Zoltán is frustrated at the way things seem to have taken a backward step. He remembers only too well the brief period of excitement seven months ago when the news broke in Hungary that the new Soviet leader Khrushchev had denounced Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress.
Khrushchev spoke of the great harm caused by limitless power in the hands of one person and claimed that Stalin made up the term enemy of the people which led directly to the repression of anyone who disagreed with him. Confessions had been extracted by torture, and high-ranking Russians were now having their convictions overturned and were being rehabilitated posthumously. Even Stalin’s reputation as a military genius is now in tatters because according to Khrushchev he failed to heed warnings in ’41 that the Germans were about to invade the Soviet Union. The Red Army was woefully under-resourced, no preparations were put in place and once war was underway Stalin planned operations on a globe instead of a detailed map, if you can believe it.
Incendiary stuff indeed, Zoltán thought at the time. But in Budapest, Stalin’s statue still stands tall in the City Park, a reminder to everyone of his godlike status.
Csaba Elek’s reading comes to an end and the workers break into a round of applause. Zoltán joins Sándor at their workstation and another day begins.
*
It’s mid-morning and Márton Bakos is making his way along Erzsébet Boulevard, past the grand turn-of-the-century buildings that hark back to a more refined age. He could have taken the tram as Katalin told him to, but he’s in no hurry to arrive at his destination. Besides, walking gives him the illusion of freedom. He can almost imagine himself in Paris. Well, maybe not quite. He mustn’t be late though. There would no doubt be a penalty for lateness.
Since his release he has tried to live a quiet life, doing his best to go unnoticed. At first he felt self-conscious whenever he left the apartment, convinced that his suffering must be plain for all to see. But then he came to realise that no one was paying him any attention – other people have enough problems of their own. These days he takes comfort in the simple pleasures of life – time with his family and grandchildren, chatting to Feri in the café, and taking a walk along the Danube when the weather permits.
When he arrives at his destination, he pauses a moment to straighten his tie and smooth back his thinning hair. Then, with a deep breath, he pushes open the door to the Café New York and steps inside. He used to come here with Eva, before the war, for special occasions. Anniversaries, birthdays, that sort of thing. But that was ten years ago and now he shies away from such ostentatious venues.
When the university declined to take him back following his release from the labour camp, Zoltán offered to help find him work at the factory, but he declined the offer with thanks. Instead he helps Feri out occasionally at the café, somewhere he feels far more at home than in this elaborate place with its scrolling marble pillars and gold leaf embellishment.
A black-clad waiter steps forwards, looking him up and down. ‘May I help you, sir?’ The tone is peremptory, as if he thinks Márton may have stumbled in here by mistake.
‘I’m here to meet someone.’ Márton can see the man he’s come to meet already seated at a table, pouring himself a coffee from a silver pot.
The waiter nods and stands aside.
As Márton approaches the table, the man looks up and gestures to the seat opposite. As a condition of his freedom, Márton is required to meet on a weekly basis with an AVO agent called Colonel Szabó. Tall and thin, the colonel is the polar opposite of Márton’s previous nemesis, Vajda. Szabó cuts a cadaverous figure, with his hooded eyes, sunken cheekbones and prominent Roman nose. He always arranges their meetings in the most showy café in Budapest, a trait which Márton finds hard to reconcile with the man’s supposed communist principles. Amid the lavish architecture and the clink of cutlery on fine china, Márton has to account for his days whilst the colonel takes notes in his black book. Márton supposes he goes back to Andrássy Avenue and writes up their conversations in Márton’s file, which must be getting rather thick by now.
‘Coffee?’
‘Thank you,’ says Márton.
Szabó clicks his long fingers and orders coffee for Márton. Then he takes out his notebook and unscrews the lid on his fountain pen. He turns to a clean page and says, ‘So, what have you been doing this week?’
