Triptych

by Margit Liesche

  I observed them more closely.

  The first panel was of the princesses’ secret passageway. In my book, the twelve sisters, in elegant royal party dresses, descended a staircase, transcending three floors. In the top corner, the smallest princess, Elise, stood near a draped hidden doorway in their castle bedroom. Ahead of her, the eleven older siblings raced down the stairs, past elegant pillars, to a doorway on the ground floor. Beyond was the path to the enchanted forest.

  My mother’s princess duo also posed before a doorway nearly hidden by thick drapes. The doorway was at the top of the piece, but centered. The two princesses stood slightly apart, arms extended, holding hands and wearing traditional Hungarian costume—red boots, flaring ethnic skirts, puff-sleeved blouses, vests and crowns of flowers. Before them, a grand staircase spoked off, like two arms, forming separate grand stairways. At the bottom, the left staircase seeped off the fabric’s edge into blankness; the other—like in my book—ended at a doorway in the lower right.

  In panel two, a prince rowed a princess across the lake. Again, my mother had followed the standard storyline. But in keeping with her pared-down rendition, instead of a fleet there was one boat only. Elise’s. Its prow was lifted up out of the water because unbeknownst to the boat’s occupants, someone invisible was seated in the back. In my version, it would be the gardener boy wearing his magical flower.

  The boat glided toward the twilight kingdom where princesses danced in the arms of handsome princes until their shoes—or in this princess’ case, boots—wore out. The enchanted fortress in my book was a dark presence, but rather than lifeless and foreboding as my mother had rendered hers, strings of lights draped the turrets. Tall windows were ablaze, the reflected light illuminating the specter of bejeweled trees that dotted the castle’s grounds. My mother’s twilight palace was chunky, turretless, an all-black square. Why was her vision of it so ugly, so barren? Was it unimportant to her? Or, had she felt rushed to finish it? Run out of time?

  That would explain the third panel, a scene of the gardener offering Elise a bouquet. At least in my book it would be Elise, but this was my mother’s rendition. Only red boots had been completed. The figure wearing them was unfinished. Like her love for me. Interrupted. Threads left dangling.

  Mariska waited with an expectant look.

  “It’s beautiful. She remembered,” I said at last. “It was my favorite fairy tale. I read it over and over as a child. But I never thought to tell her—” My voice caught. “I loved her stories the best.”

  I felt Auntie Mariska’s warmth as her lips brushed my cheek. “Now her stories are your stories.”

  And one of them is without an ending.

  ***

  Budapest, 22 October 1956

  Outside on the stoop of the apartment building, Évike shivered. It was late afternoon. In the dark corner where she waited, the freezing dampness penetrated her threadbare jacket. Her sodden skirt clung to her backside like a cold soggy bathing suit. Her teeth chattered. Where was Mother? Why didn’t she answer the buzzer? Deák téri School was a short walk, but Mother tried always to be home when she arrived, to know she has made it safely. I am here, Mother. I do not feel safe. Where are you?

  In the director’s office, Évike’s thoughts had raced. Gombóc wanted her to spill something incriminating about the Petőfi Circle…its members…her mother, but Évike was no rat. What if she could throw Gombóc a different juicy bone? An easy target? A guaranteed notch in the major’s oversized AVO belt?

  It had happened so fast. The false traitor’s name and offense spilled freely from Évike’s lips, and it was over.

  “This is between us,” Gombóc had warned before she left. “Or—one hundred percent sure—we will find a reason to come for your mother.”

  Now, standing on the dank concrete stoop, Évike trembled again.

  “Hello édes gyermekem, sweet child. What are you doing out here in the dark?” The unexpected voice—a woman’s—startled Évike. The woman stepped closer. “Why, you are shivering.”

  It was a neighbor. Married, childless, a few years older than her mother. Évike had chatted with her a number of times, briefly. One in ten of all Hungarians are secret AVO informers, her mother had warned. She drew a blank on the name.

  Évike retreated deeper into the shadowy gloom. Conscious of her soiled skirt, she quivered with cold and shame, teeth chattering uncontrollably.

