Train to Budapest (33 page)

40

At eight in the morning Hans reappears with a loaf of bread under his arm and a bag of dried figs. ‘I’ve also got some instant coffee in my pocket.’ He’s radiant. He says the city has by no means been pacified. The whole country, not only Budapest, is in revolt against the Rákosi government. There has been shooting between the ÁVH and the workers.

‘But best of all, Nagy has been chosen to head the government. And Maléter, the officer who refused to open fire on the insurgents, is now Minister of Defence,’ he adds, putting the bread down on the table. ‘Councils of workers are being formed in all the factories, on the model of the first one at Miskolc. They are working towards a general strike. The Russians seem to have got the point. Probably they don’t want to be seen as jailers by the whole world. Khrushchev is not Stalin.’

Amara fills the small pan with tap water that tastes of chlorine and contains a little rust. She lights the gas which luckily has not been cut off, and puts the water on to heat.

Horvath is still asleep. When he comes into the kitchen in his pyjamas, a blanket round his shoulders, bony white ankles sticking out and his skin a maze of blue veins, the friends receive him with applause. His floating white hair is like a halo and his blue eyes are shining.

Amara pours the coffee into the glasses which she has rinsed with the help of a fragment of soap discovered under the sink. She slices the bread and puts it on the only clean plate in the house.

Horvath claims he isn’t hungry but swallows his slice of bread in huge mouthfuls and scalds his tongue on his boiling-hot coffee. Ferenc, at the smell of the coffee, also appears in his pyjamas. With his violin stuck under his ear he plays them a Paganini
Scherzo
. Tadeusz watches him, smiling tenderly.

Hans, glass of coffee in hand, goes to switch on the radio.

‘They told me that in one single night any number of new free
broadcasters have come onto the air. Who knows if we’ll be able to hear them on this old set!’

He places his powerful hands on the ugly great Orion with its light-coloured wooden sides and oblong glass window lit by mysterious lights. A brown cloth grille stretches between four chipped knobs. The loudspeaker blows, whistles and puffs like an old steam engine. But finally a radiant if agitated voice emerges to tell them: ‘This is Radio Borsod. We announce the dissolution of the local ÁVH and that Soviet troops stationed in the area have not intervened. Factory Councils have been meeting all night to draw up a list of proposals to present to the new Nagy government, including recognition of political parties, free elections and the expulsion of all Soviet troops from the Republic.’

The five gather once more, cold but with their glasses steaming in their hands, round the big Orion. Hans translates quickly and concisely. A happy female voice announces, ‘Gerö and his Stalinist friends have left the country! They are joining Rákosi in exile in the USSR. Let’s hope they don’t ever dare to come back!’ A triumphal march by Verdi follows.

‘All this music!’ shouts Tadeusz. ‘We want to hear how things are going!’

‘Why are you twiddling that knob?’

‘I want to hear better!’

‘You’ll lose the station it took me so much trouble to find!’

‘We’ll find another!’

Tadeusz continues turning the knob. Eventually he finds a third free station. Crowding close, the friends make out a young female voice above the crackling and hissing: ‘Radio Győr-Sopron. The world is watching us, comrades. Everyone’s eyes are on us. Radio France has announced that Hungarian workers are successfully attacking the forces of the communist police. Radio Monaco has broadcast live the voice of comrade Zoltán Frei who was present at the shoot-out in front of parliament in Budapest. He has given evidence that the police fired at a crowd armed with nothing but stones. A rumour is circulating that we are fascists. But we declare with pride that we are socialists. If attacked we shall defend our country and our liberties with weapons … The latest news: in Italy 101 communist intellectuals have signed an appeal for solidarity with the Hungarian revolution. And students in Rome, Milan and 
Naples are demonstrating in our support. Thank you, Italy!’

Now the five seem more cheerful. They have drunk hot coffee and eaten bread and dried figs, and now they smoke a cigarette with a satisfied air, even if their eyes never leave the radio for a moment. Tadeusz continues manipulating the knob, brilliantly capturing every word that leaps out from unofficial sources. But every now and then they are chilled by the cold and presumptuous voice of the official Radio, recaptured since yesterday, angrily commanding citizens not to leave their homes. ‘From every part of the land telegrams are reaching the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers’ Party, expressing the indignation of the nations’ workers at the criminal actions of the counter-revolutionaries, and assuring the Party and Government of their determination to defend the socialist order from attack by any enemy.’

