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globe back to a corner of the porch. The teen-agers all gathered around and took turns rotating it. At one point the men came over to trace out the border questions they had been discussing. Hitler and Germany were mentioned many times before they all left.
    That night at our second seder, Lajos became solemn and fidgety. “Don’t you feel well?” Babi asked.
    â€œHe is just upset at the way the guests felt about his Hungarian uniform,” Lilli tried to explain in her best Yiddish.
    After dinner we decided to go to bed early so that everyone would be rested for the day of travel ahead. Mother came over to us on our straw mattresses, and as she bent to kiss me, I asked, “Anyuka, am I going home with you tomorrow?” But I already knew the answer. I had heard her tell Rozsi that she would need her help with the new baby because Lilli was going to spend the rest of Lajos’ leave at his base in Prague. When Rozsi objected to leaving Babi at the beginning of the spring planting season, Mother said that I would stay on to finish my school year in Komjaty. Rozsi protested that I could not do her chores, but Mother reminded her that I was now just two years younger than Rozsi herself had been when she first came to Komjaty.
    â€œNo, I need Rozsi at home,” Mother said to me. “You must stay here to take care of Babi and finish school. You will come home when Rozsi comes back.”
    I accepted Mother’s statement although I was feeling very confused. Part of me wanted to go home, but another part liked the thought of taking Rozsi’s place with Babi, and still another part did not want Rozsi to leave, either.
    When I woke up in the late morning, everyone was packed and ready to go. A neighbor came with his wagon to take them to the train station, but Mother refused to get into it. “I would rather walk than ride on this bumpy road.” Father put his bike up into the wagon and said that he would walk with Mother. Babi asked if I wanted to go with them part of the way.
    â€œNo,” I said firmly, surprised by my own decision.
    â€œAll right,” said Babi. “We’ll stay.”
    They all took turns kissing me goodbye.
    â€œSchool will be over before you know it,” said Mother, “and then a few weeks after that you’ll come home.”
    Father picked me up and whispered in my ear, “Don’t forget, you are still my little girl.”
    Iboya was the last one to say goodbye to me. She left me the globe and promised to write. Watching the wagon go down the road with Mother and Father walking behind, my eyes clouded with tears. I ran back into the empty house, closed the bedroom door behind me, fell onto my bed, and started to sob.
    A long time later, Babi knocked on the door instead of just walking in. “Come, Piri,” I heard her say, “let’s have something to eat.” It was already past noon, and I realized that I had not eaten any breakfast.
    â€œThat is how it is after the house is full of people and then they all have to leave,” she said as I ate the matzo brei she had made for me.

5
    A WEEK LATER , I twisted my ankle while Molcha and I were climbing the rocks on the bank of the Rika. I did not go to school the next day, but took my schoolbooks out onto the porch after Babi left for the fields, propped my leg up on a chair, and was busy writing my lessons when Ferenc stopped at our gate. He tied his horse and came up to join me on the porch. After examining my swollen ankle, he asked how it happened. I answered that I had twisted it and told him that I was alone. “Babi is in the field, and Rozsi is in Beregszász. My mother is going to have a baby, and Rozsi has to stay with her.”
    He sat down next to me and asked, “How is your grandmother feeling these days?”
    â€œShe has been very tired,” I began. “I don’t think she sleeps much during the nights, I can hear her twisting and turning