A beer or two won’t hurt.”

  “Not too much. You are not legal age yet. Be careful. Your mother will be worried. Call her.”

  “Okay.”

  His father grabbed him again and kissed him on both cheeks. “Mazel tov.”

  Tommy watched his father cross the field, stop in the centre circle, turn and wave, then continue to his car. His father had a spring in his step. From across the field, under the street lamp, he waved again. Tommy waved back. Then out of nowhere an inexplicable sadness came over him. It felt like he was waving goodbye.

  “Come on, Wolfie, hurry,” Speedy yelled as he slapped him on the back. “¡Ándale! Ándale! The vino is waiting. It’s not going to drink itself.”

  Shouting and laughing, the boys were throwing their dirty sweat-drenched uniforms at Ben, the team manager, who cursed, laughed and threw them back at the naked Knights.

  Coach Hus came into the locker room and yelled at them, “Listen up!” The boys quieted down. “You did it! You were great. I’m proud of you guys. Enjoy.” They cheered and snapped towels at each other as they danced toward the showers. Once dried and dressed, Wolfie, Speedy and Schmutz, The Three Mouseketeers, as the other players called them, led the boys out.

  4

  El Gitano was on the corner of Mont-Royal and St. Denis. It had a large flashing neon bullfighter sign that could be seen from blocks away. Speedy’s father had called ahead to tell his brother, the owner, who in turn announced to the full house that they had won.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” The whole restaurant, from busboys to customers, erupted in applause when they entered.

  Crimson-draped tables filled the dimly lit first floor. Each had a single rose vase and a flickering candle in a wine bottle that gave the room an intimate, romantic feel. Posters of bullfighters and flamenco dancers on the stucco walls added to the ambiance.

  Shaking hands with the patrons, the boys, led by Speedy, wound their way to the back and upstairs to the Salón de Felicidad. Wrought iron chandeliers hung from the dark exposed beams and heavy burgundy floor-length curtains covered the large windows. Two long tables in a V faced a small stage with two chairs and two guitars on it. Tonight, the Salón de Felicidad, usually a place for wedding receptions, baptismal and communion celebrations, was the banquet hall of the victorious Knights.

  As usual, Tommy sat between Roberto and Olaf. They had met last year when they were the three rookies who made the team. Olaf, nicknamed Schmutz for being obsessively neat, was studying aeronautical engineering and wanted to be a pilot. Roberto, dubbed Speedy because of his speed and family name, Gonzales, was a pure science guy who loved math. Tommy, aka Wolfie, was in Commerce, because his parents expected him to take over the business someday. Though they came from different countries and cultures and had different mother tongues, they bonded almost instantly over a shared passion for a game that most Canadians didn’t know or care about.

  Tommy stared at the steaming black pans heaped with what he thought was rice, though he wasn’t sure because the mounds weren’t white. They had a yellowish hue and were covered with beans, slices of peppers, tomatoes, onions and other vegetables he didn’t recognize. “What’s that?” Tommy asked.

  “Paella,” Speedy said. “Muy bien, amigo.”

  Vegetables were not a big part of Tommy’s meals because his father, who said that he had a bellyful of vegetables in his youth, didn’t want to eat them.

  “It’s what I ate when we were poor and what they fed us in the camp. We’re not poor or prisoners anymore. I want to eat meat,” he declared every time his wife tried to serve him vegetables other than potatoes.

  Tommy had never seen a dish like this. On top of the rice were half-opened shells with slimy white things in them. Since he had never eaten seafood, he wasn’t sure if they were clams, oysters or mussels. The more familiar shrimps, with their glistening pink tails poking out of the rice, seemed to be burrowing their way into the rice to escape from being eaten.

  Speedy was ladling heaps of paella onto Tommy’s plate.

  “Whoa, slow down, it’s too much.”

  “Never too much,” Speedy said and spooned him another helping.

  “What’s that?” Schmutz asked, pointing to the pitchers of a reddish drink filled with fruit chunks.

  “Sangria. It’s wine.” Speedy filled his glass, stood up and shouted, “Quiet! Everybody pour a glass. Stand up and let’s drink to the Sir Internationals! The best team in Canada!”

  “To the Sir Internationals! To the best team in Canada!” they shouted.

  Tommy didn’t expect the drink to be spicy and warm. The only wine he knew the Manischewitz they drank on Passover, a sugary drink that tasted like grape juice. A tingling warmth spread through his mouth. He took another sip, closed his eyes and savoured the pleasant fruity taste.

