Under the frog (32 page)

Could
doing brave things make you brave, as push-ups made you stronger? Was courage
bone or muscle? Something that was meted out at birth or something that was up
to you?

They
vacated the bedroom to merge the food Gyuri had bought into an omelette. After
they had eaten, Jadwiga went out of the kitchen and reappeared with a
submachine-gun, the classic davai guitar, which she placed on the table. ‘Do
you have anything to clean this with?’ she asked. Gyuri caught Elek
looking at him with vast amusement.

* * *

The
only thing that would have been more unlikely than a revolution, thought Gyuri
arriving at the British Embassy with a folder full of AVO documents showing
that a British diplomat had been spying for the AVO, would have been my
arriving at the British Embassy with a folder full of AVO documents showing
that a British diplomat had been spying for the AVO.

He rang
the bell. After a suitably dignified pause, the door was opened, Gyuri was
pleased to see, by Nigel. ‘Good morning,’ said Gyuri in his floweriest
pronunciation. ‘How are you, Nigel? Do you know if the Ambassador is free?’

‘Actually,
he’s a Minister Plenipotentiary, but don’t let that stop you.’ Gyuri had no
idea what Nigel was talking about but didn’t want his status as a star English
speaker to be diminished. He had met Nigel three days earlier, during the
heaviest of the fighting. The agreement had been that anything moving down the
Nádor utca would get it. They had a heavy machine-gun set up ready to rip,
which was hogged by a surly, burly coal miner from Tatabánya, who didn’t like
anyone coming anywhere near it. ‘I was a gunner in the Army, all right? I know
how to use this thing. I don’t want anyone messing around with it, I don’t want
anyone fucking it up.’

He didn’t
take any breaks and he urinated on the spot, because he didn’t want to let go
of the machine-gun or let it out of his sight. When the car appeared, the miner
immediately misfired the gun, which was just as well since it gave everyone
time to distinguish the Union Jack tied sloppily to the bonnet of the car. The
car trundled up respectfully to their position, and as the miner continued to
swear, to curse the quality of Soviet manufacturing standards and to eject
cartridges left, right and centre, Nigel had got out and said cheerfully, ‘Good
afternoon. Is there by any chance anyone here who speaks English
and
who knows the way to the
British Legation?’ Gyuri had earned this conversation.

Nigel
had the elegant garb of a top spy, a rising diplomat: someone, in short, well
worth getting to know. But in fact he said he was an aspiring opera singer,
studying in Vienna. With a friend, he had driven to Budapest to deliver medical
supplies. There was no one else who spoke English, but even if there had been
they wouldn’t have had a chance. Gyuri took charge, exulting in every
well-spent forint of his English lessons. ‘And how do you like Budapest, Nigel?
Let me escort you to the Embassy. And do tell me what you think of Viennese
women.’

A week
after the start of the revolution it was all over, barring the history-writing.
To Gyuri’s amazement, to everyone’s amazement, and no doubt most of all, to the
Russians’ amazement, the part-timers of Budapest had beaten the Red Army. True,
a lot of the Russians hadn’t been very eager to fight, most of them had been
based in Hungary for some time and seemed to understand what they were being
asked to do and that they weren’t combating international fascism or the
Hungarian underworld but the populace of Budapest. Indeed the only Russian
Gyuri had seen who was wholly enthusiastic about trigger-pulling had been a
Russian deserter he had met at the Corvin who had been fighting his former
colleagues.

But the
main problem for the Russians, who had been counting on the AVO to pull their
weight, had been that, without proper infantry support, their tanks had been bizarrely
vulnerable in the streets of Budapest. People simply waited for a tank to pass
and then for the price of a good drink, lobbed their petrol bomb on the rear of
the tank, where the burning fuel would be sucked in through the ventilation
grilles of the T-34s and into the engine, turning the occupants of the tank
into charcoal sticks; those fast enough to avoid being burned were shot as they
clambered out.

Imre
Nagy formed a new new government, one this time with a few people who hadn’t
been in the Communist Party. Ceasefire. Exultation. Hungarians had fought their
way to paradise.

