“I thought you called yourself something else,” Ferenc said. “I’m so drunk.”
“I should go.”
“Oh, Anika, wait. How could you leave me now? How could anyone ever leave you?”
“It happens. You’ll forget about me soon enough.”
“I want to hear more about your mom.”
Dora knew she should go. Her gut told her this was a bad idea, but her mouth opened and her voice sent words out through it anyway, because a part of her needed this more than she even knew.
“The government took her away.”
“Where did they take her?
“That was for the government to decide.”
“So you have no idea where your mom is?”
“No.” Dora wiped away her one tear, whose moist residue had all but dried. Somehow, saying the conclusion to her mom’s story out loud comforted Dora. She realized it was the truth she knew, and lived by, and one she had grown to accept.
“Oh, the fucking government. What a joke it is, isn’t it, Anika? We all go around pretending to be this. I pretend to be that. Did you know that my friend joined the police, and just for their amusement, they find people on the street and beat them!”
“That must be a lie,” Dora crossed her arms gently over one another.
“No, I’m not kidding! They beat these people a lot,” Ferenc said.
Dora didn’t know what to say back. When it came to the government, she always chose her words wisely. Ferenc moved closer to Dora’s face, nearly butting his forehead against hers.
“I know how you feel,” Ferenc tempered his voice to a quiet drawl. “Mine is gone too, gone far away.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“Not a clue.”
“I am sorry.” Dora avoided eye contact with Ferenc. She wasn’t ready to make this an intimate dialogue.
“Oh, please, let’s not talk about those plans. Let’s dance.” Ferenc pulled Dora toward him. He spun her around, stopping only to press his lips to her ear.
“Anika, why do I feel like you understand what I’m saying more than anyone else?”
“I’m not sure,” Dora lied. She felt the connection too, but she also felt the familiar desire to retreat. She feared talking more would activate her past, causing it to twist and spin until it turned into a vortex of pain and confusion she couldn’t escape. Dora didn’t say another word. She continued dancing with Ferenc, finding safety in the mechanical motion of their bodies.
They remained like that for nearly an hour until Marta appeared at Dora’s side to discuss their plans for the rest of the night. Before they came to any conclusions, Ferenc called out names into the abyss of dancing bodies, and like a band of loyal monkeys, random heads perked up at his summons and sprang toward them immediately. Within seconds, a group of five men surrounded them.
“Now this is the party I have been searching for!” Marta flushed, listed, and smiled.
“Let’s get out of here!” Ferenc suggested, playing off Marta’s exuberance.
As they left the bar, Ferenc slipped his hand in Dora’s. It felt like a warm washcloth, damp and textured, yet soothing.
Ferenc’s group of friends somehow procured three bottles of wine, which they slipped out of their coat pockets and passed around in the open air. When the alcohol finally made its way to Marta, she gulped down nearly half the bottle. Dora only allowed herself to drink a sip.
By the time they managed to finish off the wine, they had reached the Danube. The river sprawled before them like a feathery boa. The breeze ruffled its dark and foreboding surface, producing barely audible waves.
Ferenc sprinted to the border and ran alongside the river.
“Oh, fuck this world!” Ferenc shouted into the night, dragging out his words. “Fuck this fucking world and this fucking government.”
“Oh, yeah!” Ferenc’s friend, Andras, joined in. “Fuck the lines at the post office! Fuck the trash that piles up on my doorstep because people are too lazy to fucking pick it up! I’ll slam their heads into the ground!”
Marta giggled, and Dora winced. If someone heard them screaming like this, they would all be thrown in jail.
Ferenc dug into his coat and produced a small radio. He rested it on the ground, extended its antennas and dialed directly to Radio Free Europe. “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’” wafted from the speakers. Ferenc scooped up the radio, cradling it in the crook of his arm, and danced with it. Marta cuddled against Andras, and the other boys started kicking around a ball they found on the street. Dora thought this must be what it was like to feel young—to be fearless, to care only about what was right in front of her, to actually become a moment.
