by Alan Duff
She nearly comes to a halt then. Really? You are telling me this, a stranger?
Being proud of my father is no crime.
No? It is when he’s classified X. You shouldn’t be so trusting.
I am not, normally.
Then don’t be with me. You’re young, you’re lacking in judgement. Does your family need bread, since I will be there?
Bread, meat, flour, fresh vegetables, of course we need bread. We will pay you.
I go to head the opposite way, when she touches my arm.
Excuse me, but my husband and I would very much like to know your family. We are from Debrecen, hardly know anyone here. It is hard enough living in a state of distrust, and strangers as well.
This is the woman our neighbours have been talking about, and she’s putting a hand out for friendship — or is it betrayal? We will be your friends. What flat are you on the fourth?
C, she says. C, C, C, it echoes in my ears all the way to Pál’s. Wishing I was some years older. Wishing she wasn’t married. Wishing I could be certain she could be trusted. Wishing I felt anything but like this: confused, overcome, young and quite, quite silly.
Several days later, I run into them on our street. He’s tall and handsome, a fine physical specimen of good match for his stunning wife. I find myself with jealousy leaking like poison from a ruptured inside, though I know it is ridiculous: the man’s married to her. She’s an adult —I guess early twenties — and I’m a kid.
They’re smiling at something. Of such adoring eyes for him she doesn’t notice the resentment she’s causing by other pedestrians having to move out of their oblivious way. The kind of innocent unwitting action that can get your name put in an envelope; or arrogant deliberate action that can get you branded spy.
Then she sees me. And smiles. I exist.
His name is Péter. He has a strong handshake. I try to find the weakness instead in his face. He has character lines like my father’s, except not as prominent. Perhaps more like mine, which are deepening by the week, I’m proud to say. Fair hair and blue eyes. Charm, too, when he says, So you are the handsome young neighbour I have been hearing about?
(She told him that?) I am a neighbour, I pretend modesty. Then get a thought that they might have children, which for some reason I need to know. Where are your children?
Children? Oh, we are not so blessed, answers the lucky lover.
Not for a little while, she says. A bit unkind to, you know … bring children into this world. When life improves, yes? The question of her husband, and they would have discussed it, of course they would.
It won’t, I tell them flatly. And they look at each other, guarded as where next to take this conversation.
We needn’t be that cynical, he says, though his face agrees with me.
Have you met my parents yet?
Your mother, yes, a few days ago. Did she not mention it?
I am hardly at home. My father will seem a bit strange, you understand? He has been in prison.
They give each other a look. Our own fathers, too, she says.
I glance around for spying eyes, listening ears. It is safe. Why are you in Budapest?
Classification reasons, what else? She has become suddenly tight.
You are Xs?
No, she says.
What, then?
The whole system is obscene, she says. And waves away her husband’s cautionary gesture. We are cosmopolitan enemies. Can you believe someone could invent such a term, let alone ruin people’s lives on the basis of it?
I have heard of this classification. But met none.
Do you know why we’re cosmopolitan enemies? Because we have lived abroad — as children, for God’s sake. Péter’s father had business interests that had them living in France for several years. My parents lived five years in Austria when I was a small child. The only country I remember is this, yet I am considered its enemy. That is what I meant by obscene.
Both our fathers are in gaol, Péter says, for the added heinous crime of having money.
I am not sure whether to feel sorry for them or not. I have never known anyone with money, nor any outside my working class. Though on the face of it, it sounds another unjust edict issued by the government.
Your mothers? I ask for want of knowing how to react. I’ll decide my sympathy or otherwise when I enquire around about this classification.
Then Péter Pálfia claps hands together: Have you heard the one about the prisoner of the Ávós, who is asked if he finally confesses to his crimes. What crimes? he asks. Why, those utterances you made against our Soviet allies, say the Ávós interrogators. And the prisoner says, You mean to tell me I’ve been in prison all this time because you thought I made utterances against the Soviets? Well, you did, didn’t you? say the puzzled Ávós. No, says the prisoner. I paid them a compliment. A compliment? Yes, I called them arseholes.
So I know to trust them and my sympathy is decided. Though that doesn’t stop my jealousy as I watch them, a couple legally and physically joined. I am with so much wanting. Of the same intensity I want freedom. Except the freedom named Aranka is already spoken for.
GRANDMA LILI is dying — with hatred in her heart. For what has been done to her son, my father, for what has been done to us all.
I hate them, Attila Árpád, I hate them, the words croak from that shrivelled face. Yellowed sheet pulled high around her head as if in preparation. I am leaving this world with hatred for them, my dear unoka, she tells this grandchild. When an old mother, grandmother should be leaving with words of gladness at the lives she farewells, at the futures she knows her loved ones will have.
She lies in her bed, this part of me, one quarter of my existence, in a tiny apartment not even her own, diminished in physical stature, shrunken, a body nearer and nearer its last gasp, and all she is left with is profound anger at how life has not turned out for anyone she knows.
We have all had our turn to be individually summoned. Béla before me and I know not what words he spoke with our grandmother, nor she him.
