Csabi never prayed again. Never, until now.

‘Yes,’ says Ágika.

It’s before all of this. The time when everything seems right.

Outside winter rages. Ágika jumps into Csabi’s arms, and he holds her tight. The wedding ring falls out of her hand and clatters across the kitchen floor, landing under the cabinet. They laugh.

‘Do you know what this means?’ asks Ágika excitedly. ‘You’ll have to convert. It’s the only way.’

Csabi had hoped all along that civil marriage would be sufficient, but now his hopes are shattered. The church was an important part of her life. He tolerated it, but he wanted no actual part in it.

‘Will you do it for me?’ asks Ágika, already in bed, sweaty from the long, drawn-out sex.

‘Sure,’ Csabi answers – because what else can he say? – and kisses his fiancée. By the following week he’s already attending classes with others who wish to convert. They can marry in the meantime, as he gets a pass for starting his indoctrination. But he knows they’re keeping an eye on him. He can’t drop out.

Dr. Norbert Vércsehalmi is the head religious teacher in the small church school. Hair grows out of his ears, relentlessly clinking school keys hang on his trousers. He smells of clothes that never quite dry.

‘The major tenet of our religion,’ lectures Dr. Vércsehalmi to his students, ‘is that the universe surrounding us is indifferent to our suffering or joy. We are insignificant, replaceable in the eyes of our gods, who do not care about us. Our duty is to adore them, but we will never be rewarded in exchange. We cannot expect anything from them at all. Expecting any gift is a sin in itself. We can never know whether we are fulfilling our Lords’ will. But the Great Lord is watching us in every moment of our lives. Always and forever, even after we die. Maybe even more after our demise.’

That sounds about right to Csabi. You shouldn’t expect anything from life, that way you won’t be disappointed. The tax authorities are always watching as well, so there’s nothing new there either. If only the rituals weren’t necessary, that horrible language, the words that tongues and lips used to the simplicity of the Hungarian language couldn’t master, the strange symbols that your fingers never could get right. And of course some aspects would remain obscure forever, for example the difference between the Nameless Lords and the Great Lord, plural and singular. Apparently they are one and the same, interchangeable, but not identical. That confuses Csabi even more; but then again, every religion is riddled with such nonsense.