Shooting Star

by David Brierley

  ‘They’ve got armour plating like the hull of a ship. Do you rip that open with your nails?’

  He took a quick step back as her hand, like the old woman’s claw, scratched the air where his face had been.

  ‘They threw in tanks and armoured cars and field artillery and heavy machine guns. They brought in troops from Mongolia who didn’t even understand Russian. They only understood killing. We couldn’t plead with the Mongols. We couldn’t explain we weren’t fascists, we just wanted to be free.’

  She stretched the corners of her eyes until they were slits that saw nothing.

  ‘The old men in the Kremlin had condemned us to death and so we fought again. We had nothing more to lose. The whole people fought, from factories and houses and schools. Today Class Two will fight Soviet tanks. Ilona...’

  She had turned away under the weight of his words and run half way back up the stairs. His voice stopped her.

  ‘Against Joe Stalin tanks, the boys of Class Two will use hand grenades, the girls will use rifles. And against Class Two, the tanks will use cannon and machine guns and shells...’

  She broke again from the relentless voice. She went up the rest of the stairs like a cat, a blur of black through the shadows. Steven lacked her nimbleness. When he reached the gallery it was empty. Then he heard her and ran to the Dead Room. She was killing herself; for an instant he really believed it. In her hands was a rifle, the muzzle pointing at her chest. Then he saw she grasped it by the barrel like a club and she swung it at the tailor’s dummy dressed in army uniform, and the wire dummy leapt across the room to clatter against the wall. And then, dear God, she swung the rifle in a long sweep across the table and tumbled hand grenades across the floor.

  ‘Ilona, stop!’

  The rifle had slipped out of her grasp but she wouldn’t stop. She wrenched photographs from the wall and flung them in a shattering of glass in every direction. There was a bottle; she picked that up; she smashed it like a rioter in a street battle. Newspapers, hurled high. Leaflets, torn in her hands. Steven grabbed a shoulder and swung her round. She bent at once, her teeth eager to find his wrist, and he snatched his hand back. She flung a can of petrol in a corner. Steven lunged again and long nails raked his cheek, leaving skidmarks of red. He clapped both hands to the burning skin while she darted again to the table.

  And then there was quiet in the room. Even Steven’s breathing stopped. Ilona had picked up a pistol. Instead of smashing the gun, she was pointing it at him. Like a police marksman she used both hands to hold it. She wasn’t aiming with her eye along the length of the barrel but it was steady on his chest. At four paces she couldn’t miss. She’s going to kill me, Steven thought; no, impossible, she never could. He stared at her face. Her eyes weren’t focusing on him but seeing something a long time ago. Yes she could, Steven knew, she could kill me. He had begun to die already, his voice first. He couldn’t utter a word. He saw the knuckle of her finger whiten and he couldn’t even call out her name.

  From the trigger there came a dry click. In Steven’s ears there was a roar of blood. Ilona looked in disbelief at the empty gun, a useless chunk of metal. On the table at her side was a box of ammunition. Her clumsy fingers scrabbled in this, brought out a bullet but couldn’t work out how to load the pistol.

  Steven moved slowly. He was wary of her teeth and her nails and her violent strength. Ripping the huge flag from the wall he wound it round her like a shroud, draping it over her shoulders and arms, smothering the gun. Her head was clear. Her eyes were dark with fury. She struggled inside the folds of the flag, heaving her head from side to side, throwing her body back and forward.

  She went still, her head sagging on her chest. Her knees buckled and he eased her down on the floor. She lay quiet, as a wild animal caught in a trap will be quiet. Her eyes were watchful and her nostrils flared.

  They used no words. They could have forgotten how to speak.

  There was a stink of petrol in the Dead Room. Steven saw the five litre can had split a seam; lodged against a wall it leaked slowly. Half the photos were off the walls. The army officer was crushed. The man in his workclothes lay on his back like a dead insect. Papers were as thick as autumn leaves on the floor. And in the corner of his eye, also on the floor, was a scrabbling movement. Ilona had the pistol in her hands again, working with desperate fingers to unlock the secret of its loading.

  On his knees beside her he wrenched the gun away and it clattered across the wasteland of the Dead Room. She wriggled free of the flag and Steven threw himself forward across her.

