Sláva Gálová

„‘I’m looking for Mária Kováčová.’ And my mother says: ‘It’s me,’ but she turns pale. ‘Come out!’ ‘Mom!’ And I grabbed her hand and went out with her. And then a car stopped in front of us and Aunt Kalmárová was sitting in that car. And I went and looked into the car and my mother was like… And so we greeted each other, saying I was kissing. ‘I’m kissing, aunt, what are you doing there?’ Because we used to visit with the Kalmár family. They used to go here, we used to go to Moravce and so on, a lot with my father, but with all of us. And that: ‘Where are you going, Aunt Kalmárová?’ ‘I’m going to Slavočka, I’m going to Vráble.’ ‘And what for?’ As a child, I used to go there. 'Well, I'm going, they're going to arrest me.' 'For what?' 'I don't know.' Imagine, she only had a blouse on, she was so poorly dressed. So the policeman or gendarme, whatever he was, says: 'Give her some old clothes.' Mom went back nicely (back, ed.) and I stayed with Aunt Kalmárová, because they also had two boys like me, they were a year older. And then:'What's Janko doing?' 'He's at home with his grandmother and he didn't want to let me go,' Aunt Kalmárová told me. 'Well, why are you going there?' 'I don't know...' So my mom nicely loaded her with three nightgowns and underwear, and everything, a warm sweater, you know, but it was stacked here, so mom gave it to her and carried it nicely. And he goes on to say: 'Mark,' to my mother, 'but I haven't eaten anything today.' Just then, we were done with the slaughter, my mother turned and went inside. And we were baking bread. So my mother cut two slices and put the sausage in between. And now she wrapped it up nicely so that you could take it there, so that you could eat it. Imagine if he tore it up like that and grabbed the sausage, did that to the peppers. I would have been like a child to him... and I would have said to him: 'What are you doing?!' And he didn't say anything, he could have hit me on the head, he could have said, you child, why are you screaming here, what do you want?! And then my mother took it from him and wrapped it up nicely again and said: 'Eat this. It's good, you know.' We were very good with them. And so they locked up Aunt Kalmárová.“