‘She no longer wants you.’
‘How can you say that? How do you know – have you asked?’
‘Not in so many –’
‘Exactly. I mean, how well do you actually know this woman, George? We met in forty-five, Eva and I, and together we fought the Nazis, together we lived through communism. Together we survived the baby...’
‘The baby?’ The words fell like heavy stones.
‘Yes, the baby. She never told you? No, she wouldn’t have. No one knew really, just us.’ The words so pitifully said, could not disguise the sparkle of renewed triumph in Josef’s eyes.
A couple walked by, arm in arm, rifles slung casually over shoulders, her laugh reaching to the sky. ‘You’re lying,’ said George.
Josef, this delicate man, seemed possessed of an anger that dwarfed George’s own sense of injured disbelief. ‘You truly think I would lie about such a thing?’ he said. ‘You think I would make up such a story in order to score petty points over you? Go away, you silly boy, come back when you’re a proper man, when you know something of life.’
George stared at him, at Josef’s hard detached expression, desperately wanting to articulate something to diminish this man but with his mind suddenly numb, nothing came. He looked up briefly at the apartment window and wondered what Eva was doing at that moment, whether she was aware of him and Josef together so close to her. He looked back at Josef, whose expression had remained exactly the same. Involuntarily, he found himself taking a step back, then another, and a third. With the word, baby, echoing in his mind, George withdrew, his dignity in tatters.
Chapter 30: Day Eleven – Friday, 2nd November
1.
‘Was it really ten years?’
They were both sat at the kitchen table at right-angles, neither catching the eye of the other. She was toying with a packet of cigarettes, twisting it one way and another. But Eva didn’t smoke, had never smoked to his knowledge but then... his knowledge didn’t stretch back that far. ‘Yes, George. Ten years.’
‘Where has he gone now, this husband of yours?’
‘Ex-husband.’
‘Are you truly divorced?’
She’d placed a box of matches on the packet of cigarettes and, from the box, poked out a match, so that it looked like a tank. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
Having never been one for conversations of this sort, he found it difficult and had to summon up strength to probe her with these questions. But he knew the question he really wanted to ask was too far beyond him. Instead, he asked, ‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know; I think he goes off to meet his fellow jailbirds.’
He thought back to the time of his own release and could understand the need to connect with others who’d undergone the same experience. But then, back in fifty-three, it had been impossible.
She pushed the tank across the table and stupidly, he watched it. It provided them both with a distraction during the period of prolonged silence. She looked up at him. Instinctively, he knew and caught her eye. A flicker of a smile, an acknowledgement, crossed her face. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you.’
A moment’s relief was replaced by a more sustained feeling of dread.
‘I should’ve told you a long time ago but... Josef and I had a daughter.’ The words came out quickly, taking them both by surprise. ‘Her name,’ she said more slowly, ‘was Anastasia. She died. She lived sixteen days.’
George stared at her, his eyes agog as if everything and nothing made sense. ‘Sixteen days. I’m sorry, I had no idea,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Why didn’t you...’
‘I supposed I’d learnt to live with it. But Josef’s return, it’s brought it all back, those horrible, dark days, those sixteen days in the hospital, praying for her, desperate for her to live, I would have given anything.’
‘Yes, I can imagine.’
‘Since his return, I’ve been waiting for him to mention it, to say her name, but he doesn’t. It’s as if he can’t bring himself to say it. He refuses. And now I feel so confused. I don’t know what I want any more.’
‘Anastasia.’
‘Yes.’ She snapped the match in half.
‘A pretty name.’
‘Yes. God, it’s so nice to tell someone. I had a friend once – Agnes. I’ve no idea where she is now but she was the only one who ever knew. I was with her the night you and I met. For so long I felt such a failure. I needed Josef to say I wasn’t, and I still do. I just wish he’d say something, to speak of her but his silence is as oppressive as it ever was. I don’t think her name has ever crossed his lips. I’ve waited all this time. The times I visited him in prison, he never mentioned her and I thought it best not to make an issue of it. After all, five minutes; what can you say in five minutes? But now... surely, now, I thought. But I was wrong. I was wrong to think he’d be different. I’ve realised I’ve waited all this time for a different person. But he hasn’t changed; prison hasn’t changed him at all. I need him to share the burden and in refusing to do so, I feel as if I can’t get on with my life. It’s almost as if I need his permission to let go of the past.’