  Still no words.

  She looked up at the face poised above. The violence in her died because she saw no violence in Steven’s eyes, no anger, no madness. His face was shadowed as a candle might shadow it. His hair fell forward as a boy’s might. Confusion stood in wrinkles on his forehead. His mouth was half-open in hesitation, not knowing what words to say.

  Perhaps there were words. On stage, in cafés, at parties, in meetings, there were always words. But she couldn’t think of words now.

  She loosed her hands from under him and he sensed the gentleness of her movement. She put her hands on his head and drew him down. Her mouth spoke to his mouth, the ancient language of love, the tongue of desire. Her skin felt the rasp of his early morning beard. Her fingers found sweat at the back of his neck. Her body felt the weight of his body, her breasts were crushed under his ribs, her belly sank under the sharpness of his hip and his swelling urgency. She felt his hand on the skin of a breast and when his fingers found a nipple she opened her eyes. She looked in his eyes and saw they said Ilona. His hand was where it had never been, where it should have been. Then his mouth had gone from her mouth, his head had vanished, and his tongue was in her navel. It was a fire that spiralled inside her. She caught the hair at the back of his head and found the words she needed.

  ‘Yes, now.’

  It had almost been then, among the ikons and silver and keepsakes of the Russian exile. It was now among the ruins of the Hungarian exile, on the green, red and white of the flag.

  ‘Yes, now,’ she breathed in his ear.

  Deep inside her was the memory of a haunting night, a nervous boy, and explosions in the mad world outside.

  Yes, now.

  ‘Steven, Istvan.’

  A cry in the night. Had she called out? The feet that drummed on the floor — his? On the ceiling was pale light from outside, like a sickle moon on that night. Her eyes screwed tight. Inside her a shudder, a roar, a collapse, like cannonfire, like destruction, like the end of everything.

  ‘You screamed.’

  ‘What did I scream?’

  ‘You just cried out. As if you were hurt. Did I...’

  She put her fingers on his lips to silence him.

  ‘A scream in the dark.’ But there had been light flooding in everywhere with her eyes closed.

  They were being watched. Steven heard eager fingers at the window but when he scrambled to his feet he found pearls of rain striking the glass.

  ‘The she-rain,’ he said. ‘A Jamaican told me while I was waiting for you.’ When he turned he saw the rain on her cheeks. Not rain. ‘Why are you crying?’

  A black snail of eye-shadow crawled down her cheek. She could feel its slow slide and hear the drip of rain and see him where he stood against the dark of the bare window, the collapsed maleness of him after love. Everything matched the weeping inside her. In the rush of those moments she’d imagined he loved her. But love wouldn’t stare and ask why she cried; love would kiss away the tears. Men, my dear, Judit had said towards the end of the bottle, they stand before us like dripping taps and they don’t want to hear of love then. You have to wait till next morning when there is pressure in the pipes again. Why stare at me like that? Your eyes are coal mines. Ilo, I swear you are still a virgin.

  He was saying something about ‘...tears are for?’

  ‘What tears?’ She felt stupid the moment she said it. They ransack us and expect gratitude, Ju
dit again and she should know, even as they pull on their socks and run. He must consider it some kind of male strength, she decided, to stand apart. Perhaps tenderness equalled weakness. Let her lie on the floor amid the destruction while the conquering hero stood looking down — was that his psychology? They find it easy to give, hard to accept, and bloody impossible to share, Judit had insisted against her protests.

  ‘All right, so you won’t speak to me.’ Steven opened the window despite the rain. He understood nothing about her: she tried to shoot him, then she devoured him. He didn’t understand her crying or her stubborn silence. It must be the actress in her; they lived on kisses and tears. Then, without meaning to, he found he was talking, just to fill the void.

  ‘We come from a small nation, don’t we? Ten million of us right at the heart of Europe. I wouldn’t say we were a proper country because we’ve never been free. The Austrians, the Turks, the Germans, the Russians — there’s always been somebody more powerful who’s eager to redraw the map. We don’t seem to be enough on our own.’