‘Twiddle the knob, Tadeusz, no more of that stuff!’

Tadeusz shrugs his shoulders, mortified. ‘We need to hear what the official Radio is saying too!’

But here are strident, excited voices, clearly recorded in the street: ‘Me and my sister Olga left home to go to work. After a few metres, at the corner of the ring road and Rudas László utca, near where the hairdresser’s used to be, we saw a big hole in the middle of the street. We had to go back.’ Suddenly a male voice interrupts: ‘We were lined up in front of the Astoria Hotel, workers and others, and we shouted “Soviets out of Hungary!” and “An end to martial law!” The locally-stationed Soviet tanks didn’t fire on us. We explained to the Russian soldiers that we’re not counter-revolutionaries, we’re independent socialists who want a better socialism … Some of them embraced us. I think they’d had orders not to fire on us, and they left their weapons hanging from their shoulders. We thrust the Hungarian flag into the mouths of the cannons. They invited us on board and took us where we wanted to go. I tell you, my friends, the Russian soldiers are on our side.’

‘It really seems impossible,’ broods Hans, chewing his nails.

‘Well, are we going to make it then?’ says Tadeusz.

Horvath has taken the blanket off his shoulders. Underneath he is fully clothed. He is holding a book in his hand and reading aloud from Pascal: ‘Imagine a great number of men in chains, all condemned to death, with some every day having their throats cut in full view of the others, so that the survivors see their own future
in the fate of those like them and, looking at each other in sorrow and without hope, await their turn. That is the human condition.’

‘What on earth are you talking about, Horvath!’

‘Pascal said that, not me!’

‘Who cares a fig about your Pascal, keep him to yourself!’ says Tadeusz angrily, twiddling the knob.

‘Is this the time for that sort of stuff?’ says Hans reproachfully.

But Horvath is no way put out. Entirely serious, he opens at random another page of the
Pensées
: ‘To make sure passion cannot harm us, let us live as if we only had eight days of life left.’

‘Please stop!’

‘If we must make a present of eight days of our lives, we might just as well make a present of a hundred years.’

‘Well said! But that’ll do now. Let’s listen to the voices from the city.’

‘Or from the whole nation.’

Horvath lifts his eyes from the book and studies the others with compassion. He fearlessly opens another page and reads on, ignoring their protests: ‘When I consider the brevity of my life, absorbed in the eternity that has gone before it and will follow after it, and the tiny space I fill and am scarcely even aware of, buried in the infinite immensity of a universe I do not know and that does not know me, I am terrified and wonder at the fact that I am here rather than there, now rather than later. Who put me here?’

‘Horvath, you horror!’

‘Can’t you stop being a librarian even for a minute?’

But Horvath is unrelenting, and while the radio continues to crackle and spit, he remorselessly continues to read Pascal’s words: ‘Are you less of a slave because your master loves you and flatters you? Lucky slave! Your master may flatter you now, but he’ll be beating you soon enough.’

‘Well said, Pascal! There you have those slaves of Rákosi and Gerö who think their Soviet master’s their friend because he gives them a slap on the back.’

‘We are fools to entrust ourselves to the company of those who are like ourselves: as miserable as we are, as impotent as we are, they will never be able to help us; we shall die alone,’ continues the Old Testament prophet, lifting the page close under his nose.

‘That’s enough, Horvath, you’re making me nervous.’

‘Just be careful. If you don’t stop I shall throw your book out of the window,’ adds Tadeusz, raising his voice.

The violinist is playing Paganini again. A little ray of sunlight comes in from the kitchen window. On such a grey damp day it seems a miracle. Everyone watches it light up a dancing whirl of dust.

Horvath sighs and closes his book. But he can’t resist repeating the last Pascal aphorism that he has just read: ‘It is horrible to feel everything you possess is failing. Amen.’