‘I see,’ said George, not understanding a thing.
The tears she so resolutely held back now came, her face crumpling in front of him, her frame shaking. He wanted to take her hand but knew he couldn’t; she seemed too far away, too remote. ‘I see,’ he repeated, ‘I see...’
2.
The battle of Republic Square, as they called it, had scared the shit out of him but conversely Zoltan now felt better and more confident than he’d done for weeks, months even. He’d survived because they’d mistaken him for one of them. He was able to go out now and wander the streets, find shops to buy food and be part of this post-apocalyptic city. Sprawled in an armchair, he realised it was time to go out now – to get some bread, perhaps some vegetables and, if lucky, some meat. It all depended what supplies had come through from the surrounding countryside. It was a relief to be thinking of such ordinary things – to feel normal.
Petra sat on the side of the bed with Roza behind her, playing with her mother’s hair. It was virtually the first time Petra had emerged from under the blankets since her ‘encounter’ – as he referred to it. He couldn’t bring himself to use the words she screamed at him during her darkest moments – raped, she said, sodomised, violated – a whole string of words each one thrown as an accusation, each one intended to diminish him. He hadn’t told her of his own encounter – of how they’d murdered Paul, and strung Donath up and burnt him alive, how they slapped him on the back and took him as one of theirs. He didn’t think she’d acknowledge his trauma at the same time as coming to terms with her own. And, more to the point, if he’d failed her in the past (as she made quite plain) then he felt it incumbent upon him to be strong for her now, for her and for Roza. Poor Roza – the one in the middle, caught between their experiences of violence with no means to equip herself against its fallout. How vulnerable she looked now, plaiting Petra’s hair, clinging onto her mother, frightened to let go.
‘How you’re feeling?’ he asked nervously.
‘We have to leave.’
He nodded in agreement although he had only the slightest idea why she should want to leave when the apartment had proved such a secure hiding place. So many AVOs had been rooted out of their homes and dragged away from their families. ‘Where do you want to go?’ he said as if they were planning a holiday.
‘New Zealand – where d’you think? Austria, of course, where else?’
‘But why? I blend in now.’
‘No, Zoltan, you may think you blend in but there must be hundreds who’ve passed through your offices –’
‘Yes, I know. I know.’ He didn’t want her to carry on, he was conscious enough already of the ghosts astir in his memory. He sighed. ‘OK, you’re right but how on earth do you propose –’
‘I don’t know – you’re the man, you fix it. We can’t stay here, it’s not safe, we have to get away whi
le we can.’ Zoltan tried to imagine it, the three of them, a bag each, hitching a lift out of the city. Although only one hundred miles to the west, Austria might as well have been on the moon. He tried to think of a tactful way to point out the absurdity of it but before he had chance she continued, ‘You have to find someone who’ll take us.’
‘It’ll cost us.’ He said it so quietly he barely heard it himself. The last of their money had gone into his pocket – the rapist, the sodomizer, her fucking violator.
‘There is some left,’ she said. ‘You could use that.’
He wasn’t convinced; the idea seemed as dangerous as it was preposterous but the two of them, his wife, his daughter, looked at him with such expectation that he felt he had no choice but to try. He collected his coat and pulled on his boots, ready to leave, to embark on this foolish errand for the sake of them both. He leant down to quickly kiss Petra goodbye but she grabbed the lapels of his coat and holding him there, kissed him with unexpected affection. From such a small display of tenderness Zoltan felt his muscles tighten, his pride expand. She let him go, a gentle smile on her lips. He cupped his hand on the side of Roza’s face and kissed her cheek. As he reached for the door, he turned to look at them – his wife, his daughter. And they were both smiling at him. He left with tears in his eyes and a rush of love through his soul.