  He faltered. Suppose she had slithered across the floor while he looked out at the night. Suppose she had gathered up the pistol and was fingering the magazine. There was a pain at the back of his neck that wouldn’t ease. The pain was a bullet. But he wouldn’t turn to check.

  ‘I don’t know that I ever intended to be a poet. Pop star, poet, footballer — they’re just suits of clothes a fifteen-year-old tries on. But after I left — out of the question. Because we’re just a little country with a strange language that no one else understands, not one word. It’s as outlandish as — I don’t know, name a tribe in Africa. And not just the language, the people are somehow invisible. If there was a quiz show and contestants had to name famous Hungarians there’d be silence. Oh, perhaps they’d say Liszt, umm, Bartok, umm, umm, no one else comes to mind. No twentieth century genius, no writers, no poets, no painters, no architects, no statesmen, no generals, no scientists, no sportsmen. How can we be sure Hungary even exists? It’s as if there’s a hole in the centre of Europe.’

  All this was delivered to the darkness. Abruptly he closed the window and swung round. She was watching him closely, as if his gestures, his hesitations would teach her something.

  ‘Except for this one thing: we were famous for ten days as the nation that defied the Russian steel. The whole people rose against their masters. It was a true revolution, even though it failed. It streaked across the dark night like a shooting star. You know how it is with a shooting star — you can’t show it to someone else. It’s so quick you never catch it unless you’re already staring up at heaven. So, a shooting star, ten days of brilliance, finished, burnt out. Once more the old darkness, the hole in the middle of Europe.’

  There was light in her eyes and she said: ‘You’re an actor. That was a magnificent speech. Bravo, Steven.’

  ‘Actor.’ He was incredulous. ‘I was telling you why you must stay.’

  ‘Stay? You mean here?’

  ‘Stay in the West. A curtain has two sides. One side is dark and the other is light. You’re an artiste, you need light and freedom. You can’t live in a dictatorship.’

  ‘Oh, we manage very well, thank you. We talk and plan and do as we want. We’re not Russian slaves. We have our freedom, only it is socialist freedom and that is different. But then I’m happy to be a socialist. I believe in our way. If we make mistakes, they are human mistakes and we learn. But your mistakes are because of your system — I’m sorry to sound like a politician — violence, unemployment, crime, racism, drugs. You don’t need me to tell you about that. Your own newspapers tell you. What have I got to come here for? We are building a new society, while yours is decaying. Use your eyes — you can see it is. It’s a struggle to create anything new and there are errors and mistakes. You expect me to reject the struggle; so what are you offering?’

  He opened his mouth and found the words wouldn’t come. He wanted her to live in the West, to live with him, to cure the loneliness, but he couldn’t find the words. Words had dried up, or been used up in that damned speech. Her eyes were fixed on him, staring at him from under the half-moons of eyebrows. Her gaze froze the words in his throat: I want you. He swallowed.

  ‘Well, what are you offering?’

  ‘Freedom, Ilona.’

  ‘Freedom. So. I look at you and I see a free man, do I? Free to take photographs of war and suffering and not to help, free to torment me with the past, free to rape me.’

  ‘Rape? There was no rape. You wanted me, screamed out for me...’

  ‘That’s enough.’ She rose to het feet and hugging herself very tight she walked towards the door.

  ‘Oh no,’ Steven shouted. Then he had to hurry because she was already opt in the gallery. ‘You’re not running out like you did in Budapest.’

  She whirled round. ‘Me? Are you serious?’

  On her high wide cheekbones there were twin spots of colour, as bright as the painted cheeks of a doll.

  ‘You say it was me who ran out? How dare you?’

  18 - Budapest, then

  The storm struck the city without warning. It was before dawn, the blackest hour. One moment Budapest was dreaming, the next moment the peace was shattered. The cracks and reverberations were louder than thunder. Flashes painted whole streets with brilliant light, showing the cruel details of fallen bricks and smashed furniture. Darkness was more terrible because of the secrets it hid.

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ she whispered.

  Down towards Rakoczi Street there was flickering like summer lightning. Ilona leant out of the window and the light bathed her shoulders and silvered the skin of her breasts. In the street below shadows were running, screaming to God, his name taken in vain. Acrid fumes came on the frosted air.

