by Endre Farkas
He was taken to the latrine several more times. But he never saw Broshkoy. “Go,” the guard ordered each time. Each time he couldn’t but this time he dropped his pants and sat. Tommy was shaking. From somewhere in his belly, a low growl emanated, a primal mass of anger clenched tight. The howling rose. He imagined the man in the dark suit beneath him. “Shit or get in the pot,” Tommy shouted. He laughed and let go.
Back in his cell he sat, relieved. He heard scurrying. He got up and listened. You afraid of a little mouse? the voice in his head asked. What did he do to you? He comes and goes. He’s free, let him be. Tommy sat down and stared into the darkness.
57
“It’s in the dark cell that the interrogations begin,” he remembered Broshkoy saying when he’d told Tommy about his experience after the suicide attempt. “That’s how your world is taken from you, in pure, total darkness. You have to create light,” he had said.
You, Tamás Wolfstein, he heard his voice say, are a child of survivors, of parents who risked their lives for freedom. You are the son of heroes, not mice. You, Wolfie, are Captain Puskás of champions, a knight of the warrior Cohen tribe, Sir Wolf of the square matzo. He smiled and the darkness withdrew into the corners of his cell.
He did push-ups. He walked miles. He shouted Beware. He thought about Marianne, her dancing, their lovemaking, their trip, stepping outside the gravity of reality. Flying, free. He lay down on the floor. Dirt angels! he shouted as he moved his legs and arms up and down.
He didn’t know how long he had been locked up. If he counted by the number of interrogations, then it was a week, if by the light turning on and off, then at least a month, and if by what filled his mind, then it was years.
58
He was led upstairs again. The bright light hurt his eyes. Each interrogation began the same way. The man in the dark suit made him stand and wait while he lit a cigarette and opened his file folder. He read and smoked.
“Who had the knife?” he asked every time. “Did you?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“You will go to jail for murder.”
Breathe, Tommy repeated to himself.
“Well?”
Tommy stared at his shirt cuff caked with dirt, slime and dried blood. He felt a strange lightness. “What about Broshkoy?”
“That’s not your business.”
“He’s my friend.”
“He turned on you. He said you had the knife.”
“Tell us he did it. We’ll take your word over his,” Chief Barna said.
Tommy took a few more deep breaths. Be a man, he told himself. He went over in his mind what had happened. He was shoved by a drunk Szeles, who sent him and Broshkoy flying. He remembered that when he started to get up Szeles was falling toward them. He heard a hiss, like a ball deflating. He heard a scream in his ear. He felt warm liquid seeping into his hand, then Broshkoy’s hand wrapped itself around his and tugged. Tommy stiffened and then his hand jerked. He heard a grunt, and then, nothing. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them he was surrounded by a circle of faces. He turned to his right where Szeles, with his eyes wide open, lay staring at him. Carrot and Gabi turned Szeles over. As they did, blood seeped out of him and like a spill of wine, it spread over the front of his shirt.
Gabi and Carrot reached down and pulled Tommy and Broshkoy up. They stared at each other and then down at Szeles. The sword lay glistening in a pool of blood next to Szeles. People were pushing and shoving to get a closer look. Tommy was outside of himself watching everything happening fast and slow at the same time and spinning. His stomach churned. Before he had time to turn away, Tommy threw up on Szeles. Gabi grabbed Tommy as he buckled and was about to faint. “Tomi. Tomi!” Gabi had shouted, shaking him.
Real time returned.
“Well?”
Victim or victor, he said to himself. He ran through all possible scenarios. If he said that he was the last one holding the sword, he would be convicted. If he told them Broshkoy was holding it, then Broshkoy would be convicted. That would make him, Tamás Wolfstein, a traitor.
“I don’t know who was holding the sword.”
“Witnesses said that you were,” the man said.
Tommy took a deep breath. “Then I guess I was.”
“You’re confessing?”
“To holding the sword?”
“To killing Officer Szeles.”
“No.”
The man in the suit stepped in front him. They were almost nose to nose. Tommy was about to take a step back but stopped himself.
“You desert your motherland, you come back and you kill a Hungarian police officer and you think you can get away with it because you’re from America? You are a spoiled capitalist kid. You are a traitor,” the man in the suit shouted.
Tommy balled his hands into fists “I’m not a traitor. Hungary betrayed me. We were forced out by our countrymen who didn’t want us, who didn’t think we belonged.”
The man in the black suit punched him in the gut. Tommy gasped and doubled over. He unclenched his fists. Slowly, he straightened up and faced the man.
“You are right,” he said softly, controlling his breath. “This not my home. Thank God.”
“Get out!” the man in the dark suit shouted.
Tommy didn’t move. He waited to be taken back to his cell.
“I said get out!” the man in the dark suit shouted again.
Tommy said nothing. He stood and waited..
“You are free to go,” Chief Barna said. “Your Gypsy friend confessed that he took the knife from you and killed Officer Szeles.”
Was it another trick? Were they waiting for him to contradict him? Why did Broshkoy want to take the blame? Hadn’t he spent enough time in prison? He tried to see the moves behind the moves. He couldn’t. If it was true, was Broshkoy being noble? It suddenly dawned on him that Broshkoy wasn’t being noble. He was protecting his poems. He was doing the stupid and the right thing.
