by Derek Hansen
The Russians perished on the battlefield at a horrendous rate, often had to forage for their own food and were granted no leave. When they advanced they were shot by the Germans, and if they hesitated they were shot by their officers. They lived life closer to the edge than he did and Tibor respected them for that. When they stopped to eat they never hesitated to invite Tibor to share what little they had. When they had booze, they shared it with him until the bottle was empty. Then they went looking for women and loot.
Tibor quickly discovered the Russians’ love of alcohol and their fascination with wrist watches and clocks. On the occasions when supplies caught up with the troops, Tibor moved in quickly as the negotiator, trading wrist watches for desperately needed food and winter clothing. When the Russians’ vodka supplies dried up he traded wine, rough palinka plum brandy and barack for coarse bread, flour and sausage.
Not all the villagers could grasp that a cheap watch had exactly the same value as a fine Swiss timepiece and many felt cheated. Tibor grew tired of explaining that the Russians had never had watches and didn’t know good from bad. A watch was a watch and had a value. A clock was bigger and had more value. Tibor understood that. He built up a network among the Russians, a network that was often suddenly depleted by a German counterattack. He returned the Russian soldiers’ generosity and comradeship by bringing them bottles of palinka and not charging them. He won their trust by drinking with them until they fell over dead drunk. And all the while he learned.
Tibor was in his element now his old negotiating skills had been dusted off and once more called upon. He knew that by the time he reached Budapest he would be ready to make a killing. As his enthusiasm grew, so did his determination to impose his will upon Milos. But Milos rebuffed him. The dispute came to a head in early January 1945, when the Russian army paused to regroup for the final push to Budapest. Snowstorms swept across the Carpathians and deep into the plains of the Alfold. It was then that Milos learned Satoraljaujhely, Sarospatak and towns as far west as Miskolc had been liberated.
‘You have no choice, little brother,’ insisted Tibor angrily. ‘I gave Dad my word to look after you and protect you. I do as Dad said. You do as I say.’
‘I promised Gabriella,’ said Milos. ‘I can join you in Budapest later if neither Dad nor Gabriella come home. But I’m going home, Tibor, and you can’t stop me.’
‘How are you going to live?’ spat Tibor contemptuously.
‘You think I can’t manage?’ said Milos. ‘You think I haven’t learned these past months?’
‘Not enough, little brother.’
They’d holed up in an abandoned and shelled farmhouse. Enough of the roof and walls remained to keep the wind and snow out of the main room. They huddled in front of the fireplace and a fire they’d made from splintered pieces of furniture, slats from shattered beds and sweepings from what had been a coal cellar. They added to the fire sparingly because their fuel had to last them through the night. The boys stared into the flames, both angry yet each wanting to break the impasse.
‘We will go first to Budapest,’ said Tibor eventually. ‘Then, when the Russians have advanced far enough to liberate the camps, assuming there are any survivors left in the camps, we will return to Sarospatak.’
‘I want to return now,’ said Milos.
‘No, you are coming with me to Budapest. Even if there are survivors in the camps they may not be liberated for months. You are no use to anyone in Sarospatak until then but you will be of use to me in Budapest.’
‘You promise we will return to Sarospatak?’
‘I promise. We will return to Sarospatak and if Gabi is still alive we will find her. Then we will ask her to choose between us.’
Tibor broke into the smile Milos hated. It was the smile of an adult indulging a child, a mocking smile that warned he’d once again been outmanoeuvred, that he’d lost.
‘Gabi’s choice might surprise you,’ said Milos, his voice soft and lacking conviction.
‘Then it’s agreed,’ said Tibor. ‘We’re going to Budapest.’
‘Yes, it’s agreed,’ said Milos reluctantly.
‘Excellent!’ said Tibor. His smile softened and he hugged his brother. ‘It’s good that we stick together. Besides, you have a lot to learn when we get to Budapest.’
‘Like what?’