It’s humiliating to have to report all his comings and goings to the AVO. When he was freed from the labour camp three years ago, he thought freedom meant freedom. He should have known better. The AVO have been keeping a close eye on him ever since his return.
‘I help out at Feri’s café most days.’
The waiter places a coffee pot on the table and Márton pours himself a cup.
Szabó writes in his notebook in a spiky script. ‘Who visited the café last week?’
‘No one in particular. Just the regulars.’ He’s not going to start naming people like Zoltán, his son-in-law, or Sándor who often pop into the café. And he’s certainly not going to tell Szabó that tonight he plans to accompany his son-in-law to a meeting of the Petőfi Circle, a popular debating group for anti-Rákosi intellectuals. He has no doubt that if Szabó wants to find out these things, he has the means to do so.
Szabó lights a cigarette, inhales deeply, and blows a thin stream of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘What radio station does Feri listen to?’ He regards Márton with his deep-set eyes.
This is a new question that Szabó hasn’t asked before.
‘He always plays gypsy music in the café,’ says Márton truthfully. Szabó is watching him intently. Márton takes a sip of the bitter coffee to calm his nerves. He’s not about to admit to this man that he and Feri often enjoy a glass of Pálinka in the evenings when Feri tunes in his secret radio in the back room and they listen to Voice of America or Radio Free Europe. Feri still has dreams of one day going to Paris and opening a café there. Márton would like to see Oxford again. It’s their dreams that keep these two old friends going.
Next, Colonel Szabó moves on to Márton’s reading material. Szabó, who seems to regard himself as something of an intellectual has assigned Márton the collected works of Joseph Stalin, a writer whose contribution to world literature Márton has yet to appreciate. Reading, which used to be one of life’s greatest pleasures, has become a dreaded slog. Fortunately, he is a fast reader and possesses a good memory so he is able to spout a few select phrases on the subject of dialectical materialism. Szabó listens attentively, nodding his head from time to time.
The scientist in Márton would like to ask Szabó a simple question. If communism is ethically superior to capitalism, as Marxist philosophers claim, why does it need to be imposed through fear and tyranny? And if the Five Year Plan is the solution to the country’s economic problems, why do so many people have so little? But he knows that such questions could put him back in prison. Communism does not tolerate dissent.
He must have said enough in support of Stalin’s arguments because Szabó clicks his fingers for the waiter to bring the bill. ‘Same time, same place next week,’ he says to Márton.
‘Yes,’ says Márton, getting up to leave.
He hurries out of the Café New York and exhales a sigh of relief that the meeting is over for another week.
*
Tamás Kún scuttles into the hall and sits down at the back. Out of his AVO uniform he feels insignificant and vulnerable, but Vajda has sent him on an undercover mission to infiltrate a secret meeting of radicals. If he wore his uniform everyone else would leave. He fidgets in his seat, watching the room fill with people, mostly young students but some older ones too. There must be a couple of thousand people here at least.
He recalls the first meeting Vajda sent him to, back in May. There were just a few dozen nerdy intellectuals at that meeting. The title of the debate was The Twentieth Soviet Party Congress and the Problems of the Hungarian Political Economy. Over the course of the evening it turned into a bitter attack on Rákosi’s policie
s: his economic policies, his agricultural policies and the latest Five Year Plan. Some of the speakers became so hostile that Tamás fled before the end for fear of being recognised and lynched.
Then during June audiences grew to a thousand or more. He infiltrated one meeting where the speakers accused the regime of perverting history and someone dared to criticise the Treaty of Trianon. At another meeting, which largely went over Tamás’s head, the main speaker railed against Hungarian Marxism and advocated the study of non-Marxist philosophers such as Plato, Hegel and Schopenhauer. At other gatherings people have been openly hostile to Stalin and Stalinists, debated Hungary’s natural resources, proposed the revival of Hungary’s musical life, and condemned the inadequate compensation for confiscated property. It makes Tamás’s head spin.
