He tiptoes over to the sideboard and eases the lid off the tin where they keep what little spare money they have. He slips a couple of banknotes into his pocket then checks at the living room door to make sure that his mum is still busy in the kitchen. She has the radio on, listening to news of the latest fighting. Keeping one eye on the kitchen, he inches towards the front door. Then in one quick movement he slips out and runs down the stairs. He’ll be back before she’s even noticed.
The sense of freedom is intoxicating. But he senses danger too, which makes the freedom all that more exhilarating. The smell of burning which permeated the apartment is much stronger out here and a pall of smoke hangs in the air. He can hear the rumble of artillery not so far away and the crack of gunfire. There are armed groups on every street corner, defending their territory.
At the end of the road he sees an abandoned tank and heads straight for it. Children are climbing over the tank, using it as a playground. He’s always wondered what it’s like inside a tank. He hoists himself up onto the metal body and lowers himself down into the hatch. It’s dark and claustrophobic and there’s a terrible smell, like meat that has rotted. He climbs out quickly and hurries on.
Up ahead he sees a crowd of people, mostly women, standing around a truck. He goes over to investigate. A bearded man in the back of the truck is handing out turnips and potatoes.
‘What do we owe you?’ asks one of the women, taking her purse out of her shopping bag.
‘Nothing,’ says the man. ‘This food has come straight from the farms. This is our contribution to the fight.’ He catches sight of Tibor standing at the back. ‘How many people in your household?’ he asks.
‘It’s just me and my mum,’ says Tibor. But then he remembers Katalin with the children and her father downstairs. Plus there’s old Maria and her husband. Not to forget grumpy old József the caretaker. ‘But there’s half a dozen other people in the building too.’
‘Here you go, kid,’ says the farmer. He tosses Tibor a bag of potatoes and a couple of turnips. ‘Make sure that gets home safely now.’
‘Will do,’ says Tibor grinning. ‘Thanks, Mister.’
He runs straight home, glowing with pride. His mum will give him a right earful for sneaking out, but she might relent a bit when she sees he’s brought them all something to eat.
*
The wounded man has died. His injuries were too bad and there was no time to save him. Róza pulls the sheet up over his face and tells one of the porters to take him down to the already overcrowded morgue.
Suddenly it’s too much to bear. She leans against the wall and lets the tears flow, her professionalism ground down through the constant barrage of misery and death. Through her blurred vision she sees István and Bálint on their way back out and, in a split second decision, she runs over to them, drying her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Take me with you,’ she says.
They stop and give her a quizzical look. ‘We’re not going on a picnic,’ says István.
‘I know that,’ says Róza. ‘But I have to get out of here, even if it’s just for a few hours. Besides, if I can help people sooner, I might be able to save more lives. By the time most people get here, they’ve already lost too much blood.’
István and Bálint both nod their heads, acknowledging the truth in what she’s saying.
‘Won’t you be missed here?’ asks Bálint.
‘I’ve already worked for days without a break. I think I’m owed a change of scene.’
István and Bálint look at each other as if coming to a decision, then István shrugs and says, ‘All right. But this is at your own risk.’
‘I understand.’
As they head towards the exit, István says, ‘There are reports of fierce fighting down by the Corvin cinema. I suggest we head that way.’
Bálint is the driver. István and Róza climb into the back of the ambulance. All at once her mood lifts, so glad is she to be out of the hospital.
‘Hold on tight,’ grins István. ‘Bálint drives like a mad man.’
The ambulance swings round a corner and Róza is almost thrown into István’s lap.
‘I hope he drives more carefully when he’s got an ambulance full of wounded people,’ she laughs. It’s liberating to be outside the hospital after so long pounding the corridors, inhaling nothing but the smell of blood and death.
They take the back streets to the cinema, making frequent U-turns as they negotiate their way around barricades, burnt out tanks and corpses.
István leans forward. ‘Remember, we don’t pick up the Russians.’
Róza nods. It goes against her medical training to leave a wounded person lying on the ground, whatever nationality they are. But things are different now. They can’t save everyone so they have to prioritise.
The ambulance lurches round a corner and comes to a sudden halt. ‘Burning Russian tank up ahead,’ shouts Bálint from the driver’s cab. ‘People lying in the street.’ He kills the engine.
‘Stay close to me,’ says István, getting to his feet.
Bálint is already out of the ambulance and opening the rear doors. ‘It looks bad,’ he shouts. They climb out of the back of the ambulance to a scene of carnage. The air is thick with black smoke from the burning tank.
Casualties are lying in the street. Róza follows Bálint and István as they rush over to the nearest prone figure. It’s a young man, probably early twenties. Blood is pouring out of a gunshot wound in his right thigh, staining the ground scarlet. His eyes are closed. All at once Róza’s medical training kicks in. She checks for a pulse. It’s still there but it’s faint. He’s lost a lot of blood already. If Bálint and István can carry him back to the ambulance she can bandage his leg with a tourniquet to stem the blood loss. He might need a transfusion but she can’t do that out here in the street.
István and Bálint lift him onto a stretcher and carry him back to the ambulance. Róza gets to work, cutting off his trouser leg and wrapping the wounded thigh as tightly as she can. The man’s eyes flicker open and he tries to speak.
