‘Come on, Mum, hold onto me,’ says Tibor. ‘It’ll be all right.’ He jumps into the water and pulls her with him.
‘Can you manage with Eva?’ asks Zoltán. ‘I’ll take Lajos on my shoulders.’
‘I think so,’ says Katalin. It’s her father she’s worried about though. He hasn’t spoken for some time. It’s as if he’s given up hope. ‘What about you, Papa?’
‘I’ll take care of Professor Bakos,’ says Tamás.
She watches as her father and his former captor plunge into the water and start to wade across. Now it’s only her, Zoltán and the children.
‘You go in front,’ says Zoltán, ‘so I can keep an eye on you.’
Katalin gasps as the icy water cuts through her clothes, cramping her leg muscles, freezing her to the bone. Eva howls in protest even though the water hasn’t yet reached her. She forces herself to keep moving. The current tugs at her legs and she dare not turn around to look at Zoltán in case she loses her balance and falls beneath the surface.
Suddenly darkest night becomes brightest day as the searchlight picks them out. She and Zoltán are not yet on Austrian soil and they are fair game for the border guards. She is terrified for the safety of her children. The air crackles with a round of machine-gun fire. Katalin screams, losing her footing on the rocky river bed. Suddenly Zoltán is beside her, gripping her upper arm.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you. We’re nearly there.’
The water starts to recede from her chest when a shot rings out and Zoltán’s grip on her arm loosens. He falls backwards, splashing into the water. Lajos slips from his father’s shoulders and screams as he disappears beneath the surface.
Katalin is beside herself. She can’t see Zoltán anymore. If she tries to search for Lajos then Eva, who is strapped to her chest, will drown. It’s an impossible dilemma for a mother, having to choose one child over the over. Suddenly someone jumps into the water from the opposite bank, disappears beneath the surface and comes up shouting.
‘I have him! Lajos is here!’
Katalin is crying tears of despair and joy. Tibor has rescued her son. She knows he’s alive because she can hear him screaming. His cries are music to her ears.
Strong arms reach down and pull her out of the river. It might be Tamás but she’s too exhausted to notice properly. At least her father and Petra have made it across too. She gives Eva to Márton to hold and returns to the water’s edge to search for Zoltán. Where is he?
She screams his name, no longer caring if the border guards can hear her. But there is only silence and blackness. And then in the light of a flare that illuminates the whole sky, he emerges godlike from the water, her tall, brave husband. He’s staggering, clutching his right arm where he must have been shot. She reaches out to him but there’s another clatter of machine-gun fire and he is hit in the back. He disappears under the surface of the water and his body floats away in the current.
Chapter Nineteen
Six months later.
The sun is dazzling after months being shut in a cold, dark cell. András turns his face skyward and feels the warm rays caressing his pallid skin.
‘Move it!’ The guards push him across the prison yard. His legs are unused to exercise and his hands are tied behind his back, causing him to stumble through lack of balance.
His captors have beaten and tortured him, but he has told Colonel Szabó nothing about former members of the Corvin Circle. He has fully admitted his own role, proud of the part he played, just sorry that they weren’t ultimately successful.
‘Climb the steps!’ orders one of the guards.
He hopes that Márton, Katalin and Zoltán, and especially Anna are far away by now, in another country where they can live their lives in freedom.
On legs that threaten to give way, he ascends the scaffold. He looks up at the startlingly blue sky and sees a bird hovering overhead. He’s almost glad that his suffering will soon be over, but he wants to enjoy this last moment of being alive.
‘Stand there!’
They shove him into position. He glances one last time at the bird before a black hood is pulled roughly over his head. Then he feels the rope being placed around his neck.
May they live in peace, he thinks, as the trap door opens beneath his feet.
*
‘Is that England?’ In the last six months Lajos has grown into a chatty toddler who never stops asking questions.
