Radio Underground

by Alison Littman

  “And we must all be aware of our purpose …,” the loudspeaker sent a voice through the audience, which Dora recognized as her father’s boss. If she squinted, she could see Ivan standing on stage. Behind him, massive, long black curtains hung from pillars, as if to remind everyone of the party’s immense power.

  “… that we are workers responsible for the well-being of this nation,” Ivan said, taking hold of the microphone. “You might say you would prefer to be a movie star, a wealthy capitalist, that working in a factory is not for you. Or maybe you hear friends saying that. I caution you, do not give credence to this petty bourgeois egotism. Staying and working in Hungary will provide you with more fulfillment than anything else. Nothing compares to the feeling of working hard for your country.”

  The crowd erupted in applause, though Dora didn’t see anyone near her doing much clapping. They had probably set up speakers to project fake cheering in the square.

  Marta poked Dora in the side, pointing toward a group of men huddled in a circle. “Dora! That’s Ferenc.”

  Dora stood on her tiptoes, trying to see where Marta was pointing. Sure enough, Ferenc stood in the group, frowning and rubbing his forehead as he focused on whatever was in the middle of the circle.

  “What are they doing?” Marta nudged Dora toward Ferenc.

  “I have no idea.”

  As Ivan’s voice rolled through the crowd, Ferenc looked mournfully at his watch. Every time he seemed to frown even harder, and without any indication, he tore away from the group.

  “Where is he going?” Dora pleaded as Ferenc forced his way through the throngs of people, slipping out of view.

  “I don’t know, but we have to follow him,” Marta whispered.

  “Let’s go.” Dora eyed the security police surrounding them. “But not too quickly.”

  As they passed Ferenc’s friends, Dora peered through the gaps between them to find the center of their focus. In the middle of the group, on the ground, sat a small, black radio. It was emanating static like an uncapped fire hydrant. Dora had an idea where Ferenc was going.

  Eszter Turján

  February 28, 1965—Midnight

  He’s before me, his eyes flaring, the fire in them so bright I have to shield myself.

  “Did you hear it? Did you hear it?” Ferenc points to the radio. “We unjammed it!”

  He’s so excited.

  “I heard the code,” I say. “How did you do it?”

  “We broke into the room where they store the jamming equipment, and my friend Tomasz disabled it.”

  “But didn’t you hear the code too?” I am getting suspicious.

  “We didn’t have time.”

  “Is that the only reason you came down here? For the code?” I’m worried he’s going back on his promise to take me.

  “No ….” He starts pacing. “I still need your help to get on the envoy.”

  “I will help you, but hide under the bed for now. We have to wait until the guards change and the second one gets too drunk and tired to notice us.”

  I notice the adrenaline sparking in Ferenc’s eyes. It’s the look I saw in Boldiszar when I led him through the streets that night. I lean back against my bed and wait. Escape is my chance. It’s my only shot at seeing Laszlo face-to-face, proving to him that I am alive, I am breathing, and I am still someone. Then there is Dora, of course.

  My stomach begins to leap from inside of me, going somewhere. I don’t know where. I begin to feel that same burst I experienced after I shot the Soviet soldier.

  “You have to promise me one thing,” I say. “You will never leave my side until I am out of here.”

  “I will take you. I have always said I will take you. Please, let’s go soon.” Ferenc stirs below my bed, and I press down with my all my weight to stop him from moving.

  Minutes lurch by us. I stare at a small ant crossing what, to him, must seem like a ravine, but it’s just the crack between two bricks. If I could be as tiny as that ant I would have crawled out a long time ago, I want to tell Ferenc. I would not need him.

  The guards change, but first they do their inspection of our cells, back and forth, back and forth. I pray they don’t take me for themselves tonight. Not tonight, not ever again. Their steps send vibrations through the floor that I am sure Ferenc feels too. He does not move once.

  The worst is always to come. I must remember that. I tell Ferenc that we will make our escape in two hours. That is when the second guard will be completely incapacitated.

