Shooting Star

by David Brierley

  As the shock receded, she registered the approach of an ambulance. No, two of them. They were already close. The crowd divided to let them pass for they both flew the red flag of an emergency call. Somebody hurt inside the building? Or — and her heart stumbled at the thought — a preparation? The second ambulance slewed against the entrance gate and the rear doors burst open.

  At this moment a torrent of thoughts passed through Ilona’s mind. How a crowd was like a river with currents and still reaches. How an eddy had swirled her until she was pressed close against metal railings. How sharp elbows were. How cold the night was and how the breath hung solid in front of people’s mouths. Every detail of this scene was sharp and would never be forgotten. How the ambulance driver’s face had twisted and how his white coat had torn back to reveal the AVO uniform underneath. And how the crate — something of the shape and size of a coffin — that slid from the back of the ambulance had split open on the cobbles and displayed its treasure.

  The man in the white coat gauged the mood of the crowd and bolted for the security of the radio building. He left his treasure to other more eager hands. In all there turned out to be four crates full of rifles in the back of the ambulance. The students at the front now joined those at the side in getting their hands on weapons. This would have been noted on the roof. There was eagerness in the way the ammunition boxes were broached. This, too, would have been noted.

  It was about nine o’clock — no one thought to log the exact time — when war broke out. It began in true AVO fashion: they shot into the crowd where it was thickest.

  One moment there was the excitement of Christmas and presents being opened. Next there were gunflashes from the roof, the crack of rifles, screams from behind her. Ilona could feel — it wasn’t imagination — feel the bullets striking. A shudder passed through the bodies pressed close to her. Twisting, she saw a man sink out of sight. He’d been one of a group of students by the railings holding a flag, and then he’d vanished. The hole he left was like an open grave. Behind her, so close she could have stretched out and touched, a woman’s cheekbone had been shattered; the woman was wedged so tight she couldn’t tumble. A fall of teargas bombs came next. An older student, through his army training, showed what to do: he wrapped a canister in his jacket and hurled it up through an open window, by chance Valeria Benke’s office.

  The main doors opened. A flying wedge of AVO appeared, bayonets fixed on their rifles, and charged the front ranks of the crowd. Meeting soft flesh, the steel sank in. But the rifles in the hands of the students were loaded now and the AVO retreated with the first shots fired at them.

  Fumes streamed from the window of Benke’s office. Not tear-gas, Ilona realized, smoke. The net curtains were on fire and then wooden chairs; someone in the room was feeding the flames. It struck her as grotesque; who would set fire to the room they were in? But everything was confusion and panic now.

  Fresh shooting came from the grounds of the Museum at their backs. There were screams from the dying, drifting teargas, people with streaming eyes and handkerchiefs to their faces, isolated shots that smashed windowpanes, frenzied cries of ‘The army’s joined us, the army’s come over.’ The army turned out to be two trucks stopped outside the Astoria Hotel, whose soldiers handed over their guns; more weapons arrived from the Kilian Barracks a kilometre away; still more from the militia who guarded the factories on Csepel Island. At last the students had enough weapons to charge the building and start the business of flushing out the rats.

  I am fifteen and I am in the middle of the people’s struggle, went Ilona’s secret catechism. It wasn’t a prayer to ward off fear. There was no room in her for fear. She joined the surge through the gaping front door: I am fifteen and I am helping the people seize power. She made for the stairs: I am fifteen and have joined the people’s war.

  Almost at once Istvan found himself without the Palomino. She had bared her body and won her victory. Then she ran away in search of further heroics, or someone more heroic than Istvan.

  The confusion was appalling. The soldiers grinned and grabbed at outstretched hands, the lieutenant was shouting some warning that no one heeded, two burly housewives were distributing kisses, questions were loud and got questions for answers, boots and slush and wisps of teargas and the crackle of fire-at-will rifle shots. It was the sound of shooting that settled all arguments on tactics.