He feels like a fish out of water amongst all these intellectuals with their fine language and their high ideals, going on about freedom, humanism – whatever that means – and national independence, for goodness’ sake. The Petőfi Circle was nothing much to worry about until Comrade Khrushchev made that ridiculous speech at the start of the year – he must have been off his head on vodka – and now the whole world is jumping on the free speech bandwagon, saying whatever they think. It’s starting to get out of hand. Tamás can’t understand why the Party doesn’t just ban the Petőfi Circle, but Gábor, who seems to understand these things better, says it is all part of a grand plan to let the opposition fully reveal itself so that it can be more effectively destroyed. At the start of July A Free People published a Hungarian Central Committee resolution denouncing the Petőfi Circle, and meetings were suspended. But then in the summer Rákosi was replaced with Erno Gerő, and in September the Petőfi Circle meetings resumed, as popular as ever.
The hall is packed now and there is standing room only. From their clothes Tamás can see that many of the people here are factory workers. The influence of the Petőfi Circle is spreading beyond the intellectuals. As the last few people squeeze into the hall, he feels his stomach lurch. Someone he never expected to see again has just walked in. Márton Bakos. He’s older and greyer than when Tamás last saw him, but it’s unmistakably him. He’s in the company of two younger men, one of whom is wearing a long greatcoat and a beret perched at an angle. Tamás hunches in his seat, keeping his head down. He doesn’t want Márton to see him here.
Tamás has no idea what tonight’s debate is about – he barely hears a word. At the first opportunity he slips out before anyone recognises him. He’ll have to make up tonight’s report. He suspects Vajda doesn’t read them anyway.
*
‘Are you coming to the meeting this afternoon?’
András looks up to see Anna slipping into the seat opposite him in the canteen. She’s clutching her leather satchel to her chest and she gives him a smile that lights up her pretty, oval face and her bright blue eyes. He’s met her a few times at lectures at the Technical University where they’re both studying engineering but hasn’t yet plucked up the courage to ask her out. The last time he kissed a girl he found himself arrested and sent to a labour camp on charges of subversion. But he’d like to get to know Anna better. He’d like that very much.
‘What’s the meeting about?’ He usually keeps away from political meetings at the university. The so-called questions are mostly pre-arranged slogans about how wonderful the regime is. After his experience at Recsk, he just tries to keep his head down and get on with his studies. With his record, the AVO could come for him again at any time.
‘Some students from Szeged are going to be there,’ says Anna, tucking a stray blond curl behind her ear. ‘They’ve left the Union of Working Youth and have reinstated the United Organisation of Hungarian University and College Students, or whatever it’s called. They should get themselves a snappier name in my opinion. Anyway, they’ve got some radical ideas they want to present, apparently.’
András digests what she’s just told him. ‘You mean they’ve left the communist student union and returned to the democratic student union banned by Rákosi?’ It all sounds highly unlikely.
Anna nods her head, smiling. ‘Yes, that’s a much more succinct way of putting it. So are you coming? Everyone’s going to be there.’
András’s curiosity gets the better of him. Or maybe it’s more to do with Anna and the attraction she holds for him. ‘Go on, then.’ And why not, he thinks? If Márton Bakos is brave enough to attend meetings of the Petőfi Circle, it won’t hurt to go along to a meeting at the university. Especially if everyone is going.
By the time they arrive, the atrium is already packed with students, the air buzzing with the hum of excited voices.
‘Normally there’s only a few dozen here,’ Anna shouts into his ear. ‘Or a couple of hundred at the most. This is a fantastic turnout.’ She’s standing so close to him he can smell the rose scented soap on her skin. He’s glad he came even if the meeting turns out to be the usual Party propaganda.
But she’s right about the turnout. There must be a couple of thousand here already. All the seats are taken, some students are perched on window ledges, others are standing shoulder to shoulder. It’s the sort of crowd an academic lecturer can only dream of. In spite of his earlier scepticism, a thrill of excitement goes through him. Anna could well be right, maybe this is the start of something big. The AVO can’t arrest this many people. There has to be safety in such a large crowd.
