Shooting Star

by David Brierley

  ‘No, no,’ the Russian insisted. ‘We have been told there are German fascists fighting here. We must stay and destroy them.’

  ‘I see.’ Tibor gave a formal little bow. Half his attention was on the square at the end of the avenue. ‘If that is what you believe, go to it. Sniff out these fascists.’

  Tibor stood to one side and gestured the tank to drive on. The hatch closed. Before it could move, Tibor darted to the rear of the tank, searching for something he could use: exhaust pipe, fuel inlet, ventilation shaft. In the end he chose the handle of the engine cover. Through this he jammed the pole of the flag he’d been carrying. Then he turned and made his exit. He did nothing so vulgar as run. With an eye to his audience he took long melodramatic strides and vanished through an arch with his cloak in black confusion.

  The whole of the crowd — it had grown to a couple of hundred — melted into doorways and gaping shopwindows. Turning the corner from Blaha Luga Square were two more Soviet tanks, old T34s. They never paused. They advanced abreast down the avenue, opening fire almost in unison on the tank in front of them, the tank which flaunted the Hungarian flag at its rear.

  There was a new light in the Palomino’s eyes. She had at last found someone to match her own spirit. Lazlo no longer held any interest. Istvan reverted to being a schoolmate. She disappeared through the archway and returned with Tibor Kassack.

  He was a lion. No, not a lion, a wolf. Anyway some caged beast in the zoo, constantly on the move behind bars. That was Ilona’s opinion. In the street Sandor would turn abruptly so that she constantly found herself being left behind. In his room he paced to the window and padded back to the wall, all of five paces, back to the window to part the curtain with a finger. Forced to sit at the table, his hands went on the march. He pulled a slice of bread to pieces — a minor miracle that day was that the bakers still stoked their ovens; he stirred the milk in his coffee until it formed a whirlpool; he lined up the loaf and the jam-jar and a stained kitchen knife, he made another whirlpool. Then he was on his feet again to do his sentrybeat to the window.

  Since he wouldn’t speak, Ilona was forced to invent an entire history for him. His father had done something truly grand on the railway — even driving the express to Prague and Berlin — and during the war had smuggled refugees from Nazism. His mother had kept a safe house for these refugees until they’d both been betrayed and arrested. Even the foulest and most bestial tortures never cracked their resolve. The secrets of their refugee contacts died with them in front of a Nazi firing squad. His brother also had worked on the railway — witness that visit to Nyugati — and had run foul of the AVO, the perverters of true socialism. All these betrayals, in Ilona’s mind, explained why Sandor didn’t trust others and wouldn’t speak. He was a prisoner of these past tragedies. He paced about his cell, peering with suspicion between invisible bars.

  It was so difficult to help Sandor. Put a hand between the bars to reach him and he would bite it.

  In those first hours the whole of life was lived outside. The people of Budapest had armed themselves with rifles, grenades and petrol bombs and they went on the streets to face the Soviet armour. It was a lopsided kind of battle. The Soviet tanks made bludgeoning useless runs up suddenly-deserted avenues, avoided narrow side-streets for fear of ambush, had no infantry to flush out buildings for the operation had been mounted too hastily.

  People talked of what they could see around them. This wasn’t the time to consider what they felt inside. Fear was banished; at most they admitted privately to a numbness at the awesome size of the battle. The clutching in the pit of the stomach was put down to urgent hunger. Thus Zoltan reasoned, his group having lived a whole day on adrenalin and mortar dust.

  They found a nameless etterem, class 3. This was the lowest form of eating establishment, dulled with grease. What struck Istvan was how the tables by the front window were deserted, while people crowded to the rear. The menu was chalked on a board by the serving counter; it was also displayed on the serving woman’s apron. There was goulash, red and watery. Also cabbage, grey and watery.

  They stood, Uncle Zoltan and his group, waiting to be served, each holding a rifle. This never struck Istvan. Already the grotesque had become commonplace. They stood in line except for the Palomino who bounced away and back again to her new hero. Lazlo glowered at them. Matyas was still in shock. Exhaustion made Tibor Bihari’s face vulnerable and even younger. Zoltan watched over them, saying next to nothing. But Istvan suddenly understood that there was a rage building in him; it was like the heat contained in a furnace, white heat that could scorch your hand if you opened the furnace door. Uncle Zoltan never exploded; his rage was all internal, burning him up, only visible in his blazing black eyes.