“Szeles fell on the knife.”
“Get out before I arrest you for rape and murder,” the man shouted. Tommy took a tentative step toward the door.
“Tamás,” Chief Barna called out. He stopped. So, they were playing with him. He turned back to face him.
“Here is your jacket and passport. We have to keep the sword. I’ll give it to Gabi after we’re finished with it.”
Tommy unclenched his jaw and fists. He stared at his sword. It had killed a man. He didn’t want it anymore. “Throw it back in the well.”
Slowly he put on his jacket and put the passport in his pocket. Chief Barna put his hand on his back. His hand rested on the poems. Tommy stiffened.
“Give your father my best,” the chief said.
Tommy nodded.
59
As soon as Gabi saw Tommy, he grabbed and hugged him hard. Mr. Luxton, with a tight smile on his face, stood behind Gabi.
They were led outside through a side door. The sky was bright. Tommy closed his eyes. A breeze brushed his face. They walked in silence.
“What about Broshkoy?” Tommy asked as they turned onto their street.
“I don’t know. I tried to find out, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“They said he confessed.”
“They can’t charge him with murder, but they’ll find something,” Mr. Luxton said.
“We have to do something.”
“There isn’t much we can do. It’s an internal matter,” Mr. Luxton said. “However, Frog does have some security and connections because of his writing.”
“His name is Broshkoy,” Tommy corrected him coldly. “From what he told me, they didn’t do much to protect him last time.”
“Maybe you can do something once you’re back in Canada,” Gabi said.
“No, he can’t.” Mr. Luxton said firmly
. “It’s an internal matter.”
“Do my parents know?”
“Of course. They are very worried. They wanted to come, but we told them not to. I told them that you were being released today. We will call them from the embassy and you can talk to them.”
Emma and Magda were waiting outside the house gate. When they saw him, they ran towards him. They grabbed him by the arms and pulled him fiercely towards them. “Oh God. Oh God,” they sobbed, covering his face in teary kisses.
They wouldn’t let go, pulling him toward the safety of the house. Once in the yard, Mr. Luxton ordered Tommy to pack. “We’re leaving right now. You’re flying out tonight.”
“No,” Emma said. “You eat first.”
Mr. Luxton was equally adamant. “We have to leave now. Go pack. I’m afraid we don’t have much time. I’m here to make sure that you catch your plane. If not, then we will have all sorts of problems. So, now!” Tommy understood the urgency but didn’t move.
“I need to wash,” he said. Tommy walked toward the well and began to undress. Gabi hauled up a bucket of water. He took off his blood-caked shirt and was about to throw it on the ground but stopped. He folded it neatly and put it on the bench next to the well. He did the same with the rest of his clothes. It felt great to be naked. He didn’t care if they watched. He closed his eyes and stood still. Gabi poured the bucket over his head. The shock of the cold water made him gasp. It was refreshing. He washed himself back to life.
Tommy took his clothes inside and got dressed. Emma had a bag of pogácsa in her hand. She began to sob and buried her head in his chest. He whispered in her ear. “A man desperately wants to marry off his ugly daughter. His friend says I know a man who might be interested. The man comes over and looks at the girl. He says I would like to see her naked. The father says no. The man says okay, then no marriage. The father sighs and says okay. He tells his daughter to undress. The man looks her over, and then he says NO. The father is furious; he asks why not? The man looks at the daughter and says, her ears are too big.”
Emma chortled.
“Don’t pee in your pants,” Tommy said. He reached out and grabbed Gabi. They embraced.
“Szerbusz, Grosics.”
“Szerbusz, Puskás.”
“I’m not Puskás. I’m Tamás.”
Mr. Luxton’s car had a Canadian flag on its aerial. Tommy stroked it as he got in.
He waved. Emma and Magda were gripping Gabi’s arm. Békes disappeared behind him.
“How did you know I was in trouble?” he asked after a long silence.
“There aren’t that many Canadians in Hungary at any one time. We usually know where our citizens are. You, we knew from the start.”
“But how did you know I was in trouble?”
“Your cousin called the embassy, but we already knew. It’s not only Hungarians who have men with fedoras.”
Tommy watched the passing scenery, the villages, the countryside, the people. You go back, he thought, but you know you can’t. He had read it somewhere. You can stand on a corner and watch yourself, a kid in knee pants, with all his adventures ahead of him, with all the joys to be celebrated, all the scrapes to be cried over. You can watch yourself touch familiar corners but gut-know that you can’t go back. He had discovered again and again that he didn’t want to. But, he thought, staring out at the blur of scenery, maybe the path forward begins with a journey back.
“Tommy!” Mr. Luxton woke him from his reverie. “We ask you not to speak of what happened in Békes to anyone except your parents. They already agreed.”
“How can the people in Canada not know?”
“The government here controls the news. But if the news got out, it would be a problem for your relatives here.”
Tommy suspected as much. He said nothing.
“Dictatorships don’t like this kind of news to be public for a whole slew of reasons I won’t go into. I’m pretty sure you can figure it out for yourself. They would not be happy and….” He didn’t finish his sentence.
