Pondering an odd realization that she has suspected for a while, Ava’ s brow furrows as she thinks of her father and sadly recognizes that their lives are dangling from an unraveling wire that is very close to snapping. She watches the Magyar’s wife clear the table as discreet as a mouse, and considers how much life is changing in her village.
Communism has changed Hungarian farming in the same way factories have changed villages. Farmers under Stalin now, face overseeing committees, the politicians that monitor each farm’s delivery of produce to the state cooperatives. Now with harsh, compulsory agricultural requirements the state demands too much.
Half of the night her father and the Magyar have dwelled on how this has affected the village, fueling flames she has never witnessed inside of her father, his eyes aglow like two red hot coals during dinner as …show more content…
Opening their eyes wide for signs of rebellion with you? It lets Romanis hide their own indiscretions and avoid the heavy hand of Stalin's overseers. Keeping Russian bastards from probing their ground with those iron bars and searching for their caches of grain.”
The Magyar's wife brings another bottle of vodka to the table and returns to dusting the cupboards.
“I don't understand,” her father says. “We've always lived traditional life, here. What more they expect from us? We are simple farmers, not bourgeois peasants.”
The Magyar blurts out, “Expulsion!” as if a mountain has erupted with volcanic ashes. “That's what they give you. The damnation of the Roma. More grievous than death itself.” His thunderous and baritone laughter shakes Ava and she flinches. His wife winks at her and continues dusting.
Glaring at the table, her father’s tone is flat again, “We understood one another. We had synagogue and they had satra. But we resolved disputes, stamped them into ground, smashed them with our boots and throw our glass to