Triptych (22 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Leaving Tibor at the church, I take off for
Duna Utca
. Along the way, I rehearse what I must tell Zsófi and Mariska. Questions burn.

At the store, I tell Zsófi I have urgent news. “Attila Kocsis has revealed new information concerning my mother, possibly a break leading to Kati's fate.”

Zsófi's voice is solemn. “Mariska will want to hear.”

We tape a ‘Back in 15 Minutes' sign on the door and dart up the stairs. Amidst the pleasant clutter of the flat, Mariska sits on the sofa knitting, her gaze fixed on the screen of the console television set where a handsome soap opera couple smooch in an endless kiss. Rhapsodic music blares in the background.

At the set, Zsófi rams the ‘Off' button with her palm. “Mariska,” she says, breathing hard from our dash up the stairs. “Ildikó has just come from St. Elizabeth's. There she saw someone from our past.”

Zsófi slides onto the sofa next to her. She takes Mariska's hands, holding them while looking her friend in the eye. “
Edesem
, before we can tell you who she has seen, I must know, how are you feeling? Are you well? Strong enough even if I tell you he is AVO?”

Some of the rosy color leaves Mariska's cheeks, but she does not flinch. “I am better than ever, this you know. But Zsófi, are
you
strong enough?”

Zsófi does not hesitate. “Ildikó has seen Attila Kocsis.”

Mariska winces. “This cannot be.”

“Yes,” I say, sinking into the overstuffed chair across from them. I repeat his story about trying to find Kati, his account of the meeting with my mother, and, finally, begin describing the photo of Kati. A lump that will surely choke me forms in my throat. I pause, stare into my lap.

Mariska's voice is tender. “How sad we could not comfort your mother after she discovers this information about her sister, sees this cruel image. Look how it is affecting you,
drága gyermekem
. But you say you have left the prayer book and the photo with—” She hesitates then stumbles over the name as if loath to speak it. “At-ttila?”

I look up, nod, say softly, “He was AVO, yes, but he is very ill. And he did try to help my mother. After, she asked him to keep the book for her. It seems to comfort him. I-Ill get it later.” I hesitate. “There's something else. He recognized another picture in the commandant's office. Of you, Zsófi.”

I expected their reaction to be shock. Instead, Zsófi looks at Mariska and Mariska nods encouragingly.

“It is why we left.”

“You knew about the photo?” They nod again. My gaze strays to Zsófi's clenched hand. Zsófi
had been hauled in for interrogation, tortured.

“Ildikó,
edesem
, I was with the rebels, in the streets fighting.”

“You?”

A wry smile. “Incredible, yes?” Zsófi holds her hand aloft. “I was not able to hold a rifle, but I could do other things to help.” An impish smile. It fades. “Also things I am ashamed of.”

“Our patriots did not have super firepower like the Russians,” Mariska says, “but they have super willpower, and creative minds.” She smiles. “Zsófi was in a girl brigade. Their mission, destroy tanks.”

“Destroy tanks?” My voice is high, incredulous.

“Yes, while I am scrubbing floors, Zsófi and her comrades are spreading liquid soap onto streets, making the tanks to slip sideways, crash. Most effective when the tank it goes uphill. The tracks, trying to catch pavement, spin, slide. Then, with luck, the tank crashes into a building. Can no longer move. A perfect target for our petrol bombers.”

It is weird observing seventy-six-year-old Mariska, her cheeks pink again, talking animatedly about warfare. It's as if someone—or perhaps the pain from her past—has wound her up and she can't stop.

“Zsófi once also was a jam girl. Climbed a tank, smeared its slit window with Hungarian plum jam to blind the enemy. Wipers will not work. Eventually a crew member he must risk coming out to clear the mess. He is picked off by snipers positioned high up in the next building. Before the hatch can close, a petrol bomb is tossed inside.”

“Our enemy was monstrous,” Zsófi says softly, “And I was a savage, no better than them.”