  Istvan followed a line of students in through the side entrance, past the abandoned hatch where in normal times passes were demanded, and into an eerie courtyard. The rifle he had been given was a clumsy weight. He held it muzzle down. Then, his toes curling, he up-ended it like some virgin conscript. He wasn’t a total stranger to rifles. He’d used one before on the range, all boys had; for when the Germans return, his instructor had explained, a warm welcome for the fascist revanchists who were being rearmed by the capitalists. With a lurch of his stomach Istvan recognized that the shapes on the roof weren’t chimneys; they were AVO with rifles shooting into the courtyard. He scuttled through a door.

  The building was a labyrinth of passages and small offices. The first breathless minutes taught him that. The voices he followed were echoing. In confusion he hesitated, chose to try a knocked-through entrance into a neighbouring building, and the voices dwindled, swelled from behind, finally deserted him. He tried to remember any talk of a plan. No, there’d been nothing except the violent recognition that the AVO were determined on killing them and that something had to be done. Afterwards there would be fine talk of patriotism and the momentous events they had set in motion. Now Istvan was aware only of isolation and the banging of boots in some corridor parallel to his. He’d seen films of war; nothing had warned him how a gunshot could make sweat drench him in a sudden shower; or how the smell of a ruptured body would make him retch; or how he would freeze solid at a scream from the next room.

  He hunched low at a doorway, fearful of being an upright target, and edged through. A body lay on the floor. It didn’t move. He believed it never would. One of ours, one of theirs? Istvan could no longer look. To his right was a staircase, hazed with smoke, and at the top reflections on the wall that flickered. That’s fire, he told himself, and felt so relieved at recognizing something from ordinary life he started up the stairs. He faltered. The sounds from above were far from ordinary: despairing shouts, a woman’s muffled wail, a long burst of automatic gunfire.

  Please God, his prayer more heartfelt this time, just let me get to the next floor. And then? But he had no grander ambition. His legs wouldn’t move. His ears were playing tricks. He whirled round and there was nobody. He was abandoned in a backwater of the building while vaguely from above came the sound of smashing glass and a rush of feet.

  So Istvan crept up the stairs, his hip tight against the banister, his stomach in turmoil, his head thundering, a tightness at the base of his skull where the bullet would come. He had no thoughts, none, only his nerves; so when he heard the slither of something just above the turn of the stairs he had to swallow his vomit. He was crawling on hands and knees now; his brain, if it had been working, would have warned him of the clatter his rifle made. He could see nothing except the step above, and the turn of the staircase. The noise came again. A dog’s whimper? He’d heard a dog whimper in ordinary life but suddenly ordinary life no longer reassured him.

  Hell, oh hell.

  Some part of his brain, not the petrified conscious part, must have issued an order. He scrambled round the bend with his rifle dragging uselessly at his side.

  No dog, of course not. It was a man engrossed in his right hand. Not exactly his hand. It was more a vanilla ice cream cone luscious with strawberry sauce and two broken biscuits. The man was too appalled even to scream. Istvan lurched to a halt at the sight. The man was hunched against the wood panelling, his drained face framed by a couple of posts and the handrail, a portrait. Terrified lest the man recover his scream, Istvan bundled past up the stairs. He paused once to check behind and the man had vanished. He
floated in Istvan’s memory, an image of war.

  Advancing into this alien world Istvan found himself in a corridor that struck him as familiar. The walls were an institutional light green, and at the bottom were scuffed by shoes. Wasn’t his own school painted that colour, with the same seedy air? There should have been reassurance in that. But the corridor had assumed strange proportions, danger running everywhere.

  Why were there so many corners? He’d died ten times already. This one revealed a rather grand passageway, glittering with mirrored panels. A soldier brushed past Istvan. Lord, he’d not even heard his approach. One of us; red, green and white armband.