‘I have taught you how to survive under the Germans,’ said Tibor. His smile vanished. ‘Now I must teach you how to survive under the Russians.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Secrets are addictive and Istvan Kiraly had become an addict. The number of dossiers grew exponentially as he tracked down Sarospatak’s missing Jews. Fourteen families and individuals now paid for his silence. It wasn’t because their money brought his father release from his pain, put food on their table and bought the first new boots his feet had ever known that Istvan persisted with the dossiers, but because of the feeling of power he derived from knowing other people’s secrets. Apart from the dossiers on the Jews and the people who sheltered them, his files now covered the businesses of the people sheltering the Jews, their business associates and the people who supplied materials to them. He felt exultant and infinitely superior to his quarries when patterns began to emerge. The patterns helped him identify the main players in the black market trade for industry supplies, fuel and food. He learned who was involved with which political groups, which public servants were corrupt and which gendarmes. He put everything he learned into his dossiers.
What amazed him most was how much information was available in public files if you knew where to look and what you were looking for. He visited the town hall so often the exasperated clerks finally gave him a desk and access to their files. In return, and to justify this privilege, he helped them with their filing and record-keeping. When any of the clerks or council officers asked what he was doing he replied that he was finding out how the town operated. He told them he wanted to be a councillor himself one day and was preparing the way. That answer seemed to satisfy his inquisitors as Istvan knew it would. It flattered them and politicians had always been susceptible to flattery.
He learned the details of people’s private lives. Who was faithful, who was unfaithful and with whom. Along the way he made the staggering discovery that his little town of Sarospatak harboured homosexual men. It would be wrong to assume that Istvan had learned all the town’s dark secrets. He hadn’t, not by a long shot. But he prided himself on the belief that he knew more than anyone else, an astonishing amount for a peasant boy in his last year of school.
Istvan was convinced he had created the perfect cover for his secret life and that nobody, other than those from whom he extorted money, had any reason to suspect his true motives. He paid only cursory attention to the gendarme standing at the school gates one morning. He had no reason to suspect he was the reason for the gendarme’s presence until the officer stepped out in front of him, blocking his way.
‘Istvan Kiraly?’
‘Yes,’ said Istvan. He recognised the man immediately. He suspected him of taking protection money from a prominent black marketeer and had begun a file on him. He glanced around quickly to see where Sandor was. His brother had been trailing along behind but he managed to catch his eye.
‘Come with me,’ said the gendarme.
‘Why?’
‘You’ll find out when you get there.’
‘Where?’
‘None of your business,’ said the gendarme angrily. ‘You can come voluntarily or under arrest.’
‘Voluntarily,’ said Istvan. He turned to Sandor. ‘This gendarme wants me to accompany him. He won’t say why or where we’re going. Follow along behind us.’
‘Who’s he?’ asked the gendarme. He looked the boy over. Not even the food shortages had been able to stop Sandor’s shoulders and chest from expanding and filling out.
‘My brother,’ said Istvan.
The gendarme looked from one boy to the other in disbelief. ‘Whoever he is, he’s not wanted,’
he said. ‘He stays here.’
‘My brother looks after my interests,’ said Istvan amiably. ‘In return I give him money. I understand it’s not an uncommon arrangement these days.’
The gendarme’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Istvan met his gaze evenly, knowing exactly what thoughts were going through the officer’s mind.
‘Come on then,’ snapped the gendarme.
It took only a few streets for Istvan to realise he was being taken directly to the headquarters of the gendarmerie. The question was why, and his inability to find a reasonable answer worried him. Headquarters was a modest two-storey building but rumour suggested there was a cellar beneath into which cells had been built. Istvan had never met anybody who’d been in the cells, or even seen them, but that was no reason to discount their existence. His trepidation mounted as he climbed the steps into the building.
