Short Stories

The Ball and the Torah

I always hated playing football with Frank.

We first started playing in the street in front of our father’s shop. No matter how fast I was, no matter how dirty I played, Frank would always end up with the ball. It shouldn’t have been that way. I was a year older than him, and we were always the same size. I always ended up with a face full of gravel or a quick kick to my body. I resented him for a long time for that.

As we got older though, I didn’t feel so bad. I had long given up on football and had heeded Father’s urgings to focus on the Torah and school. That was my football, and I would stick with it. Frank was smart too; he just didn’t try like I did. He was busy beating up older boys and even Christian boys in alley scrimmages. In truth, he was magnificent. He was beautiful.

No, I was done being jealous of Frank. He possessed a gift from our lord. To watch him dribble a football and evade his opponents appeared as fluid as the pristine Danube flowing through our city at daybreak. I was always proud to say he was my brother.

Father was not as clear-sighted as me. He had been learning to be a smith since before his bar mitzvah. For him, football was a frivolous waste of time. He thought Frank was squandering the advantages he had given him, frequently asking, “Why can’t he be more like Giza?” while the rest of the family waited for Mother to drag him inside by the ear for Sabbath.

For these reasons, the months leading up to Frank’s bar mitzvah were perhaps the tensest of our childhood. At twelve, he barely had command of the alphabet, let alone read from the Tanakh. I had done well with Hebrew, being able to converse with the oldest members of our community. After an especially unimpressive display at our lessons, Father had enough. He entered the foyer with an iron poker from his workshop, his face a deep crimson around his thin, black mustache.

“You think you will become a man playing all day? You think it is all a joke?”
“No, Father.”
“You do not think.” He storms off into our room, his boots pounding against the rickety floorboards.
“This is what you make me do!” His voice bellows through our heads. He waves around the metal stick, impaled through Frank’s only football. Our father tosses the iron at our feet, with Frank storming past him.
“Come back here!” He yells down the alley after my brother. As the sound of their arguing fades away, I pick up the rod and return it to Father’s shop.

They continued butting heads like this for weeks. It was their ritual. I felt for Frank, but Father had a point. So, I resolved to help my little brother prepare for his bar mitzvah. When faced with the prospect of never playing football again, he devoted himself to his studies while maintaining a simmering anger at our father. I helped him memorize the prayers he would need, writing them out with phonetic Hungarian sounds. It would at least get him through his ceremony.

The morning of Frank’s bar mitzvah was cold and dreary. A November wind cut across the Danube, making the streets of Budapest unwelcoming. Nonetheless, we filed into the synagogue in our best dress, hoping to celebrate Frank’s maturity. My usually self-assured brother appeared more nervous than I had ever seen him. His usual olive complexion was a pale green. His curly black hair was slicked back with too much pomade. The starched collar on his dress shirt gripped his neck too tightly. This shivering stranger in confident Frank’s place was ushered to the front of the temple by the rabbi.

The large oak doors suddenly swing open, the wind filling the pews and slicing through our family’s milestone. On the heels of this violent gust is a group of frenzied men, shouting something repeatedly:
“The war is over! The war is over! We lost!”
Pandemonium breaks out in the temple. People speak in panicked tones while families with military-aged sons are weeping, hugging, running out of the building. Our family is left standing there, while even the rabbi disappears into the crowd. Father regains his senses and enlists me to help lead our family out the back. Frank would not become a man that day.

Years later, we continue living as we always did in Horthy’s new Hungary. Father and Frank eventually became completely estranged, with my brother often staying in the homes of his teammates and friends. I too had many Christian friends at this time while I was studying at university. We were Hungarians, no longer a statistical group in the old empire.

None of us were more Hungarian than Frank. He was the top scorer in his club and eventually qualified for the national travel team. Every week, I watched as Father silently read about him in the paper. I met with Frank at our favorite café in Buda, right by the bridge. As we updated one another on the minutiae of our daily lives, the topic turned to our future endeavors.

“I will be travelling around the continent, Giza. We will be playing clubs across Germany and France. We also have some exhibitions in America. I will miss you dearly, brother.”
“I will miss you too, but why are you being so dramatic? Surely it will only be for a few months.”
“I expect it will be much longer than that. I will write you once I am in America. Please, take care of our parents while I am away.”
“Oy istenem, Frank! I already take care of them! Why are you talking like this? What are you going to do?”
“Please Giza, leave it be.”
“You’re leaving, aren’t you? Go to America! Run away! It won’t be any different from how things are now!”
“Do you really believe Europe will be safe for us? Look around!”
“Please, I know you. This isn’t about that. You’re barely Jewish anymore.”
“Ah, so you’re on Father’s side now,” he said with a dry chuckle.
“There are no sides, Frank. You’ve neglected us, your responsibilities to our community, and now you’re running away. Go play games for a bowl of stew! You’ll be well fed!”

Frank threw down some koronas between our coffees and left me there. I said what I had said out of anger, but I felt none of that anymore. My brother was leaving. Months later, my fears were confirmed when his Pecs-Baranya teammates returned from abroad without him. I often wondered after his safety, where he was, what he was doing. Father did not speak of him.