*
Márton keeps looking at his left wrist, at the place where his watch used to be, forgetting it’s no longer there. Punctuality has always been important to him. What did his colleagues think when he failed to turn up for work yesterday? It’s not like Professor Bakos to be late. I wonder what’s keeping him? You don’t think…? And what about his students at the University? He pictures them sitting in the lecture theatre, waiting for him to show up, getting bored, giving up, going for a cigarette and a coffee. Speculating as to what might have happened. Will his friend and colleague Professor Károly Novák take on his teaching workload? He can’t help feeling that he’s letting people down, being arrested like this.
The only time he’s been allowed out of his cell since yesterday was for the morning routine of washing in the cold, scummy water and using the toilet in the presence of one of the AVO guards. Breakfast was another piece of stale bread. He maybe managed an hour of sleep last night but it wasn’t enough. He feels groggy and unable to focus but there’s too much banging for him to rest now. In this place, time is measured not by minutes and hours, but by the number of heartbeats between the banging of the spy holes. He’s counted to seven hundred so far.
Bang! The spy hole in the door slams open and Márton sees a young face glaring at him. It’s one of the lads in the team that arrested him. He looks vaguely familiar. Márton scans his face, trying to place him. A former student perhaps? Or was he at school with Katalin? He’s the right sort of age. The boy attempts to give him a look of loathing and contempt which merely looks comical on his youthful features. As a teacher Márton’s instinct is to reach out and ask what the matter is. He’s well liked by his students and has helped many a young person through a crisis. In Márton’s book no one is irredeemable. But the lad slams the spy hole shut and Márton hears him cursing. He must have hurt his hand on the wall.
He drops his head into his hands, closes his eyes, and tries to think. They’re bound to question him at some point so it’s best to be prepared. He thinks back to his work in recent weeks. There’s been nothing out of the ordinary at the university. But a few months ago he was asked to sit on a committee looking into the possibility of building a nuclear reactor. It wasn’t a request he could refuse without falling foul of the authorities. There aren’t that many scientists in Budapest who could have taken his place, so he agreed, even though it meant doubling his workload. Katalin was concerned about him doing too much, but he told her not to worry. But they were watching him. He didn’t like it, but assumed this was routine for those involved in government work.
There was that matter the previous month of the report from the Russian scientists regarding the uranium enrichment process. When Márton checked the figures he discovered a serious error in one of their calculations. Naturally, as a scientist concerned with producing accurate work, he corrected the error and asked Professor Novák to confirm that his revised calculations were correct. What was he supposed to do? Leave the error unchallenged? That would have been unthinkable in something so safety-critical. He was only doing his job, a job that the authorities asked him to do. He passed the corrected report back to the Russians and even received an acknowledgement from them. But the Russians can be touchy about having their errors pointed out to them. Could his arrest have anything to do with that?
There are also things in his past that mark him as suspicious. As a post-doctoral student he spent time in Oxford. He has nothing but fond memories of his time in England, where he developed a taste for warm beer but never quite grasped the subtleties of cricket. He learned from some of the pre-eminent scientists in his field, and he lapped up the cultural and intellectual life of the university. He thrived in the medieval college dining halls and the atmosphere of open, vigorous debate. How can he make these people in the Secret Police understand that just because he spent time in England when he was younger, doesn’t mean he isn’t a loyal Hungarian? He’s only ever wanted the best for his country. After the injustices of years under the fascist dictator Horthy, and then the brutality of the Arrow Cross Party during the war, he thought the communist leaders wanted the best too. Now he’s not so sure.
The cell door bangs open and Márton jumps to his feet in anticipation that they are finally going to explain the reason for his arrest. He’s ready to put his case and defend himself. The sooner they can get started, the better. But the two guards who enter the cell close the door behind them and Márton realises with a sinking heart that he isn’t going anywhere. They’ve only come to take his fingerprints.
He rolls his thumb and fingers on the ink pad as instructed and then on a piece of white card.
‘Hold this under your chin.’ One of the guards gives him a wooden number plate. The other produces a small camera from a pocket and photographs him, first from the front and then in profile. Like a common criminal. He’s unshaven and has hardly slept. He must look like everyone’s idea of a felon.
The guards leave and Márton is once again left on his own. How much longer can this go on? He lies down on the plank and closes his eyes. The light from the naked bulb prevents him from sleeping.
*
Katalin has been awake since the first grey light of dawn, unable to sleep. Her dreams were haunted by visions of her father in a prison cell. What are they doing to him? If only there was some way for her to find out what is going on. She dresses, eats the last of the bread – she’ll have to call in at the baker’s later today – and leaves for school. The children, at least, have the power to distract her from her own thoughts.
Piroska Benke is already outside her classroom, waiting for her. Does the woman have a home to go to, or does she crawl into a corner of her office each night, like a spider?
‘There you are,’ says Piroska as if Katalin is late, when in fact she’s early. ‘The headmaster wants to see you in his office.’
‘Now?’ asks Katalin. ‘What about my class? The children will be arriving soon.’ She likes to be there to greet them when they arrive. They are still very young and some of them don’t like saying goodbye to their mothers.