The gendarme ordered Sandor to wait outside and led Istvan past the front desk where officers looked at him curiously. They climbed the stairs to the top storey and paused in the corridor before a closed door. The gendarme knocked three times and opened the door when he heard a response from inside.
‘Istvan Kiraly, sir,’ said the gendarme.
‘Show the boy in. You wait downstairs.’
Istvan stepped warily into the office. If the voice had been intimidating, its owner was even more so. He was tall, broad-shouldered and thick in the arms and legs. He radiated power and authority. His hair was brushed back but twisted and curled in a mass of steel grey coils that were seemingly immune to the attempts of any comb to establish order. He had a full moustache, steel-grey and bristly, that appeared welded to his face. He pinned Istvan with fierce eyes that were also grey. Istvan had never seen the man before.
The office was in disarray with filing cabinets pulled out from the walls as though ready to be moved. An electric heater glowed atop one cabinet, looking equally temporary. Istvan’s mind raced as he tried to absorb everything at once but his senses were rapidly being overcome by an accelerating sense of fear. The grey eyes studied him with disconcerting intensity. Istvan felt they were stripping away his entire being layer by layer and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
‘Come here, boy,’ said the officer.
Istvan was powerless to resist. The officer leaned back on the desk which Istvan suddenly realised was also prepared for removal. There was nothing on it, no pens, no pads, nothing but a single pile of folders which, as Istvan approached, became sickeningly familiar. He stopped dead in his tracks, his short thin body dwarfed by the officer’s bulk, very much the boy in the presence of the man.
‘One of the clerks in the town hall works for me,’ said the officer without preamble. ‘Two months ago you were provided with a desk on my instruction. We collected your files after you left for school.’
Istvan felt the blood drain from his face. Amidst the fear was a sense of shame, even disgust, that he could have been under surveillance and not known it. Not for a day or two either, but for two months!
The officer placed his hand deliberately atop the stack of dossiers. ‘Why?’
‘It began with the Jews, sir,’ said Istvan. The eyes compelled him to tell the truth. Besides, what was the point of lying when his dossiers were on the desk? ‘A way to make money.’
He told the officer how one thing had led to another and how he’d become obsessed with building his dossiers, with how random information gained substance and significance when committed to paper. Under pressure from the piercing eyes he went into far more detail than was probably necessary, but he sensed an affinity with the officer and, for reasons he couldn’t explain, felt a need to please him.
‘After you’d found your Jews, you continued to make new dossiers on non-Jews. For what purpose?’
The officer leaned closer to Istvan, gazed at him even more intently. But Istvan didn’t waver. Instead he felt a sudden surge of excitement. The officer seemed genuinely interested in what he’d been doing. There were no accusations of him acting illegally, no threats of arrest, no censure of any kind. No sense that he’d done anything wrong. His confidence began to return and his brain reassessed his situation.
‘I have no set purpose,’ said Istvan. ‘But information is useful to different people. Its value changes according to circumstance.’
‘Go on.’
‘I believe I have a talent for understanding how people think and being able to predict how they will act. I began gathering information and entering it into dossiers as a way of recording my knowledge. I have always hoped that my talent would be valuable to someone.’ Istvan paused in the hope that the officer would react to his last statement and reveal something of his intentions. But the officer refused to be drawn. His eyes never left Istvan’s and gave no sign of softening. ‘My talent is my only avenue of escape. Otherwise all I will ever be is a peasant with dirt under my fingernails and pig shit on my boots.’
‘And to whom did you intend to offer your talents? The Russians?’
Istvan looked away from the officer and scanned the filing cabinets. His eyes roamed over the walls where the cabinets had been, their locations betrayed by rectangles where paint hadn’t faded. He could imagine the purpose of the office and it wasn’t such a big jump to imagine himself in one similar.