“Please, this is not so,” Mariska says. “They kill our
children
, mow down women in breadlines—”

Zsófi swallows. “Let me tell, Mariska.”

“Does this have to do with the picture of you that Attila saw?” I ask.

“Yes. Photo journalists were everywhere, always. I think he refers to one taken in Republic Square. I was there when our rebel forces capture the Communist headquarters building. Inside, are AVO men. Of course, they do not come out of their own free will. Our men chase them to the basement, then begin to flood it. Rats drowning, now the AVO scum they must emerge.

“I watch, as the first AVO officer comes out. A rifle shot. He is flat on the ground. Then more AVO appear. All of the hatred built up, it explodes. Then, I never forget. AVO are falling like cut corn stalks, the bodies piling up. With my maimed hand I could not shoot or join in the clubbing, but I could kick. Over and over. Then, when I see the bleeding corpses of top officers being dragged to trees, strung up by their feet, I spit on their bloody mangled bodies. For the ache inside. The losses. Mother, father, home, friends, freedom, my hand…my soul.”

Zsófi's shoulders heave and fall. “After, comes the shame, the regret. It haunts me thirty years now. ”

Shame. Guilt. I know her companions only too well. My heart is so heavy I feel anchored in place.

“Zsófi, you can't change what happened—it's finished, behind you. These men were your abusers. You are so much better than them. In all the years I've known you I've seen nothing but kindness and goodness. But the picture. You think someone took a picture of you in the square?”

Zsófi nods. “I am sure of it.”

“Gustav had a camera during this time, did you know?” I ask. “It was his hobby then. Attila told us the AVO went to his mother's restaurant—where you worked, Mariska, and Gustav's father was a dishwasher. The AVO forced the father to take them to his house so they could confiscate Gustav's camera. Was he at Republic Square? Was he the photographer who took your photo, Zsófi?”

Mariska recovers first from the surprise. She sits tall, her back straight. “I am no longer at the restaurant during this time.”

“But Gustav, Zsófi? Was he one of the photographers you saw that day?”

Zsófi adjusts her glasses up the bridge of her nose, frowns, shakes her head. “No, I did not see Gustav.”

“Maybe it is a blessing from above that Attila find his way to our church,” Mariska says. “Did you not say a friend of your mother's she was working in the headquarters building with Attila?”

I nod warily. “Yes.”

“Once when your mother and I, we are having coffee, talking about old times, somehow my days as scrub woman they come up. She mention a friend. Anikó.” Mariska's brow furrows. “The last name I cannot remember now, but she was cleaning lady too. Made to work in Communist headquarters building—” Her blue eyes brighten. “Maybe it is she, Anikó, who try to help Attila. I will make some calls. Learn if this friend is living still. First we must confirm with Attila the name. The woman's full name.”

“We?” I look from one hopeful face to the other. “You mean
me
.” I shake my head. “No, no, no you don't. One confrontation with that sad broken creature was enough.”

Two sets of eyes are trained on me. No blinks.

“He gave my mother the name of the friend,” I say rotely. “The friend might know what happened to Kati. The trail to the truth about Kati might lead to the truth of what happened to my mother. Who pushed her.”

“Yes.” Mariska and Zsófi chorus softly.

Chapter Nineteen

Before I face off with Attila again, I need to see Gustav. His flat is in the opposite direction from the church, but I hop a bus anyway. Attila had said Gustav's camera had been confiscated. Why? Last night at the gallery, when I had questioned him about the photograph of the revolutionaries, he said he'd gotten it from a photojournalist. Which photojournalist? The one who snapped Zsófi's picture in Republic Square? Some vile functionary at AVO headquarters?

On the bus, it dawns on me that Gustav might not even be home. Tonight is his opening gala.

I vault the steps of the divided staircase. The French doors are open. I spill inside. Gustav, walking from the work bench toward the dining table, halts, startled.