It reminded Dora of how she felt after her first kiss, which she let herself remember for the first time in years. It used to be Dora’s measuring stick for happiness. But when nothing ever added up, Dora tried to forget the kiss ever happened.
It was right before her sixteenth birthday, when Boldiszar surprised her with a trip to Lake Balaton. Dora remembered being so excited, and also nervous to spend so much time with Boldiszar in a situation that involved traveling and sleeping arrangements. They would stay at Boldiszar’s aunt’s house and sleep in separate rooms. Dora wondered what Boldiszar would think when he saw her in a bathing suit, laying on the beach or coming out of the water. She wanted her first kiss to happen so badly, but it also terrified her.
On their last night, Boldiszar insisted on giving Dora a birthday present, even though Dora told him numerous times he didn’t need to get her anything. But, Boldiszar wouldn’t listen. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m not sure how much this is for you as it is for me.” He reached behind Dora’s back and pulled her into him.
Dora froze and stared up at Boldiszar, who gave her the look she fantasized about for so many years—like all he cared about was her. He leaned down and kissed her square on the lips.
“Happy birthday,” Boldiszar whispered.
Dora didn’t know what to do. She never actually expected this to happen. Her dreams of being with Boldiszar, most prominent in the seconds before she fell asleep, always seemed so dull and useless by morning.
“Dora …,” Boldiszar tucked her hair behind her ear. “I know I’m too old to be with you now.”
Dora touched her lips, still tingling from the kiss. “Then, why did you do it now?”
“Because, I’m not sure what the future holds for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m involved in something, something big, that I can’t talk about. But I want you to know that you are, and always will be, the person I’ll come back to … when the time is right.”
Just as quickly as Dora felt hope swell inside her, she felt it come crashing down. Dora wondered if the “something big” Boldiszar referred to had to do with the illegal newspaper her mom ran. Given the attention and fury it invoked in Ivan, Dora knew any involvement with the paper would put Boldiszar in danger. Dora hated Eszter in that moment for tainting one of the best experiences of her life. Still, she cradled the memory of that kiss for weeks afterwards, until she came to understand the constant remembrance of something so brilliant—and far greater than anything around her—made the dullness of her life too sharp.
Dora didn’t kiss anyone after that for years. She wondered if tonight she would feel again that small peak of excitement and adrenaline, culminating in a kiss. Ferenc seemed sweet and sincere and, to Dora's benefit, drunk, which meant little pressure for follow-up.
Dora got up to join Ferenc, who now held the radio as if it was a newborn baby, singing to it in wonder. Before she reached him, however, Dora noticed two shadows growing bigger and bigger, encroaching upon Ferenc’s dance floor. When Dora turned around, she saw two long black sticks. She saw the hands that connected them and the dark jackets encasing the arms. That’s when she realized it was the police. They bypassed her and crept toward Ferenc. His back to them, Ferenc continued serenading the radio.
&nb
sp; When the second officer stepped into Dora’s view, she felt tiny needles of fear pinning her down rather than propelling her to action. She could only stare, not move. Everyone else, but Ferenc, had noticed the police too and started backing away.
All at once, the police slapped their clubs against their hands. Ferenc turned around. The radio slid from his hands and crashed to the ground. One of the police officers went up next to Ferenc, who still hadn’t moved, and kicked his radio into the river.
Dora felt her head swing back violently as a surge of pain jolted up her neck. Her scalp was burning. Someone was pulling her hair. They yanked her to the ground. Another surge of pain erupted. Something was hitting her. It was hitting her hard. The pain burst on her back and then sprung onto her shoulder. It clawed into the back of her thighs. Then there was nothing.
Dora saw a dark orb hang above her. It looked peaceful, like she could curl up in its silky body. She reached out to touch it, only to feel the course fibers of something thick and unruly.
