Szabad

by Alan Duff

  Further along is Mátyás Church, with its brilliantly patterned tile roof; the upthrust of Fishermen’s Bastion with turrets to symbolise the tents of the early Magyars; everywhere crying out history as though the people should be proud of it — but nowhere a monument to the people’s suffering.

  Pál, I just notice, is trying to get one up again by reaching the intersection into my street first. As I go to sneak a sprint in, he lifts his hand sharply — in warning.

  Ávós. Pál, is it Ávós? He doesn’t need to answer, his rigid posture confirms it. Then I hear my father’s voice — damn. He’s drunk and raving again. He’ll get us all killed.

  Peering around the corner of building, I can see the back of a man in a smart trench coat. It’s August, summer, though today not so hot, but too warm for such a coat, unless to express something. Namely, Ávós wear trench coats and smart brown leather shoes like those.

  The coat is fawn and shiny, of light material, gabardine, and the folds are shadows, giving out a sense of expensive quality. On his head he has a porkpie hat, whilst two minions are in standard khaki uniform and the peaked caps, holding a rifle each pointed at the pavement, as if they know they’re dealing with a man who’s lost his senses. (They must be able to see that.)

  I’ll explain to them about my father. And I go to step around Pál, except he sticks an elbow out. Stay put, Tills. I think it’s gone too far.

  Well, if that’s the case then I’m going for my gun, and to hell with everything. But my friend grabs my arm in a vice-like grip and hisses he’ll use his own gun to shoot me if my actions get us all into serious trouble with the Ávós. If I have to serve ten years in Siberia, Attila Szabó, I’ll come for you.

  It isn’t Pál’s threat that checks me, but the friendship. We’ve made certain vows, we’re blood brothers without actually having got around to the blood-joining ritual.

  The Ávós officer tells my father to put his hands slowly on his head. My father gives a grin, which any reasonable man could see is not that of a normal person, and shakes his head no. Then says it — and loudly — No!

  The officer’s right arm lifts, in it a pistol. (I know the weight he’ll feel, its power, the feeling you are God.) My father’s hands go to his head. Pedestrians behind him are scurrying the other way.

  The Ávós officer tells him, That’s better. Except promptly my father drops arms by his side.

  Is it? he says. Well then, how is this?

  I, this fool’s son, am proud of him and collapsing inside at the same time. One of the underlings raises his rifle at Papa, the other follows suit. That makes three guns trained on one unarmed half-mad man.

  I turn to Pál. Pál, they are going to kill him … my father … You know that, don’t you?

  But his mouth is a thin line of nothing to say. Eyes warning, not that I must not intervene but that I surely can’t.

  You’d shoot an unarmed man in broad daylight? my father puts to them. No, you wouldn’t dare, not now you’ve lost your murderer boss Rákosi. Go on, I dare you!

  (Oh, you foolhardy, good brave man. You courageous Magyar warrior, whose sanity returns in these moments, do you know they are your last?)

  The voice of this magnificent father of mine rings out down the street; where figures fill nearly every window, behind curtains like doomsayers of my papa’s death.

  He says, Tell me: have you never passed down these streets and seen what is in others’ eyes for you? That they not only hate you, they think you’re the lowest human forms alive? Know you this? Does it not shame you?

  No, it does not shame them, or why would they sight their rifles, in front of a hundred witnesses in windows, those paused pedestrians now pushing against buildings, going into doorway recesses and up steps, to get out of the way, and be rigid-faced with anger at my father’s insults?

  Shame? The officer says. Not for a moment. (Did you hear, Attila? Not for a moment and never for a moment. You are what you are born and made all in one. It depends what side you take.) In fact, I am filled with pride at serving my country.

  And so I have it: the man believes. Like all men must do, in whatever code they adopt. He believes, and so it becomes his morality. So even murder can be justified.