  The woman hesitated as if gathering her thoughts. “Ah, your dear mother must be delayed somewhere. We know she would not forget…” Her voice trailed off. Then, brightly, “Well what are we doing still standing out here?” She inserted her key into the door. “Come, let’s go inside.”

  The small dimly lit vestibule reeked of mildew, but once the door was closed the odor from her urine-soaked clothing was noticeable. The woman turned to Évike. She looked away, but too late. She’d glimpsed the woman’s expression. Not the look of revulsion she’d expected, but features soft with compassion.

  “Szegény lány, poor girl.”

  Évike was numb from all she had been through that day. The tenderness in the woman’s voice, her gesture as she reached around and gathered her close, penetrated like the warmth of the sun. The woman was tall, lean but sturdy. Évike pressed her head against the woman’s slight bosom and felt safe in the tender embrace, calmed by the rhythmic beating of her heart.

  The woman’s palm was gentle, her words a quiet unintelligible murmuring, as she stroked Évike’s head, lightly brushed her cheek. Évike had been holding herself stiff for so long her limbs ached. She gave in to the comfort, surrendered to the woman’s kindness. It was in this moment that the low sounds became intelligible.

  “Poor darling. These dark times. Just a child…What has happened to you? What has filled you with such fear?” the woman was saying.

  Now the emotion she had so willfully denied to Gombóc burst forth. Hot tears flowed down her icy cheeks. Mucus dribbled from her nose. She sniffled, and the woman began dabbing her face with a handkerchief.

  Évike looked up into worried dark eyes and a concerned smile, and did her best to smile back.

  “Come, my darling. I will walk you to your doorstep.”

  Arms locked, they crossed the stark interior courtyard, climbed cement stairs to the second floor, arrived at the beat-up door. A note greeted them.

  Édes lányom, sweet daughter, I am at Dóra’s. Come over, okay?

  Évike’s shoulders caved. She needed to change her skirt first.

  The neighbor’s dark complexion seemed to blacken. “How did she expect you to get in from the street? Does she think you are a ghost? You float through locked doors?”

  At the harsh tone of the woman’s voice, Évike looked up anxiously. The woman’s voice softened. “She is caught up with things, isn’t she? I have noticed this.”

  The woman’s fingers ruffled her dark coarse hair and she spoke in a faraway voice. “My husband should like to go to America. ‘Stay here,’ he says, ‘try to make change, go to prison, maybe die. Leave, be free. In America it is good; it will always be good. Here it was always shit; there will always be shit.’”

  Évike stared, her eyes wide. The woman noticing, laughed. “My husband has a way with words, don’t you think?”

  She held Évike’s hand as they walked the short distance to the apartment next door. “I will leave you now,” the neighbor whispered. Using the back of her hand, she lightly smoothed Évike’s hair away from her face. “You are very strong. You will be fine.”

  ***

  Évike knocked. From the other side of the door came the clacking sounds of a typewriter. She waited, rapped again. When the tapping continued, she tested the knob. It turned. She entered Dóra’s apartment.

  Dóra and her mother, consumed in conversation and their respective activities, did not notice her as she stood near the entrance.

 
Dóra sat at the typewriter, her back to the door. Her long, untamed, fire-red hair swept back and forth with the movement of her head, turning from the keyboard to a document propped on a stand beside the machine. Her mother was at the nearby dining table, hunched over a Hungarian tricolor, the flag’s horizontal bands—red, white, green—splayed across the table’s surface. The scissors she held opened and closed with a crunching, biting noise, snipping out a circular section—the hammer and sickle—at the cloth’s center.

  “Franciska, you and I, we’re Communists,” Dóra was saying, “Russia is our friend. If we leave her friendship there is the risk the facists will take over again.”

  “Yes,” her mother said, walking over from the table to join her friend. “And everyone was in agreement.” She pointed with the scissors to the paper on the stand. “Here. Point Number Three. That there be Hungarian-Soviet friendship—”

  “—but that Soviet troops be withdrawn from the country,” Dóra finished for her.

