Judith Alapi Higgins was born in Budapest, Hungary and emigrated to the U.S. after the 1956 revolution at the age of 9. She attended the State University of New York, Indiana University, and has a masters degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame. She also holds a black belt in T'ai Chi Chuan. She has been living in Virginia for more than 20 years where she has raised a son, taught T'ai Chi, and is active in the neo-pagan Goddess centred movement. She has written several short stories and been published in the Antigonish Review, Dog Ear and 63 Channels. She has also written 3 novels, two of which had been accepted for publication and were under contract until her publisher went bankrupt. She is now contemplating a fourth.

SOME IMPORTANT INFLUENCES ON JUDITH’S LIFE AND WRITING:

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ANAIS NIN - her journals and writings

Click image to visit the Thinking of Anais Nin website; for a profile of Nin on the Kirjasto website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

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CARL JUNG - his writings and unique view of the human psyche

Click image to visit the CJ Jung Page; for Dr. C. George Boeree's article on Jung on the Personality Theories website, click here or for related music on Amazon, click here

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CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES - her ability to combine storytelling and Jungian psychology

Click image to visit Maven Productions website for Estes; to read Estes' article 'Words of Encouragement to a Young Activist During Troubled Times' on the K Porterfield website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

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ROBERTSON DAVIES - The Deptford Trilogy

Click image to visit the Robertson Davies Web Page; for Raymond H. Thompson's 1992 interview with Davies on the University of Rochester website, click here or for related music on Amazon, click here

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LAWRENCE DURRELL - The Alexandria Quartet - Great short stories from all cultures

Click image to visit the International Lawrence Durrell Society website; for a profile of Durrell on the Books and Writers website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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JEAN SHINODA BOLEN - The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self

Click image to visit Bolen's official website; for an interview with Bolen on the In Context website, click here or for related music on Amazon, click here

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SOME OF JUDITH’S FAVOURITE ACTIVITIES ARE:

FIGS AND CHOCOLATES

by
Judith Alapi Higgins

My cat disappeared three weeks ago. I feel her absence as an excess of empty space that was once filled with her soft, languid presence curled in the Bentwood rocker by the fireplace. Sometimes I stop and catch myself listening, a frown of discontent on my face, before I realize that the missing sound is the delicate, barely perceptible padding of her paws on the kitchen tiles. I search for her underfoot, expecting to see the large, pale green eyes watching me, her mouth open in a silent meow of supplication. I miss laying her light, downy body over my shoulder where she purred her contentment into my ear before struggling free in a show of independence. Her lightness surprised me every time I picked her up, the frail cat bones masked by a mass of fine angora fur.

My last sight of her was at the front door that December morning. She hesitated, tail held erect, before heading out into the foggy day with delicate, mincing steps that expressed feline disdain for the cold and damp. I smiled at the cautious, imperious was she surveyed the yard before venturing out, then shut the door behind her without another thought. On a day such as that had been, I didn’t think she would be gone long. But I was wrong. I searched for her a whole week, combing the neighbourhood with frantic calls of “Zoey! Zoey!” before accepting the fact that she wouldn’t be back.

Now that Christmas is almost here I find that I miss her especially sharply. She had made me remember all the cats I’ve owned in forty years, perhaps four or five, but especially the first.

Suki came into my life at a time of great turmoil and change. My whole world was falling away, reshaping itself, and I had nothing to hang on to. My mother had died that summer and my grandmother came to take care of my brother and me. When the cold weather arrived we had to learn to live together in the only room that was heated by an old iron stove. I missed my mother in terrible silence, searching for her endlessly in the cold, cheerless rooms of our apartment. There were reminders of her everywhere, and I gathered those memories to my childish heart, hoping to find in them the warmth I so desperately lacked.

