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would affect them all. So much was happening so quickly. Hungary was still a kingdom, although without a king. The government was headed by Regent Miklos Horthy, an admiral of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy. Hungary no longer had a navy or access to a seacoast, however, the former naval admiral impressed Hungarians with his demeanour and right-wing politics and Horthy promised to bring stability to the much-diminished country and to work for territorial revision.
    Meanwhile, his own father, Domokos Aykler, was in a Czech prison being tortured and detained for speaking out against injustice. Tibor was incensed and struggled to understand what possessed people to be so cruel.

chapter 3 | 1936
    V ILMOS W EISZ THOUGHT HE was hallucinating. He stopped in front of their house, staring at the top of the chimney stack of the distillery. He distinctly saw the head and upper torso of his older son, Bandi, pop out of the top of the chimney. Bandi was examining the lightning rod just outside the outside apex of the chimney. The lightning rod was a source of constant fascination for the boys. Suddenly Bandi glanced around and saw his father as well. Vilmos withdrew back into the house, barely able to breathe - the clatter of children's voices echoing inside the tall chimney filled him with dread and foreboding. As supervisor of the distillery, he would be held responsible if anyone was injured or killed on this site, even if he had been completely unaware of the accident. His own children had been repeatedly warned about the dangers of being near the chimney, let alone inside it.
    He looked up warily at the thirty-metre chimney looming above him. His son wasn't there anymore. Vilmos stepped closer, tilting his head, his ear directly in line with the resonance. He was close enough now to the structure to distinctly hear two voices and he listened intently. As he crooked his head closer still, he heard the soft sound of small footsteps clambering down the ladder. In a few seconds, his youngest son, Suti, popped out, enveloped from head to toe in black soot. Vilmos couldn't even make out the colour of the child's hair.
    When Suti saw him, he stopped abruptly and his eyes opened wide as tears began streaming down his face. Suti stretched out his small arm, pointing behind him, and cried out in a plaintive voice, "I only went up half way!"
    Vilmos had to concentrate on maintaining his serious, irate expression, but the boy's appearance was so comical he wanted to laugh. The white orbs of his eyes were the only part of him that weren't jet black.
    "What are you pointing to?" Vilmos said, feigning anger. He assumed the boy's older brother, Bandi, was still inside the chimney.
    Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, so relieved to see that his sons were unharmed, Vilmos called out to his wife. "Terike, come quickly. I can't tell if this is our child but, whoever he is, he needs a bath."
    Terez came running toward her husband, wiping her hands on her apron. She stopped short when she saw Suti, laughter welling up in her throat. The poor child was crying so bitterly it broke her heart just to listen to him.
    "Where's your brother?" she said as she took his hand. Suti pointed to the tower. "I'm sure Bandi will be coming down immediately, if not sooner," she scolded as she led the child home to bathe. "And your father will deal with him." She bit her lip to hold back a smile.
    As she began to scrub the black soot off her son, Terez looked around at her home with pride. She, her husband, and their five children lived in a one-storey house with five rooms near the distillery of Baron Perenyi. A deep well with fresh, cold water supplied their household throughout the year and she considered herself lucky that she could bathe the children and wash their hair whenever she wanted to. A specialized heating element at the distillery gave them constant warm water and the children considered it their private little swimming pool.
    Suti sat in the bath,