  Her mother nodded. “Yes. What right do they have to be here? We have debated this. They must go.” She slapped the flat of the closed scissor blades against her palm. “It will work out. We merely want a few changes, and we have identified them. Now we need to be heard.”

  The tapping sounds resumed. Her mother, returning to the table, leaned over the flag again, scissors poised.

  “Hello, Mother. Dóra,” Évike said, venturing into the open living area, careful to keep a safe distance, sensitive to the smell of her skirt.

  Her mother looked in her direction, frowned. “Drágám, darling, you do not look so good. What is the matter?”

  Before Évike could answer, Dóra’s one-year-old daughter, Dórika who had been sleeping in the adjoining room let out a shriek. Dóra scrambled to her feet.

  Head tilted to one side, she regarded Évike. “You look like a warrior just back from battle. Rough day at school?” she observed, ignorant to the bitter truth of her words. Before Évike could answer, the baby shrieked again. “Excuse me, my warrior princess beckons. Lucky for breast milk, otherwise she’d be going hungry like the rest of us.”

  “I’ll take over cutting the stencil,” Évike’s mother said, assuming Dóra’s seat.

  Dóra glanced back over her shoulder saying, “Yes, please, hurry, finish Franciska. At the university they are waiting…” and disappeared into the adjoining room.

  “What are you doing mother?” Évike asked.

  “Dóra has been creating a stencil. Come look.”

  Évike hesitated. Her mother would surely notice the sour smell and want to know what happened, and she was bursting to tell her. However, this was not a good time to describe the showdown with Gombóc. She and Dóra were involved in something important. Urgent. Her mother’s concentration would be broken, which always annoyed her. Évike’s chin jutted out. Yes, later. Probably best. A twinge of unease over the counter-punch she’d thrown at Gombóc had begun nagging her. Had she overlooked something?

  “I must go change…” she began. A whisper of cool air streamed past her. Curious, she turned toward its source. None of the apartments in the building had exterior windows, but the barred, courtyard-facing window was open a crack. Why invite the cold? The building was already unheated.

  Her mother pounded the typewriter keys, her back to her daughter. Évike’s gaze lingered a moment. Compared to Dóra’s unruly flaming hair, her mother’s medium-length dark locks were neatly styled. The precision cut ends brushed the collar of her quilted jacket, her head pivoting side to side, from paper to carriage, as she worked.

  “Mother, why are you wearing a jacket indoors?”

  “What? Oh, the baby threw up. Dóra opened the window. The smell, you know.”

  The clacking continued and Évike inched closer until she could see over her mother’s shoulder.

  Her mother sensed her presence. Cheeks rosy with excitement, she paused and gestured to the waxed purple stencil paper. “See, édesem, there is hope for Hungary.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, there was a meeting this afternoon, at the huge hall in the central building. It had been reserved, and we posted notices of the location. Word must have spread we would be discussing a course of action. The crowd was enormous, some say four thousand. Not just students, workers too. I wish you had been there.”

  Évike wished so too.

  Her mother began proofing the letters cut into the upper portion of the stencil while she continued talking. “The usual reforms were debated, but this day…well, it was incredible. Someone scribbled down the main points. The idea was raised that the list—sixteen demands in the end—be presented to the Party.”

  Her mother looked up. Évike saw the zeal in her eyes. She was unable to remember a moment when she had sparked such a reaction from her mother.

  “The atmosphere, it was electric. A delegate is going to the radio building this evening to present the list, insist that the points be broadcast. Copies are being submitted to the press also.” Her mother sighed. “We are hopeful, but it is not likely they will publish the demands in full. We are preparing stenciled copies.

  “No bakery shift for me tonight. When Dóra and I are finished, we will go back to the university duplicating room, create flyers.”

  “And Father? Where is he? Does he know?” Évike could not hide the anxiety in her voice. She may have deflected the AVO’s attention from her mother for the time being, but they were sure to come. If not tomorrow, one day soon. Why did she have to risk everything? Risk being taken from her home. Her daughter.

