The Next Step by Zary Fekete
Growing up in Communist Hungary in the 1980s, a child comes to appreciate Father's willingness to get things done, no matter how impossible it seems.
The summer sun slanted across the old Dacia's windshield as we pulled up to the ice cream parlor. Its metal shutters were drawn tight. A painted sign dangled from a rusty chain in the window: ZÁRVA. Closed. Of course it was closed. It was Sunday in Hungary in the 1980s. Nearly everything was closed.
We had just come from church, a Methodist gathering held in a crumbling gray building that housed workers from a local bottling plant. Several downstairs apartments had been converted into a makeshift sanctuary with creaky wooden floors and radiators that rattled mid-hymn. We were driving home the rowhouse my parents rented on the Buda side of the city. My sisters and I sat in the back seat, the itchy fabric sticking to our legs. We weren't thinking about theology or politics. We were thinking about ice cream.
"Too bad," my mother said, peering through the windshield.
We groaned. Dad said nothing. He turned off the car, opened the driver's side door, and stepped out.
"Where's he going?" my youngest sister asked.
He walked past the parlor and up the steps of the house behind it. We watched as he knocked on the door. A moment later, it opened. We saw a face appear, then disappear. A few minutes passed. Then the door opened again, and my father walked out carrying three ice cream cones.
He handed them to us through the open window. The strawberry melted fast in the heat, sticky rivers forming on our wrists.
"How did you do that?" I asked, amazed.
He shrugged, buckled his seatbelt, and turned the key. "I told them I had three ice-cream-hungry kids in the car. I asked if they'd be willing to help."
It wasn't a miracle, exactly. It was just a step. A question asked. A closed door knocked on. A risk taken without knowing if it would lead anywhere.
This was how my parents lived in Hungary. Behind the Iron Curtain, the rules were different. Phone lines didn't always work. Paperwork was endless. Sometimes even finding potatoes meant knowing the right person.
But my parents didn't seem worried. They moved forward with whatever was in front of them. Not recklessly, not foolishly, but with a quiet determination I didn't understand at the time. If something needed to be done, they just... began. If you waited for all the permissions, you might never get anywhere. But if you took the first step, sometimes the road appeared beneath your feet.
A couple years later, my father decided we would visit Poland.
I was twelve, homeschooled for a stretch that year. My dad said he wanted me to understand history, not just read about it. So he told me we would visit the Auschwitz concentration camp together.
He put me in charge of arranging the train tickets and visas. I remember spreading the documents on our kitchen table, Hungarian timetables creased like river maps, stamps and seals still damp in places. He helped me write the requests in block letters.
When the day arrived, we boarded the train and headed north, through Czechoslovakia. The train cars were clunky and dim. Outside the window, the countryside rolled by like a film reel: fields, wires, crumbling outposts. Somewhere in the middle of the night, a guard with a flat cap and a clipboard checked our documents.
In Poland, we transferred to a local bus and eventually arrived at Auschwitz. I won't describe the camp. The silence there does not translate well. My father didn't speak much either. He let the place speak for itself.
Later, we sat on a bench beneath a crooked tree. I was still processing what I had seen. My father looked down the gravel path and said quietly, "Tomorrow we go to Vienna."
What he didn't tell me then was that there was no direct train to Vienna. Not for us. Not with our documents.
But he had a plan. Or at least a direction.
We traveled as far as the border town. Then we got off. The train hissed and pulled away.
There were two crossings: the Czechoslovakian side and the Austrian side, with a long stretch of nothing in between. No shops. No benches. Just a cracked road and two sniper towers.
We showed our passports to the first set of guards. They stamped them and waved us forward.
The road ahead looked like it belonged in another story. My stomach churned. My father adjusted his bag on his shoulder.
"Know any songs?" he asked.
I looked up. "What?"
"Songs," he said. "Let's sing something."
So we did. A hymn, I think. Maybe something about grace. Our voices carried over the cracked pavement, thin in the growing twilight. The towers on either side stayed still. No lights. No gunfire.
When we reached the Austrian border, the guard looked at our passports and nodded.
"We're trying to get to Vienna," my father said. "Any chance you have a suggestion?"
The guard turned toward the next car pulling up. He knocked on the window.
A man rolled it down. The guard spoke in German, then gestured to us.
"Take these guys to Vienna," he said.
The man shrugged. "Okay."
We got in. I slid into the back seat, my body finally relaxing. My dad began speaking to the man. I remember drifting in and out of sleep as they talked quietly, and I knew, without hearing the words, that my father was telling him about Jesus.
Not with a tract. Not with a stage. Just as a man who had taken a step. Just as a father who had trusted that the road would meet his feet.
I think about that often now. When I don't know what to do. When I wait too long for clarity, or try to line up every detail before I act. I remember the ice cream on a Sunday. I remember the hymn between the towers.