  ‘The bastards are escaping through the back.’ The soldier, running down the mirrored passage, swelled into a whole battalion.

  Istvan took a step forward and halted in front of the mirror. The sight of the rifle and the smudged cheeks and the scowl changed his whole idea of himself. He’d climbed the stairs, he’d reached the first floor, he’d outstared death and destruction, he’d lived to turn corner after corner; he was the stuff of heroes. Released from the grip of terror, his mind registered all the activities of the building. There was a flood of shouts and banging doors and an eerie howling. A stream of figures crossed the passage, hurrying, not even glancing in his direction. A student in a thin brown raincoat appeared and shouted a question and Istvan pointed out where the others had run. But Istvan wasn’t following the crowd.

  On the ceiling lay a patch of streetlight that filtered through an open door. He stepped in, flushed with his new-found bravery, confident that the Palomino herself couldn’t show more boldness. His eyes, growing accustomed to the gloom, recognized this place as some functionary’s hutch with a desk and a framed photo on the wall and a filing cabinet and...well...a figure against the shattered window. Outside a lamp shone, surrounding the head of this person with a halo like an old religious painting. Medieval, his mother had whispered in the damp church, when there was still a holy spirit in the world.

  ‘Oh God.’ He stumbled across a telephone flex. Catching his balance, he straightened. The figure hadn’t moved. It was a girl with hair past her shoulders.

  In the street there had been everything of the Palomino in the way Anna had stood: her body forward, defiant of convention, defiant of the soldier. So there was an eloquence in this stranger’s stance: a shoulder resting against the window-jamb, face tipped to the tumult outside, wide-eyed to catch everything in the uncertain glow of the streetlamps. Her lips were parted. Istvan sensed she had been breathing through her mouth, soft shallow breaths that wouldn’t mask the tiniest sound.

  She hadn’t turned at his stumble, was absorbed in the drama out in the city. He spoke more sharply than he intended: ‘Get away from the window. You’ll be shot.’

  Her attention never wavered. As Istvan moved close he saw a bonfire down below with books and propaganda sheets being shovelled on. There was flickering light on the cheeks and forehead of this unknown girl. But he was mistaken. He took another step and saw it wasn’t just the light that flickered; she was trembling. And not with fear, with excitement. It was shining in her face, and when he gripped her arm and she swung to face him, the excitement shone in the depths of her eyes. A whole world outside was going up in flames while they stared at each other.

  Breaking free, Ilona ran from the room.

  7 - London, now

  She remembered.

  Looking at her, Steven saw how vividly she remembered, saw her eyes were deep with that night. He watched as she started to tremble and was totally unprepared when she wheeled and struck his cheek with the back of her hand. His head echoed to the blow.

  ‘I hated you.’

  Her fury rang in him. It was unexpected and he had no defences ready against the violence of her words. This was more than the actress’s outpouring, more than the panic rush in case the words dried up; Ilona was passionate in recalling that night.

  ‘Call it a dream, a trance, an illusion, I don’t care. You stumbled in to shatter it. You couldn’t even reach me without breaking the furniture and swearing. There was nothing on your mind except playing the hero, puffed up with importance and quite ridiculous with a rifle two sizes too large for you, and stubbornly determined to save me, barging in when no one had invited you, forcing yourself on me as boys always do, and at that moment I hated you. I couldn’t bear another second in the room with you and I bolted. I was a wild, wild thing and do you know what it was like that night? Do you?’

  She broke off for a spell with Steven reeling under the on-slaught, sensing that her question didn’t expect an answer, it just gave her a space to breathe. She still trembled but there was a different glint in her eyes; her anger was purged and excitement drove her. Her voice was eager. And what she said, Steven heard with astonishment.