  Her mother turned the roller, dabbed a white letter with corrective fluid, saying, “He is in Buda helping to run off flyers at a location there—” and blew on the wet dot. She fanned it with her hand, adding, “Then, throughout the night, they will be pasted on walls, distributed on the streets, delivered to Budapest factories. Tomorrow, the demonstration.”

  Évike was at the door. “Mother, I should go. Do you have the key?”

  “What? Oh, the apartment is open,” her mother said vaguely over her shoulder. “I will be late. Your father, too. I do not like to leave you alone but this…tonight, tomorrow…this is it. The moment for change. You will be okay, yes?”

  She thought of Gombóc and felt sick inside. Then of the caring neighbor’s words: “You are brave. You will be fine.”

  “Yes, Mother. I am not a baby like little Dórika. I will be okay.” An eerie flash of Major Gombóc’s face in shadowy light. “Our neighbor arrived home when I did, let me in the front door. Maybe I can visit with her later.”

  A quiet descended. Her mother turned. Her gaze was penetrating, and it struck Évike that her mother was seeing her for the first time since she entered the room. For a moment, Évike thought she would change her mind, not go, or forbid her daughter to mingle with a perhaps untrustworthy neighbor.

  Instead: “Of course, this is a good idea. You will not be alone. I will not worry about rushing back.” She thought a moment. “Maybe our neighbor won’t mind helping you take of care of the baby. I will see what Dóra has arranged.”

  Near the doorway, a large placard on a wooden stick leaned against the door jamb. RUSZKIK MENJETEK HAZA, RUSSIANS GO HOME. How had she missed it, coming in?

  “Mother, this sign, the flag on the table. What are they for?”

  “The march tomorrow. Dóra will carry the sign, me the flag.”

  “B-but the flag…” Évike stumbled over her words. “It is dangerous.”

  “Of course. Revolutions are dangerous and they begin with symbolic acts.”

  ***

  Budapest, 23 October 1956

  The following day Évike’s fears and worries for her mother, for the outcome of the charade she’d pulled on Gombóc, for facing her classmates, evaporated. Her parents declared a holiday. No school, no work. Mid-afternoon, hand in hand, the threesome set off from their apartme
nt in Pest to join with other marchers on their side of the Danube. On the Buda side, another throng marched simultaneously, the multitudes on both sides increasing rapidly in numbers, their chants demanding reforms growing stronger and sharper as they marched, urged on by the strident shouts of approval and encouragement from windows and the bystanders they passed.

  Not even the organizers or the Petöfi Circle, which had undertaken to lead the demonstrators, were expecting such a crowd. They were unprepared for the task of controlling it, and the Circle’s one loudspeaker-van soon became lost in the throng. Eventually, the two-pronged show of force met in Bem tér, the Buda Square on the opposite bank of the Danube from Parliament. There, Évike, her tall handsome father on one side, her flag-

  waving mother on the other, listened as the sixteen demands were read to the assembly, which they later would learn was estimated at over 100,000 people.

  It was getting dark when demonstrators, comprised of both university students and workers, began marching back across the Margit Bridge in the direction of the Parliament Building. Upon reaching Kossuth tér, a large square in front of the Parliament, the swollen crowd began shouting and agitating for the appearance of the movement’s chosen new leader, Imre Nagy. Évike, nestling close to her father for warmth and protection, pressed a cheek to his dark wool coat.

  “Franciska,” her father said, projecting his voice so he could be heard over the chaos all around them. “It’s getting late. Cold. Maybe Évike should be taken home.”

  Évike’s head snapped up, coarse wool chafing her cheek.

  Breath smoked out of her father’s mouth in a long thin trail. Her mother playfully tugged his fur hat, pulling it down lower on his forehead. A stray lock of dark hair escaped. “It’s your night, Miklós. You take her.” The excitement of the day, the sense that change was in the air, had buoyed her mother such that her playful mood continued. She pinched the tip of Évike’s nose. “You’re a big girl now, right, édesem? What do you wish to do? Would you like to stay with us while Prime Minister Nagy announces the concession to our demands, or go back to the apartment?”