  The officer changes posture, not showing his face, which would be anyway beneath the shadow of that hat. It is quite a fluid, practised motion, of right leg slightly back, the right sleeve disappearing across his front, the smart overcoat billowing out briefly to one side, his left, and then his whole posture stiffens, as though charged with some electrical force or some demon idea, or else grand sense of himself.

  It is all slowed down, like in a dream, and jumbled like a dream, for it doesn’t make sense and yet it does, it does.

  Friendship holds me both physically and ideally from myself, my actions bringing too many houses — lives — down with mine. Against my own flesh and blood about to be terminated before my eyes.

  My papa is wearing a preposterous last grin. Serene and blundering and blind and full of clarity all at once. His rough worker-man clothes look suddenly like splendid attire. A simple pale-blue cotton shirt, dark working trousers, clumpy work shoes.

  And his head, I see, is raised to a degree entering majesty.

  There is this violent movement by the officer, maybe recoil. Then Sándor Szabó’s body reels backwards, lurches to one side, a knee bent, fighting to stay balanced but can’t. Drops to the ground. On my left, his executioner’s left.

  No, he is up again, staggering around like a half-crazed drunk. I see flashes of red, none of it makes sense since my father is not still for a moment.

  The shot registers very late in my mind for I have turned and looked in question at my friend if he’s heard what I have. He is shocked and angry and yet still protective of me at the same time. I see all this.

  There is another movement by the officer, this time I have him in part-profile and I immediately, intuitively, do not like what I am seeing: the familiarity of the face, which cannot be.

  That right leg is rigidly back, a man steadying himself, about to throw, to hurl, hurl downwards, so I know my father has fallen to the ground, though I can only see the bottoms of his shoes, the soles.

  Yet still I do not believe. Not my father going to die — murdered — before my eyes.

  I wish I could see his face, before life flees it. But I do hear him call from the sun-warmed pavement, adding more warmth of his blood, crying: Ó, édes fiam! Attila, édes fiam!

  I have his face I have his face, he has had my father, he has had Aranka, he is one and the same, his name is Friss Zoltán. Colonel Zoltán Friss. Servant of the State. State-approved murderer of innocents.

  HE BECOMES HEAVIER as soon as we enter the bedroom, as if he does not want to be here like this. We boys breathe the harder with carrying him and then there’s this sudden strange increase in weight.

  I have his head and shoulders, fistfuls of his shirt halfway down the back. Pál his legs. He looks quite gone from this world, never existed almost. When minutes ago he had voice, he had defiance, he had the bare necessities in this wretched country where they try to take away your manhood but some — many — they can’t. (And they didn’t in the end.)

  That mouth that spoke those last words, calling out to édes fiam, is now parted, the bottom teeth show and a strip of the top teeth, blood filling the grooves like his blood did the grooves on joined cobbles. One eye has a terrible wound above it, but the lids have been closed by Ilona.

  He, the body, enters his bedroom in this state, resisting for reasons of his or nature’s unexplainable own. We lay him on the bed and Mama gets a wash bowl and towels. Poor people are the best acquirers of cloth in any form, even if it is rags.

  I start to remove the rough cloth garbing that had looked so resplendent in that last moment. Exert my muscles, expecting the resistance of weight, but it does not come. He feels so light now, accepting.

  The smell of my father’s forcefully emptied bladder and bowels is not
stench, not if I don’t want it to be. I remove his shit-soiled trousers and fold them like a funeral garment I have decided against him wearing.

  Next the shirt, a splotch where one bullet went into his chest; the skin makes claim to the shirt material, I have to pull hard to release the connection of blood and cloth.

  When I open the shirt I’m shocked to see a mass of striped scars, like furrowed ridges of ploughed ground from my memories of my potato-grower grandparents. He never said anything of this, though my mother must have seen it and she must have got him to talk about it, surely?

  We’ve got him cleaned and dressed, not in the only suit he’s had forever but in clean working clothes, to be buried the proud worker he was. To show that he was just a basic, ordinary man who refused to bow down to bullies. Then comes clamorous knocking on our front door.