‘Throw that book away! Come here and listen,’ urges Tadeusz, still searching out new voices on the radio.

‘Well, here we are with comrade Dudás and his bodyguards, and the hundred and fifty men with him who have occupied the editorial offices of the Party paper
Szabad Nep
. What are your plans, comrade Dudás?’

A sound of chairs being moved and heavy breathing. Then the voice of Dudás, raucous and determined: ‘We are already printing a hundred thousand copies of a new paper to be called
Magyar
Fuggetlenseg
. Our response to the concept of the single party.’

The sound of a rotary press can be heard.

‘When will the first number be ready?’

‘This very day,’ shouts Dudás happily.

‘We must get a copy of this new paper,’ says Hans.

‘For news?’

‘As a souvenir.’

‘Comrades, comrades,’ cries the radio. The five fall silent. The voice has managed to grab their attention despite Horvath’s Pascal, Ferenc’s violin and shots fired in the street.

‘Comrades, here is the speech Nagy made in front of parliament. Unfortunately we did not manage to record it because our batteries were flat. He said he recognises the national and democratic character of the insurrection. Those were his exact words. He announced that the Soviet troops will withdraw and the ÁVH will be dissolved, and that Gerö has already left for Moscow to join Rákosi. Comrades, we are free!’

Tadeusz starts leaping about the room. Horvath watches him with pity. Ferenc strikes up a jig. Tadeusz begins going round in circles. After a bit even Horvath is infected by the euphoria and joins the others in the middle of the kitchen with huge ungainly capers.  

41

Horvath has developed a high temperature and is treating himself with powdered aspirin that Hans has procured at considerable expense. The serving of the medicine on a Eucharistic host found in Ferenc’s cupboard (which is full of the most unlikely objects), has become a ceremony in which everyone takes part. Hans spreads what is supposed to be half a gram of aspirin on the middle of the host which Ferenc holds open with three fingers, seeing that the soft little disc has a tendency to roll itself up. Tadeusz adds a drop of water and the host is then closed by the wise hands of Hans who folds it carefully and lifts it on high. At this point Horvath closes his eyes like a child and sticks out a long tongue red with fever, on which Hans places the host. Immediately after this Horvath protrudes his lips and tries to swallow the medicine with the help of a mouthful of tap water.

The coffee is finished and no more can be found anywhere. In its place there has arrived on the market a tea from China with very dark curled leaves that tastes like sundried straw. It seems Khrushchev has paid a visit to Mao and the two have decided to increase their trade links to include tea, poultry, lard and soya beans, which reach Hungary via the Soviet Union.

It’s even difficult to find bread. There are the usual perecs which Hans calls pretzels and eats with gusto even though they are made from potato flour and stick to your teeth. ‘They’re supposed to be crisp,’ says Hans, ‘but hunger is hunger.’ The great Orion on top of the iceless icebox is kept permanently on. Radio Kossuth and Radio Petőfi transmit classical music, most frequently Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, Borodin’s D Major Quartet, Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Shéhérazade
, Kodály’s
Galánta Dances
and Khachaturian’s
Sabre Dance
. Every so often the music is interrupted by an appeal for calm. And above all, an insistence that people should hand in their arms. ‘All weapons, even the smallest, must be handed in to 
the government.’ But judging by the continued insistence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the arms are not being given up.

Every now and then they pick up the voice of a free radio station, but these tend to be no sooner born than they die again. Young voices that tell of a great longing for change. They announce that new workers’ councils are being formed spontaneously in factories throughout the land. Some discuss the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Others go back to Trotsky’s theories of permanent revolution, while others again refer directly to the young Marx, and many invoke the free market. In fact, huge confusion. There is only one thing they all agree on: Soviets out of Hungary! And immediate free elections!

Shoot-outs are constantly denounced in various parts of the country, above all battles between the ÁVH and the insurgents. The Soviets take little part preferring to leave things to Rákosi’s old military police, the most hated force in the whole country.

The five get some hot soup inside them, made from the broth of a few meatless chicken bones, lots of margarine, half an onion and two rather soft potatoes. Suddenly an unusual voice comes over the radio. A tender woman’s voice singing in English. Something really unexpected.