  *

  He’s coming into my cell. Oh, no, he is going to do it to me. He is going to take me, and we will miss our window. I want to scream, but I can’t. I want to fight him, but I am so weak.

  “Eszter, Eszter, Eszter.” I can smell the vodka, but not on his breath, from his pores. It’s in him. “Are you going to come with me tonight?”

  I can feel Ferenc below me, because he’s poking the mattress, and I don’t know what it means, but I know I have to stop this guard. I have to protect Ferenc and get out of here.

  I shake my head.

  “Oh, you’re a feisty one tonight, aren’t you?” He falls onto my bed and he tries to lift his head, but it’s filled with vodka. I can hear it sloshing back and forth inside of him. “I have something for you.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red geranium, withered and pressed from being in his pocket. He runs it along my mouth. “Isn’t it so lovely?” He picked it from the pots in the windows upstairs, I’m sure of it.

  He starts moving more on the bed, scooting his butt up and down. He feels Ferenc. He must. “Are you hiding something under here?”

  I put my hand behind me because I am scratching it, and it’s the only thing I know to do. I feel something hard and metal go into it, from the crack between the bed and the wall. I run my hand along the top of the object. It’s pointed, a screwdriver. It’s the one Ferenc uses to open the vent, and he has given it to me now. I know exactly what to do.

  “I have something for you too,” I whisper.

  The guard looks at me, hopeful.

  I take the screwdriver and I stab him, stab him, stab him in the eye. Thoughts leave me, and all that remains is my body moving, attacking. He screams, but I don’t care. I keep stabbing. He falls to the floor, and I jam the screwdriver in his ear. I stand above him, possessed by a strength I didn’t know I had. I kick his head over and over until he doesn’t move, but I can see him breathing. That is enough, I decide.

  I grab Ferenc’s arm and help him out from under the bed.

  “Eszter, thank you, thank you,” Ferenc gasps.

  He sounds like he’s praying to me. When his eyes finally make it to mine, I recognize the expression.

  “Boldiszar,” I say to him. “Trust me, this time it will work.”

  But what I really want to tell him is that we can all become someone else. We aren’t original. We are people who have already lived, or died, or who aren’t even dead yet. I’ve already done this before, to him, years ago. Boldiszar grins, too much.

  Before I can leave, I have to say goodbye to my rat. He barely exists now because he has deteriorated to bones and loose, torn skin. I hold him tight. My hand is getting worse, and puss is festering in the wounds. My little rat doesn’t mind. His tiny nose is still intact, and that’s what I kiss.

  Boldiszar looks over my entire body, and suddenly I am worried. “What?”

  “You won’t survive out there.”

  “I have to.”

  “It’s winter. And that looks infected.” He reaches for my hand.

  I pull it away from him. “I’ll be fine. Just get me out.”

  “I’m taking this.” Boldiszar grabs the worn blanket on my bed. “It’s not much, but at least we can keep you a little warm.”

  He is so thoughtful, my Boldiszar. I nod.

  We start with the vent in my cell, my first hurdle. When I make it inside, I feel the icy darkness of something that never brought me heat. My eyes search for nothing in the black, but m
y ears follow Boldiszar, who is crawling in front of me and then up, up, up. He reaches his hand down and I hear it tapping on the metal, beckoning me to grab it. I do, and he pulls me up, grunting through the exertion. The vent creaks, and I wonder if it’s on the verge of splintering. Every time it happens, Boldiszar pauses.

  We come upon a solid piece of metal. It’s a blockade. I hear Boldiszar fiddle with keys, then the sure sound of a lock unlocking. We continue. Crawl. Door. Unlock. We enter a tunnel that smells like dirt and urine. We are wading through a bigger tunnel, and sewage collects around my ankles.

  But I see it. It’s my first glimpse of freedom at the top of a grate. Through it I spy yellow light, barely poking through.

  “Eszter,” Boldiszar is pointing up. “Please, tell me, when I open that, you will take me to the envoy.”