‘I don’t know who you are, sir,’ he said eventually, ‘but I do know you’re not from Sarospatak. I don’t know your rank but I know you’re senior enough not to worry about buttoning your tunic. You have all these filing cabinets and I know there is a file on me in one of them.’ Istvan paused again. He looked squarely into the hard grey eyes and thought he saw the hint of a smile. ‘I don’t know why you are talking to me, sir, but I know I’ve always wanted to talk to you.’
‘You will call me Major Bogati.’ The officer stood and began buttoning his tunic. ‘There is a car outside. The driver has been instructed to take you home. You will have five minutes to pack. I am leaving for Budapest with these cabinets and your files at eleven o’clock. If you are not back I will go without you. Now leave.’
Istvan turned immediately and headed for the door, his mind awhirl. He was leaving the farm and going to Budapest? His heart pounded in his chest as he realised his talent had been recognised and his cherished dream had come true. He’d been recruited.
‘One more thing.’
Istvan froze, his hand on the door handle. He realised instantly that the officer had been playing with him, that he’d been the victim of a monstrous trick designed to ascertain whether he worked alone or had a hidden agenda. So much for his talent for understanding how people think. He cursed himself for his naivety. He’d been offered the carrot and grabbed for it without considering for a moment that it might be poisoned. His disappointment was crushing. He turned around slowly, expecting to see the officer gloating.
‘Tell your brother to go back to school.’
Istvan was recruited into the secret police, an organisation hellbent on surviving the war, the occupying Soviet army and whichever government subsequently came into power. Secrets, their stock in trade, were their means of survival. The Russians used the secret police to root out the fascists of the Arrow Cross, to capture or terminate war profiteers and black marketeers, to spy on political parties and use their secrets as weapons to influence or discourage candidates prior to elections. The secret police appeased their masters, or at least appeared to. Their existence depended equally on their dishonesty and their honesty. They infiltrated and protected selected black market networks at the expense of their competition and shared the spoils to help fund their activities. They secretly recruited thugs from the Arrow Cross as foot soldiers in their quest to retain power and influence, and sanctioned killings and beatings. They recruited Communists and church leaders, industrialists and unionists. Their weapons were hit squads, threats, blackmail and bribery and they were very good at what they did. They were determined to emerge intact and stronger whichever way the political breezes blew.
&n
bsp; Istvan played little part in these machinations. Instead he was thrown into a training academy where he was taught the tricks of his trade: intelligence-gathering, forensics, politics, interrogation procedures, recruitment procedures and the principles of command. Though he was regarded as something of an oddity in the academy because of his diminutive stature, his talent and intelligence quickly marked him as someone to be respected.
When the Independent Smallholders Party swept into power in November 1945, Istvan believed that Hungary was set on a course for freedom, fairness and prosperity and looked forward to his state-sponsored role as protector. His father had always looked to the Smallholders Party for salvation and liberation from the landlords who bled them dry, and Istvan had grown up believing the Party was the panacea for the country’s many problems.
On graduation from the academy, Istvan was reunited with his patron, Major Bogati. Even then it was clear to Istvan that Major Bogati was no mere major, that his true rank was far more exalted, but he knew better than to ask questions. His first assignment was part of a program to destabilise and undermine the Smallholders Party for the ultimate benefit of the Communist Party and their Soviet backers. He realised it was a test and determined to pass it with flying colours. His allegiance was no longer to his country, his father or the Smallholders, but to his organisation and, above all, to his inspiration, Major Bogati.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Prisoners had complained about the overcrowding in Theresienstadt when Gabriella first arrived, but once the transportations began nobody complained any more. The ranks thinned out at roll call and every week more and more beds became unoccupied. Every selection was an exercise in pure fear: Gabriella and Julia stood quaking in their shoes while the names were being called out. Sometimes it was the woman in front of them, the little girl behind or the teenager alongside. Sometimes it was people with numbers tattooed on their arms. There seemed no logic to the selection process, just a grotesque and deadly game of chance. Some were called, some weren’t, and beyond that there was nothing anyone could seize upon to improve the odds of their survival.