“Why are you touching my hair, Dora?” Marta breathed. “It doesn’t matter, just get up! Get up!”
Marta yanked at the bottom of Dora’s shirt, trying to lift her up however possible. The stitches on Dora’s shirt ripped open, but Marta refused to let go. Before she could understand anything more, Dora heard a violent pitter-patter, a panicked thumping, that grew quicker and louder until it sounded like thunder claps in her ears. She realized it was the sound of her boots smacking against the cobblestone. They were running. Dora heard an inconsistent series of screams in the distance. The lights beaming from the apartments above them flickered off.
“Dora!” Marta whispered. “Dora, you need to run faster. I’m serious.”
Dora considered the strangeness of Marta’s right eye. It was smaller than her left and seemed to do all the communicating for Marta. Dora’s concerted effort to export her consciousness from the situation was interrupted by the sound of boots clanking. Two policemen ran past them with clubs drawn.
“Okay,” Dora rapidly nodded. “Okay. Okay, let’s move.”
Despite her injured back and legs, now exposed and bleeding, Dora ran. She couldn’t string together logical thoughts, but her body somehow matched Marta’s pace, locking into the rhythm of their escape.
Eszter Turján
October 23, 1956—Late Afternoon
I woke up to a subtle draft gliding over my nose. I opened my eyes to Laszlo leaning over me, scanning my face. Before I could say anything, he pressed his ink-stained finger against my lips. I could almost taste the sultry sweat on his hands through my closed mouth. He picked me up off the ground and shuttled me to the other side of the office. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Antal, stretched out on the couch and asleep, despite his agony.
Speaking so affectedly that I could see him wrench every syllable from his mouth, Laszlo said, “Look at him, Eszter. He is all beat up. How do we know that he has not betrayed us? Or someone else? Did someone find out about us?”
I looked at Antal’s disfigured face, and I couldn’t imagine him ever saying anything about Realitás to the wrong people.
“We need to just take care of him for now,” I urged.
Laszlo listed, slightly, and let out a sigh. “We will watch Antal. Just you and I, and we won’t let him out of our sight.”
Laszlo fingered the flimsy steno pad in his hand as his eyelashes brimmed with perspiration.
“What’s wrong?” I wiped away a bead of sweat, which, upon examining, realized could be a tear.
“I don’t know how to write about this,” he said.
“Write about what?”
“What I saw, everyone tearing down the Stalin Monument, like they don’t even know what that’s going to mean for them.”
Laszlo and I had split up for the day to gather notes—he followed the protest to the city park, where thousands of people demolished a massive statue of Stalin, leaving only his boots. In them, they placed flowers.
“Just try.” I ushered Laszlo to his chair at the typewriter.
“How could you not get it, Eszter? Especially after everything you saw at the radio building. This is real. The protest went right by your house, you know.”
“It did?” I hadn’t checked in at home, but I knew Ivan would protect Dora. I was certain he had thoroughly demeaned the students’ efforts by now, calling them out as ignorant and idealistic. He would make sure to stifle any desire in Dora to even step outside that apartment.
“You should call them.” Laszlo turned away from me. He loaded a piece of paper in the typewriter and, as I heard the click of the first keys, I picked up the phone. He was right this time. Miraculously, the phone lines had been sustained.
“Eszter,” Ivan breathed. “It’s you. Thank God, it’s you.”
I pretended to cry. If Ivan imagined me cowering in fear somewhere, unable to get home, I could uphold the lie a little longer. My family would get through this without me, and I needed to focus on my duties at the paper.
“Ivan,” I sobbed, “Are you okay?”
“What do you mean, Eszter? Can you make it home? We’re fine. We’re here and we’re both reading in the room, but we want you to come home.”
“I’m okay, just stuck in this shelter at the factory. I’ll be here for the night, I think,” I told him.
“Where?”