  The delegation of Ávós, led by a doctor, march like invaders right into my parents’ bedroom where my father’s body lies. Friss is not one of them — he wouldn’t be so foolish. The doctor has the affront to ask if we have interfered with the body in any way. Unable to contain myself I say, Yes, we did. We changed his clothing soaked in blood and shit. Cleaned the blood from the shots his murderer put into him. We have given my father dignity.

  An Ávós warns me not to accuse a policeman of murder or I will find myself on serious charges. Mama’s pleading eyes grant me sense just to leave the room.

  In the kitchen, when this self-invited delegation finally emerge, the doctor informs us: I declare Szabó Sándor dead.

  (No, Papa, father of me, Attila Árpád Szabó. You are not dead. You came home from gaol mostly dead of spirit, but in your last you did not die, you gave life. To me, this person, your son. And I will give you life after life back, as payment for what you have suffered. You are not dead, sweet apa. You could not be more alive.)

  IT IS NEAR to pitch black; I’ve been waiting in here for what feels like hours. The pushed-aside clothing hanging either side of me is of unfamiliar feel — and smell — of woman. The finer material, the narrowness to my fingers of the tighter sleeves, the scent and presence of woman. A specific woman.

  The space is awash with her smell, her soap, cheap like everyone else’s from her re-classified status, even to my nose. But her garments give off the complexity of female sexuality, female existence, at once mysterious, compelling, even in here, where I am not supposed to be, let alone with such intent.

  This is her private space, where she hangs her clothing, stands deciding what to wear, in only her underwear, if even that, in that moment of women defining themselves so differently for any given day. Even in this wretched country do women go through this ritual of female pride, even if they have little better than rags to choose from.

  I know of this female pride. My mother, my grandmother, Klaudia, and this special woman, unique woman. But still I can’t justify being here, not like this, hidden in her wardrobe with a gun.

  I hear the sound of her busying, a plate put away, cupboard closed, rustle of movement, soft footfalls, a broom’s scratchy sweeping; silences loaded with meaning, punctuated with different sighs. I hope I don’t hear her weep, or this would feel even more intrusive than it is.

  Hope she doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary, not like the last time I intruded and found her douching her violated genitals, her woman’s insides, with disinfectant.

  There is something missing, and not until she turns on the radio and music issues do I realise what it is: she has been soundless, personally, other than the sighs. No humming, as I used to hear from my mother, even whilst Papa was in gaol. No soft whistling, no talking to herself, no private weeping. Poor Aranka. Poor all of us.

  From time to time I change the gun over to the other hand, that weight bearing down, as if pulling energy out of a pending trigger finger, when I cannot be drained of any murderous intent.

  The radio plays Bartók, our own beloved Magyar composer, whom every Hungarian recognises no matter of what social station. Not that I prefer Béla Bartók, but he makes me feel proud to be Hungarian. Against, seemingly, my will, I have a liking for Russian choral singing. It brings me out in goosebumps whenever I happen to hear it on the radio: Magyar Rádió plays more Russian than our own composers. I’ve heard Red Army soldiers singing their songs in bars, or in passing lorries, trailing their most wonderful singing (though I’d never admit that to anyone); usually there is a strong baritone lead, it lifts me, makes me feel as if I am that lead voice, the tribal leader exhorting the others to march onward. How ironic it should be Russian music that so inspires me.

  But such thoughts do not belong in this space, this trespassed territory not my own; too much the same as the Soviet military presence: uninvited and not with good intent.

  Her footsteps move away, I think to the front door. They stop. A silence for some long moments. Then the door opens. More silence. The door closes. Has she gone out?

  No, her footsteps again. She must have been checking for outside presence. And now the Bartók strings abruptly end; she’s changing the station. This has gone too far, I feel as if I’m descending, that I’ve made a deliberate decision to throw myself off a high place somewhere. This is going to end our trust, our friendship. I’m spiralling into a world right out of control.