Our grandpa went four months ago, without a word of anger or protest at the life he had been robbed of; so completely did they rob him he had nothing left to say. Just fell into silence, became ill, then he died. His funeral was not largely attended; who goes to pay respects to a man whose self-respect was taken from him, even if he is the innocent?
Now it is this one’s turn, and she is beseeching me. I am begging you, Attila, to go. Flee this accursed country. Before you end up in one of their sorry graves.
Her sorry grave is in a cold winter ground, lowered to it by my father, his brother, me and Béla and two other male cousins. It is the end of 1955, the end of Grandma’s days, as Rákosi manoeuvres his way back into office. Nagy has been betrayed by his own kind, the Communists he so admired. Mourners whisper that you can hear the rumble of the ÁVH machinery cranking back into Rákosi-fired action.
You can feel it at the graveside, far beyond the grief of this single death, of abrupt death, violent end coming for countless more. There will be Ávós here amongst the gathering, or at least their informers, waiting for someone to slip up, make wrong utterance; and even grief is no mitigation, let alone reason.
The Pálfia couple are here, it’s taken two years to become friends. I’m still besotted but I’ve put it away as best I can. He’s taught me to play chess and now I beat him nearly as many times as he beats me. Perhaps two years of Klaudia’s arms every few months has matured me.
The thud of dirt on coffin sounds like ominous footsteps. People sniffling put my nerves on edge. I leave to walk home.
I should heed Grandma’s words and escape to Austria. Sneak onto a coal barge going down the Duna, get friendly with one of those hard-nosed freight skippers, who travel between freedom and its opposite. Take me to the other side, Captain.
Leaves at my feet, tiny park allotments with skeletons of trees, and bent, bowed human figures huddled in coats, walking slowly over the frosted ground.
Here and there, from a high building window, or a doorway recess, hostile eyes stare as if I am their enemy. Magyar to Magyar eyes, as if we are biological enemies.
The sight does not register since it is impossible, but is that Aranka walking my way when I left them at the cemetery? So where is her husband? I hear my name spoken, she gives condolences and I thanks for her and Péter attending the burial.
I saw you from the tram. Told my husband you might be in need of a friend’s company and, so, here I am.
Here she is all right: those green eyes get to me. Prominent cheekbones suggest she has Slav blood — though I guess we all have — and she might have Romanian genes to explain her delicacy. How well I know her and yet I don’t.
It always comes as a surprise, the different meanings of her beauty. Perhaps I owe my father’s teachings, for telling us beauty is from the inside. Physical measurement with no heart pumping dynamic blood is not beauty, yet whoever measured her physically had a perfect stick. The inner person we have been allowed to see is a deep thinking, decent person, her quick anger added allure.
The city is several kilometres away, I remind her. But she says she likes walking.
A curtained Russian Zis car sweeps past, black cloth keeping the figure or figures inside invisible, in contrast to the drab concrete high-rises flanking us. I glance to get her reaction to the Russian car. She looks at me and says, If they were so honestly proud of what they do, why hide behind black curtains and drive around in black cars?
Black is for mourning, I say.
Yes. For your grandmother, all our loved ones gone to their graves in abject misery. I shall tell you why I am here, walking with you. You know the city well, you have told us. I want you to help me know it the same.
May I ask why, Aranka Pálfia?
Not yet. I may not know myself, just trusting myself to instinct … and you.
I like the look she gave in adding the last bit. This city, you can put a blindfold on me anywhere within three, four kilometres of the centre, and I will know where I am.
So would Parliament House be the centre?
No. Parliament is the centre of hell. I look around for unfriendly overhearing ears, but there is none. Just the leaves rustling all around us like sighing, or warning.
Hell is right. Especially with the devil himself, Rákosi, back. So where do you consider the city centre?
Start somewhere near Teréz Körút, say Nyugati Station. Or even Keleti Station.
No, she says. Not Keleti Station. Too many innocents have been freighted to Soviet gaols from there. Make it Nyugati Station. Would you show me? The streets I mean.
(Show you? How I wish, dear married lady, I could show you a life with me. Show you escape down the Duna, just as Grandma Lili implored me. Just us — a sorry note left for your husband — concealed in a coal barge, deep down in the black dusty dark. We’d emerge into light of democratic freedom, in Vienna, wash ourselves clean of coal dust in a city fountain, in front of Austrian citizens glad for us. Cleanse ourselves of Communism, stifling government, and your previous married life, my darling.) Sure I’ll show you. Every back street and alley and short-cut and rooftop route, is that what you want?
We walk on for a bit without words. I am associated — she says for some reason very slowly — with certain people who think like you and I do.
So they have hate?
Hate, yes … but with a plan of action.
I hear her like an electric charge through me. Words will not come.
Perhaps that is my reason for wanting to learn the city’s streets, she says. We may need such knowledge.
Still I cannot speak, when inside my mind is quite clear, that underneath this suffering city is a defiantly beating heart. Finally my tongue frees itself. You mean giving them a taste of their own medicine?
She stops. I stop. Her right eyebrow arches. Yes, she says.
I hear a tram coming behind us, there is a stop not far ahead. Come, this is not an interesting part of town. We are wasting time.
