Under the frog (34 page)

* * *

It was
the artillery that woke them up. Faraway, but forceful. Gyuri looked out of the
window. Darkness, stillness. No sign of dawn or the Russians but both were
coming. Switching on the radio, they heard Imre Nagy announce the obvious
attack by the Russians and state that Hungarian forces were fighting. This was
followed by an appeal for help from abroad. He got dressed, since misfortune
had to be faced in trousers, the juices in his stomach can-canning.

‘We
must go to the Corvin,’ said Jadwiga. Gyuri really didn’t want to go to the
Corvin. He wasn’t at all pleased at being right. Being right, he discovered,
doesn’t necessarily do any more good than being wrong. He had thought he had
been angry before but he realised his previous rages had only been false starts
compared to his present anger. Thanks to the Red Army, he was going to explode,
but he didn’t want to fight. He was trembling from a mixture of ninety per cent
fury and ten per cent fright. He wanted to suggest going to the border, but he
knew Jadwiga wouldn’t listen. He suggested it anyway, knowing he would regret
it more if he didn’t. ‘Let’s go to Austria,’ he said.

‘You
don’t mean that,’ she retorted.

They
ran out into the streets, Jadwiga carrying her favourite gun. There were few
people, and those that were out, whether armed or unarmed, didn’t seem to know
what to do. He tried to keep the thoughts submerged because he didn’t want them
to come into the world because they wouldn’t help but he couldn’t keep them
down; they floated up to the surface.
We’re going to lose. We’re going to be killed.
They bobbed around in his mind.
The other people looked to Gyuri as if they were holding down the same prompts.
Stealthily, they reached the Körút, which Gyuri suddenly recognised as the
street where he was going to die. ‘I feel safe with you,’ said Jadwiga cocking
her weapon, which was intriguing because Gyuri certainly didn’t feel safe with
himself.

Kurucz
was also making his way along the Körút, slithering along the doorways, a
couple of grenades in his belt, carrying his gun ready to use it; Kurucz was
one of the professional soldiers who had ended up at the Corvin. The sight of
Kurucz cheered Gyuri up; Kurucz was a close personal friend of surviving.

Clever.
Lucky. Kurucz didn’t make mistakes and would take a lot of killing. Being close
to him might cast some protection on them. Gyuri noticed his pullover was on
back to front.

‘You
heard about Maleter?’ Kurucz asked. Gyuri shook his head. Colonel Maleter had
been appointed Minister of Defence a few days earlier on the strength of his
activities at the Kilián Barracks. ‘Went to have supper last night with the
Soviet High Command, didn’t come back.’ More good news, thought Gyuri, deafened
by the voice that was shouting
you’re going to die
in his ear.

‘Well,
military leadership was never this country’s strong point,’ observed Kurucz. It
was stupid, but Gyuri couldn’t help thinking things would have been different
if Pataki had stayed. Pataki wouldn’t have let this happen. Pataki wouldn’t
have been conned by a load of fat Soviet generals. He wouldn’t have let them
shit all over the country. Gyuri couldn’t see how but somehow Pataki would have
foxed them, or at least not lost the match before the start.

‘If
only Pataki were here…’ he said, trying to think what to do.

‘If you
were better read you wouldn’t say such things,’ snapped Jadwiga. Gyuri didn’t
understand what she meant but she was always having bouts of Slav mysticism.

The
Corvin seemed to be getting the brunt of the attack, the price of celebrity, a
murderous tribute to its teenage army. Aircraft, artillery and new, larger
tanks were all in action. They inched down the Körút but it looked suicidal
trying to get any closer. They were behind a pile of sandbags, remnants of the
earlier round of fighting, when one of the tanks, hundreds of yards away,
opened fire.

Half
the building behind them disappeared. It took Gyuri a while to convince himself
he was still alive and that all the components of his body were in the right
places and still working. Jadwiga was next to him, covered in dust and debris.
When he saw her wound two thoughts raced through him, the axiom that stomach
wounds were always fatal, and the other that his sanity couldn’t cope with
this. Holding her as if that would help, he tried to keep the horror from his
face, the knowledge that he was about to see the last thing anyone wanted to
see, the death of the one he loved.

She
knew anyway. ‘You won’t forget me,’ she said.

* * *

Nigel
was whiling away the time before the start of World War Three by polishing all
the shoes he could lay his hands on in the Legation.

