Goodbye to Budapest

by Margarita Morris

  At the fuel pumps at the petrol station behind the cinema, students and children, some as young as ten or eleven, are busy filling empty bottles with petrol. The Molotov cocktails are a simple but effective weapon against tanks.

  Rifle in hand, Zoltán is now stationed at an open fourth floor window on József Boulevard, overlooking the junction with Üllői Avenue. A row of Molotov cocktails is lined up at his feet, the bottles stoppered with a rag doused in Russian vodka. He’d like a cigarette to calm his nerves but with all this flammable liquid around, that would be a bad idea. Half a dozen other freedom fighters, including Sándor, are located at adjacent windows. There is nothing to do but wait.

  In the space of twenty-fours hours he has gone from being a simple factory worker, husband and father to being a freedom fighter, armed with a weapon, waiting for his chance to take on the enemy. Apart from Sándor and Bandi, he doesn’t know the names of any of those he’s fighting alongside, whether they have wives or children, what they do for a living. But none of that matters here. What matters is that they are united in a single cause – to evict the Russians from their country and to take control of their own futures. He thinks of Katalin, his son Lajos and little Eva. The children are too young to understand any of this, but it’s them he’s fighting for.

  A shout goes up from the street where lookout scouts have been roaming. A Russian tank is coming from the direction of Boráros Square.

  In an instant the atmosphere in the room changes to nervous anticipation. Zoltán feels his heart beating against his ribs like a caged animal trying to escape. Beads of sweat form on his brow.

  He feels the approach of the tank before he sees it. The floorboards vibrate and the window panes rattle. Every nerve in his body hums with the rumbling of the caterpillar tracks on the road’s surface.

  And then the tank comes into view, like a giant, deadly insect, armour-plated and invincible. As it makes its cumbersome way across the intersection, it swivels its gun from left to right, firing randomly.

  Zoltán sees the barrel of the tank’s gun pointing directly at their building and shouts, ‘Take cover.’ Everyone ducks down as the tank fires, hitting the floor above them. Lumps of plaster fall from the ceiling, creating a dust storm.

  He crawls back to the window and sees the tank preparing to attack the building opposite. He grabs the nearest Molotov cocktail and lights the vodka-soaked rag. Then he lobs it as hard as he can at the tank. It falls short and explodes in a ball of flame. Everyone starts throwing petrol bombs from all the neighbouring windows in a desperate bid to bring the monster to its knees. The bottles explode on the tank’s turret and outer casing, engulfing it in flames and smoke, but, like a creature with supernatural powers, the tank refuses to die. Its gun is still manoeuvring, preparing to shoot another round.

  ‘Aim for the cooling vents of the engine compartment,’ shouts Sándor. ‘At the back, see there?’ He points. ‘The trick is to make the engine catch fire.’

  Zoltán throws another bottle, and this time it hits the exact spot Sándor indicated. The bottle explodes and seconds later the tank’s engine ignites, sending up a blazing inferno that forces him back from the window. The air fills with thick black smoke, making it difficult to breathe.

  ‘Tank’s on fire! Tank’s on fire!’ The shout goes up that the inside of the tank is burning. It’ll be like a furnace in there. ‘Serves them right!’

  What has he done? Zoltán recoils in horror when he imagines the Russian soldiers inside that tank, men with mothers and wives and children, and now they are being incinerated inside their metal prison. He collapses on his knees, shaking in shock.

  Strong arms pull him to his feet and drag him back to the window. ‘Look!’ shouts Sándor.

  The Russians are trying to escape from their fiery pit. As they pour out of the hatch and make a run for it, freedom fighters in the street shoot them down.

  Afterwards, when the ambulance crews arrive to pick up the Hungarians wounded in the battle, they leave the dead Russians lying in the road where they fell.

  *

  ‘I need more bandages,’ calls Róza, ‘and get me more anaesthetic and painkillers. Whatever you can find.’ The young nurse on duty rushes off to fulfil her request. The hospital has just received yet another batch of casualties who are being carried in on stretchers. The most serious cases – those with limbs blown off – are rushed into the operating theatres. Those with bullet wounds and burns line the corridors, their moans and cries pitiful to hear.