‘I will watch your class,’ says Piroska, although she sounds as if she’d rather be harvesting turnips in a muddy field.
Katalin walks to the headmaster’s office with a sense of foreboding. György Boda doesn’t normally communicate directly with the staff, preferring to use Piroska Benke as his messenger. She knocks on the door.
‘Come in.’ The voice is gravelly from years of smoking Russian cigarettes.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
‘Sit down.’ The headmaster indicates a chair on the other side of his desk. György Boda is in his fifties with a receding hairline and a cleft chin. The obligatory portrait of Our Wise Leader Rákosi oversees the meeting from the wall behind the headmaster’s desk.
Katalin sits upright with her hands clasped in her lap. Is she about to be fired because her father’s been arrested? She’ll defend her father with her dying breath if she has to.
‘Do you know Tibor Nadas?’
‘I’m sorry?’ The headmaster’s question has caught her unawares.
‘Tibor Nadas. How well do you know him?’
‘I know who you mean, sir. But he’s not in my class. He’s older.’ Katalin pictures the ten-year-old who always runs around with his shoe laces undone.
‘But you live in the same apartment block, do you not?’
‘Yes.’ Katalin is wary now, for Tibor’s sake as well as her own. His mother, Petra, is someone Katalin counts as a friend.
‘I want you to keep an eye on him. Report anything suspicious.’
Katalin’s stomach lurches. The headmaster is asking her to spy on her neighbours. He wants her to become part of the loathsome system that resulted in her father’s arrest. ‘Such as?’
‘Do I have to spell it out to you?’ asks György Boda, frowning. ‘Western influences. Does his family listen to Radio Free Europe or Voice of America? Are there unexplained extravagances? That sort
of thing.’
Katalin thinks of Tibor’s clothes which are too small for him. His widowed mother can hardly be accused of having too much money. His father was killed in the war. Petra takes in sewing.
‘Why Tibor?’
‘The boy is a disruptive influence. He must be getting his ideas from somewhere. We can’t allow subversive ideas to spread in a school environment.’
‘I see.’ Although she doesn’t see at all. György Boda is not a man to argue with. ‘Is that all, sir?’
The headmaster dismisses her with a curt nod.
Katalin leaves the office, her heart thumping. She understands this task is as much a test of her own loyalty as it is about Tibor. When she returns to her classroom, Piroska Benke has the children sitting on their hands in total silence, looking miserable. No doubt she is punishing the whole class for some minor infraction of one child. Katalin would have handled the situation differently. She will have a job to engage them in their lessons now.
In the morning break, she dashes over to the baker’s. She joins the end of the queue, mostly women in headscarves with string shopping bags over their arms. She hopes this won’t take too long. She needs to get back for her next lesson. But if she leaves it until school has finished, the baker will have sold out.
A tap on her shoulder. In her agitated state, Katalin jumps, emitting a small squeak. The women in front of her turn their heads, their faces full of suspicion. No one draws attention to themselves if they can help it.
It’s Petra Nadas, Tibor’s mother.
‘I thought it was you,’ says Petra, without a trace of self-consciousness. ‘How are things after, you know…?’
When Katalin doesn’t reply immediately, Petra rushes on. ‘We heard what happened.’
I’ll bet you did, thinks Katalin. The ringing of the doorbell must have woken everyone in the building, if not half the street. Goodness knows what József has been telling people. And Maria, the old woman who lives opposite, is a terrible gossip.
‘If you need anything,’ says Petra, ‘you know where to find us.’
‘Thank you,’ says Katalin, touched.
‘Anyway, I must be off,’ says Petra. ‘I’m baking a cake for Tibor’s birthday. Don’t tell him. It’s meant to be a surprise.’
‘That’s nice,’ says Katalin. ‘He’ll like that.’ She glances in Petra’s shopping bag and sees sugar and butter and eggs. This is precisely the sort of thing that the Party would consider an extravagance. It’s the sort of thing György Boda would want her to report. Katalin has no intention of doing any such thing. Knowing Petra, she’ll be going without essentials herself in order to afford this treat for her son. The queue shuffles forwards and Katalin looks anxiously at her watch.
*
Márton comes to with a jolt. Despite the bright light, he must have nodded off. But a noise in the corridor has woken him up. He listens with a sense of dread to the sound of some poor devil being dragged back to their cell in pain. Booted feet. Shouted orders. A whimpering cry. And then the cell door being slammed shut. My God, what do they do to people here?
He rubs his eyes which are sore and prickly from the incessant light. How he craves just five minutes of total darkness. And silence. He doesn’t know how long he slept for. It’s impossible to know in this artificially lit dungeon what time of day it is. He sits up, stretches and stands. His muscles are stiff and sore from the wooden plank. And he’s cold from lying in the draught from the air shaft. He rubs his hands and arms to try and bring some life back into them. His fingertips are stained black from the fingerprinting session earlier.