  All around people clustered, hungry for news. There were knots of them, tying and untying and retying. Or they were like eels in a tank. Or earthworms writhing after the spade’s blow. Istvan’s imagination was fevered with hunger.

  They ate. Istvan was glad of that. Tibor Kassack complained bitterly about the vileness of the food. Uncle Zoltan had used a piece of bread to wipe his plate and was eying it — a perfectly ordinary white soup plate — and then eying Tibor Kassack and perhaps he was going to tell him to shut up or even throw the plate at him, when all hell broke loose in the street.

  A lot of events chased each other; in Istvan’s mind they were overlaid, like a multiple exposure. There was the thunder of a regular gun-battle outside. At once came the sound of crashing crockery, as if the bullets had been fired into the etterem, which wasn’t the case. A man was screaming, his nerves playing him up. Several people, having dropped their plates on the floor, followed them and sheltered under the flimsy tables. Tibor Kassack snatched the nearest rifle, smashed the glass in the window and poked the barrel out to threaten the world. The street door burst open.

  He came in: a boy. The blood had drained from his face. It could all have gushed out of his chest, so red was the stain on his sweater. And — Istvan noted this with horror — and he had murderer’s hands. Then again the way he walked: something in his brain had given the order to his legs, but his brain itself had blotted out. Nothing showed in his eyes: not the internal fire of Zoltan, not the smoke of Tibor Kassack, not the spark of the Palomino. He stiff-legged to Uncle Zoltan, his chosen place to crumple.

  With his collapse the room returned to life. No one inside had been hurt, it had all happened outside. Zoltan hoisted the boy into a chair and ducked his head between his knees. A filthy kitchen cloth was produced and his hands wiped. His sweater was replaced. Someone gave him a cup of broth, holding it to his lips because his own hands were jerking to a memory.

  His glance flickered round the circle of faces. But those who’ve witnessed violent death — especially those half-afraid they are responsible — need the certainty of one pair of eyes to fix on. He seemed to recognize something in Zoltan’s burning pupils. He had to talk, no question of merely wanting to, it was a compulsion. Words forced their way out in spasms. Something very like his story could have been told by half a dozen people in the etterem. But it lodged in Istvan’s memory because of one haunting detail.

  ‘Coming from the newspaper building,’ he began, ‘with a stack of leaflets in my hands...’ He halted, staring at his trembling hands where there were streaks of printer’s ink or something. ‘Well anyhow,’ he caught his breath, ‘I was walking towards this man in a wheelchair. He was shouting at me. I saw his face moving. Couldn’t catch the words because there was noise all over. Then I heard the screech on the cobbles and looked behind. Never knew a tank could move so fast.’

  In memory the tank loomed in his face. He needed more broth.

  He scrambled on: ‘Chucked the leaflets aside and began to run and tripped over some bricks and went flying. There was a sound of shooting. Felt too weak to run further.’ He lurched to a halt, perhaps regretting the word weak. He could hardly bring himself to say ‘I’, wanting to put himself at a distance from what had happened. �
�Looked up and the man in the wheelchair had thrown back his rug and was shooting at the tank with a rifle. It was a nightmare. The tank had been going for me. But you could see it — like distracting a bull — turning towards the cripple. He was pushing the wheels of his chair like crazy, his rifle gone, his rug gone, he was just hands, wheels and a white face. Hands flying on the wheels. The bastards shot him. The wheelchair lifted right across the pavement. Cripple was all legs and arms in a heap. Carried him inside somewhere and couldn’t bear to stay another second. Had to get away. Don’t remember any more. Just one thing I can’t get out of my mind: the wheel of his chair going round and round and round even though he was dead.’

  Istvan saw it. The image wouldn’t leave him. The wheel spun slowly and wouldn’t stop.

  Zoltan asked the boy his name.

  ‘Ferenc.’

  Now there was Istvan, Tibor Bihari, Tibor Kassack, Lazlo, Ferenc, Matyas, the Palomino and Uncle Zoltan.

  Zoltan held out his white soup plate to Lazlo and said: ‘Find me another plate like this.’

  Without thinking Lazlo muttered: ‘Yes sir.’ It had been an officer’s command.

