To prove it he bangs open a spy hole and shouts at the prisoner inside to get his lazy arse off the wooden plank. What does he think this is, a holiday?
The truth is, Tamás would like nothing better than to lie down and take a nap but he can’t, so he sure as hell isn’t going to let anyone else have a rest.
He hasn’t slept properly for the last couple of nights, worrying about Katalin’s stupid note. He has to get rid of it quickly, before someone like Gábor finds it. The thought makes his stomach churn.
He comes to the end of the corridor and pauses outside Márton’s cell door. If only Márton wasn’t still here. If the fool had only signed the confession he would be on his way to trial and a proper prison by now, instead of suffering the torture of the white wall and the wet cell, Tamás’s idea of hell.
He glances down the corridor. There are no other guards in sight. Gábor is off somewhere beating the living daylights out of a prisoner who has so far refused to co-operate with anything. He’ll co-operate when Gábor has finished with him.
Tamás bangs open Márton’s spy hole and sees him sitting there, staring into space. He looks like a lost child, abandoned and neglected. He doesn’t even react to the spy hole being opened. The last forty-eight hours have all but finished him off. Probably turned him into a lunatic.
‘On your feet,’ shouts Tamás.
No response.
‘Didn’t you hear what I just said?’
Márton staggers to his feet and gazes at him with dead eyes.
Tamás looks back down the corridor, terrified at what he’s about to do. Then he lets forth a torrent of abuse, whilst at the same time reaching into his pocket, throwing the note into the cell and then slamming the spy hole shut with a force that surprises even him. There he’s done it.
*
Márton barely hears the insults that Tamás throws at him. He has heard far worse since being brought here. When he lived in England he learnt the saying Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me. He’s not sure he entirely agrees with that, but he’s too tired to care.
Hours standing in front of the white wall watching the darkest projections of his mind followed by hours kneeling in cold water have weakened him to a point he didn’t think possible. He’s lost so much weight because he doesn’t have the appetite for the grey water that passes as soup in this place. When Tamás shouts at him to stand up, he does so because it’s easier to obey than to try to resist. He doesn’t have the mental energy for resistance anymore.
The boy is certainly surpassing himself in his stream of invective today. But then in the middle of this torrent of abuse, Márton sees something white fluttering to the floor of his cell. He thinks at first that a moth or butterfly has somehow found its way into this underground cesspit and experiences a fleeting moment of wonder. But if it ever was a living creature, it’s now dead. It lies on the floor by his feet, motionless. The spy hole bangs shut and Tamás’s footsteps recede down the corridor. Still Márton stands still, listening to the beating of his heart, expecting the door to fly open any moment. After a minute of silence, he bends down to look more closely at the object by his feet and realises it’s a piece of paper. He picks it up with shaking fingers and unfolds it. It’s only small, no more than a couple of inches square.
Tiny writing covers the paper. At first his tired eyes can’t focus and his brain is too addled to make any sense of what he’s seeing. But gradually the writing starts to form itself into words and the words acquire meaning. With a surge of joy he realises that the note is from Katalin, telling him that she’s all right and that she hopes he is too. Tears spring to his eyes, blurring his vision. She took a risk giving this note to Tamás, but the boy has delivered it and won’t want to get himself into trouble. Márton understands, too, that he must destroy the note immediately otherwise the consequences for himself, Tamás and Katalin would be severe.
After reading the note once more, and holding the precious piece of paper to his lips, he tears it into tiny shreds and lets the pieces fall through a grate in the corner of the room, one at a time, like snowflakes. He would have liked to keep that piece of paper and treasure it forever and already he feels its loss. But it’s given him hope, knowing that Katalin is safe. And hope gives him strength to endure.
*
This time, when Vajda slides the confession across the table, Márton picks up the pen and signs his name in a shaky scrawl at the bottom of the page.
I, the undersigned, freely confess to my crimes of betrayal and treason against the Party and the State.