  I nod forcefully, my neck so raw and grimy, and me not liking it for the first time. Boldiszar climbs up a ladder built into the wall. He pushes on the grate. It slides off. He reaches down to me. Holding my breath, I grab his hand one last time. He pulls me into the night.

  My body is rigid. I can hardly look up, but when I do, I see, for the first time, nothing above me. I feel the swell of the universe, a momentum going up and no longer down into the basement. So much air rushes into me at one time that it feels like all the wind in the world is being funneled into my lungs. My skin is on fire, even though it’s cold. The air is digging its tiny fingers into every pore and yanking out the staleness of the past nine years. I might be turning numb, because Boldiszar drapes the blanket over me, but I don’t feel it. My entire body begins convulsing, and I feel the ground hit me. There is little I can do but endure this onslaught. I am free.

  Dora Turján

  February 28, 1965—Midnight

  Dora couldn’t breathe again, like she was really drowning this time. She’d feel a wave of terror engulf her, followed by a swell of regret that would push her further and further down into the tumult. It was so dark and so cold, and she couldn’t hold her breath much longer. She just couldn’t. Her mom, at any moment, would emerge into the night, and she didn’t know what to do.

  After they fled the rally, Marta ran to get Tomasz and Dora went straight to the ministry, hoping she’d find Ferenc there. Dora thought he’d seek help from Eszter in his panic, though she certainly wouldn’t be able to unjam the radio. Dora caught Ferenc just as he was running in the door, out of breath and sweaty, and so determined he didn’t even notice Dora at first. When she shouted his name a second time, he spun around and rushed to her. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her hard, his sweat making his forehead almost as moist as his tongue. Dora leaned into him for a brief second, enjoying his attention and his warmth.

  When she told him about the room in the ministry with the additional jamming equipment, he smiled, a watery film coating his eyes, and took Dora’s hand. He kissed her again, and they began their search for the room.

  Ferenc had keys to most of the doors, though the longer they spent searching the building, the more Dora wondered if Ivan had misspoken. The fact that they would build redundancy into the jamming system made sense, but it didn’t quite add up that they would put the equipment in the ministry. Why not just store it somewhere in the radio building, where the infrastructure was already in place?

  When Ferenc finally opened a room with what looked like radio equipment, Dora let out a sigh of relief. And, even better, the room was empty. Dora had mentally prepared for a different scenario, silently practicing her most senior voice, which she’d use to explain that she had orders to override the current jamming schedule.

  Shortly thereafter, Tomasz and Marta arrived, and Tomasz went to work right away. Once he disabled the jamming device, Ferenc told them all to wait outside. He had to go get Eszter. She had a radio and hopefully heard the code. They couldn’t risk staying there and getting caught listening to Radio Free Europe. Once outside, Marta and Tomasz excused themselves to search for a backup radio, though Dora knew it was really just to give her some privacy.

  Dora still hadn’t figured out how she’d break the news to Ferenc that she was actually Dora and not, indeed, Anika. She didn’t want to say anything that would distract him from the mission, though it didn’t seem completely fair he’d learn the news just as he prepared to leave the country with her mom. After knowing Ferenc’s innermost thoughts for years, Dora speculated that if he did get upset, however, it wouldn’t last for too long. His desire for love usually outweighed most other things in his life.

  She wandered to the side alley, the place where she first unknowingly saw Eszter. She thought back to that day—how she would have never imagined the power of one look and all that it would put in motion.

  She leaned back against the brick wall, its ragged surface catching on her coat, providing the illusion that someone was holding her up. “Mom,” Dora practiced saying. “I’m glad you made it out. I’m glad you’re here.” But every time she said the words out loud, they sounded so fake. “Mom, mom, mom” she said again, hoping the repetition would calm her down. She thought about turning around and going home, back to her life with her dad. She didn’t, after all, need to see her mom for the plan to work. She could probably find a way to confirm that Ferenc and Eszter made it out without being there to witness it.