  For all his mutterings, Lazlo had stiffened and all but saluted. Steel had shown itself in Zoltan’s voice. The events of the day had submerged him but now he’d got his second wind. Perhaps Lazlo’s earlier sneer hadn’t been too far from the truth: he’d been sheltering behind his newly-acquired nephews and niece. It took the arrival of the swashbuckling Tibor Kassack to prompt him to further action.

  Zoltan had chosen his battleground with care. He steered his gang from the broad Jozsef Avenue into Nepszinhaz Street. It was an artery that cut diagonally across the grid of backstreets and ended up by the main cemetery. It was dead straight and in normal times took quite a traffic of trams. It was the tramlines that would give confidence to the Soviet tanks. But, as Uncle Zoltan well knew, it was nothing like as broad as the boulevards, as the Budapesters were pleased to call them.

  It was dusk, the long Budapest dusk. Perhaps the trick wouldn’t have worked in full daylight. Perhaps that was another part of Zoltan’s careful planning, that he had waited until the light was right. Looking at him now, Istvan had a renewal of that faith he’d felt in the early morning: that Zoltan had a magical second sight and knew precisely how everything would occur.

  Zoltan was crisp with them all, knowing that the loose discipline of a group of three or four became the suicide of a more noticeable company. In particular he rounded on the soldier Lazlo. He saw Lazlo as the weakest member because he had deserted once and the second time is easier than the first. Also, Lazlo was itching for the chance of a private feud with Tibor Kassack.

  ‘Lazlo.’

  In middle-age Lazlo’s face would be pouchy with fat and ill humour. Now it appeared simply sulky in the slowly fading light. He looked at Zoltan but said nothing.

  ‘Did you swear an oath when you joined the army?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Repeat it to me.’

  He mumbled and Zoltan barked at him to speak up.

  ‘Through Fire and Water with the People.’ Lazlo even lifted his hand in the direction of his heart.

  ‘Remember, no one’s released you from that oath.’ Unspoken but resonant in Zoltan’s tone was the further idea: that Zoltan was now his commanding officer. And his commander had an order for him. It required just the right amount of initiative, showing trust in him and expecting that trust to be well-founded. Lazlo went.

  ‘At the double, understand me.’

  Then Zoltan made his dispositions. A passageway led off Nepszinhaz Street but died almost at once in a congested yard that had once stabled horses. There was no back way out but Zoltan was confident now; he wasn’t planning for failure. On the corner was a dreary shop with electrical fittings dotted among the dust. On the floor was a heap of ageing invoices in a box marked Hungaria Fruchte; cheaper than a metal filing cabinet. The half-glass door was locked. But the next door along Nepszinhaz Street was part of the same building, for it shared the same faded blue paint. The handle turned to Zoltan’s fingers and he tersely informed the others to watch both ways. Watch, not fool about, and knock three times for trouble.

  They watched both ways but chiefly in the direction of Jozsef Avenue where there was a lot of shouting, scattered rifle shots and once a pair of Russian tanks in a madcap chase. They waited two minutes, not more.

  ‘Look.’ That was the Palomino bursting with excitement. Inside the shop was a burglar with very particular tastes. Zoltan showed no interest in the ancient cash register nor the prize exhibit of a porcelain-based lamp with floral pattern. He was interested only in sockets and switches and flex. He flitted away into the shadows at the back of the shop and reappeared through the blue door.

  Zoltan stared down towards the end of the street where people crowded. ‘Any tanks?’

  ‘Yes,’ came a chorus.

  ‘Two,’ said Tibor Bihari.

  Zoltan was satisfied. He placed the two soup plates, spirited away from the etterem, on the cobbles between the tramlines. He piled each plate with sockets and switches, looped the flex round them and trailed it back through the faded blue door. The whiteness of the plates stood out in the twilight. The oddments of plastic and metal and snaking wire were an obvious menace.

  Lazlo had returned with two bottles and the stink of petrol filled the air. Zoltan quietly remarked: ‘Smart work, Lazlo, well done.’ He didn’t even enquire how Lazlo had obtained them. He showed faith that Lazlo would never let him down and Lazlo visibly grew.

  Zoltan packed the lot of them off towards the smoke and uproar of Jozsef Avenue. He frowned at their backs because they still found it a game. Why else would the Palomino skip round clapping her hands?

