Menyhert Lakatos. The Color of Smoke.
Lee, Ronald
Menyhert Lakatos. The Color of Smoke. Ann Major, tr. Williamstown,
Massachusetts. New Europe Books. 2015. 480 pages.
Menyhert Lakatos is acclaimed as Hungary's foremost Romani
author, and his novel Fustos kepek, translated by Ann Major as The Color
of Smoke, is considered to be his magnum opus. It is
semi-autobiographical, based loosely on his own experiences as a young
man coming of age in Hungary In the 1930s and early 1940s. Lakatos
(1927-2007) is also the award-winning author of two novels, a novella,
five collections of stories, and one volume of poetry. The Color of
Smoke first appeared in its original Hungarian-language edition in 1975.
It is a picaresque and somewhat salacious odyssey of a nameless
protagonist, written in the first person, who grows up as a member of a
marginalized minority group, living in a shantytown ironically called
"Gypsy Paris."
As a child, Lakatos's protagonist is drawn to his grandmother;
her stories are his link to a former and better nomadic existence in the
now-defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire. She is the conduit from the
vanished past of the Roma and their ever-worsening present as Hungary is
drawn more and more into totalitarianism. His life suddenly changes when
a near-tragic but fortuitous event enables him to attend high school
until he is expelled, along with the Jewish students, after Hungary
joins the fascist camp.
Lakatos skillfully weaves Romani customs, language, and even herbal
remedies into the story as the novel's characters interact with one
another and with the greater non-Romani world. He also describes the
constant hunger during the long, cold winters when the bigger dogs have
to be killed to prevent them from eating the small children and the
horses are butchered for food because there are no barns or fodder. In
one instance, the Roma are even forced to eat pigs from the carrion pit
after they died of swine flu in order to survive. Lice and vermin are
rampant, and there are constant outbreaks of scabies, which the women
treat with tobacco. But despite their suffering, Lakatos shows how the
Roma manage to survive, a tribute to their ingenuity and fortitude.
When he is sixteen, the protagonist has a brief marriage in another
settlement to a fourteen-year-old bride, whom he is then forced to
abandon as he continues his odyssey with his friend, Bada, which include
more brief romantic episodes with Romani girls. He also has one
foredoomed crush on a blond Hungarian fellow student who is the daughter
of a local aristocrat. She is far beyond his reach, but she capriciously
manages to save his life when the Hungarian students drown the only
other Romani student in the school outhouse.
The story ends when the Germans invade Hungary. Soldiers surround
"Gypsy Paris" and prepare the inhabitants for transport. As
the train pulls out of the station, we can only surmise where they are
going, as the Nazi Holocaust finally engulfs Hungary's Roma.
Ronald Lee
Hamilton, Ontario