ABBA blares from the stereo.
“
Chiquitita, tell me the truth.
”

Gustav's expression turns into a bright smile. “Ildikó. A nice surprise…”

“I'm not here to be nice. That photo of the uprising. Who took it?”

Gustav looks away. Without a word, he goes to the stereo cabinet. The music dims. Gustav remains silent, his back to me.

“Gustav, please. I want to trust you. Something's not right. The picture, the photographer. My gut is telling me they're somehow connected to my mother.”

I briefly recap the encounter with Attila.

Gustav shakes his head. “Here? An AVO man is here, in Chicago?”

“Why did a photojournalist give you a picture?
That
picture? Which photojournalist? Someone from the Party?” It pains me to suggest he would accept something from a Russian Communist. Anything was possible. Hadn't he said you did what you had to do to survive? What had
he
done?

Gustav turns. “I took the picture.”

“Then you lied to me.”

Gustav comes toward me, reaching out. I step backwards.

“You're a liar.”

“Ildikó, please. I said photojournalists were there. At the time, I wanted to be one of them. Turned out—” He waits, but now I refuse to meet his gaze. “Ildikó look at me.
Kérem
, please.”

“No. I can't. If I look at you I'll say something else I might regret. Tell the truth. Then I'll look at you.”

A resigned sigh. “I was a student at university. I am no warrior, I knew nothing of guns. My father had been taken by the Soviets after the war. He survived, only to remain locked inside another kind of gulag. You cannot imagine a father in this way.”

I could imagine. I had witnessed my own father's mental demise.

“My father,” Gustav continued, “would never talk about the horrors he knew. He bore his hatred in silence. I did not want that. I wanted to join the fight, help to make a difference. I knew by then that the right photograph can awaken a sense of humanity. Perhaps my pictures would bring some aid, relief.

“So my private war begins. Rebels in doorways, on rooftops, behind battered vehicles taking on Soviet tanks and guns. I capture it all.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch Gustav scrub his face with his hand. He takes a deep breath, starts again.

“Such young boys and girls, they fight on for days, little sleep, less food. One day in Móricz Zsigmond Square I find a fighting unit commander only a few years older than me, his force eight hundred teenage boys and girls. And they are giving Russia's finest all they can handle.” Gustav hesitates. “The Russians returned. Moricz Zsigmond Square fell. Four hundred of the unit died, the young Commander among them.”

I still refuse to look at Gustav. Instead, I study the wire holding the oversized whimsical Christmas lights, poised over the table. He clears his throat.

“Many times in the streets I would observe a pudgy, particularly bold photographer in the thick of the fighting, clicking off shots, once even leaning over a rebel's shoulder to sight his camera along the rebel's rifle barrel. A Czech living in Paris, on assignment for
Life
magazine.

“Almost a week into the revolution, shouts of ‘The Russkies are leaving!' could be heard everywhere. It was during this time of celebration that I crossed paths with this professional. We hit it off right away. Together, we waded through the destruction, he showing me the fine points of photo-composition. Me showing him the ins and outs of the alleyways.”

Gustav pauses and I glance in his direction. He is at the workbench standing before the shadow box, his back to me.

“I wanted to capture the emotion in the faces we saw. Faces alive with pure joy, confidence. I remember Márton, my friend from university, one of those that I left with, walking tall, assured, his carefree smile. His coat is unbuttoned, the muzzle of a rifle slung on his shoulder peering out from underneath. Two girls, one my dear Tunde—beautiful, smart, fun—are with him. Big smiles, carrying rifles too. As if this is what they have been doing all of their lives. Around them, everyone gay, shouting, singing, so full with pride.” He pauses. “This is when I take the photo of the couple that you have seen.”

The atmosphere in the room is the opposite of festive. Quiet, intense. The hushed background sounds of ABBA have completely faded, and I have no idea when the music finished. From the turntable comes the barely audible scratch of a needle centered on an album still spinning around.

Gustav walks to the stereo, lifts the needle, turns a knob. A soft click.