The
phone was ringing. Nigel had answered it once.’Hello, British Legation,’ he had
said.

‘We are
trapped. We are going to die,’ a voice had said. It was a rich, deep, calm
voice that spoke fluent English with only enough of a Hungarian accent to give
a pleasing colour; you could imagine the voice belonging to a professor of
English literature. Nigel didn’t know what to say. Clearly commiserations were
in order, but there was nothing at hand in his immediate etiquette to cover a
situation like this. The voice carried on though, fortunately, without giving
Nigel a chance to participate. ‘Our building is completely surrounded by
Russians. We will fight to the last bullet, but we will die. We don’t matter,
but you must help our country. Hungary must be free– ’ The line had gone dead.

Everyone
was chipping in, running things in the Legation but Nigel wasn’t going to
answer the phone any more. The building was a refuge for a strange mixture of
Britons, well-wishing students, adventurers, journalists, holidaymakers and
two businessmen whose unflinching devotion to marketing their brand of
razor-blade in the face of history was remarkable. No one talked about it but
there was an unspoken assumption that war was going to break out and they would
be well behind enemy lines; whatever was going to happen it wouldn’t be
pleasant. Everyone had been presented with a copy of their own death.

Nigel
had opted to clean shoes since it gave him something to do and as he joked, ‘We
want to look good when the Russians capture us. My old housemaster would never
forgive me if I met my end with dulled footwear.’ The BBC journalist was
roaming up and down the building, clutching a bottle of vodka, and repeatedly
accosting any female on sight with ‘Anybody for a fuck?’ Nigel could see the
Minister would be making representations to the BBC when this was over, if he
were in a position to do so. The Minister took a dim view of journalists; the
correspondent of the
Daily Worker
had almost been barred by him. ‘Shouldn’t you be
outside with your Communist friends?’

The
political attaché and the military attaché strolled up to where Nigel had set
up his shoe-cleaning business.

‘Kadar
has finally resurfaced. He’s been broadcasting from somewhere saying he’s
established a workers-peasants’ government which has invited the Russians to
tidy up. I’d love to count the number of workers and peasants in his
government,’ remarked the political.

‘Who’s
Kadar?’ asked Nigel.

‘Was
Minister of the Interior under Rákosi. Home-grown Communist as opposed to the
Muscovites. Was also a Minister in Nagy’s latest government but he seemed to
get tired of it and disappeared a few days ago.’

‘Anyone
know where he’s been?’ asked the military attaché.

‘Somewhere
safely Soviet, I’d venture. He’s probably spent the week trying to think up a
new configuration of socialist/ worker/party to name his new outfit. But he’s
stuck with the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, which Nagy thought up. I
suppose all the variants have been used up.’

‘Mmmm.
I suppose it’s time to earn the King’s shilling,’ said
the military attaché, stepping out into the Revolution.

* * *

You don’t
get any braver, you just get tired, bored with fear, thought Gyuri as he
scrambled over the wall to land in the Kerepesi
Cemetery. He and Kurucz ran through, dodging gravestones and undergrowth. Where
were the others? Gyuri wondered. Looking back, he could see the Mongols coming
over the wall.

The
return of the Red Army relied largely on troops from Central Asia or some
slant-eyed part of the Union. Unlike troops who had been stationed in Hungary
and had some idea what was going on, Gyuri had heard the Mongols thought they
were fighting at the Suez Canal. They certainly didn’t mind killing people.

Kurucz
signalled that they should make a stand. Gyuri still had enough energy to
savour the irony of having a shoot-out in a cemetery; very convenient for the
people who had to clean up afterwards. The Mongols moved cautiously, as if
expecting American paratroopers to open up on them at any moment. All day Gyuri
had been hearing stories about American paratroopers arriving all over Hungary,
particularly in places where they weren’t needed. Well, if they didn’t hurry
up, it would soon be over.

A lot
of Party people are buried here, Gyuri noted, hoping he could find a cadre
tombstone to shelter behind so that it would get shot up.

Kurucz
gave their pursuers a magazine’s worth, really working their cardiovascular
systems, maybe nicking one of the yellow bastards. He and Kurucz fell back a
few yards further to a gigantic mausoleum, a sort of mini-history of
architecture, composed of a dozen different styles, perhaps to cover any
changes in fashion up to Judgment Day. It looked awful but must have cost a
fortune. ‘In memory of the Gerebend family’ read the inscription. The Gerebend
family are going to take some punishment, thought Gyuri.

