Triptych

by Margit Liesche

  The needlepoint is propped against my four-poster bed. I recall the word Mariska chose in telling what happened to Zsófi at AVO headquarters. “Ravished.” She’d used the term in its worst sense. Yet not so long ago I’d used the same word to describe how Vaclav made me feel. “Ravished.” As in the bodice-ripper, romance novel sense.

  My sewing basket is nearby. I retrieve my crochet hook and turning the piece over I patiently part the blue threads, beginning the process of unstitching.

  ***

  30 October 1956

  In the university classroom, Évike sat at a desk, drawing. Her mother and Josef were in the printing room but promised to be back soon.

  A short while ago, they had listened to Imre Nagy make an announcement. He had been in meetings with two Soviet delegates from Moscow recently arrived in Budapest. The delegates had brought with them Moscow’s solemn declaration acknowledging Hungary’s right to determine its own future. They had further agreed to the withdrawal of Russian troops and declared the Kremlin’s readiness to recognize a coalition government of the democratic parties. The one-party system had ceased to exist.

  Her mother had been astounded. Nagy had managed a peaceful solution, addressing many of the original aims of the revolution. Time for a victory edition of Truth!

  Before they’d gone to the printing room, Josef gave Évike a brand new pencil. Also a stack of clean white paper. As she sketched, she recalled her outing with her mother earlier in the day. They’d walked to the Danube, stopping acquaintances along the way, hoping for news of Miklós, her father. At an embankment, they’d paused to watch a convoy of Soviet armored cars, trucks, and tanks, stream out of the city. Some of the trucks were stacked with bodies. Évike could not look. Weren’t the corpses only recently living, breathing sons, brothers, husbands, fathers? A dead Soviet soldier on the back of one of the passing tanks caught her off guard, and now his boyish face, his vacant eyes looking through her, were embedded among the pages in the memory book that spun unceasingly inside her head in the dark.

  They had followed the procession to Móricz Zsigmond körtér. No word of Miklós, but her mother did call her attention to the bravery of an insurgent with only one leg—his other leg supported by a wooden peg, visible below the knee of his rolled up pant leg. He stood tall and straight, one foot in a boot, the peg capped at the end in a small square base. Évike gaped openly, taking in the banner of bullets crossing his chest, the gun slung from a strap over his shoulder, the grenades protruding from a pouch on his belt. She had turned questioningly to her mother. “He looks ready to fight. What about the truce?”

  “He’s part of the patrol around the square,” the mother explained. “Not everyone believes in Nagy, and fewer in the Soviets’ word.”

  Her mother’s message had left Évike uneasy, and she was happy to be back in the classroom with her new art supplies. She was drawing the one-legged freedom fighter. He had looked so heroic to her. What better symbol of the brave men and women, and boys and girls, who had been fighting against the mighty giant for six days and who were now tasting victory!

  Évike held up the paper and smiled. Perhaps the Greater Budapest Ministry of Monuments would commission her drawing for a commemorative statue to be raised along the Danube Promenade.

  Her heart tightened. While they’d been watching the departing Russian convoy, a man close to them had been talking to a friend. Earlier, he’d been across the Danube, on the Pest side, and seen the toppled Liberation monument, its sculptured Soviet plane, once in the place of honor on top, now in pieces scattered on the ground nearby. In recent days, throughout Budapest, nearly every Russian commissioned sculpture had come down. In this instance, one of the early acts of destruction, the rebel perpetrators had been caught. The man near her had shaken his head sadly, saying to his friend, “They were only boys who did it, but they were hanged from lamp posts along the promenade near the downed monument.” A tank had rumbled past. The man spit at it.

  Before Évike could block it, a vision of boys dangling from lamp posts intruded in her imagination. She dropped the drawing, put her head on the desk and covered it with her arms.

  Évike’s mother entered the room, went to the radio, spun the knob. “Yes, I know. These announcers repeat themselves. Still, it is wonderful news, don’t you think? Listen.”

  Her mother was beside her. She lifted Évike’s arms from her head and was holding her daughter’s hands. She gave a squeeze, then released her grip.