‘Let’s try and get to the front,’ says Anna. She takes hold of his hand and starts to weave her way through the dense mass of bodies. He does his best to keep up, apologising to everyone he passes for pushing through. His heart is pounding, more from Anna’s touch than from being in such a large crowd.
Eventually they reach the front of the podium where the student organisers are hastily discussing last minute points on the agenda. Anna leans close and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. He wants to kiss her back, but one of the student leaders steps up to the lectern and calls the meeting to order. A hush soon settles on the crowd and the meeting is under way.
Everyone listens with rapt attention to two students from Szeged in the south of Hungary who have come to talk about their decision to leave the party-controlled student union and reinstate the old democratic organisation. Their bravery in taking a stand is warmly applauded and it doesn’t take long for the Budapest students to decide to do likewise. For the first time in his life András glimpses the possibility of real change. It just requires enough people to come together and the freedom to voice their opinions.
The student chairing the meeting takes a question from the centre of the floor and everyone falls silent to hear what is being said.
‘Why are Soviet troops still occupying Hungary?’
A stunned silence follows the question. Someone has dared to voice the unthinkable. Disbanding a student union and setting up another is one thing, but freeing Hungary of Soviet control? Is that really possible? András can see the habitual suspicion in people’s eyes. Is the questioner laying a trap? Are they going to be denounced for demanding that the Soviets leave?
But then a wave of sound starts to build across the hall as voices chant in unison, ‘Russians go home! Russians go home!’
András finds himself chanting along with everyone else, caught up in the swell of fervour that is sweeping across the hall. The positive energy generated by the chanting is like a surge of electricity, empowering the crowd. Beside him, Anna chants as loudly as anyone, her pure clear voice ringing out. He’s so glad he came now. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.
After a few minutes, the chanting gives way to a friendly chaos with everyone talking over everyone else. The chairman does his best to restore order, and then a young man stands up and calls for a demonstration on the streets the next day.
‘We should show our sympathy and solidarity with the Polish workers in Poznan who have been brave enough to demonstrate.’
‘Yes,’ cries a voice from the crowd. ‘We must demonstrate. That’s the only way the
government will listen to us.’
Shouts of agreement fill the hall. The students don’t just want talk, they want action.
‘But the demonstration has to be about more than just solidarity with Poland,’ shouts Anna. ‘What do we want for our country?’
After that the suggestions come thick and fast: the removal of Soviet troops from Hungary; free elections; a minimum living wage; freedom of the press and the right to free speech; the release of political prisoners; the removal of the giant statue of Stalin from the City Park. The list goes on and on. András’s head is spinning trying to take it all in. Can they really just go on a march and ask for these things without some terrible consequences? He desperately wants it to be true.
It’s gone midnight by the time the students have agreed on a list of sixteen demands. ‘We need volunteers to type these up,’ says the student organiser. Anna’s hand shoots up and so does András’s.
An hour later, when they have typed up dozens of posters, András suggests that they break into the room housing the Roneo duplicating machine. That way, they’ll be able to run off hundreds of copies.
It’s the early hours of the morning when he and Anna join dozens of other students distributing the posters all over the city. They stick them to trees, street lights, shop fronts and buildings. The posters set out the students’ sixteen demands and call for a mass demonstration tomorrow afternoon. When they’ve finished András takes Anna in his arms and kisses her properly for the first time. The future is suddenly bright with possibility.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday, 23 October 1956
‘Hurry up and finish your bread,’ says Katalin to her son. Two-year-olds can be infuriatingly slow sometimes, especially when you need to leave for work promptly. Lajos looks at her with his big, doleful eyes that have the power to melt her heart. But this morning she needs to be firm with him or she’s going to be late and Piroska Benke will mark her file. From her high chair, little Eva bangs her empty bottle and squawks in delight.
Goodbye to Budapest Page 16