  Would I like it if one of my friends, especially of the opposite sex, was concealed in my bedroom, hearing everything I do in private? What would be revealed that I did not wish to be?

  Static crackling bursts forth, to be immediately turned down in volume; now she is tuning the radio, having trouble finding the wavelength. Now she has it: a foreign tongue: English. Meaningless, though the American songs I hear are exotic, the language flowing.

  The pistol’s getting heavier in my hand. I think my will is flagging. I change it to the non-firing hand. Aranka changes the station, back to Bartók. Why did she listen to a foreign language in the first place?

  At last, a knock. Gun back in my right hand. Her footsteps; the door opening. A girl’s voice, and Aranka greeting her: Lenke? Not a greeting — a question.

  Lenke’s words are not audible, her voice more like a tinkling bell. I hear Aranka say, I see. Thank you, Lenke. And don’t you be worried for me, no?

  I hear Lenke’s reply, in a louder, dismaying tone. Oh, but I do, dearest Aranka! It’s so unfair!

  Then I hear the strong Aranka, the one I know best, take charge. What is fair, Lenke, in this world? What do you know of what goes on at your age that has you in such tears like this?

  Lenke says, I just know. My parents, they cry for you, too.

  There is a pause. Aranka might be taking the girl in her arms. I hear this very clearly, Aranka telling the child Lenke: Tell them, don’t cry for me but for our country. There is no need to endure this. We don’t have to if we don’t wish. Tell them that, Lenke. And tell yourself to allow no man to do this to you.

  So why do you allow the man Friss to do it? I ask myself.

  She bids Lenke goodbye and the door closes. Now I hear her quiet weeping and it is all I can manage to stop from revealing myself and giving her comfort. Prostrating myself in abject apology.

  The exclaimed words next are like a judge pronouncing my rightful guilt when she says, Oh Péter! Péter, darling husband! When will it end? When is it going to end?

  (Do you hear her, Szabó boy? She called for her late murdered husband, Péter. You think you’re here to answer that plaintive cry, but are you, and will it? This is not your place, Attila. You have no right to be here, hearing a woman, a widow, a victim in her private suffering.)

  But now the rapist arrives, his footsteps, leather under-soles on stone steps. The rapist arrives, with three quite gentle knocks on the victim’s front door.

  She calls out that it is not locked; he must have entered. He says hello, remarks on the weather, being another good hot summer, and will be roaming hungry eyes over her for he is silent and then he says, How could I have gone so long without seeing you?

  As if he is
an absent husband who’s been working out of town for a period. As if she is his willing lover glad to see him again.

  A period of silence before she replies. I do not know. Another silence.

  No? Oh, come on now — As if to an old friend, a parent to his daughter, a husband to his wife — You are not that deaf and blind to events, to word on the streets of changes happening. Please don’t be telling me that. It would insult my intelligence.

  And I would not want to do that, would I?

  Flat, her tone. Just about no more life left. And yet there is, I realise. There was defiance, a subtle mocking in her tone, the words she used.

  No. You wouldn’t, Mrs Pálfia.

  I’d prefer you didn’t address me like that, Mr Friss.

  And Mr Friss chuckles and says he’s sorry, he should have been more thoughtful. And me, I prefer in private to be called just Zoltán.

  (Just Zoltán? But Mr or Colonel or Sir in front of people — Oh, you arrogant son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you slowly.)

  I lose hearing when they go to another room, likely the kitchen. Not for long though. He’s saying, Oh well, shall we get started? With a nervous little chuckle.

  And now they enter the bedroom I’m in.

  If I remember what took place, the details, then the same mind has reshaped it so I only recall it in emotional terms. What I had to go through to bear it, not carry out my intention. Perhaps because of her greater burden.

  I had heard them in the act together — no, together says she is a willing partner, when she could not have been less willing. I heard when he asked her, at some early stage, You have come to enjoy this, haven’t you?