It was in the October of 1956 in Budapest when the last threads of my security fell away. I awoke to the sound of gunshots, disoriented and frightened. My father said that the Russians were shooting at the Hungarians. He seemed extraordinarily excited. I studied his face anxiously, not understanding his happiness. But it had been so long since I had seen him smile that I relaxed and decided the shooting must be good. Everyone around me was elated during the first heady days of the Hungarian revolution. We would have our country back again and life would be good, the way it had been before I was born. I had heard the grown ups talk about it often enough, longing for the days before gray hopelessness had settled over their lives. They talked about things I didn’t understand — social position and servants and a life of ease. I wondered what life would be like without the Russians controlling our every move, but whenever I tried to imagine it my thoughts would explode in a confused blur. I had visions of chocolates and Sunday dinners every night, crisp white pinafores to wear to school and a home glowing with warmth. I would become excited and turn to ask my mother something about the new life we would have before remembering with a shock that she was gone, that she wouldn’t be there to share it with us. So I would grow quiet and sit in my special corner resting my head against the dark wood of the sideboard that was carved in fantastic shapes.

After a while my grandmother noticed that I wasn’t eating and my face was growing more piqued and pale. She spoke to my father who looked at me with surprise, as if aware of my presence for the first time. He must have seen something in my eyes that frightened him, because the next day he came home carrying a secret inside the lining of his coat. At first we thought that he had found forbidden food somewhere in the city — fruit or chocolates or even an extra loaf of fresh bread would have been welcome. But when he opened his coat I saw something move and stared, mesmerized. He pulled out a startled kitten with ruffled fur, blinking her eyes in the sudden light. She had a beautiful, soft coat that varied from white to shades of gray. She looked around inquisitively, without a trace of fear, and when I reached for her she thrust her nose forward to sniff my hand. As I held her to my cheek and smelled her musk I knew that this was it, I was in love.

Those days of excitement and uncertainty when my country was struggling to regain herself are forever tied in my memory to Suki. I carried her around with me all day, experiencing a vague security in the warmth of her small body. My brother and I spent hours playing with her under the dining room table, separated from the world by the reassuring curtain of the table cloth while above us the adults whispered. We felt immune, isolated from the confusing emotions that ebbed and flowed around us. At first people were hopeful, exchanging news of the revolution as they waited in the daily breadlines. There were landmarks to celebrate — the taking over of radio stations, pulling down the Stalin statue, the retreat of Russian tanks from Hungary. A new vitality crept into the faces of people who were accustomed to living grey lives in a grey city.

I had no clear idea of what the future would bring; I just waited day by day for our new life to start. When my older brother came home from prison, unexpectedly freed by the revolution, I saw it as a sign that things would get better. At night we covered our windows with blankets, and during power blackouts told stories by the glow of the stove. I would often fall asleep with Suki wrapped around my neck, dreaming of the tales that gradually became confused with reality.

Then one day my brother and I were coming out of a grocery store several blocks from home where we had gone with grandmother in search of bread and lard that was becoming ever more difficult to find, when a low rumbling stopped us. A Russian tank was rolling down the middle of the street, slowly, ponderously turning the accumulated snow beneath its treads into slush. We drew back into the doorway, instinctively flattening ourselves against the wall of the building. The tank moved ahead blindly, swinging its gun in random circles at the windows and roadways. I had heard of children not much older than me who fought in the revolution by throwing bottles filled with gasoline under Russian tanks. Perhaps the driver was afraid and would shoot when he came close enough to see us. I prayed to become invisible and shut my eyes while the monster passed.

The few people who had been on the street proceeded cautiously once the tank was out of sight. Grandmother grabbed our hands and hurried us home by a route opposite from the one taken by the tank. I sensed a new urgency in the people around me. The grownups’ faces were grim, and they stayed up late, talking in the night. Their voices were a disquieting murmur at the background of my dreams. I held Suki close to me, deriving comfort from her even breathing.

By the next day I knew that life wouldn’t be the way I had imagined it. The revolution had failed and the Russians were coming back. My father had to decide quickly about our future. After he made up his mind to take us out of Hungary, the planning began. We would have to leave quickly, as soon as we could gather enough money to pay for a guide. We would only take what we could carry ourselves. There was room for nothing more than important papers, a change of clothing, photographs, and the family silver. When I heard that, my heart froze within me. But then a germ of rebellion took root and I knew that I wouldn’t leave Hungary without Suki. They could take my home and my country and I would endure it with silence and meekness, but I couldn’t let them take the thing I loved most right now.

I stood before my father with Suki in my arms.

“I’m taking Suki with me.” My voice shook but I looked him in the eyes.