‘Just lie still,’ says Róza. ‘You’re going to be all right.’
‘Thank you,’ croaks the man. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Róza. What’s yours?’
‘Otto.’
He looks as if he’s about to say something else but Róza hears István calling her name. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’
She leaves Otto in the ambulance and hurries over to where István is kneeling by the prone figure of a young girl. She’s in a bad way with a wound to the head.
‘She’s still alive,’ says István. ‘But only just.’
‘We have to get her to the hospital. I can’t do anything for her out here.’
‘Help me lift her onto the stretcher.’
István takes the girl’s shoulders and Róza lifts her feet. She weighs practically nothing. They lay her on the bloodied stretcher and carry her to the ambulance. Bálint is helping a man with a shoulder wound into the ambulance.
As soon as everyone is ready, Bálint starts the engine and the ambulance bumps and jolts its way back to the hospital. Róza sits on the floor and holds onto the girl with the head wound to stop her rolling off the stretcher whenever the ambulance takes a corner at speed.
Bálint brakes sharply in front of the hospital doors and István pushes open the rear doors. Otto gives her a weak smile as they carry him into the hospital. He’ll make it, she thinks. It’s a small achievement, but it makes up for the young man who died earlier.
They spend the whole morning driving backwards and forwards between the Corvin cinema and the hospital. Róza loses count of the number of tourniquets that she ties to prevent blood loss. For the first time in days, she feels as if she’s making a real difference.
After they’ve delivered their fifth or sixth consignment of wounded fighters to the hospital, Bálint produces some bread, salami, onion and paprika from the front of the ambulance. The three of t
hem stand in a huddle, beside the ambulance, sharing the food in silence. There is no need to speak. They have all seen too much in a short space of time. This simple meal of bread and salami is possibly the tastiest meal she’s ever eaten. As soon as they’ve finished they get back into the ambulance and set off to fetch more wounded fighters.
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday, 27 October 1956 - Monday, 29 October 1956
The city is a graveyard full of unburied bodies. Zoltán trudges through the devastated streets, past smouldering buildings, stepping on broken glass, rubble, spent cartridges, and other detritus of battle. He’s exhausted from the fighting of the previous day, barely more alive than the corpses that lie in his path.
By yesterday evening, the area around the Corvin cinema resembled a tank scrapyard, the stench of burning oil polluting the air, scorched Russian bodies littering the streets. He wants to get out of these clothes which reek of smoke and sweat and blood, and change into something clean. Most of all he wants to feel Katalin’s arms around him and for her to tell him that everything is going to be all right. But will life ever go back to normal after all that’s happened? After the things he’s done?
Now, as he makes his way home, he can see that the fighting wasn’t just confined to the area around the cinema, but has spread across much of the city. Bodies of fallen Hungarian freedom fighters and civilians bear small bouquets of flowers and, sometimes, their names written on a piece of cardboard. By contrast, the bodies of AVO informers display a portrait of Stalin or Rákosi to show where, in life, their true loyalties lay. The bodies of dead Russians have been hastily sprinkled in quicklime. They will be picked up and disposed of last.
Zoltán climbs the stairs to the apartment and gratefully falls into the arms of his wife who is there to meet him. She doesn’t ask him how he is, for which he’s grateful. No doubt she can see the state he’s in for herself.
‘Take those clothes off,’ says Katalin. ‘I’ll run you a bath.’
Five minutes later he closes his eyes and sinks under the hot water, drowning out the terrible things he’s witnessed over the last couple of days. When he comes up for air, Katalin is perched on the side of the bath, holding a bar of soap in her hands.
‘Let me wash your back for you,’ she says.
He leans forwards and lets her scrub him clean, easing away the tension in his neck and shoulders which has built up from almost constant firing of the tank gun.
‘Where’s Sándor?’ she asks.
Zoltán leans back in the water to rinse his back. ‘He said he was going to the hospital to see Róza.’
‘Ah,’ says Katalin with a smile on her lips. ‘I might have guessed.’
Over the course of the weekend they are joined by András and Anna, taking a break from manning the first aid station and the canteen at the Práter Street School. Sándor also pops his head in to say that Róza is doing fine, working with a couple of ambulance guys. Katalin, Zoltán and Márton spend most of their time gathered around the radio, listening to the latest reports.
It seems that Imre Nagy, the new Prime Minister, is starting to get to grips with the situation. On Sunday he acknowledges that the uprising came about because people loathed the atrocities of the former regime. The new government must give the people what they demand. As a result, the AVO is going to be disbanded and replaced with a new police; the emblem of Kossuth – Hungary’s Coat of Arms – will replace the Soviet star on the Hungarian flag; the anniversary of the 1848 Revolution, March the fifteenth, will be a national holiday once more, and, most importantly, Soviet troops will leave the country. There must be an immediate ceasefire, but in return there will be a general amnesty. It all seems too good to be true.
*
Márton holds in his hands a thick manila folder with his name written on the front cover and an official AVO stamp. He’s surprised at how heavy it is, at how much material the Secret Police have collected on him. It may contain the reasons for his arrest and internment in the labour camp. The question now is whether or not to open the file and read the contents.