I remember my father, taking a step, and then another, into a world that had not yet given him permission... and finding, again and again, that someone was already waiting on the other side.
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We had just come from church, a Methodist gathering held in a crumbling gray building that housed workers from a local bottling plant. Several downstairs apartments had been converted into a makeshift sanctuary with creaky wooden floors and radiators that rattled mid-hymn. We were driving home the rowhouse my parents rented on the Buda side of the city. My sisters and I sat in the back seat, the itchy fabric sticking to our legs. We weren't thinking about theology or politics. We were thinking about ice cream.
"Too bad," my mother said, peering through the windshield.
We groaned. Dad said nothing. He turned off the car, opened the driver's side door, and stepped out.
"Where's he going?" my youngest sister asked.
He walked past the parlor and up the steps of the house behind it. We watched as he knocked on the door. A moment later, it opened. We saw a face appear, then disappear. A few minutes passed. Then the door opened again, and my father walked out carrying three ice cream cones.
He handed them to us through the open window. The strawberry melted fast in the heat, sticky rivers forming on our wrists.
"How did you do that?" I asked, amazed.
He shrugged, buckled his seatbelt, and turned the key. "I told them I had three ice-cream-hungry kids in the car. I asked if they'd be willing to help."
It wasn't a miracle, exactly. It was just a step. A question asked. A closed door knocked on. A risk taken without knowing if it would lead anywhere.
This was how my parents lived in Hungary. Behind the Iron Curtain, the rules were different. Phone lines didn't always work. Paperwork was endless. Sometimes even finding potatoes meant knowing the right person.
But my parents didn't seem worried. They moved forward with whatever was in front of them. Not recklessly, not foolishly, but with a quiet determination I didn't understand at the time. If something needed to be done, they just... began. If you waited for all the permissions, you might never get anywhere. But if you took the first step, sometimes the road appeared beneath your feet.
A couple years later, my father decided we would visit Poland.
I was twelve, homeschooled for a stretch that year. My dad said he wanted me to understand history, not just read about it. So he told me we would visit the Auschwitz concentration camp together.
He put me in charge of arranging the train tickets and visas. I remember spreading the documents on our kitchen table, Hungarian timetables creased like river maps, stamps and seals still damp in places. He helped me write the requests in block letters.
When the day arrived, we boarded the train and headed north, through Czechoslovakia. The train cars were clunky and dim. Outside the window, the countryside rolled by like a film reel: fields, wires, crumbling outposts. Somewhere in the middle of the night, a guard with a flat cap and a clipboard checked our documents.
In Poland, we transferred to a local bus and eventually arrived at Auschwitz. I won't describe the camp. The silence there does not translate well. My father didn't speak much either. He let the place speak for itself.
Later, we sat on a bench beneath a crooked tree. I was still processing what I had seen. My father looked down the gravel path and said quietly, "Tomorrow we go to Vienna."
What he didn't tell me then was that there was no direct train to Vienna. Not for us. Not with our documents.
But he had a plan. Or at least a direction.
We traveled as far as the border town. Then we got off. The train hissed and pulled away.
There were two crossings: the Czechoslovakian side and the Austrian side, with a long stretch of nothing in between. No shops. No benches. Just a cracked road and two sniper towers.
We showed our passports to the first set of guards. They stamped them and waved us forward.
The road ahead looked like it belonged in another story. My stomach churned. My father adjusted his bag on his shoulder.
"Know any songs?" he asked.
I looked up. "What?"
"Songs," he said. "Let's sing something."
So we did. A hymn, I think. Maybe something about grace. Our voices carried over the cracked pavement, thin in the growing twilight. The towers on either side stayed still. No lights. No gunfire.
When we reached the Austrian border, the guard looked at our passports and nodded.
"We're trying to get to Vienna," my father said. "Any chance you have a suggestion?"
The guard turned toward the next car pulling up. He knocked on the window.
A man rolled it down. The guard spoke in German, then gestured to us.
"Take these guys to Vienna," he said.
The man shrugged. "Okay."
We got in. I slid into the back seat, my body finally relaxing. My dad began speaking to the man. I remember drifting in and out of sleep as they talked quietly, and I knew, without hearing the words, that my father was telling him about Jesus.
Not with a tract. Not with a stage. Just as a man who had taken a step. Just as a father who had trusted that the road would meet his feet.
I think about that often now. When I don't know what to do. When I wait too long for clarity, or try to line up every detail before I act. I remember the ice cream on a Sunday. I remember the hymn between the towers.
I remember my father, taking a step, and then another, into a world that had not yet given him permission... and finding, again and again, that someone was already waiting on the other side.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/f6NPrz0
via IFTTT
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