  ‘I don’t know where we’re going to put them all,’ complains Magda, the hospital administrator, frantically turning over sheets of paper attached to her clipboard. ‘We’re running out of beds, and as for the morgue it’s already full up. What are those men doing in the corridor?’ She frowns at three young men slumped against the wall, still holding rifles in their hands. The middle one has blood pouring from a cut to his head whilst his friends do their best to prop him up. They have slipped through Magda’s system, their names not on her list. She normally runs the hospital with a precision that makes the Kremlin look like a bunch of sloppy amateurs, but her system is breaking down in the face of the chaos that has erupted on the streets.

  Róza doesn’t have time for Magda and her bureaucracy. All that matters is trying to save as many lives as she can. She’s been swabbing wounds, extracting bullets, stitching torn flesh and administering drugs ever since the first casualties from the radio station were brought in last night. She didn’t go home but caught a few hours sleep at the hospital in the hours before dawn. Now the fighting has escalated beyond anything she thought possible and she has heard harrowing accounts of death and destruction from those still able to string a sentence together. The dead are taken straight to the morgue.

  This isn’t what she had in mind when she chose to study medicine – working in a war zone.

  The nurse that she sent off a minute ago is back with a couple of boxes of supplies. She’s pink-cheeked and out of breath from having run up and down the stairs, the lifts being out of order. ‘We’re running low on bandages and medicine,’ she says. ‘This was all I could find.’

  Róza grits her teeth. ‘Well done. Now come and help me with these men.’ Most of the young fighters who’ve been brought to the hospital just want to have their injuries patched up as quickly as possible so they can get back to fighting the Russians. But still the wounded and the dying keep coming. Róza feels as if she’s trying to hold back the tide.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thursday, 25 October 1956

  Tamás has never seen so many people crammed into one place, and it’s a terrifying sight. A seething mass of humanity, singing and chanting and waving banners.

  Alerted by the authorities that a demonstration was amassing in Parliament Square the AVO have been ordered to man the roof of the Ministry of Agriculture, opposite the Parliament building. Tamás doesn’t have much of a head for heights and almost wishes he was back underground, patrolling the cellars at Andrássy Avenue. He’d always hoped for promotion to a desk job, but that dream never materialised. Now, from his dizzying vantage point he watches the swarms of demonstrators flooding into the square. Counter-revolutionaries, he’s been told to call them. Whatever they are, they’re an unstoppable wave, surging from all directions, with their slogans and flags and their pent up resentments. There’s no sign of them stopping. Tamás knows how to induce fear in someone who’s cowering in a dank, underground cell. But now he’s the one who’s afraid to the pit of his stomach. His submachine gun shakes in his sweaty palms. Gábor is standing next to him, muttering insults under his breath. If only Gábor would shut up and go away. Vajda – God help us – is giving the orders. For now they’ve been told to watch and wait. Tamás prays it won’t come to anything worse.

  The march two days ago took him completely by surprise. Where has this sudden surge of energy and defiance come from? He never imagined that the views expressed so brazenly at the Petőfi Circle meetings would amoun
t to anything tangible. The population, which is normally so subdued and downtrodden, has suddenly sprung to life like a caged tiger let out into the wild. The tearing of the Soviet star from flags seems to him sacrilegious.

  Yesterday he welcomed the sight of the Soviet tanks rolling into the city. The Soviets will know how to restore order. The Hungarian government doesn’t seem to have a clue.

  But Soviet tanks are lined up in front of the Parliament building and they’re not doing anything to disperse the crowds. More tanks are lumbering into the square. He watches one which has come to a halt about fifty yards from the Ministry of Agriculture. Unbelievably some of the demonstrators are actually climbing onto the tank. The tank hatch opens and a Russian soldier pops his head out. He appears to be having a conversation with the Hungarians sitting on top of his tank. They all learn Russian in school, although Tamás was never very good at it. Then the marchers tie Hungarian flags to the radio antenna of the tank and punch their fists into the air in a sign of triumph. Tamás finds this all very confusing. Whose side are the Russians on now?