  In the background, Free Radio at Szabolcs-Szatmar: “…a division of Russian troops has crossed the River Tisza, ready to be evacuated. Other divisions to the south are also on the move….’

  Évike sat up. Her mother’s eyes were ringed with dark circles, and she looked weary, but there was a glimmer of happiness that she had not seen in the past week.

  The plan was to help Josef write up the breaking news from Nagy, and then venture from the Buda side over to Pest. Évike’s ankle was completely better and with the break in the fighting, her mother wanted to go out again, get information on her husband’s whereabouts and check on little Dórika. They had not received any word about Dóra and the baby since leaving them at the hospital.

  Days earlier, Évike had been stunned by a broadcast about the shelling of a clinic—infants lying unprotected in their cribs killed—only to feel some relief that the attack had been on Budapest’s Children’s Clinic, not Péterfy Sándor utca hospital where Dórika was. Then, the guilt—You’re an ugly troll. How can you feel anything resembling a good feeling? Babies died!

  Dórika was like her little sister. More than anything she needed the baby to be okay.

  What about your teacher, the niggling voice from somewhere deep inside her brain asked? What has happened to her?

  Évike, her fist clenched, squeezed her nails into the flesh of her palm until it hurt.

  Maybe while they were out, asking questions, they could also get information about the teacher. But then she would have to tell her mother about the Kossuth drawing, about Gombóc, about what she’d done. And she couldn’t. Earlier, Évike had thought her mother wouldn’t understand her sense of guilt. She’d been protecting her mother, after all. Why regret that? But protecting her from what? What real evidence had Gombóc had? No, she’d been a fool. Against everything her mother had taught her, Évike had caved. For nothing. The Soviets were on the run.

  “It won’t be long now,” her mother was saying. She snapped the radio off. “We’re just waiting for Zoltan who has been at the Parliament building. We need his firsthand account. He’s due any minute. What are you drawing?”

  The radio was on a table beside the large desk at the front of the room. She circled the desk, walking to Évike as Josef entered. He nodded to Évike and smiled broadly. She returned his smile then began sketching again. She knew the adults would speak more freely if they believed she was otherwise occupied.

  “I told them in the press room to let me know when Zoltan arrives.” Josef hesitated, combed his fingers through his hair. “Just after you left, Franciska, we got another bulletin about a truckload of food from Vienna disappearing.”

  Évike quickened the movements of her pencil, filling in the pedestal she’d devised to hold the one-legged freedom fighter statue.

  “The increase in crime, these random heists,” Josef continued, “I suspect it’s related to the release of prisoners.”

  Évike had been astonished to read in the last issue of Truth that rebel forces had liberated over five thousand prisoners in the past week, many of them coming from forced labor in the infamous Dorog mines, and others from notorious prisons, emaciated, many with limbs and minds crippled from torture.

  The intent was to release political prisoners, but given the unreliable records system, with its forced confessions and fabricated paperwork, it was impossible to verify the identity of everyone. The opening of the prison doors had also fre
ed a number of criminal sociopaths.

  The account of a female British journalist, who had officially ceased to exist in 1949, had especially interested Évike. At the Budapest airport, about to board a plane back to England, the journalist had been arrested on Rakosi’s orders on a trumped up charge of espionage. Thereafter, not a trace of her, not even a prison number, existed. British officials tried unsuccessfully to follow up. Eventually, when the rebels were releasing prisoners, the poor woman was set free. Évike was still shocked by the notion that someone could vanish but be alive somewhere. No one would know. And at some point, no one would care.

  Good news had come through the grapevine about Tibi, the fellow student who had been taken by AVO from the café nearly two weeks earlier. The same girl who had announced Tibi’s arrest at the Petőfi Circle meeting had also reported to Josef that he was among those released. He’d fled the country soon afterward.

  Évike selected a fresh sheet of paper and began drawing the British lady prisoner. Forget Me Not, she would call this one.

  “Gunning down someone without proof of identity, it’s wrong, “Joseph was saying. “Reckless summary justice. It reduces us to the level of the AVO scum.