‘Yes, it is,’ says Katalin. She holds Eva tight in her arms as the famous white cliffs of Dover come ever nearer. She’s heard about these cliffs from her father so many times but she always expected that she would see them for the first time with Zoltán by her side.
‘Do you remember who lives in England?’ Márton asks his grandson.
‘St George,’ shouts Lajos. ‘And the dragon,’ he adds in a quieter voice.
‘But remember the dragon is dead,’ says Márton. ‘St George killed him, so there’s no reason to be afraid. This is going to be our new home. We’ll be safe here.’
Safe, thinks Katalin. But what is safety without the man she loves?
After their escape into Austria they arrived at the village of Schattendorf, soaking, frozen and in a state of shock. They spent a week in the village at a camp run by the Red Cross. She has little memory of those days, so grief-stricken was she by Zoltán’s death. She has a vague recollection of Petra encouraging her to eat soup and nursing her back to life.
They left Schattendorf and transferred to a refugee camp just outside Vienna where Márton and the others set about making arrangements for their futures whilst she cared for the children. Anna and her brothers turned up at the camp, having escaped Hungary in the back of a truck. But Anna was distraught because András never showed up on the day they were due to leave. There’s been no news of him since and Katalin fears the worst. She knows Márton blames himself for not insisting that András travel with them on the train.
Anna and her brothers were the first to leave Austria, embarking on a new life in Canada. Katalin remembers the tearful farewells and the promises to stay in touch. She hopes Anna will find love in her new home. Tamás and Tibor struck up a friendship and Petra, who is never happier than when she has someone to mother, took the older boy under her wing. The three of them sailed for America two weeks ago amidst more heart-wrenching goodbyes. Katalin doesn’t think she’ll ever get over so much loss.
The white cliffs are getting closer now, and seagulls circle overhead, crying out a raucous welcome. Márton puts an arm around her shoulders.
‘When your mother died, I thought my life was over,’ he says. ‘But you gave me something to live for.’
‘I miss him so much,’ says Katalin, her eyes filling with tears.
‘I know you do.’
‘Mummy, mummy.’ Lajos is tugging at the sleeve of her coat. ‘Can I have a sword like St George?’
Katalin looks down at her son, his face full of hope and excitement.
‘Of course you can,’ she says. ‘You’re going to grow up big and strong and brave, just like St George.’ And just like your father, she thinks, smiling to herself.
Thank you for reading
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OTHER BOOKS BY MARGARITA
Oranges for Christmas
Berlin 1961. The War is over but the fight for freedom has only just begun.
The Sleeping Angel
Something is astir in Highgate Cemetery. The dead want justice and so do the living.
Scarborough Fair
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Scarborough Ball
A party should be fun. Not a matter of life an
d death.
Scarborough Rock
The thrilling conclusion to the Scarborough Fair trilogy.
FIND MARGARITA ONLINE
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margarita Morris was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. She studied Modern Languages at Jesus College, Oxford and worked in computing for eleven years. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two sons.
Select Bibliography
I am indebted to the authors of the following books:
Enemies of the People - My Family’s Journey to America by Kati Márton, Simon & Schuster, 2009
Journey to a Revolution - A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 by Michael Korda, Harper Perennial, 2007
Twelve Days: Revolution: Revolution 1956 - How the Hungarians Tried to Topple their Soviet Masters by Victor Sebestyen, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007
Corvin Circle 1956 by Gergely Pongrátz, online
Molotov Cocktails by Anna Mandoki, Amazon Media
Cry Hungary! Uprising 1956 by Reg Gadney, London, 1986
My Happy Days in Hell by George Faludy, Penguin, 2010
The Undefeated by George Paloczi-Horváth, Eland Publishing, 2012
Budapest 1900 - A Historical Portrait of a City and its Culture by John Lukacs, Grove Press, 1988
Vanished by the Danube - Peace, War, Revolution, and Flight to the West by Charles Farkas, Excelsior Editions, 2013
Goodbye to Budapest Page 29