Bang! The never-ending opening and closing of the spy holes goes on and on. Don’t the guards get bored doing that all day? He wants to shout at them to shut up, but then he remembers the cries of the man in pain. But really, it’s enough to drive a man crazy, never mind being cooped up in this stinking pit. And there’s a gnawing hunger eating him from the inside. It must be hours since breakfast.
He hears a clattering of metal pots in the corridor and almost weeps with relief. One by one the prisoners are let out to fetch a bowl of watery soup and a piece of stale bread. Márton carries his bowl back to his cell, careful not to spill a drop. He dips the stale bread into the thin liquid and starts to eat, forcing himself to chew slowly to make the meal last longer. When he’s finished the bread he licks the inside of the bowl with his tongue. It’s nowhere near enough to satisfy his hunger, but that’s all he’s going to get until the morning.
He doesn’t expect anything else to happen this evening, so after his meagre dinner he lies back down on the wooden plank. He’s still tired. To block out the noises in the cellar he tries to fill his mind with memories of Katalin playing the violin. How does the opening of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto go? If he can just hear the melody in his head…
The cell door crashes open and a guard shouts at him.
‘On your feet!’
Márton blinks his eyes open. There are two of them standing there, rifles in hand. The young lad from earlier must have gone off duty. These two are older and look like hardened criminals. Márton recognises the type. During the war such men signed up for the Arrow Cross Party and persecuted the Jews. When the fascists were defeated and the communists gained power, they were the first to switch their allegiances.
‘I said, on your feet!’
The guard makes a threatening move towards him. Márton scrambles to his feet.
‘Out!’
Warily he steps into the corridor.
‘Hands behind your back! Walk!’
Without his shoelaces, his shoes flap with each step, slowing him down.
‘Get a move on, can’t you?’
He tries to increase his speed, but it’s not possible in shoes that threaten to fall off his feet. He feels the rifle butt jammed into his back.
They make their way, him faltering, the guards getting impatient, up staircases and along corridors. At least he’s out of the stinking cellars, walking on a carpeted floor, no longer shivering with the cold. It’s pathetic how grateful he feels.
The guards deliver him to a comfortably furnished office. Sitting behind a mahogany desk in a leather chair is the man who led the arrest, the bully who tried to intimidate Katalin. His hands rest on his paunch and his flabby face glows red, as if he’s just enjoyed a good meal with a fine wine. The scent of cigar smoke hangs in the air.
‘Sit down.’ Red-face points a stubby finger at a straight-backed, wooden chair placed about five feet away from the desk.
Márton sits down and places his hands on his knees. Now that he’s out of the stinking cellars, he can’t help but be aware of his own stench, emanating from his filthy body. He’s still wearing the shirt and suit he came in, a poor choice of clothes in retrospect, but how was he to know? The guards who brought him up from the cellars stand to one side. He can see their rifles in his peripheral vision.
Red-face reaches across his desk to a lamp standing next to a bust of Stalin. He flicks a switch on the lamp and, without warning, turns the light full into Márton’s face. The bright, white light is blinding and Márton blinks, his eyes watering. He can no longer see the man’s ugly features, but that is little consolation. His eyes are already sore from lack of sleep and the bulb that shines incessantly in his cell. This piercing light is going to give him a headache if he’s not careful. He tries to soften his focus and gaze somewhere off to the left.
‘Tell me about your life,’ says his interrogator. ‘Start with your childhood.’ He makes it sound as if they are two old pals reminiscing over a glass of Pálinka.
Márton wasn’t expecting this. He expected to be questioned about his work, maybe his friends and acquaintances. What does his childhood have to do with anything? Still, if that’s what he wants to hear.
He starts to speak about his family. He has no idea how far back he should go, so he starts with his paternal grandfather. He was a landowner in north-eastern Hungary near the Mátra Mountains. Nothin
g unusual in that, he thinks, but maybe not such a good start for his case. One of the first acts of the government after the war was land reform. The arable land that his forebears had farmed for generations was seized and redistributed. Are they going to accuse him of being a bourgeois capitalist because of his grandfather? He glosses over much of his childhood, not wishing to spoil happy memories, and moves on to describe how his father moved to Budapest to train as an engineer at the Technical University. Red-face gives no response to any of the information that Márton provides. Since Márton can’t see his face behind the blinding light, his interrogator could be asleep for all he knows.
After he has been speaking for about half an hour, Red-face interrupts him. ‘Why are you here, Bakos?’
The question surprises him. It’s a good question and one he would like answered. But how is he supposed to answer it himself? Is he his own accuser? The opening line of Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial suddenly comes to mind. Someone must have slandered Josef K because, without having done anything wrong, one morning he was arrested. Maybe he’ll wake up from this nightmare and discover that he’s turned into a giant beetle. Anything would be preferable to being kept in that stinking cell.
‘I repeat, why are you here?’
He squints into the bright white light and says, ‘I would like to know that myself. There must have been a mistake. If you can tell me what I am accused of, then I’m sure we can clear this up.’
Red-face slaps his hand down on the desk, causing him to jump. ‘There is no mistake!’
Of course, he thinks wryly, the Party never makes a mistake. It is inviolable. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’
Goodbye to Budapest Page 5