Along
with many other curious folk, Gyuri and Jadwiga had taken a look in the White
House, which appropriately enough for a revolution looked as if it had been
turned upside down, all the drawers and shelves emptied as people indulged
their prurience or just enjoyed themselves making a mess. ‘You always choose
the most romantic places for outings, Gyuri,’ she remarked. The first document
Gyuri picked up to read was a file detailing the blackmailing of a British
diplomat who had been apprehended smuggling gold and then moulded by the AVO.
Gyuri grabbed the file and headed for the British Embassy, pleased that he had
found a bridge to more civilised parts, leaving Jadwiga to studiously read,
slowly and carefully the way she always did, from the vast anthologies of
turpitude.

With
remarkable speed and ease, perhaps because of a good word from Nigel, perhaps
because of the informality of the times, Gyuri was shown in to see the Ambassador,
who received the file with courtesy. He puffed on his pipe, manifestly at home
in the revolution and pored over the first few pages. ‘Ah. Dawson. Yes,’ he
thought out loud.

‘Thank
you very much, Mr Fischer. It’s very kind of you to bring this round.’ It took
fifty seconds; Gyuri was out almost as fast as he had got in. He hadn’t been
expecting anything in particular, though some gold bullion, a British passport,
a job offer, something like that would have been quite acceptable. A little
excitement and incredulity as a minimum. The Ambassador showed him out as if he
had just return a stray button from the Ambassador’s overcoat.

In the
waiting-room, next to the entrance, Nigel was chatting with a man whom Gyuri
had met before,
The Times
correspondent. Gyuri had been excited to meet him
because
The
Times
was
The Times,
and also because everyone knew
that their foreign correspondents worked for British Intelligence, although the
correspondent did a good job of disguising it. In fact his behaviour was rather
dim. Brilliant cover. Gyuri admired professionalism. There was also a broad,
military figure who looked as if he would be happiest inspecting rifles, who
sure enough, was introduced to Gyuri as the military attaché.

‘What
do you make of the new government?’ asked
The Times,
presumably looking for some
good quote.

‘It’s
fine. I approve of it, while it lasts.’

‘What
do you mean?’

‘The
Russians will be back.’

There
was gentle British scoffing at this statement. In the few days he had been
dealing with live Brits, Gyuri had rapidly become attuned to how the British
had reached a level of civilisation where they could clearly tell you how
stupid you were, without actually having to say so; that’s what cricket and
centuries of parliamentary democracy could do for you.

‘The
Russians have given an undertaking to leave. I saw Mikoyan in the parliament
with my own eyes, the man was in tears over losing Hungary,’ explained the
correspondent. ‘They’re leaving. They have no choice.’

Gyuri
had had the same argument that morning with Elek who was cock-a-hoop over the
news. ‘I told you this couldn’t go on much longer,’ Elek had said. Gyuri
summoned up a simplified, profanity-free version of his thesis for British
consumption.’I know the Russians have lost one fight. They are leaving. But I
do not believe they will say: “Oh. You want to be independent. We’re so sorry
we didn’t understand that you didn’t want us here.” They will return.’

There
was more quivering of stiff upper lips in amusement at the wary Hungarian who
had no grasp of the international situation. ‘No,’ pronounced the military
attaché, ‘they’re finished here.’

‘Indeed,’
said
The Times,
‘I’m
willing to bet you five pounds that they don’t come back. You can give me a few
Hungarian lessons when I win.’

‘I hope
you do win,’ said Gyuri.

Jadwiga
had told Gyuri to meet her at the Corvin and going there he stopped on the
Körút to buy a newspaper. A Soviet corpse was still lying there, an unusual
sight now, since the dead had been mostly packed away out of sight. Something
metallic glinted on his wrist. It looked familiar: an Omega watch, like the one
the Red Army had relieved him of back in ’44, exactly the same model. He undid
the strap, and looked on the back of the watch. There were the initials Gy. R ‘Thanks
very much for looking after it,’ he said, pocketing the watch.