There, he’s done it. He’s confessed to being a spy and an enemy of the working class. He hopes Vajda is satisfied. It pains Márton – the seeker of facts and scientific truth – to put his name to this pile of lies, but he has come to realise that things will only go worse for him if he doesn’t sign. It’s simply a matter of survival.
‘There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ Vajda smiles at Márton for the first time in their acquaintance. It does nothing to improve his bulldog features, only serving to emphasise his wobbly jowls. He rings the bell on his desk and a guard appears. Márton is disappointed to see it isn’t Tamás, but Gábor.
Vajda gives Gábor his orders. Gábor looks furious that Márton has finally co-operated. No doubt he was anticipating another session in front of the white wall or something worse. He manacles Márton’s hands and takes him outside to a waiting car. After so long stuck underground in the stinking cellars, the cold, fresh air slaps Márton on the face. He gulps in large lungfuls of air and stares in wonder at the cloud-filled sky before Gábor shoves him into the back of the car. He has no idea where they are taking him, but at least it’s not back to his cell.
It’s a short drive from Andrássy Avenue to the Marko Street jail. Half an hour after leaving AVO headquarters, Márton finds himself in a prison cell with a table, a chair, a straw mattress and blankets. Compared to where he’s just come from, this feels like a luxury hotel.
That evening he receives a visitor. Vajda enters the cell and sits down heavily on the chair. He puts a sheaf of papers on the table.
‘This,’ he says, pointing at the pile of paper, ‘is the script for your trial. You need to learn it.’
Márton feels as if he’s been punched in the chest. His trial is to be a show trial, a worthless acting out of lies. They are not interested in the truth. They have already condemned him. After all, like an idiot he signed the confession.
Vajda leans forwards and narrows his eyes. ‘If you deviate from this script, the judge will stop the trial. The result for you will be months of torture. It’s your choice, but I would advise you to learn the script.’ He stands up. ‘I’ll come back in a few days and we can practise.’
Left on his own, Márton picks up the script and starts to read through it. Here are the judge’s questions and Márton’s pre-prepared responses. He mouths the words silently to himself, repeating them until he has them word perfect.
Three days later, the trial goes exactly as expected. The judge – the sort of stony-faced hardliner who spent the war years in Moscow learning how to be a good communist – asks the questions that Márton knew he would ask. Márton gives the required responses. There are a dozen prisoners on trial at the same time, men who look worn down by their ordeal. They too sound as if they are reciting by rote.
Members of the Secret Police play the role of defence lawyers. Márton doesn’t know why they bother with this charade when everyone knows the whole procedure is nothing but a piece of theatre. His designated defence lawyer stands up and says that no one should be surprised that Márton turned out the way he did given that his ancestors were all imperialist swine. It’s not much of a defence, but what can you expect?
When all the cases have been heard, the court withdraws to reach its considered verdicts. In a proper judicial process it should take many hours, even days, to consider the cases of so many men. But the judge and his lackeys return after only twenty minutes, t
he verdicts obviously already decided. Márton supposes they just went outside for a cigarette. One by one the men stand to hear their fate.
When it’s Márton’s turn to stand, his legs shake so much he doesn’t think they will hold him up.
The verdict is guilty. Then the judge delivers Márton’s sentence in a voice devoid of emotion. ‘In the interests of the security of the People’s Republic and in view of your foreign espionage connections, you are sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labour.’
Twenty-five years? For crimes he hasn’t committed? My God, he’ll be dead before they let him out.
His legs buckle under him and he clutches the table for support.
Chapter Seven
Tamás thinks he will be happier at work now that Márton Bakos has left Andrássy Avenue. He prefers it when the prisoners held in the underground cells are nameless individuals with no connection to himself. His first thought on hearing that Márton is to be tried and sent to a labour camp is one of relief. He will no longer be reminded on a daily basis of how he failed to search Katalin’s room properly, and she will no longer be able to ask him to pass on messages. Everything can go back to normal and he can carry on trying to prove himself.