  “This morning,” he continued, “one of Maléter’s men told me Maléter slapped a teenage rebel at Kilian. The boy had earrings in his pocket. Maléter told him he was lucky not to be shot.” Josef expelled a long sigh. “The makeup of our freedom fighters is changing. Many writers and students are retiring from the fight, workers returning to their factories. This new element is replacing them. And, well, now, my wife, Vera, would like us to leave.”

  Évike had not heard this before. She was unable to resist looking up.

  “Her pregnancy?” Évike’s mother was asking.

  Josef nodded. “Last night I had a nightmare. Vera, carrying our baby, being led to a bus that would take her to a labor camp. The Russians had returned.” Josef scrubbed a hand over his stubbled cheek. “I am nearly convinced it is time myself. Franciska you ought to be thinking of leaving, too. Take Évike.”

  “Without Miklós? Never. Besides, Nagy may be making an agreement with the Russians, but it is not over. Yesterday at Móricz Zsigmond körtér, yes, there were queues of rebels turning in their guns, but just as many refused. ‘Our arms will only be handed over to Hungarian units after the Soviet army has left the country,’ they were saying.” The mother shook her head. “No, Josef, we stay to the end.”

  “But your daughter…” Josef was interrupted by a knocking on the door.

  A tall, thin student entered wearing a beret and long woolen coat. Zoltan. His cheeks were rosy from being outdoors, bright red dots, like clown’s makeup. He was clutching a spiral stenographer’s notebook, a cigarette between his fingers.

  “Complete bedlam. You should have been there. Imry finished his address, then boom, bam he’s hit with appeals from the newly reconstituted political parties. I’ve got it all here.” Zoltan waved the notebook, then described waiting in the vast reception hall of Parliament alongside the Russian delegation’s entourage.

  “Behind the doors, inside the prime minister’s office, delegates argued violently. At least two fistfights broke out.”

  Josef had been frowning. “What are they thinking? Nagy came up with a reasonable solution. There’s still work to do, but it is a start.”

  Zoltan stubbed out his cigarette. “The delegate from Győr, for one, was adamant. Nagy must call for free elections within three months or tens of thousands of demonstrators will march on the capital and encourage the uprising to continue. With that, he marched out of the room.”

  Josef shook his head sadly. “The revolution was started by Communists demanding only a better form of Communism. Now the picture has changed. They go too far.”

  Zoltan nodded. “In any free elections, the Communists would be beaten.”

  “And Moscow would lose a satellite,” Évike’s mother added. “They will never allow it to happen.”

  “It’s like two high speed trains barreling down a track,” Josef said in a defeated voice. “The premier stands in the middle between irreconcilable forces converging on one another. And on him.” His shoulders heaved.

  “But we have had encouraging news from the U.N.” The mother’s bright tone sounded forced at first, but grew more animated as she continued. “The American Ambassador Lodge addressed the assembly. ‘We cannot remain indifferent to the situation in Hungary,’ he said. Surely the U.N. will intervene if the Soviets renege.”

  It was Évike’s mother in her glory. “And what about American Free Radio? You heard, Josef.” She was toe to toe with the Truth editor now. “The promises to land paratroopers in Budapest…bring tanks. America is going to help roll back the Iron Curtain, they said.”

  Josef had been staring directly into her mother’s eyes without blinking. “Franciska, I think you should consider what I was saying earlier. Zoltan, let’s go figure out how to write this up.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I am regretting having worn my little black dress. Its scoop neck and short flared skirt are right for the heat but the color is a magnet for the sizzling late morning sun.

  3744 ½ N. Southport. My destination, none too soon.

  In a nostalgic holdover from the store’s beginnings, besides printed materials, Duna Utca carries a limited selection of Hungarian records. The package under my arm contains Gustav’s newly arrived boxed album set. My messenger girl service is Zsófi’s doing, part of her scheme to get me out of the store.

  Get me to go out with Gustav, is more like it.

  I had objected. Impossible! I’m still licking my wounds over Vaclav. Besides, Gustav is available. Translation: off-limits. I’m not ready for commitment, love.

  You’re turning 38…If not now, when?

  When I can forgive myself. Love myself.

  Gustav is attractive, sexy, talented…

  The ping ponging internal bantering had begun last evening while I’d been unstitching Vaclav’s Dream piece. This morning, I awoke still unsettled by the pesky exchange. And wary of seeing Gustav again. Especially alone.