A lull in the fighting means that he and András have been able to join the long queue of people at the AVO headquarters on Andrássy Avenue, all searching for the truth. Ever since his release Márton has avoided this part of town, preferring a lengthy detour to the prospect of walking past the building where he was imprisoned in the basement. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to come today, but András persuaded him. The boy is desperate to know why he was sent to the labour camp. And who can blame him? Hundreds of other people have had the same idea. The truth matters.
Entering the building, Márton broke out in a cold sweat, terrified he was going to run into Vajda, stomping around giving orders. He saw himself being dragged back down to the stinking cellars in the basement, locked into one of those tiny cells, left to rot. He almost didn’t make it through the front door and had to lean on András for support.
But the AVO have fled – like rats from a sinking ship – and the building is now in the hands of armed freedom fighters. There are signs of fighting everywhere. Broken windows, overturned desks and chairs, walls riddled with bullet holes, anti-AVO graffiti. Márton hopes that someone will photograph the cellars and publish the images for all to see. The truth about this place needs to come out, but he’s not the man to do it. It would break him to set foot once more in that cesspit.
They’re in an upstairs room that was used for storing files. The atmosphere in the room is sober. A small group of freedom fighters have taken charge of sorting through the masses of paperwork, helping people to find what they are looking for. The young student who handed over Márton’s file did so with a solemnity that he found touching.
But now that he has the folder in his hands, he doesn’t know if he wants to open it. Whatever the AVO have written about him, it will all be lies. He was falsely accused on trumped up charges. The only thing that could possibly be of interest would be the name of the person or persons who informed on him. It’s not that he hasn’t given this question much thought over the years, but if he finds out the answer now, what is he going to do with the information? Take retribution? There comes a point when the revenge has to stop, otherwise you end up in a never-ending spiral of hate.
He glances across at András who has opened his folder and is avidly devouring the contents, his eyes scanning from left to right in wide-eyed disbelief. He turns over the sheet of paper and his hand flies to his mouth.
‘What is it, son?’ asks Márton gently.
András shakes his head. ‘I always thought it was her father who denounced me,’ he says. ‘But it was Hanna herself, you know, the girl I was going out with. Her father had nothing to do with it.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Márton.
‘I wish I’d never come here now,’ says András. He scrunches the piece of paper into a ball and throws it on the floor.
‘Come on, let’s go home.’ Márton leads András away. He still has his own unopened file tucked under his arm. He’ll decide what to do with it later.
*
Freedom at last! Now that the fighting has mostly died down, Petra can’t come up with good enough reasons for keeping Tibor at home, especially not after his last excursion provided everyone in the building with enough potatoes for two days.
‘Off you go then,’ she says. ‘But don’t be late back.’
‘I won’t.’ Tibor suspects she’s glad to get him out from under her feet for a couple of hours. He heads straight round to Géza’s apartment. He finds his friend out in the street with a group of boys from school.
‘Hey,’ says Géza, his face lighting up. ‘Thought we’d never see you again.’
‘So what’s happening?’ asks Tibor.
‘You got here just in time. We’re all off to Buda to check out the houses where the Party bosses like Rákosi used to live. Wanna come?’
‘You bet,’ says Tibor.
They catch a tram across the Danube and walk up
Rose Hill. It feels good to be outside, with his friends again, swapping stories about how many burnt out tanks they’ve seen and how many dead bodies they’ve counted, each trying to outdo the other.
They arrive at a villa set in its own grounds. There’s even a swimming pool in the garden. A couple of armed freedom fighters are sitting by the front door, smoking.
‘Is this Rákosi’s place?’ asks Tibor, looking up in awe at the huge house.
‘Was Rákosi’s place,’ says one of the freedom fighters. ‘But not anymore. The bastard has fled.’
‘Can we go in?’
‘Be our guests.’
Tibor, Géza and the other boys troop inside the big house. Some of the boys run straight up the staircase saying they’re going to have a pillow fight in the bedroom. But Tibor stands in the hallway, looking around in amazement. There are so many doors leading off the hallway, he doesn’t know which way to go first. He follows Géza into a room that turns out to be a lounge.
‘This is the life,’ says Géza, throwing himself onto a comfortable sofa and sticking his feet up on the armrests.
Tibor wanders around the room, noting with a pang of jealousy the brand new radio-phonograph and Rákosi’s extensive collection of records. There are even two pianos. What on earth did Rákosi want with two pianos?
He opens a drawer in a writing desk and finds a box of cigars.
‘Catch!’ He tosses one of the thick brown cigar across the room where it lands with a thump on Géza’s chest.
‘Hey, watch it!’ says Géza, sitting up.
‘There’s a whole box full of cigars here,’ says Tibor. He tries to read the foreign label. ‘I think they’re from Holland.’
‘Where did the old devil get Dutch cigars from?’
‘Party members had access to special shops,’ says Tibor, knowingly. He’s heard his mum complain about such things. ‘They didn’t have to queue for bread like the rest of us.’
Goodbye to Budapest Page 22