Perhaps, in his heart, he knew he’d never see them again.
3.
George kept on walking. Where to and to what purpose, he had no idea and didn’t care, as long as he kept walking. Black flags hung from balconies side by side with the Hungarian tricolour. Today was All Souls Day, the Day of the Dead. Church bells rang out in remembrance of those who had died. How strange it was to hear the bells – it had been years since anyone had last heard them. How lovely it was to hear them again.
He noticed that the trams were back in action, that people were returning to work, shops and cafés were open, and that not a single Soviet soldier could be seen on the streets. Yet, the uprising that had so transformed him, so absorbed his energies had overnight become a side issue. He overheard a group of women in a queue talk of ‘crossroads’. He assumed they meant Hungary but the word seemed right – he was at a crossroad.
Anastasia.
He wondered how old this daughter of Eva’s would be now. It explained so much. Like she said, they knew so little of each other’s past but there was nothing unusual about that. Everyone had a past; a family untouched by the far-reaching tendrils of the state was a rare thing in Hungary. If you hadn’t suffered personally, then you knew someone close who had. Everyone understood but few talked of it. People didn’t have to know the details to understand that their sufferings had run similar courses – a roadmap of torment.
Tightening his scarf, he stopped on the corner of Andrassy Street and Lenin Boulevard. The cold sun shone weakly, radiating nothing but uncertainty on this poor nation which for so long had groaned under the pressure of totalitarianism and now stood falteringly on the brink between freedom and further bloodshed. The Soviets were coming back in greater force. The rumours were too strong now to be denied. People passed him, blank faces with blank pasts who, having tasted freedom, now feared it was about to be snatched from their grip. And suddenly, amongst them, a face he recognised with a jolt. No vague recollection was this, but a face from his past he knew as sure as the face he saw each morning in the mirror.
‘Mr Beke,’ he called out.
The man turned, his eyes wide with panic, ‘No, sorry, friend, not me.’
How strange it felt, reaching out his hand, offering his declaration of good intent. ‘George Lorenc, don’t you remember?’
Beke had made to walk away. Instead, he stood rooted and glared at the proffered hand as if it were a rose that hid the thorn. ‘You must be mistaken,’ he said politely, tonelessly.
The sound of the AVO’s voice echoed back through the years. You’re the sort of man that this country needs. Strong, talented, forward thinking. Are you forward-thinking, George? His eyes scanned the man who, more than anyone, had ruined his life, the man who asked for so much and took everything. Sometimes one has to sacrifice a little personal glory for the sake of the common good. If only it had stopped with the personal glory. He wanted to feel something akin to anger, to feel the fury he was entitled to feel. But nothing came save a well of emptiness in the pit of his stomach. He heard himself say the words, ‘I wish you well,’ and then questioned whether he’d really said it.
A flicker of recognition crossed the AVO’s face, a flicker too of a grateful smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘You still wear the boots, I see.’
The man looked down at his footwear. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘perhaps I shouldn’t.’
‘No, probably not.’ And with that, George turned and resumed walking, conscious of each step, knowing he was walking away from a conversation he would replay in his mind for the rest of his life and wonder why he hadn’t made more of it. Whether Beke watched him leave, he didn’t know and pretended to himself that he didn’t care. He walked as if walking through the thickest mist, not knowing where he was going or where he’d come from.
Something about the encounter made him continue walking for miles. He walked to the point he began to limp, as was often the case when he was tired. He ended up at a place he’d never wanted to see again. But cloaked in mist, he was powerless to stop and soon he found himself in front of where his parents had lived, or at least the space his parents’ apartment block had occupied because little remained of it but a pile of crumpled stones and burnt bricks in the midst of which lay his crumpled memories. And the memories were bitter. The devotion his mother had shown for his passion for football came not from maternal love but her love for another man. It was something he tried to forget but it was always there dishonouring the memory of his father, his sad, broken father. One goal in a football game changed everything – for him, for his parents. And when he thought of the forces of the state pitted against him, it wasn’t a dehumanised adversary he saw but one single man – Zoltan Beke. The man he’d just offered his hand and wished well, the man he’d just walked away from. It wasn’t how he imagined it to be during the one thousand, three hundred and seventy days.