He started to speak in that tone that I had always feared, the tone that allowed no argument. I closed my eyes, my resolve firm. He started to say what I knew he would, that it was impossible, out of the question. Then he stopped. I don’t know what changed his mind, whether it was my pale, determined face or the way my braids hung forlornly over my shoulders, but something about me must have stirred the well of his own pain.

“Alright,” he said, “but you must carry her yourself.”

*

The day we left Budapest there was a grey film over the city. The buildings stared at me with faces pockmarked by old bullet holes as we waited for our taxi in the icy slush. Somewhere above us a window opened and a woman watched us impassively. She didn’t wave as we drove away or change her expression of indifference. I carried Suki in a bag lined with soft cloth that I held close to me at all times. There was tension and excitement in the air, a feeling of danger and expectation.

Although it was still early morning, the train station was alive with people wearing trench coats and carrying backpacks. I watched the bustle around me, thinking that no one would be left in Hungary if we all got on the trains with the same goal in mind. We clustered around Grandmother who sat on the end of a wooden bench, waiting for my father to buy our tickets. A man in a trench coat had offered her his seat, then stood leaning against a post reading his newspaper. I stared up at him, wondering if he was going our way, feeling a vague kinship with him. When he felt my gaze he folded his paper and smiled down at me.

“And where are you travelling today?” he asked.

I felt a wave of confusion and fear. My brother and I had been instructed not to tell anyone that we were heading for the border.

“We’re going to spend Christmas with my uncle in the country,” I answered, reciting the lesson I had been taught.

I watched his face as he looked us over slowly, noting our bags and bundles, our demeanour, everything stamped with the mark of emigrant. He had a nice face, handsome even, and I wavered between liking him and worrying that I had somehow given us away. He nodded slowly, with what I knew was understanding of our secret plans. Our eyes met and he smiled down at me with a look of conspiracy.

We nearly lost Grandmother as we boarded the train. It made us late, so that we had no place to sit and were crowded onto the platform with a dozen other latecomers. Someone placed a suitcase against the side of the car for Grandmother to sit on. My brother and I crouched in a corner, surrounded by the legs of strangers. The hems of anonymous coats brushed our faces with each jolt of the train. We caught glimpses of the passing landscape — the outskirts of the city with its desolate factories and apartment buildings thinning into bleak stretches of fields covered with patchy snow. Occasionally the winter scene was accented by stripped and gnarled trees that stood like misshapen sentries on the hillsides. We rode that way for a long time, cold and uncomfortable. Every few minutes I reached into the bag that held Suki to feel her soft belly rising and falling with the rhythm of sleep. Knowing that animals weren’t allowed on the train, I felt that I held a tremendous responsibility in my hands.

I must have dozed off, because I awakened to my father calling my name. He was handing out the sandwiches we had packed for our trip. I shivered from a draught as the conductor entered our car to check tickets. He was working his way toward us when Suki stuck her head out of the bag. She had smelled the food and demanded her share with an insistent meow. Terrified, I tried to push her head down but it kept popping back out. I looked around helplessly as the conductor approached. Just when I was certain of discovery, a man waved me behind him. He opened his raincoat so it shielded us from the official’s view. I held my breath while the tickets were checked, all the while feeding bits of my sandwich to Suki. I didn’t move until the door had closed behind the conductor, then looked up at my benefactor. He was smiling down at me, just as he had in the railroad station. From my vantage point I hadn’t noticed him in the car with us. This time I noted that he had blue eyes and light brown hair, and was very handsome. I smiled up at him thankfully, too shy and relieved to say anything. He reached down and stroked Suki, who closed her eyes and rubbed against his hand in feline ecstasy.

After we reached our stop, I lost sight of him. Several times I thought I spotted him in the crowded station, but I could never be sure. There were so many men wearing similar coats hurrying by, and I was so small. But I thought of him as my secret friend, my guardian, who would help Suki and me get to the other side, to the west with all its hidden mysteries and endless possibilities, safely.

A new excitement took hold of me as the night of our escape arrived. I don’t know what the others were thinking, whether they had doubts or last minute regrets, but I was ready for the new life promised us. I wanted to leave behind the pain, to be a child and happy again, yet I was afraid. Part of me clung to the life I had known for security. I needed something solid from the past to hold on to, so I held on to Suki.