  He returned through the blue door and was at once in a different world. He left outside the excitement and sniff of freedom in the air. This smelled of the Hungary that had to be swept away, smelled of dirt and decay and sadness. On his right was the side door into the shop, one wooden panel smashed by his heel. On his left, the stairs. No one lived in the building. There were rabbit-hutches of offices above, all emptied on the streets. There was a plain wooden table, a chair jammed against it, a noticeboard with a curling circular from the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development. He stumbled up stairs which were in deepest gloom. There was no possibility of light, the bulbs being long stolen from their sockets. The first floor landing gave on to Nepszinhaz Street. The window was glued tight with pale blue paint. Zoltan used his elbow on the glass.

  It wasn’t far to Jozsef Avenue. Fifty metres, sixty metres? The fading light made distances deceptive. He waited, rehearsed in his mind what he had to do, checked windows and doorways opposite, waited. He wondered how it would happen in Jozsef Avenue — he decided Tibor Kassack would lead, though he had given no specific instructions — and prayed it would be soon before darkness claimed the street.

  It started the way he imagined it.

  There was heightened noise first, shouting, rifle shots. Then the brief flash of figures running across the entrance to Nepszinhaz Street. It reminded him forcefully of something, the corrida at Pamplona; Ildiko reading aloud to him, translating as she went because she wanted an audience to practise on. He knew not a single word of English, but he liked the part about the running of the bulls. His attention snapped back. There were people who weren’t running now, they were grouped at the end of the street, firing their rifles. Tibor Kassack with his cloak was going like a semaphore, no, going like Pedro Romero. Now they had turned and were streaming towards him, running like children, heads turning to watch for pursuit. And pursuit came.

  The entrance to the street was wide enough to take the turn of a tram. That enticed the tank. Run like hell, Uncle Zoltan had cautioned, then pause outside the shop below. It’s a risk I’m asking you to take, to loose off a few shots to encourage the tank and then jump down the passageway.

  Nepszinhaz Street was a canyon and the thunder echoed up. Th
e tank was firing its main gun as it came. The gang had fled to safety.

  Suppose the tank doesn’t stop. Suppose the crew are too angry. Suppose it’s too dark for them to see the booby trap. Suppose they see it is a fake. It had been easy to be confident before. Now he felt the doubt that always came just before action, when it was too bloody late to do any different. Just suppose the tank smashes the flimsy soup plates and goes on to stop at the corner and smash every living thing down the passageway.

  There was the noise of chalk going down a blackboard, a thousand times worse, his teeth on edge until he could scream. The tracks of the tank were locked and shrieking over the cobbles. It lurched to a standstill.

  The menace of two soup plates had halted the tank directly beneath his window.

  He’d been holding one of the bottles too long. There was sweat on his hand that needed to be wiped away. The neck of the bottle was wrapped in a petrol-sodden rag and he used it the suicide’s way: touching the cloth with a burning match and dropping the bottle before the sudden flames burst the glass. Be quick, or it takes your arm off. The bottle exploded on the rear of the tank. It was engulfed in fire. A thousand and one, a thousand and two, a thousand and three...He found himself counting the seconds. How much longer would they stay in their coffin? Or maybe they’d be stupid enough to reverse back to Jozsef Avenue? A thousand and eight...The turret opened and the crew were screaming to get out. They’d seen the flames through the vision blocks, smelt the smoke and fumes through the ventilation shafts. Their only chance was through this sheet of flame before the fire took hold in the engine and spread to the fuel tanks and roasted the cockpit.

  Panicking, one of the crew dropped back inside the tank. Zoltan could have raced down three stairs at a time and given a hand to help him out. There was a chance or it. He stayed, and the screaming went on.

  He’d heard another sound: a man cheering the destruction of the enemy. He’d rushed out from some doorway and was shaking his fist in the air. Then the whole pattern of life and death changed. The entrance to Nepszinhaz Street darkened as a second Soviet tank came to a halt. It wasn’t coming any closer to risk ambush. It loosed off machine gun fire, raking down the façade of the buildings, smashing windows, ripping through guttering, gouging out mortardust. Almost as a postscript, a burp after a greedy meal, it knocked over the cheering Hungarian.