But it isn’t working out like that. At first he can’t place the unfamiliar sensation that he feels. But he’s coming to realise that he misses the prisoner who occupied the cell at the end of the corridor. He has to admit that Márton Bakos impressed him with his quiet dignity. The man never got angry, despite the deprivations and humiliations he suffered. When he was asked to type his life story, night after night, he did so even though he could barely sit up straight and keep his eyes open. And he showed gratitude for the snatches of sleep that Tamás allowed him.
Tamás finds himself wondering what it would have been like to have had a father like that, instead of the unpredictable, short-tempered man who could be loving one minute and drunk and violent the next. Tamás and his mother lived in fear of his erratic mood swings. When he died on the Eastern Front, Tamás was both relieved and devastated.
He’s supposed to be patrolling the underground corridors, but he enters Márton’s vacated cell and sits down for a moment on the hard wooden plank. He just wants to feel Márton’s presence one last time. And then it comes to him that there is one small thing he could do. He could find Katalin and tell her where her father is now. Not that he cares about Katalin – she’s caused him no end of trouble. But he would do it for Márton’s sake.
He hears Gábor’s angry voice at the other end of the corridor, shouting at one of the prisoners that he’s a filthy swine. Tamás jumps to his feet and leaves the cell. Soon it will be occupied by someone else. The arrests never stop.
*
The condemned men are taken outside to a yard. A couple of shiny Black Marias are parked in the centre of the yard, their engines idling. A line of about thirty or so men are already standing with their noses to the wall, their hands clasped behind their backs. They are filthy, ragged and half-starved. Márton notices that some of them have difficulty standing up straight, as if their bodies have been broken by torture. AVO guards are walking up and down behind the men, ordering them not to turn around or look sideways. Márton is reminded forcibly of the hours he spent standing in front of the white wall and the terrifying visions that tormented his mind. He almost loses his nerve when he is suddenly pushed into position next to a large man in a dirty blue shirt and torn trousers.
‘Stand there!’
His nose is an inch from the stone wall. He can smell his neighbour, a mixture of sweat and grime, and hear the man’s heavy breathing, but he dare not look. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the man tilt his head in Márton’s direction.
‘No turning around,’ shouts an AVO officer behind them. ‘No looking!’ Márton hears the familiar sound of a rifle butt being jabbed into his neighbour’s kidneys. He’s felt that excruciating pain himself countless times when being taken to see Vajda or during those interminable nights sitting in front of the typewriter, and he winces in sympathy. The man grunts and puts his hands out against the wall to stop himself from hitting his head as he lurches forwards.
‘Hands behind your back!’
Márton stands stock still, listening to the booted footsteps moving away. Only when they have gone some distance does he risk a quick glance to his left. He takes in a man who must have been strong once, but whose clothes now hang off him, as his own clothes do. The man is sporting vivid yellow and brown bruises on his cheek where he’s been kicked or beaten. Márton catches the man’s bloodshot eye and in that split second a bond is formed between them: you’ve been through hell too; we’re in the same boat; we have to stick together, us prisoners. Then they both turn to face the wall as more men are added to the line.
Márton closes his eyes and tries to shut out the tramp of boots, the bellowed orders and the yells of those being hit for failing to stand up straight without moving. He shivers in his worn suit and old shirt. The man who has appeared on his right has a hacking cough. He spits on the ground and Márton sees drops of blood in his spittle.
Finally, the officer in charge gives the orders for the men to be herded into the Black Marias.
‘About bloody time,’ mutters Márton’s neighbour in the blue shirt.
The men turn away from the wall and shuffle across the yard to the open doors of the waiting lorries. Márton’s feet have gone numb and he can barely feel them.
‘Hurry up, you lazy sods!’
‘We haven’t got all day!’
‘Get a move on, old man!’