I carried her every step of the way across the cornfields that glimmered pale in the moonlight. I held on to her as my feet stumbled over corn stalks that lay hidden like traps under the deceiving snow. I wanted to protect her with my life as we walked the no-man’s land that separated us from freedom through that endless night. When the flares went up, creating an unnatural brightness in the night, I covered her with my body to keep her from being discovered. Even after my legs had turned to lead and my toes lost feeling from the cold, even after I had to be dragged the last hundred yards across the border, I still held on to her.

Later, sitting safely in the warmth of the Austrian refugee station, I took Suki out of the bag. She looked around and stretched, then began licking the fur that was standing up in untidy puffs around her. There were many other Hungarians in the room with us, all cold and tired, but elated after their nights’ journey. Austrian monks were bringing us steaming cups of tea and cocoa and relief workers circulated with baskets of wondrous things: dates and oranges and brightly wrapped bars of chocolate. Each one stopped to pet Suki and speak soothingly to us in German. The room felt very warm after hours of stumbling through the snow, yet I was reluctant to take off my coat.

Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep. I noticed a group of men working their way toward our end of the room. They had cameras around their necks and microphones in their hands and were snapping photos with bright explosions of light. I watched them curiously, listening to their language. My father said they were from America and they were taking pictures for a magazine. When they saw Suki sitting on my shoulder they crowded around us, taking pictures from different angles. I tried to shrink back from them but they kept pulling me forward, arranging me in different positions, their faces looming close to mine, encouraging me to smile. I wanted to cry. I felt overwhelmed. Suki clawed me nervously when the cameras flashed and I held her tightly against my coat. Then I did begin to cry, hiding my face in shame. When I looked up again the reporters had moved away and a tall figure was standing before me. He wore a trench coat and was holding out something for me. “Don’t cry,” he said. “This is for you.” Sniffling, I took his offering, which turned out to be a string of dried figs and several foil-wrapped chocolates. Then I saw that he was smiling down at me, with the same smile that had come to be familiar to me. This time his eyes were smiling, too, and he sat next to me for a moment.

“You’ve had a long walk,” he said. I nodded, barely able to keep my eyes open. He unwrapped a chocolate and popped it into my mouth. “But you’re safe now,” he said, putting Suki on his lap. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was the sound of his voice and the comforting sweetness of the chocolate melting down my throat, carrying me into unconsciousness.

I saw him once more in the army barracks where we stayed while our papers were processed. He asked me where we were going, and I told him proudly, America. He said he was going to Australia, because strong, young men were needed there. Then he asked me about Suki and I told him in an uncertain voice that she would be staying with an Austrian family, that she couldn’t go to America with us. He knelt down in front of me and took my hands in his. “Don’t you be sad about it,” he said. “The important thing is that you’ll both be free.”

I haven’t seen Suki in over thirty years. I heard that she grew to be a large, regal cat and had several litters of beautiful kittens. I thought of her often while looking for Zoey. Then I remembered something. I climbed up to the attic and searched through boxes of forgotten memorabilia, photographs and ancient report cards, until I came across a magazine, its pages yellowed and crumpled with age. The cover showed a black and white photo of barbed wire with a guard tower in the distance. The headline read: “Hungarians Reach Freedom in Time for Christmas.” It was dated December 22, 1956. I leafed through the magazine until I found the picture of two small children holding a kitten, surrounded by adults smiling bravely, hopefully. I recognized my father and my uncle, both younger and thinner than I remembered, their bearing proud. They flanked my grandmother, the matriarch, in her long, dark coat, her eyes lively and curious, looking toward the future. My brother, small and frightened, struggled not to show it. We were surrounded by many strangers, their faces blurred in the old photograph. I searched their features one by one, eliminating the women, as well as the old and very young. And then I thought I recognized him. He wore a trench coat and dark beret, he was young and handsome. His eyes were humorous and kind, and I wanted desperately to believe that it was him. After a long time, I almost convinced myself. But I knew that I could never be really sure. So I reached out and touched the little girl who had been me. She looked so small and lost, and with an unexpected stab, I felt her pain. I felt her loneliness, her abandonment, her unacknowledged fear. I wanted to hold her the way she held the cat to herself. And then I saw the way she smiled up at the friend who had helped her, who had given her courage, the stranger who had taken the time to let her know she mattered. And I wished that I knew his name, so I could tell him so.

© Judith Alapi Higgins
Reproduced with permission

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