Lázár

Set in the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and spanning more than half a century, the novel traces four generations of the Lázár family, Hungarian aristocrats whose private demons mirror the catastrophes of the 20th century.

On Epiphany at the turn of the century, Lajos von Lázár is born in the family manor house with translucent skin through which his organs are visible. His father, Baron Sándor von Lázár, suppresses an anxiety he associates with his mother and brother, both of whom have mental health conditions. A doctor warns that sunlight may harm the child. Sándor briefly considers smothering the infant to preserve his orderly life. The baby's true parentage is secret: Mária, the baroness, conceived Lajos with Pál, a young groom who noticed her self-harm scars. Pál dies weeks later, kicked by a horse.

When Sándor asks whether Lajos is truly his, Mária claims the boy resembles an ancestor of whom no portrait exists. The family's instability runs deep. Sándor's father vanished while hunting; his mother ran into the forest searching for him and one day never returned. Sándor's brother Imre developed psychosis and now lives confined to a blue-painted room, seeing characters from E.T.A. Hoffmann's stories among the trees. Young Lajos, forbidden from the formal dining table, eats with Uncle Imre and develops a quiet friendship with him.

Each year the family spends Easter weeks in the spa town of Héviz. One autumn, Lajos's older sister Ilona follows a whimpering creature into the forest and vanishes. She is found unconscious at dusk, her dress torn, blood on her thighs. She wakes ravenously hungry for meat she previously could not stomach and tells her parents a creature attacked her, but they refuse to believe her. The family moves to a smaller mansion, with Sándor staying behind.

A Viennese tutor named Jonathan leaves scented poems throughout the house, meant for Mária. Ilona finds the first poem and believes it is for her. When she realizes the poems are for her mother, she fabricates an account of sexual assault by Jonathan and tells her father at Christmas. Jonathan is dismissed that day; three days later his body is found frozen, face beaten beyond recognition. The murder is blamed on local Roma without investigation. After Jonathan's death, Mária cannot sleep. One morning she collects heavy stones from the garden wall, fills her cardigan pockets, and walks into the pond. She drowns.

The children are sent to Catholic boarding schools in Vienna. Ilona thrives among girls her age. Lajos suffers: Three classmates lure him to a ruined chapel and sexually assault him, a trauma he carries in silence for decades. Ilona marries Kurt von Bleichröder, grandson of Bismarck's private banker, and moves to Berlin. Walking beside the lake in Héviz, Lajos meets Lilly Grünfeld, a girl wearing blue teardrop earrings that belonged to her late mother. They part the next day and do not meet again for six years.

After the First World War, Lajos finds his father unconscious in his own vomit. Prescribed a cure in Héviz, he reconnects with Lilly after the Grünfelds' house burns and they take refuge with the Lázárs. One Advent morning, he enters Lilly's room and kisses her. They marry. Back at the manor house, Sándor falls down the stairs and dies, his last thought the image of Pál. Lajos transforms into a capable businessman, reviving the family's fortunes.

After the birth of his son István, called Pista, Lajos begins seeing a psychoanalyst named Mr. Király and eventually discloses the boarding-school assault. Mr. Király tells him it was never his fault. Pista grows into a strange child fascinated by shadows and darkness. In Budapest, where the family winters, adolescent Pista falls in love with Matilda Telkes, a girl from the school across the square. They court each other through letters until Matilda's mother discovers the connection and separates them.

In 1938, after the Anschluss, Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria, Ilona and Kurt flee Vienna with their children. Kurt is classified as partially Jewish under Nazi racial laws. At the border, officers strip-search the family before allowing them into Switzerland. Hungary allies with Germany. Edmund Pontiller, a Benedictine chaplain who considers Proust's In Search of Lost Time the greatest work of literature, arrives at the manor house. The family hides him when he is persecuted for criticizing Hitler.

Lajos is assigned to organize the ghettoization of Jews in Pécs. In July 1944, he watches 3,500 Jews march to freight trains bound for Auschwitz, standing beneath a linden tree, recognizing his own cowardice. The Gestapo arrives for Pontiller, who greets them calmly and is taken away. He is later executed by guillotine in Munich.

As Soviet forces advance, the Lázárs flee west on horse carts. At Count Fekete's estate, Russian soldiers force the women to choose who will "please" the men. The countess and Lilly bring a young maid. Soldiers rape her in the next room while the family sits in silence.

After the war, Pista travels to Budapest to find Matilda. From her former housekeeper Dora, he learns the Telkes family was Jewish. They had secured shelter in the greenhouse of Swiss ambassador Carl Lutz, but on New Year's Eve the Arrow Cross, Hungary's fascist militia, stormed it. All three were shot dead.

Communist officers expropriate the manor house in 1948, giving the family one hour to pack. Lajos swallows his signet ring to save it. They move to a cramped Budapest apartment. Lajos works as a postman, sinking into depression. He keeps The Communist Manifesto on the chest of drawers at night in case the secret police come, hiding it under hats by morning so his family will not see his cowardice. In 1951, a second expropriation banishes them to a farm in the east. Eva, Pista's sister, discovers pleasure in physical labor and begins a relationship with a farmworker named Milan.

After reformist Prime Minister Imre Nagy is deposed in 1955, the family returns to Budapest. Eva meets Ákos, a reclusive young writer Pista befriended during national service in a coal mine. One evening Ákos invites Eva to his apartment and rapes her. She retreats to a darkened room for weeks. When the Hungarian Revolution erupts on 23 October 1956, Pista publishes a revolutionary article under his real name. Soviet tanks crush the uprising. Eva tells Pista she was raped but will not name her attacker. Pista searches the ruined city for Ákos but never finds him. His best friend János is arrested.

Eva and Pista visit their great-uncle Imre in a psychiatric hospital. He sits motionless but suddenly warns them: "You have to go before they come and it gets dark." Their parents see them off at the train station. Lajos reaches for Lilly's hand, and she leaves it in his until the train disappears.

From Pécs, Eva and Pista ride a lorry to the Yugoslav border, then trudge through a dark forest in deep snow. They wade through an icy river, breaking through the frozen surface, and scramble up the far bank as dogs bark behind them. Eva falls, rises, falls again, then runs until she overtakes her brother. Two soldiers intercept them, but the soldiers are Yugoslav. As the train carries them west, Pista watches Eva sleep and understands he can never protect her. All he can do is be there. Behind them lies everything they have known. Before them lie Zurich, the lake, the white swans, and the snow-covered mountains.