  So when Zsófi asked me to deliver the package, I’d dug in my heels.

  “But he will not even be home,” she’d assured me. And against my better judgment I’d given in.

  If I wasn’t feeling so vulnerable, I might laugh off such a scheme to couple us. Isn’t it bad enough that I’m entering middle age? Gustav is ten years older, closer to Zsófi’s age. Why didn’t she want him? Ahh! She wanted to push him off on me, the pathetic spinster only an aging bachelor could appreciate. Prehistoric bachelor whose idea of fun is making fancy layered gelatin molds, gardening, listening to albums that come in boxed sets.

  Well, I huff under my breath, continuing to shore up my proverbial defenses. I will not pair up nicely with an eccentric old fart, thank you very much.

  Shifting the square paper-wrapped parcel from one hand to the other, tucking it against my side, I duck into the shaded passage running alongside the main house, following a flagstone path toward the rear of the home. Pale lilac rhododendrons line the walkway that, in back, opens to reveal a converted two-story brick-faced garage. Flowers flourish in patches of dirt around a flagstone patio. Above, pots of colorful flowers peer out from the edge of a wooden deck. Along a stockade fence to my right are a climbing tomato plant and several sweet bell pepper plants. A wooden switchback staircase leading to the upstairs unit juts out in front of the vegetable patch.

  Home of Famed Photographer and Jell-O King Gustav Szigeti, I pronounce wryly, passing a bed of nasturtiums like those festooning the gelatin heart he’d made. On the small landing between the first and second flight I peer over the railing. The heart’s tricolors are repeated in the colorful Hungarian pattern painted on a bird house below.

  I step onto the deck. The paned-glass French doors have been left open. I shi
ft my parcel. Zsófi had not identified the recording artist or the type of music inside, and I imagine Gypsy violin music. Classic Hungarian Csardas music, perhaps. Something fussy and decrepit.

  I look for a place to leave my delivery. There’s a half second delay before I sense movement.

  Gustav. He’s been crouched with his back to me at a long work table positioned against the wall across the room and is just now getting up, a large framed photograph in his hands. A snug-fitting t-shirt defines his sculpted physique, and I once again think: Baryshnikov, and am forced to withdraw “old fart.”

  I clear my throat.

  Gustav turns, smiles. “Ildikó. What a nice surprise.” He crosses the room, waving me inside. “What brings you here? Come in, come in.”

  “Well, no…” Amid the calm, I am suddenly on edge. “I can’t stay. Gotta get back. Zsófi wanted me to bring this—”

  I hold out the package. A phone mounted on the wall behind the work table rings.

  “Sorry…a minute,” Gustav says over his shoulder. He grabs the receiver.

  I have not strayed far from the entrance. I take in the large rectangular open space with its minimal furnishings. White dominates, but the honey-colored wood of the high-beamed ceiling and plank floors lend texture and warmth. To my far right, a white sofa and black chair comprise a comfortable sitting area; to my left, a wooden island defines the kitchen.

  “Yes, all twenty are framed, ready to bring over,” Gustav is saying. “No, do not bother. I have my pickup. Was about to load up…”

  He is preparing for one of the gallery showings Zsófi had talked about.

  I hazard a few more steps inside. The dining table is barren except for a sheer parchment sleeve containing an 8 x 10 black and white photograph.

  “I am wrapping the last piece. Be there soon.”

  Gustav replaces the receiver in its cradle. My focus narrows on the picture. I am expecting to view a sample from his upcoming exhibit, perhaps a beautiful model or an architecturally significant structure, representations of the trademark work Zsófi had raved about. Instead, it is an image from the ’56 Hungarian uprising. A young couple, walking hand in hand, looks sideways, away from the camera, as if someone is calling to them. The youthful man wears a fur hat and long coat. His partner, a striking woman with large eyes and dark hair, is also dressed for the cold in a long quilted jacket. They both carry rifles and the man wears an ammunition belt strapped at his waist. In the background, part of a building with Hungarian writing on it has crumbled, presumably under the impact of artillery fire. Yet their faces show no fear.