Walking
across to the newsagent, a shout stopped him. It was Róka. ‘Hey class alien!
This is what you want,’ he said, handing Gyuri one of the stack of papers he
was nursing. ‘Kill anyone interesting?’ he enquired. ‘Not really,’ Gyuri
replied, ‘but I was being choosy.’ Róka had spent most of the livefire time
chasing a lorryload of AVO who were keen on surprise atrocities; they would
flip open the flaps on the lorry’s rear and blast away at anyone in view, male
or female, young or old, unarmed or unarmed. Róka’s crew had missed them
several times by seconds. The story ended with the AVO being last seen motoring
in the direction of the Angyalföld. ‘They couldn’t have lasted more than ten
minutes,’ Róka obituarised. The paper that Róka had handed over was entitled
The Truth.
‘I’m working on the editorial
committee,’ he explained proudly. ‘Oh, before I forget, Hepp wants everyone out
at the club at Hepp-time, Monday morning. He says we’ve wasted enough time.’
With a parting injunction to look up Gyurkovics, who had managed to get himself
put in charge of the distribution of a vast amount of processed cheese from
Switzerland, Róka carried on down the street dishing out his journal to anyone
willing to take it.

Gyuri
had never thought he would ever in his life earnestly want to read a Hungarian
newspaper. Newspapers were now teeming with the sort of increases that could normally
only be found in the production figures of Communist enterprises.

The old
papers had changed, they had received editorial transplants and new ones were
springing up like mushrooms. They weren’t much good but you did have the novel
sensation of wanting to read what they had to say. You couldn’t tell before you
read the paper what would be in it; now you got all those things that hadn’t
been there for nearly ten years, opinions that weren’t the Party’s. Casting his
eye over
The Truth,
Gyuri read some soggy new poetry, some exhausted old poetry and some articles
about the 23rd which hardly counted as news. It was still a pleasure to read.

After
the fighting, the tidying up. Everywhere, shattered glass, masonry and martial
litter was being victoriously swept up by the city-proud populace. Soviet
wreckage was being pushed out of roads so that traffic could circulate
properly. Everyone was on their best behaviour as if the Revolution was an
honoured guest they wanted to impress with their hospitality and civility. A
bubble of decency had risen out of the earth’s core and burst in Budapest.
Peasants were driving in from the countryside with their carts to distribute
food to whoever they came across, dishing out sacks of potatoes, apples,
marrows, some late melons. In a broken jewellers’ window Gyuri saw a note
explaining that the contents had been taken to the flat above for safe-keeping.
There were cardboard boxes on pavements marked ‘for the fallen’, overflowing
with banknotes contributed for the dependents of the dead.

The
worst fighting or the best fighting depending on how you felt about it had all
been around the Corvin Cinema. The Corvin Cinema was not a very salubrious or
comfortable cinema, as a cinema it wasn’t much to brag about, but as if with
astonishing forethought, it couldn’t have been better designed for street
fighting. The circular cinema was surrounded by a ring of flats with lots of
convenient alleyways in and out.

But the
Corvin had not been the only streetfighting club. All over Budapest they had
jack-in-the-boxed. Even around the Corvin,
there had been stiff competition: the Prater utca school, just behind the
Corvin, and, just across the road, on the other side of the Űllői út, the
Kilián Barracks, the home of a ‘C’ battalion, a collection of soldiers
considered by the authorities to have no commitment to the cause of Communism,
who had been down for even more than the usual excessive ditch-digging and
road-laying and who generally had a menial, unpaid, unfed time and who had been
particularly interested to hear about the Revolution.

As if
that wasn’t enough, running parallel to the Űllői út which had been the major
route into Budapest for the Soviet troops, was the Túzoltó út, a ludicrously
narrow street which had sired its own warriors, known locally reasonably
enough, as the Túzoltó boys, who had pulled off one of the neatest coups of the
fighting, known locally as the Túzoltó massacre. Seeing that his comrades were
having nasty, mainly fatal, accidents on the Űllői út as they came to look for
hooligans and reactionaries, a Soviet tank commander had made the decision to
go down Túzoltó út. Five tanks had gone in, but none had come out.

‘We got
the first tank and we got the last tank,’ one of the participants (a leading
water-polo player) had related to Gyuri. ‘So the other three were stuck there.
They weren’t going anywhere. We had a break for lunch and then we finished them
off.’ So gorged was Túzoltó út with bits of Soviet tanks that the boys had to
move their operations to another street.