  “Like this, Wolfie,” Speedy said when he saw Tommy, knife and fork in hand, staring at the shells. Speedy lifted the shell with his fingers and pierced the slimy meat with his fork. “Like this,” he said, putting it in his mouth. He pulled the fork out slowly. “It’s an aphrodisiac, a lover’s treat.”

  Tommy didn’t know what Speedy was talking about but followed suit. It tasted moist, slippery and a bit salty but there was something about it that he liked. He took a sip of the sangria, which changed the salty taste into a sweet fruity one.

  Schmutz stood. “I’m gonna make a toast too,” he shouted.

  “Schmutz, Schmutz,” the players shouted, banging their knives and forks in unison. Though he was over six feet tall and solid as a tank, his constant grin and hearty laugh made him seem like a little kid. But behind his childlike playfulness was the serious and focused centre-half anchor of the team. He was hard as a hammer on opposing forwards. Very few got past him and those who did paid for it later with a “Schmutz Special.” The tackles weren’t dirty, most of the time. He sometimes crossed the line between fair and foul but only by accident, he would plead to the referee. Off the field, he was a playful kitten.

  “I wanna thank Coach Hustle for making us hustle! He’s number one.”

  “Coach Hustle! Coach Hustle! Number One!” they chanted.

  The boys called Coach Hus Coach Hustle because that’s what he most often yelled at practices and games. He stood up to hoots and applause.

  “Okay, okay! I already told you guys that I’m proud of you. Even though soccer players are the laziest athletes in the world who hate to practise and are prima donnas, today you hustled your butts off and it paid off. You played like a team. All for one and one for all. To the Knights! “And…,” getting choked up, he paused and then added, “Thank you.”

  “To the Knights!” they toasted.

  “Now let’s hear from the other captain,” the coach said, lifting his glass in Tommy’s direction.

  “Wolfie! Wolfie!” the players shouted.

  Although Tommy was co-captain, he didn’t like being the centre of attention. And though he was the team’s leading scorer, and had scored tonight’s winning goal, he was happy just being part of the team. The others joked that they voted him co-captain because he was as quiet as Speedy was loud. He stood up, almost spilling his wine.

  “Klutz,” Schmutz yelled. “Trade him.”

  Tommy grinned at his teammates. The Sir George Knights, who called themselves the Sir Internationals, were immigrants from all over the world whose parents had left their homelands for their own reasons. Olaf Knudsen, Roberto Gonzales, Archie Bellafonte, Stanislaus Wojick, Luigi Russo, Ivan Sokolov, Kostas Fotopolous, Agostino Valdez, Tito Popovic, Derek Sullivan, and he, Tamás Wolfstein. He recited these foreign names to himself with the sa
me pride he used to roll call the Mighty Magyars. He almost couldn’t believe that this goulash of guys had ended up—through accident, luck, skill and chemistry—Canadian university champions.

  The only true Canadians, whose families had been here forever, having come at the turn of the century, were Eric and Peter, the subs, Ben, the team manager, and Coach Hus. But on this soccer team, they were the foreigners. Coach Hus knew his soccer more as a gym teacher, from the outside, unlike Tommy and the other Knights, who knew it from the inside. “We’re from soccer-mad countries. We got it with our mothers’ milk,” Speedy once told Coach Hustle.

  “I don’t have much to add to what Speedy and Schmutz and Coach Hus said. But I can say that it’s fun to be part of a team that needs translators at team meetings. I’m proud to be part of the Sir Internationals. To the Knights!”

  “To the Knights!” they all toasted and clinked glasses.

  “Musica! Musica!” Speedy shouted.

  “Musica! Musica!” the boys echoed.

  And as if their chants had conjuring powers, two musicians in tight black pants, collarless white shirts and black vests appeared, bowed and walked onto the small stage.

  The lights dimmed. A tall girl about Tommy’s age emerged from the shadows in a figure-hugging black satin dress that flared from the thighs down. She strode to the centre of the stage. Her black, black hair pulled back into a bun glistened under the lights. Statue-still, her presence and dark eyes silenced everyone. Her gaze and stillness seemed to last forever. Then, almost imperceptibly, she raised one arm above her head and joined the other to her hip.

  The notes, her fingers and legs moved as one. Tommy followed the crossing of her legs, the uncurling of her fingers, the serpentine winding of her wrists and the slow graceful movement of her arm rising from her hip to form an arch above her head. A sharp, clear sound sprang from her palms as her heel struck the floor like a gunshot, joining the castanets and guitars. And again and again. The incredible precision of her movements mesmerized him. She wove back and forth across the room, picking up speed. The music and the dancer reached a climax with a firm stomp. She stared at the audience fiercely. Tommy was about to applaud but Speedy put a hand over his and shook his head.