He and
Kurucz were both short of ammunition. Kurucz still had one grenade but that was
it. They could start throwing rocks after that. The Mongols argued loudly about
their strategy, a long way off. After a few minutes, one of them appeared,
crawling on his belly, weapon cradled in his arms in the textbook manner but
out in the open. Did he think he was invisible? It was insulting.

Gyuri
felt a flash of anger on his emotional palate. He’d missed his targets all
morning but with his last two rounds he hit the serpentine Mongol. The Mongol
turned out to be a screamer, expressing eloquently in a universal language how
painful it was to be shot.

There
was more hurried, Asiatic consultation and then from a wide front came small
arms fire, chipping away at the Gerebend family’s final abode. Gyuri could tell
Kurucz wanted to hang around and try and gouge their eyes out but he indicated
they should leave. It was easy. They left the cemetery while the shooting
continued with a bit of perfunctory grenade-lobbing. The Mongols would be there
for hours before they realised they had used the back door.

‘I’m going down the Űllői út,’ said Kurucz.

‘You won’t come back,’ said Gyuri, noting by the sound of his voice he was
hysterical. He wouldn’t have believed he had enough vigour for that. The Űllői út was a preview of the end of the world, a little localised armageddon. It was safer firing a revolver in your mouth.

‘I
lived like a worm for a long time,’ said Kurucz, although Gyuri couldn’t
envisage Kurucz doing so. ‘I’m glad I can die like a man. Where are you going?’

‘Out West. Austria,’ replied Gyuri.

‘You won’t come back either.’

Gyuri threw away his empty gun. If he needed another gun, he could pick one up off
any street-corner, and carrying one didn’t do you any favours. ‘The Red Army
won’t forget about its outing in Budapest,’ said Kurucz. ‘It’s been … well,
people will write about us.’

Clinging to walls all the way home, Gyuri crashed into the British military attaché,
recessed in a doorway, observing the proceedings. The way Gyuri greeted him in
English made the attaché realise they were acquainted, though he obviously
couldn’t place Gyuri. ‘Awesome, these new tanks,’ he said gesturing at a herd
on the other side of Hósök Square, ‘those new guns too, formidable rate of
fire.’ Gyuri nodded because he was unable to add anything to the conversation.
He merely smiled politely in the way one does when one’s country has been
invaded by interesting new tanks. The attaché was carrying an umbrella, Gyuri
observed, as all Englishmen should.

At home, the flat was empty. Elek had, along with everyone else in the block,
taken refuge in the cellar, just as they had done during the siege in ’44. In a
final act of defiance and rebellion, Gyuri climbed into his bed and slept
indefatigably for the next twenty hours in truly passive resistance.

* * *

He was
woken by István moving around in the lounge. István was taking down a landscape
picture off the wall, an oil painting so ghastly that it had been snubbed by
legions of plundering Soviet soldiers and even when they had been starving Elek
had been unable to find anyone willing to take it off their hands for a few
forints. ‘A tank put a machine-gun round through our still life,’ said István. ‘Ilona
insisted that I find something to replace it. Been fighting, have you? I can
tell you, you look frightening enough.’

Gyuri
rummaged in the kitchen for food, out of reflex rather than hunger. ‘Where’s
Jadwiga?’ asked István. The look that Gyuri gave him made everything plain.

Gyuri
started putting on layers of clothing. When he got to his overcoat, he reached
into a pocket and put Jadwiga’s effects, some identity cards and rings, on the
table. He kept the passport. ‘I need a favour. When things get settled, could
you send these to Poland?’ Grabbing his scarf, he said to István. ‘I’m off.
Have a good life and so on.’

Hamstrung
by sadness, it was a long walk.
Dear God,
thought Gyuri,
does it really have to be
like this
? It was colder than usual for November, and it seemed much blacker at six than
it should have been, as if the Russians had imported extra darkness with
themselves and dawn had given up. There weren’t many trains running, but the
Keleti Station had a train, greatly over-subscribed, getting ready to leave. It
wasn’t a train taking people anywhere in Hungary, although nominally it had a
Hungarian destination. Although no one said so, everyone knew it was the slow
train to Vienna.