I was wrong about her not being the type to giggle, for that is what I hear as we hurry to the tram stop. And to my ears it sounds as intimate as though she’d spoken as my lover.
SHE STANDS BY the window reading aloud a poem to me: This is the way with us, Sándor: lying accusation … Stabbing you so quickly down into whichever hell … From where my voice is rising, calling out to you … Believing in your guilt, I was the guilty one.
Behind her the window is but one sheet of grey sky to which she turns; I think to let her emotion subside.
She finally speaks. That was the poet László Benjámin. He dedicated it to Sándor Haraszti, a university lecturer who fought Fascism. He was a staunch Communist, but a totally dedicated patriot, too. So what did his Communist colleagues do? Why they gaoled him for four years, because his was a voice of integrity, and integrity and honour, honesty and truth are their avowed enemies. As if you don’t know that.
We have been a lot in each other’s company, I, her guide, showing her the city few know, its secret pathways, the complexity, even though it is a grid lay-out. She, my guide, showing me the pathways and complexities of our nation’s history and thinkers and statistics, even though they’ve always been laid out around me. We’ve become firm friends but, alas, no more than that. Her husband I know less, except for when we play chess, which limits the relationship, and he does not care to be shown the intimate thoroughfares of Budapest and even questions why his wife does, warns of the dangers. Not that she listens to him.
I ask what the poem means.
It means that, if the poet judges himself guilty, then what of the truly guilty?
I understand now. Just as she has made me understand another world, of adults and their politics. Like the Petőfi Circle, named after the famous poet, an organisation of writers who have been clamouring for reform. Rákosi has stated publicly that he will liquidate them. But they continue to put out their underground publication, demanding reform.
She took me to a meeting of the Petőfi Circle; we heard speeches demanding change, reform, there were a good thousand people at this university hall; it had me in awe and feeling like I didn’t belong, not here amongst intellectuals, men of the mind and from higher social class. Not that I found the political talk uninteresting. Besides, what they had to say was not enough: they still wanted to stay on side with the Communists. I, Aranka too, want full freedom.
Reading the poem has upset her. Her eyes are teary. She asks if I like poetry, and I have to answer I haven’t thought if I do or not. I guess not.
You’re young, but the sooner you get poetry in your life the sooner life will have more meaning, Attila Szabó. Then she gives me a look too sexy for comfort, except she says, But perhaps your everyday life is a kind of poetry in itself, yes? (What does she mean? And why does she look at me like that … as if on the verge of stepping over into the realm I fervently wish she would?)
It is March 1956, my last year of school. I have no career goals, only fantasies of giving these people a taste of their own bad medicine, and then some. The Ávós have stepped up their terror campaign, arresting people seemingly at random. We call it Rákosi’s revenge, for the period he was not in the number one seat of power.
In our house we are fearful they will come and arrest my father again, for he has not been well mentally. On several occasions he’s spoken his anti-Ávós thoughts in public places, once on a crowded tram. We expected for weeks afterwards at any given moment the Ávós would arrive, for surely someone knew who he was and had given his name to them. It is just a matter of time.
Aranka has been relocated to another job on a factory line, making some useless metal product. The shift is a twelve-hour one, due to yet another government decree to increase production. All the while our poverty worsens, the bread queue lengthens, food shortages become more frequent.
Her husband, Péter, has suffered demotion from an already lowly clerk’s job at a government supply warehouse to a general h
and in another factory making parts for lorries.
Aranka is saying that her husband made a complaint about his new position in writing to his boss. Attila, I tell him he is naïve, and stupid, that he invites trouble upon himself, on us. It is hard enough finding sleep at night as it is.
She has dark rings under her eyes, as if she’s been doing a lot of crying. When I know she hasn’t. I’ve asked her. Just tired, she says. Outside and in.
Péter is late, he must be home soon. I feel the kid again, young, excluded, not part of this marriage, of private intimacies, of conversation and unspoken exchange. Of love.
My father’s snoring through the wall indicates he’s been drinking again. Mama, I’m sure, will be awake, but long past despairing for the husband she used to have. I hope she doesn’t start taking solace in drink, too; I couldn’t bear having a drunkard mother as well.
Béla has moved out, into a flat he shares with two others. He has an office job in a government department, but definitely not the Secret Police, my enquiries had me happy to know. Our relationship had become cordial, but no more. I wished him well and he me. I might have even had a tear or two to shed if not for our father saying something quite out of context in his deteriorating state of early dementia. Instead I hugged my brother and wept crocodile tears. By then the moment was lost.
It wasn’t until after Béla walked out the door that I realised I was wrong, my father in fact was more normal than he’d been in ages; spoke lucidly, about Béla’s prospects being better than mine because he has a personality better suited to adapting. But he spoke with a thinly covered sneer. I hope he was trying to tell me something. If only that a better part of him remained intact.
Then he spoke of how my bedroom would seem like a palace and my life my own. And his eyes seemed normal, for they glinted with subtle meaning.
I’m in bed, wondering if Aranka’s found sleep, or if she is making sweet love with her husband, when I hear his voice — Péter Pálfia’s — right outside my window.