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Szedrás reared in disgust. ‘You call this a baby! I call it—phph!’ And he christened me with saliva.”
    Swaggering, military-blue-breasted Uncle Szedrás was the one who had coined the Magyar name Szemes before joining the select Kaiser Wilhelm Hussars. Ostensibly it was to deflect military attention from his Jewishness, but some family members argued that perhaps Szedrás had wished to overlook his Jewishness himself. He, a descendent of Itzig the Nothing, had joined company with the mediaeval Counts Zichy and Esterház to pledge life and honour for Franz Josef. And his dull nephew, Gábor remarked with self-deprecating humour, grew up to lack the ingenuity to leave the past behind. I assumed my great-uncle Szedrás would have drawn a mouthful of contempt and aimed it again, with precision, between Gábor’s eyes.
    *   *   *
    Szedrás rocked impatiently on the heels of his knee-high field boots, glancing every few moments out the front room window to see if the children had mounted.
    â€œPatience, édes ocsém, ” the children’s mother counselled, calming her voice to the register she used with this brother. She was older than Szedrás and entitled to call him “darling little brother,” but he was the first son, heady with self-importance. He tolerated the diminutive because she was regarded by everyone for her exalted faith. In their often intemperate and populous household, Liliana was the soft-spoken but ruling chatelaine.
    â€œThree pischers, what do they have so much to talk about? This isn’t the Congress of Berlin,” Szedrás fretted.
    If Liliana showed any distress, it was through silence. Szedrás’s present to her sons pained her. It was ostentatious, and excessive, reminding her of the Magyar gentry. She recoiled at the thought of her sons fawning over the goyishe plaything. Typical of Szedrás, dearly as she loved him, he had not asked her leave first, nor her husband’s. At least he should have warned his father what manner of rig he was introducing to Aron’s grandsons. But Liliana knew that her father would no more have forbidden Szedrás this gesture than she herself could deprive her boys of their delight in the toy.
    The two older boys were engaged in negotiations over who would drive the ponies. Little Miki, knowing that as youngest his turn would come last, had mounted into the carriage and was admiring its beautiful red leather seat. It was the colour of the boots of the little peasant girls who danced in national dress on the Feast of St. Stephen. He snuffled the warm new leather smell.
    â€œHey,” interrupted Bandi, “don’t go rubbing your snot on it. If you’re going to act like a baby, we’re not taking you.”
    Miki bit his lip indignantly.
    Gábor interceded, tightening his hold on the reins. “The gift is for us all, ” he reminded Bandi. Gabi was tiring, and he listed more obviously when he tired. He could feel his military uncle’s eyes boring through the window’s glass. It was humiliating enough to have to wear a corset like a woman, but he didn’t want to shame himself in front of Szedrás- bácsi by relinquishing the reins to his younger brother.
    â€œLook, I’ll show you how to get up to the box without letting go,” Bandi said, reaching for the lead.
    Gabi would have to settle the matter so he could sit down and take the weight off his back.
    â€œI’m quite capable, thank you. I know very well how the coachman mounts his box.” Before his illness Gabi had been as lavishly praised as the other children among their kin. His sense of worthiness hadn’t much corroded. After all, Anyuka assured him that he would recover and be well enough to ride as gallantly as Uncle Szedrás; it didn’t so much matter that his aunts and uncles held their tongues.
    â€œLet’s go,” Miki needled, bored with