He remembered his return from prison, coming here and finding his parents gone, the new occupants too frightened to speak to him lest they compromised their own survival. His parents had not left a single trace of their existence; no souvenir to counter the memories embittered by his mother’s infidelity.
It seemed like such a long, long time ago.
4.
Zoltan’s newfound confidence had seeped away like oil through a colander. Now, as he trod through the wounded city, he felt like an accidental gatecrasher, not wanting to make a sound, frightened in case he was spotted by the hostess. Petra was right – even without the uniform he was still recognisable to those who had crossed his path over the years; so many, he’d long lost count. Each face was a threat. He daren’t catch anyone’s eyes, and kept his gaze focussed on the pavement directly in front of him. He didn’t want to be out here any longer; he had to get back to his wife and daughter, even if it meant returning empty handed, for he had no idea how to organise transport out of the country and now he was too afraid to approach people. He felt hungry, afraid and very alone.
He’d liked to have jumped on a streetcar but with so few working and those that were so jam-packed he couldn’t bear to see all those faces. It’d only need one recognition. He’d been lucky with George Lorenc. Of course he remembered him, remembered the football game, every minute of it, the fluctuating extremes of emotion – Ivanov’s goal, the minutes that crept by until Lorenc’s equaliser, the fury on Donath’s face, the barely-disguised glee on Fischer’s.
The smell of roasted chestnuts wafted on the breeze, reminding him how hungry he felt. On the corner, stood a vendor selling paper cones of warm nuts. He joined the short queue and dug in his pocket for loose change. He felt the presence of someone be
hind him but took little notice until the voice, laced with menace, spoke to him, ‘You’re AVO.’
The world ground to a halt. The coins fell from his hand and tinkled on the pavement; the people in front turned to stare. ‘No,’ he replied quickly, turning to catch the leering face of a boy, no more than twenty, but tall and broad shouldered.
The boy pushed him hard in the chest. Zoltan fell back into the person ahead of him in the queue. ‘Hey, Miklos,’ the boy called out. ‘I found an AVO.’
The queue broke up and quickly formed an impromptu circle round him. The chestnut seller, upset at the commotion round his stand, yelled at him: ‘What’s going on? Get away from here.’
‘Fucking AVO.’
‘No, please, I’m a worker.’ Zoltan saw the man called Miklos approach, a short, hard-looking man with one arm in a sling stained by dirt and dried blood. ‘A worker like you,’ Zoltan added as Miklos bared down on him.
It felt as if the whole street had stopped in its tracks to stare. Miklos laughed. ‘A worker, eh? With hands like those? Nice boots.’
Zoltan ran. He ran so that everything passed him in a blur, the buildings, children playing on a tank, the pavement beneath his feet; he ran for his life. And behind him the feet of others, chasing after him, catching him up. Tears poured from his eyes, the breeze, the blind panic, his ears deafened by his heart pounding furiously, as his brain urged him to keep running, to keep going, to keep living. It was the sudden inexplicable pain in back of his left leg that brought him down, collapsing awkwardly onto the pavement. He knew instinctively they’d shot him but not to kill. A moment later, they were on him, and the lead sky disappeared from view as the kicks pummelled him from every angle and pain throbbed from every part of him and the blood blinded his eyes.
‘Wait! Wait a minute.’ The voice came from far away but quickly became louder as it approached. ‘Wait, wait,’ the word repeated until its authority brought an end to the trouncing. Zoltan didn’t understand what was happening, didn’t know the voice, but loved it all the same. His eyes too inflamed to open, he was aware of a face next to his, rough bony fingers on his chin. ‘It’s him all right, twice we’ve met.’
Anastasia Page 21