“That day in the Republic Square I grow more and more sickened, watching our patriots, our countrymen, their pistols held at arm's length, executing captured AVO men—or who knows who they were. No one was bothering to verify identities or offering proof that those who had been seized were guilty of crimes. They were shooting the captives at point-blank range. When they begin dragging bodies through the park to the trees, it is the end for me. I start to leave, but feel suddenly weak as if the burden of what I have witnessed wants to crush me. I sink down against a tree trunk, rest, then start to stand again. On the ground nearby is the body of a boy, maybe fifteen, a bullet to the head.” Gustav's voice cracks. He clears his throat. “I had set out to create a testimony for the world to understand the truth, but this?”

I peer at him out of the corner of my eye. “I'm sorry,” I whisper.

A quiet envelopes us. I ask softly, “So you didn't take pictures of the lynchings in the park? Didn't see Zsófi?”

“No. It is what I have been trying to tell you. I did not have the stomach for tragedy, for being a photojournalist. In that moment, I did not think I would take another picture again in my life, ever.”

“How did the secret police find out you'd been taking pictures? What happened when they came to get your camera?”

“There were many in the park with cameras. Likely I, my camera, made it into one of their pictures. This is how they know.”

“And when they came for your camera?” I repeat.

“I am gone from Budapest by then. It would have been crazy to try to take along a camera, film. If we were caught, that would be the end. I leave some film with the camera in our home where the AVO would find it. A couple of rolls that basically showed off the Soviet might. As for the horrific and heroic, I had to quickly choose. I hid one roll on me, the rest I destroyed.”

“But what about retribution? Weren't you afraid for your parents?”

“Of course. We had discussed my leaving. It was difficult, but they urged me to go. Find a better life. Later, their letters said they were fine. Without doubt the AVO took the bait—the camera and the harmless rolls. Maybe because of this, they left my parents alone. Also, my uncle, the businessman, had always done everything just short of joining the Party. He was looked upon with favor. That, no doubt, had some influence.”

I detect a wry tone in his last comments. Another surrepitous glance catches Gustav, eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“And the film you brought out?”

He sighs. “We must hide, crawl with sheets on our back to blend in with the snow. I wore a heavy coat and had sewn the roll into its lining. I thought it would be well-protected. Sadly, it was not. The film was damaged. Just one shot could be developed. The one you have seen, and I am grateful to have it. Each time I look at it I think of my friends, my loved ones. I remember what I saw in their faces, their carriage. Sadly, I am also reminded of what they gave to experience those few days of freedom.” His shoulders heave and slump. “Sadder yet, viewing the picture, I am reminded that the Communists continue to rule today, but because of '56, they do not reign with so strong a hand.

“I tell myself, the sacrifices of my friends, my fellow Magyar, one day will at last play out. Democracy will prevail. Meanwhile, I have to ask myself, Gustav, you survived, now what will you do? You can feel guilty and suffer inside or, again, you can find a way to make your good fortune matter.

“The faces of the executed haunt me. I know they will be with me forever. But what if I can find faces here that could live on in a positive way, perhaps symbolize what my friends died for? I think of the photo I took of Márton, Tunde. How I captured their moment of elation in experiencing freedom for the first time. Maybe I can do that here, with others starting life anew.”

Gustav is standing close by. I reach over, brush my fingers lightly across his hand, look at him. “You've done it, Gustav, with your show. I only saw a sampling but your images are powerful. You've made a passionate case for opening hearts to all those around us, regardless of their origins.”

I am suddenly conscious of the time passing. Zsófi and Mariska are waiting to hear what I learn. If I don't get back soon, they'll worry.

I back toward the doorway. “I have to go now. Carry out my assignment from
Duna Utca
headquarters.”

“Not without me.”

“You're not involved. The gala. You don't have time. I'm not afraid.”

Gustav smiles and grabs his keys from the table. “I would never suggest you were. If Attila's as weak and ill as you say, he may have trouble with his English. You'll need a Hungarian at your side to ask questions.”