After keeping the men standing in front of the wall for ages, the AVO guards are now impatient to be rid of them, using their rifle butts to beat them into line.
The man with the cough stumbles behind Márton and clutches at his jacket.
‘Sorry,’ he wheezes.
‘No problem,’ says Márton.
‘No talking!’ bellows an AVO officer in Márton’s ear.
An old man at the front of the line has trouble climbing the steps into the Black Maria. Two AVO guards take him by the arms and throw him into the lorry. The man cries out in pain.
‘Dear God,’ mutters Márton’s neighbour.
After that, the guards push the men up the steps, paying no heed as they stumble and fall. Márton lurches into the dark interior and immediately trips over the feet of someone who has fallen on the floor. He bumps heads with someone else and feels an elbow poke him in the ribs. It’s chaos. Some of the men are laughing hysterically, others are cursing and grunting.
‘Watch out you oaf. That’s my leg you trod on.’
‘Shouldn’t have left it lying around.’
Unable to stand up, Márton crawls to a space on the edge and sits down, drawing his knees up to his chest so that he’s less likely to get in anyone’s way. The air in the lorry is already fetid with the smell of unwashed bodies, sour breath and the lingering stench of damp cells.
A man lands next to him and Márton recognises his blue-shirted companion from the yard, the man who took a beating for turning to look at him.
‘All right there?’ asks the man.
‘Just about.’
‘At least they can’t stop us talking in here.’
‘There is that.’
When the last man has been squeezed in, the guards slam the rear doors shut. Márton hears a bolt being driven home on the outside. And then the vehicle lurches forwards and the men topple into each others’ laps. By the end of this journey they’re going to be well acquainted with each other, he thinks.
*
The Black Maria rumbles along the road, its engine coughing and spluttering every time it brakes or accelerates. A fine piece of Soviet engineering, thinks Márton, as the vehicle lurches round a corner and he’s thrown against his neighbour for the umpteenth time.
As his eyes adjust to the gloom, he is able to make out faces. They are a rag-tag bunch of old and young. Age-wise, he’s somewhere in the middle.
What they all have in common is they’re half-starved, unshaven, dirty and smelly.
‘Béla Toth,’ says the man in the blue shirt sitting next to him. He extends a roughened hand which Márton clasps in the cramped space.
‘Márton Bakos. How do you do?’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ says Béla. They haven’t forgotten how to be civil to one another. It seems more important than ever in these inhumane conditions. ‘So what story did they make up about you?’ Béla asks the question casually as if they’re two old friends having a drink in a bar. Márton appreciates that Béla assumes his conviction is based on lies.
‘Well apart from being a saboteur and hating the working class…’
‘Goes without saying.’
‘It would appear I was endangering the People’s Republic because of my overseas connections.’
Béla nods his understanding. ‘They thought you were a spy.’
‘What about you?’ asks Márton.
‘Me? Oh, I was chief engineer in a gun factory. We got a big order to supply weapons to Russia, but the Soviet design was faulty. If we’d made the guns according to their specifications, they wouldn’t have shot in a straight line. So I corrected the error. But I made the mistake of telling my boss and the Ministry in Moscow what I’d done.’
‘But you were doing the right thing, surely?’ Márton thinks of his own work, correcting the calculations for the enrichment of uranium.
Béla scoffs. ‘The AVO didn’t see it like that. They pointed out something I’d missed.’
‘Which was what?’
‘Their argument was that the Soviet Union might have been planning to give the guns to the Hungarian army.’
‘But you’d still want them to shoot straight, wouldn’t you?’
‘Ah, wait for it. It gets better. You see apparently I was planning an attack against the Soviet Union with a conspiracy of Hungarian army officers. Naturally, we wouldn’t want guns that didn’t shoot in a straight line, so correcting the error was for our benefit, and not in the interests of the Soviets. The faulty design was deliberate and I should have left it as it was. You can’t really argue with that, can you?’
Goodbye to Budapest Page 10