Storyteller Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies

My childhood was filled with my grandfather's stories. Some I remember so clearly that I still hear his voice in their telling and still see the pictures I saw when I first heard them. My whole family told stories many true, a few imagined, others invented so long ago they had become true but none were as full of life as my grandfather's. There were wise witches and wily giants, magic horses and soothsayers who commanded ancient spells; there were princes and heroes who did battle against the powers of evil; there were grand viziers, and turbaned armies of merciless Turks; and there were our Hungarian ancestors, who never tired of wielding their broadswords in defense of our ancient lands. He told stories about glittering dances in bygone courts, and poets whose words could move more people than military commands ever had. There were stories about his three beautiful daughters and their gallant admirers, about his mother who told him her tales until late into the Bacska nights, about his grandfather who held court in Transylvania and was murdered at his own dinner table, and about his grandmother, the dark-eyed Petronella who escaped with her young son, then drove her wagon for three days and four nights to arrive at dawn in the tiny village of Kula in the southern Hungarian region of Bacska where my grandfather was born some fifty years later. He was my childhood hero. His name was Vili. Actually, his name was Vilmos but everyone called him Vili. He was a big raw-boned man, and even when I came along, and he was well into his fifties, he was extraordinarily strong. He used to demonstrate his strength by doing crazy things like lifting chairs with people sitting on them. To prove that both his arms were equally strong, he sometimes lifted two chairs and two people at once. He would crouch down between the two chairs, grab one leg in each hand, take a deep breath, puffing up his chest and his cheeks, then lift. His back straight, his eyes focused on some midpoint over our heads, he would slowly stand up. The veins on the sides of his neck and down the centre of his forehead stood out like ropes. All the while the people on the chairs usually his daughters or their rather temporary boyfriends or husbands were stiff as statues. Everyone else applauded and Vili's bald head took an almost imperceptible bow. After that he'd quickly deposit his charges, rub his big palms together, and wink at his most appreciative audience me. He could stop ice carts by stepping in front of the horses, grabbing the pole between them and pushing back on it till their hoofs clawed the air; then he'd let them down gently, because he did not want to hurt the horses or let the ice blocks slide off and break. Back in the early fifties, ice still came by horse and cart to Budapest in the summer. On hot days my friends and I would run behind the carts, picking up bits of fallen ice and rubbing them over our faces or trying to stuff ice shards down each other's shirt fronts. We wrestled and shoved to get the best spots nearest the back wheels so we could soak in a freezing-cold shower when the cart stopped for its deliveries. The best showers were when my grand-father lifted the front of the cart. When my grandfather was nineteen he represented Hungary in four events at the European Games. One of them was the shot-put, another the epee. I could never figure how he could shine at both events, since one required a heavy step while carrying something that weighed over sixteen pounds and for the other you had to be light on your feet. For a decade he held the European record in the one-hundred-yard dash. At the 1908 London Olympics, he finished fourth behind three Americans in that event, but he also took part in the pentathlon. He became, quite accidentally, Hungarian heavyweight wrestling champion for a year. He had been sauntering past the elevated riPorter, Anna is the author of 'Storyteller Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies', published 2002 under ISBN 9780385259576 and ISBN 0385259573.