  The rumours had been facts. The Russians had withdrawn long enough to sharpen their steel. Prime Minister Nagy must have been given a thousand pieces of evidence of the coming onslaught. He had issued no warning.

  ‘Istvan...’

  Ilona turned to him. She could see by the flickering light the same fear in his face that she felt. It had been a game before. They had played truant from school and skipped between the tanks and played games with apricot jam and confounded the enemy. The time for pranks had passed. The grown-ups had returned.

  Istvan stared at her. The flashes from the city centre were in the sky behind her, silhouetting her face. Her eyes were pools of darkness. There was nothing he could see there: love, hope, shyness, desire were all gone. He touched her and her skin was cold. His fingers shook, but then the whole building was trembling. In his guts there was the burning acid of fear, anger and love lost. The emotions were all jumbled together and the pain of them spread up into his chest, under the ribs.

  She jerked away. It was the sound of boots crashing up the stairs that made her turn. The door was flung open and Ilona screamed, her imagination peopled with Russian soldiers, and crouched against the wall, folding her arms to conceal her nakedness.

  A flash from the guns showed Tibor Kassack in the doorway, his black cloak gathered round him, chest heaving, eyes as wild as one of his horses.

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Everyone else has gone,’ Istvan said. ‘There’s only us.’

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ Tibor Kassack asked. Hearing the rattle of a matchbox, Ilona stumbled away through the door to the dining room. The match spurted and its flame seemed to blind Tibor. He peered into corners with his eyes screwed up. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Ilona.’

  ‘Why has she run away?’

  Istvan didn’t reply. The match singed Tibor’s fingers and he dropped it. In the darkness Istvan pulled on his clothes. He doubted Tibor had noticed he was naked. The flame had shown a dirty bruise and a little blood on his forehead.

  ‘Hungary doesn’t want people who run. Hungary needs men who stand and fight. Now is the moment in history...If there is blood to be shed we...we...’

  ‘Are you all right?’


  ‘Just knocked my head. Istvan, this is the day you can show yourself worthy of your country. There is fighting to be done. The Russians have laid siege to Kilian Barracks. It is urgent. Hurry, man, what are you waiting for?’

  Istvan stood in the middle of the room.

  ‘We avoid Muzeum Avenue,’ Tibor said. ‘Damned parade ground for tanks. Avoid it.’ He made it sound like a flooded road. ‘Also Baross Street. Not that we’re afraid. No true Hungarian is afraid. But Kilian Barracks is where we fight. Orders.’

  The voice slurred. He must be concussed, Istvan thought. Or perhaps he had always been mad, only today it showed more. ‘Must hurry. Where are you going?’

  ‘To find Ilona.’

  ‘No time. No damn use either. It’s man’s work now.’

  But Istvan had gone through into the dining room: empty. Into the kitchen: empty. Into the bathroom: empty. His Ilona — where was she? Now of all times they needed each other. But Tibor had caught up with him.

  ‘Are you afraid? I thought you’d become a man.’

  There seemed so many steps you had to climb to reach manhood. To leave his parents’ home, to develop his own principles and defend them, to care for someone more than himself, to love a woman, even (in Babushka’s view) to apologize no more. But Tibor Kassack had a different test of manhood. Istvan was turning to knock on the closed door of Babushka’s bedroom when he was grasped roughly from behind.

  ‘Come on.’

  They stood quite still until the tug of Tibor’s hand won. Istvan let himself be led away. Ilona was left behind.

  On the stairs a door stood open and Imre Nagy’s voice boomed from the radio...Before dawn today Soviet forces started an attack against our capital...Our troops are fighting. The government is in place. I notify the people of our country and the whole world of this fact.’ The voice was mournful. There was no one in the empty room to hear it. No one in the whole world listened.

  When Istvan came out into Puskin Street, darkness was draining out of the sky. Gun flashes showed less in the grey light. To his right, in Mihaly Pollack Square, there were bare branches like cast fishnets, and under the trees sat solid humps with low-angled barrels. Tanks had already seized the radio building and Nagy had been broadcasting from Parliament. There was no fighting here. Shapes of men clung against walls. One broke away and ran back with batwings floating behind him.