Making Friends

We had no relatives here. I had finished kindergarten but was not yet in school. With no other Jewish children living nearby I had little choice but to play with gentile friends. Sometimes I went over to the Gyore family and played with the girl my age. We would roam through their big yard, just marveling at the snow-covered trees that looked so mysteriously beautiful, or we would take a sled ride.

An elderly Jewish couple with grown-up children lived near us. They sold newspapers and humorous magazines for children - ["Ludas Matye"]. I quite enjoyed browsing through them, and they let my brothers and I look through the magazines. They encouraged us to come every day, so I would run over there whenever my parents allowed it, gladly paging through the colorful pages and enjoying every picture and letter.

But those happy days were short lived. Once, as I enjoyed looking through the magazines, the old lady took a nap, and her husband sat close by me. I suddenly felt rather uncomfortable - actually disgusted - when the old man petted my bottom. As a six-and-a-half year old child, I must have been too fainthearted to say, "hands off you dirty old man"! I just walked out of the house, and never again set my foot in the house. Whenever I saw him in the street, I would cross to the other side and run far away as fast as I could. I hated him, and could not face him.

© David Muskal, 2001