  The crowds in the square are shouting that they want Erno Gerő to be removed from office. Gerő of the Five Year Plan that was going to transform Hungary into a country of heavy industry and prosperity. The Five Year Plan now lies in ruins and the liberal Imre Nagy has been made Prime Minister. No wonder the uprising is being allowed to proceed unhindered.

  Impatient as ever, Vajda has obviously decided to take matters into his own hands. He picks up a loud hailer and moves to the front of the roof. Tamás feels a deep sense of foreboding. Vajda is not the man to disperse a crowd calmly.

  ‘This is the police,’ bellows Vajda into the loud hailer.

  The calls for Gerő’s removal from office continue unabated.

  ‘I repeat, this is the police,’ yells Vajda.

  The chanting gradually dies down and Vajda seizes the moment. ‘This is an illegal demonstration. You must disperse immediately. I repeat, this demonstration is unauthorised.’

  Vajda has certainly attracted the demonstrators’ attention now. Thousands of people are looking up at the rooftop of the Ministry of Agriculture and Tamás feels horribly exposed in his blue uniform against the terracotta roof tiles.

  Vajda’s announcement is greeted with jeers. ‘This is a peaceful demonstration,’ shout the protesters. ‘We are unarmed.’

  ‘This demonstration is illegal,’ bellows Vajda. ‘You are ordered to disperse immediately!’

  The announcement has the effect of tossing a lighted match onto a pile of dry kindling. Voices which were singing songs of freedom a moment ago, now erupt with hate-filled slogans.

  ‘Murderers! Assassins! Torturers! Down with the AVO!’ This lot are no longer afraid to say what they think. They have the advantage of numbers.

  ‘I repeat…’

  Tamás wishes the fool would shut up. He’s only making matters worse, incensing the people. But Vajda continues to bellow into his loud hailer, his bulldog neck and flabby cheeks bulging with the effort.

  ‘Murderers! Pigs! Kill the AVO!’

  The words ring in Tamás’ ears and the truth dawns on him that these thousands of people want him dead. He clutches his submachine gun with trembling hands. Beside him Gábor stamps his feet as if he’s itching to respond to the taunts.

  With his diplomatic efforts in tatters, Vajda flings down the loud hailer and turns to his men.

  ‘Right, you know what you have to do. You are here to defend socialism. You are here to defend the workers of this country against these counter-revolutionary scumbags. I expect every one of you to do your duty. Engage your weapons. Fire!’

  Almost before Vajda has finished giving the order, Gábor lifts his submachine gun and lets off a round of ammunition. The other officers soon follow his example and a hailstorm of bullets rains down onto the crowd. Only Tamás stands frozen to the spot, his hands and arms refusing to co-operate. Down below, the chants turn into screams. Tamás wants to turn and run but there’s nowhere to go. Behind him is the pitch of the roof and the way to his left and right is blocked by his comrades.

  Suddenly Vajda is behind him. Tamás can smell his sweat and his stale breath. ‘Shoot boy! Your job is to shoot!’ Vajda nudges his arm so that he almost loses his balance. Tamás fears that if he doesn’t obey, Vajda will not hesitate to topple him from the roof into the crowds below. He lifts his weapon, closes his eyes, and shoots blindly into the mass of screaming people.

  *

  When the shooting starts Katalin and her father are trapped, penned in by the thousands crammed into the square: old and young, men and women, factory and office workers, university students and schoolchildren.

  That morning she agreed to accompany Márton on what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, hoping to see and hear for herself Imre Nagy, the newly appointed Prime Minister.

  But their songs of freedom have turned into screams of terror. Shots are ringing out, ricocheting off the surrounding buildings, and the crowd is panicking, yelling, crying.

  Katalin grabs her father’s arm. ‘We have to get away before this becomes a massacre.’

  ‘Which way?’