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t know. I’d had a whole day of it, seeing, feeling, tasting, hearing the revolution grow up, and I was growing up beside it, and you were still a boy holding on to a rifle like his mother’s hand. I’ll tell you what it was like that night. It was like making love for the first time with a very passionate lover. The excitement is everywhere in you, you want to be everywhere at once, doing everything, hungry for every experience; your whole self is overwhelmed. You grabbed my arm too late. I knew it already: the people were going to succeed that night. I had a vision of the city as a body and the people claimed its streets and buildings. The people were filled with strength. There was blood in our veins and exultation in our faces. The passion of that night was going to triumph over every obstacle, we were going to be free and so I couldn’t bear the touch of your hand. You were trying to restrain me. I am an actress, yes?’

  She paused again for an instant, her hand on her heart in a very theatrical gesture, eyes poring over Steven’s face.

  ‘Well, let me express how I felt in an actress’s way: I had to give my body to the people. Yes?’

  It was no use her saying ‘Yes?’ in that searching tone. Steven was too stunned to agree to anything. He continued to stare while she stood with her arms outstretched, her palms uppermost, offering herself to an imaginary audience. There was more to come.

  ‘I broke from you. I ran downstairs. I raced through the streets and everywhere stood groups of people, laughing and shouting and chanting for freedom. There were flames and sounds of gun-shots and car engines racing. It was dangerous and intoxicating. Down Rakoczi Street, towards the centre, the way was blocked with army trucks and abandoned buses and a vast crowd and I wanted to run free, I ran all the way to Keleti Station. Amazing! The trains still ran but they left empty, everyone was determined to stay in the city. North I went, running with others, seeing the revolution spread like spilt blood. We, the ones who were running together, never questioned where we were going. It was a simple urge. You know even before I tell you.’

  She worked on Steven, her only audience, with a voice sunk so low he strained to catch her words.

  ‘We ran towards the City Park. Towards the monster. I was in time. I saw it happen.’

  8 - Budapest, then

  They stood like cattle.

  People’s bodies spoke for them and these showed not fear but watchfulness and curiosity. They stood outside their tanks and stared up Gyorgy Dozsa Avenue, all of them with their heads lifted and very still. She had seen cattle with just that stance. Then the tank crews stamped their feet and lit cigarettes before regrouping to watch and wait.

  Ilona marked the language of their bodies. She decided she had learnt more about the world in this one day than in all her school-terms. She was catching her breath in a doorway after running herself to a halt halfway up Gyorgy Dozsa Avenue. Across the generous width of cobbles the night sky was crammed with the bare branches of plane trees and catalpas. One of the tank crew laughed a little too abruptly. They were on edge after all.

  The planes and catalpas were set well back in the City Park. By day it had a French feel to it. Some older people, ones with cosmopolitan habits in more expa
nsive times, even referred to it as ‘our Bois de Boulogne’. They intended this as a compliment to manicured gravel paths, noble trees and the lake for ice-skating. It was French, too, in the signs that forbade walking on the grass and the police who patrolled its curving roads.

  This night the city had caught fire and the flames of rebellion licked to the very edges of the park. No police patrolled; none dared show his uniform.

  She moved on. She kept on the far side of the road from the park, partly because the shrubs and trees after dark were too rich a diet for her imagination; partly to keep her distance from the statue. There was a huge gathering, a biblical multitude, in the square that took its name from Stalin’s statue. Their faces showed no happiness or laughter. More people kept arriving, drawn by a simple urge: to destroy what they could of Stalin. They showed no particular hatred, just silent determination.

  The statue was monstrous in size, over ten metres tall, out of all human proportion. It appeared higher still, for it stood on a grand marble pedestal. From somewhere a ladder had been fetched that was quite inadequate. The man at the top of the ladder didn’t reach Stalin’s waist. He had to throw the rope and it slid off Stalin’s heroic shoulders. No one showed impatience. They wanted the statue down. They had all the time in the world.

  The rope was secured round Stalin’s neck and lashed to the tail of a lorry that strained and dirtied the night with smoke. When the truck gave a sudden lurch, they knew the rope had snapped.