Tommy was silent for a while. He knew that Mr. Luxton was right. But he needed to do something. He tried to think like his father, who always told him when you’re bargaining, think of how this works for them and then how can you make it work for you.
“You know, we didn’t rape the girl. It was a setup. And it wasn’t us who started the fight. That drunk did. And during the interrogation, they hinted that I could help myself if I cooperated in certain ways. They reminded me I was a son of Hungary. And you know how even with the best intentions, news gets out. You know that the newspapers will want to interview me. Mr. Papp will want to write about my exploits.”
Anger flashed in Mr. Luxton’s eyes.
“If you could make it so that Gabi doesn’t have to go to re-education camp, I would really appreciate it.” Tommy didn’t tell him that he had something else planned to help Broshkoy, even though he wasn’t at all certain whether his plan would work.
Mr. Luxton smiled politely. “We’ll see what we can do.”
The phone call with his parents was emotional. His father cried and his mother cursed. He tried to reassure them that all was okay and that he would see them in a few hours.
When they pulled into the diplomatic parking area at the airport, Mr. Luxton escorted him to the airline counter and flashed some papers. Tommy asked for a window seat. He and Mr. Luxton shook hands. “You fellows did Canada proud,” he said and then he was gone.
“Do you have anything to declare?” the customs officer asked.
“No.”
“Are you taking any cultural or heritage material out of the country?”
“No. Just myself.”
The plane roared. He clenched the armrests. He grunted and let go. He reached into his pocket and rubbed the cigarette case. He forced himself to look out the window. The plane rose and soon the land below him receded until it was an amorphous blob. The plane tore through the clouds. Hungary disappeared. He pushed against his seat. The poems pushed back.
As soon as the seat belt light went off, he went to the bathroom, took out his knife and unstitched his jacket’s lining. He carefully took out the sheaves of paper and returned to his seat. He began the difficult task of reading.
J’ACCUSE!
I speak to you as an equal, something you don’t expect or accept. I speak to you man to man, something you can’t or don’t want to face. I speak to you as neighbour, countryman, and comrade. I speak to you this way because you need to be spoken to like this. I don’t ask for your permission to do this.
We will always be unlike you. Our sunbaked faces are the maps of where we are from, where we are and where we are going. We will always be your freedom that you are afraid to take back from your overlord.
I have lived in your shadow. I have lived as your game to be hunted, as your slave, as your servant. I live in your putris and mud shacks, half-naked, fully hungry. I live drunk, puking and pissing in your cities, on your streets, in your alleys. I live begging on your streets, in markets, reading your palms, telling your fortunes. I am ignorant because you need me to be ignorant, because you would deny me the power to think for myself. Because when I do, I will ask questions you don’t want to hear. Questions you don’t want to answer.
My questions question your authority and your legitimacy. They question your knowledge and wisdom. My questions ask you to question yourself. My questions ask you to look in the mirror.
I have looked in the mirror and see beneath my rags a history rich in knowledge, cunning, skills, traditions, songs and stories. I see behind our beaten brows and tired eyes, pride, joy, laughter, life. I see in the begging child’s palms innocence. I see in our women’s tears strength, beauty and wisdom.
We weren’t born beggars, drunks and thieves. By your swords, laws, and lies, you have made us these things.
We are nomadic. We v
alue what we can carry: our stories, our words, our ways, our songs and truths. We own what we need. We are what you used to be before you gave up that life to become what you are today. We are people who have made you better. We value our freedom. You mistake that for irresponsibility, for being uncivilized.
Our word is a spit and a handshake. That spit is our spirit, our bond. For us the land is not to measure, fence, claim, or to chop each other up for. The land is to travel on, to rest upon, to dream on, to feed off, to play upon, to be buried in.
What have we stolen from you in comparison to what you have stolen from us?
What have you given us compared to what we have given you? What have we done to you compared to what you have done to us?
Look in the mirror!
60
Tommy put the manuscript on his lap, leaned back and closed his eyes. He massaged his brow.
They all had their hands up—his father, his mother, him. His father was edging away from him. Tommy didn’t want his father to leave him. He called out after him. The border guard turned and stumbled. There was a flash and a deafening sound. A fiery streak burned across his forehead. A panther leapt on the soldier’s back. It roared and raised its front paw. Its claws gleamed in the moonlight. “Hannah!” his father screamed. She turned toward him. There was a slash. She shouted, “Never again!”
Tommy was falling. The sudden air pocket woke him. He was sweating; his jaw and hands were clenched. He took a deep breath. “Let go,” he whispered. “Let go.”
But, how could he? He had gone back to play a game he loved on the Golden Green of his dreams and discovered that the beautiful game was neither beautiful nor a game. The Golden Green turned out to be a battlefield. He had gone back to his birthplace and found and lost parts of himself. He had become a man, by taking a life. He joined Broshkoy in an act of death and freedom. They were milk brothers before. Now they were blood brothers. How do you let go of that? You don’t. But, maybe by doing the stupid and the right thing you become the change you want to see in yourself and the world. Maybe you can let go and hold on.