  Everybody is running, pushing and shoving in all directions. She sees a young man staggering towards her, clutching his stomach. Blood is pouring through his fingers. His eyes lock with hers. ‘Help me,’ he gasps.

  Despite the danger they’re in, she can’t abandon this young man to his fate as he stumbles and falls at her feet. She and Márton both kneel in the boy’s blood and do their best to comfort him. He can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen, just a kid really.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asks.

  He looks at her with imploring eyes and tries to speak, but only a croak comes out.

  ‘It’s all right, son,’ says Márton, stroking the boy’s forehead. ‘You’re very brave.’

  The young man closes his eyes and takes his last breath.

  Katalin wants to scream with the senselessness of it all. She’s never been this close to a dead body before, except the Russian soldier yesterday, but he had already taken on the unreal aspect of something not entirely human. This nameless young man is still so real, his body still warm. He’s someone’s son, maybe someone’s boyfriend or brother. And he died here, shot by the Secret Police, by his own people. She wishes she knew his name, where he was from. She’d like to be able to tell his mother that her son died for a good cause.

  But the shooting has started up again, or maybe she just didn’t notice it continuing whilst she watched the young man die. She comes to her senses.

  ‘Papa, we have to go. The ambulances are arriving. They’ll take him away.’

  Márton is still kneeling by the body, head bowed as if in prayer. She pulls him to his feet, tears streaming from her eyes.

  ‘This way,’ she says, starting to move across the square towards the Ministry of Agriculture. ‘The building will give us cover.’

  They haven’t gone more than a few feet when Márton’s hand jerks out of hers and his body lurches to the side, crashing onto the cobbles.

  ‘Papa! No!’ Katalin screams.

  In her confusion it takes her a moment to realise that her father has been shot. A crimson patch of blood is spreading over his shoulder, staining his coat. His eyes are closed and he’s lying motionless. She drops to the ground beside him, frantic with despair. ‘Papa, don’t die! Please don’t die!’ She presses a hand to the wound to try and stem the flow of blood. His eyes flicker open. Thank God, he’s still alive. ‘Over here!’ she shouts when she sees white-coated medical workers running across the square with a stretcher. ‘Help us!’

  *

  Tamás is dizzy with horror at the sight unfolding below him. The square is strewn with bodies, too many to count. They lie there, their blood staining the cobblestones. Did he hit any himself? He doesn’t know because he fired blindly, in fear that Vajda would shoot him if he didn’t. Medical workers have arrived and are running across the squa
re in their white coats like fools. Don’t they know that a white coat and a red cross armband won’t protect them? It’s not body-armour.

  ‘Got him!’ shouts Gábor. ‘Did you see that? I got that old fellow right in the shoulder?’

  Tamás looks to where Gábor is pointing and his stomach lurches so much that he falls to his knees, clutching the edge of the parapet. He thinks he might throw up. Even from this height, he recognises Katalin and her father, Márton Bakos. Márton is lying on the ground, blood pouring from a wound, and she’s shouting for help.

  ‘Get up!’ Gábor kicks him in the side with his boot. ‘Don’t let Vajda see you acting like a chicken.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ shouts Tamás. ‘And fuck Vajda!’

  For a moment, even Gábor looks disconcerted. ‘Hey, steady on. We’re only doing our jobs.’

  ‘This isn’t what I signed up for.’

  ‘What did you expect then? That you’d get to sit behind a desk all day? We’re keeping law and order here.’

  Tamás isn’t going to hang around listening to Gábor justify what just happened. He throws down his weapon and pushes his way past a stunned Gábor. He’s not the only one abandoning his position. Vajda has lost control of his men and they’re leaving in droves. Down below, the square is almost empty, only the dead and dying still lying where they fell.

  He runs down the stairs, taking them two at a time. At the bottom he finds a scene of pandemonium. All around him AVO officers are darting in different directions, the fear visible in the whites of their eyes. No one seems to know what to do or where to go. Which way now? He recoils at the idea of escaping across the square, the scene of so much carnage. And he doesn’t want to expose himself to people who by now must be looking for revenge. There has to be another way out.