  Yet Dora’s mind, so tired of lying to her, kept her standing in the snow for another hour. She knew abandoning Eszter now would mean going back to the life she had, and now hated. It was one of indifference and perpetual waiting. It was marked by routine, both in her movements and in her feelings. She strove for nothing she truly cared about, and in turn, became successful at perpetuating the life she didn’t want. She already felt more alive than she had in nine years, and she clung to that feeling now, hoping it could somehow warm her up.

  When flurries of snow started surrounding her and the wind began nipping at her ears, she decided it was time to go searching for Ferenc and Eszter. She crept out of the alley, studying the streets, nearly empty now. She passed by the abandoned parks and office buildings, then the train station, which looked so much more elegant in the winter, the snow covering its dusty film.

  An older man shuffled past her, his face hidden in his scarf. His crystal blue eyes peeked out above the fabric, studying the ground through a web of wrinkles and swollen, windburnt skin. She knew it couldn’t be Ferenc, but a part of her hoped it was anyway, and she observed him until he turned the corner and disappeared. Dora could have sworn she heard The Beatles coming from a window above her, but she doubted anyone would be so daring as to play rock ‘n’ roll so late at night.

  She circled back toward the ministry, where she decided she would resume her station until the morning, when she saw a shadowy figure cross the street. She couldn’t make out its exact shape, but it looked like a man. She started off in that direction.

  For a moment, she forgot what Ferenc looked like, her nerves starting to override her ability to think clearly. What if she was the one losing it? What if Eszter’s mental illness was genetic and this was her first breakdown? She felt her hands grow lighter, her legs too. It suddenly seemed like they weren’t even part of her body, like she was gliding on the snow or falling down into a deep pit.

  “Anika,” she heard someone shout at her. She kept moving forward. “Anika,” the voice said again. It was coming from the mouth of a man. She kept going toward it. She felt so warm all of a sudden. He was hugging her.

  “How did you find us?” it said, and when she looked into its eyes she saw Ferenc staring intently back at her, concerned and weary.

  “I just kept walking. It’s so cold.” Dora’s voice trembled as she pushed her words through the frigid air.

  “I’m so sorry we lost you. The guards, they almost caught us, we had to go out another way.” He kissed Dora’s cheek. “You are freezing, we need to get both of you inside.” Ferenc pointed to a lumpy blanket on the ground in the alley, curled up against the brick wall.

  Dora froze and stared
at the blanket. It wasn’t moving. It had to be … it could only be …

  “Is she okay?” Dora inched closer to the blanket.

  “She’s okay for now, but we need to get her on the envoy as soon as possible.”

  A snort rattled from the blanket. “Laszzzzzzzlooooo,” she said. “Stop! Stop!”

  Dora kneeled down to Eszter’s level, knowing this was it—the moment she had feared for the past nine years, but had nonetheless headed for her with the certain stride of fate. The blanket covered most of her mom’s face. Only her forehead was visible as Eszter rocked herself gently in her cocoon.

  “I think she is a little overwhelmed right now.” Ferenc put his arm on Dora’s shoulder. “It’s best to just leave her alone.”

  Dora ignored him. She wanted to look into her mom’s eyes. She reached for the blanket. It felt hot. Eszter must have a fever. Or maybe it was Dora’s hands that were cold. Making sure not to make any sudden movements, Dora pulled down the blanket past Eszter’s chin. She lowered her body, until she was lying down on the pavement next to her mom. She closed her eyes and kept them shut until she felt her face align with Eszter’s, her breath on Dora’s nose.

  Dora took one last breath. She opened her eyes. At first, Eszter stared past Dora, into the snowdrifts piled on the sidewalk behind them. But as the seconds went by, Eszter’s gaze crept along Dora’s shoulders, to her neck, and finally to her face. When they locked eyes, Eszter froze. A look of bewilderment, bordering on shock, overcame her face.

  “It’s me,” Dora whispered. She reached for her mom’s cheek, Eszter’s skin hot on Dora’s palm. The moment felt dangerously palpable to Dora, as if at any time, someone could reach down and swat it away.