“I have to go. I have to go now.” If I still loved Ivan, maybe I would have gone home. I used to love him for how he could be so strong and sensitive at the same time. Yet over the years, and as Ivan climbed the ranks in the regime, that strength grew so hard it calcified. Beneath it, trapped, was his gentleness—his habit of telling me I was beautiful in his sleep, his affinity for music and making us chocolate chip pancakes at midnight. I wondered if this movement would take a match to his strength, and in melting it, set free some of that softness. I also wondered if it was still there at all.
I could hear Ivan breathing on the other line of the phone, waiting for me to say something else. He was always waiting for me to say something more, as if I could simply forgive him. I think he fantasized that I would come home one day with a smile on my face and chirp, “You’re forgiven.”
“For what?” he’d ask.
“Everything. My parents. You working for this government. You not looking at me or touching me for ten years,” I’d say.
It would never happen, though. In reaction to our isolation from one another, we’d built up separate lives that were highly involved. There were structures, incentives, and people that kept us moving away from one another.
I said goodbye to Ivan and hung up.
When I turned around, Laszlo, who clearly had been eavesdropping, resumed typing. I looked over his writing and noticed it seemed erratic. Sentences drifted on the page, untied from one another and unanchored to a central thesis. Laszlo’s hands shook, only slightly, but enough. He needed to relax. I edged my palms onto his working hands, feeling his muscles give with my touch.
“We need to get this out soon,” Laszlo sighed.
I wanted nothing more than for him to turn around and kiss me. I would wait, however.
“We tell them what I saw. What you saw,” I offered.
“But we have no intelligence beyond that,” Laszlo groaned as he leaned back in his chair, and into me.
“They have already started fighting. We need to give them more than what we gave them last time. Let’s give them something to keep them going. Let them know that there is hope,” I urged.
“You are saying we tell them to fight, without any resources, and without knowing any of the potential consequences?” Laszlo snarled.
By proposing we go at it blind, without a staple of intelligence, I challenged Laszlo’s journalistic integrity. But, certain hardships trumped that. We suffered under our government. I waited hours just to buy bread for my family. When I walked anywhere, even in my own home, I always looked behind me at least three times to check if anyone was following me. My friends, like my f
amily, disappeared too. I would arrive at their apartments, ready to simply visit with them, and no one would answer the door. I would knock and knock, until I gave up and looked through the windows, only to notice all of their things gone. The discovery of their absence was nothing compared to the realization of what that meant. They were almost certainly killed, executed in the secret police’s dark chambers, or they had been sent to a work camp where they would die under the backbreaking labor. I always said a small prayer for them, right there, in the middle of the sidewalk. Then the anxiety would set in. I would wonder whether Ivan’s position really did shelter us from the all-powerful and paranoid government.
I would feel my mind working at five times its normal speed. Millions of questions raced in and out of it, distracting me from answering any one of them. And this unknowing felt like a drug, infusing me with an obsessive energy as I considered the various drastic responses to the scenarios I concocted. The best decision I made was working for Realitás, where, at the very least, I could put this energy to some sort of use.
I would have supported anything or anyone who promised to lessen the paranoia that engulfed me every day. This movement was our chance. Yes, I preferred that we encourage the students to fight, if it meant that we could start invoking some sort of change. And I still had hope that our contacts would pull through and supply the kids with weapons.
“There,” I said, pointing at Laszlo’s description of Stalin’s head falling to the ground. “We have enough intelligence to work with. We’re going to publish everything you and I saw today. And then some more … to make sure this keeps going.”
“Eszter …,” Laszlo began. He almost had that tone in his voice, the one he used when he was coming on to me.
I thought, for a second, Laszlo would try to make love to me again, but before he could approach me, we heard Antal’s breathing became irregular. Slipping away from Laszlo and draping my jacket over Antal, I stooped next to the old man.
Still disfigured, his face began to twitch. Short nonsensical phrases slipped from his lips. Half conscious, he peeked his eyes through his swollen lids and mumbled “czar” once again.
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