Parallel Stories: A Novel (100 page)

He told me how they managed to reach the Kilián Barracks, which was under constant fire. People broke through to our house from a cellar on Eötvös Street; from there, passing under several buildings, one could get to Szófia Street.

By dawn, we were out of the mousetrap.

This is how I learned—from him on the train, quite by chance, while the inrushing wind puffed up the unbuttoned shirt on his chest—that on that particular night not just in our building and not only in the neighboring buildings but all over Budapest people were opening up an underground labyrinth.

By the summer of ’57, however, one remembered nothing of this, or at least no one spoke of these matters. Everyone was responsible for erasing their personal memories. Or maybe I couldn’t or wouldn’t remember. It was strange to listen to him above the infernal clattering of the train wheels, and to stare through his open shirt at his razor-sharp lean brown body. But I’d probably have told others the story the same way as he was telling it to me, free of emotion, as if he were modestly defending himself from his own sentimentality or as if he were telling the story to himself, without self-pity. We were hurtling into an unknowable night. He must have known that I was familiar with the core of the story. A few words sufficed to remind us that we had met once before; a shy blink was enough to ascertain what the other thought of these things. This was the older boy who on that memorable early morning had stopped me on Podmaniczky Street and asked me where we were going, and I had told him to Glázner’s for bread, the one the nice woman called down to from the second floor.

She had called him Pistike.

When with the ammo box on his shoulder he had unexpectedly leaned toward me and was so close to my face in the darkness that he flooded me with his mild breath, I felt I had been caught doing something wrong.

We had exchanged only a few words.

His speech was not very refined. Still, I felt I should stay with him so I could fight too.

As if preparing for some peaceful celebration or festivity, bright lights were shining from the windows of the upper floors.

At the same time, the attraction frightened me, because it was as though I had a view of myself as another figure, more beautiful and more sharply drawn, and because of that I could not possibly part from him. Until then I had been but a shadow, but now I had before my eyes the body itself. As if staying with him depended not on my cowardice or courage but on his beauty. Despite the fact that in those days I was interested in many things but not in beauty. Somehow, it was easier then to look beyond people’s ugliness or beauty. In the general turmoil one’s eyes searched more for signs and peculiarities of character; that’s what seemed important. This boy was dangerous; one should be cautious with him, even fear him. It was as if I had to be afraid of myself. I did not want anything irrevocable to happen to me; I walked on; but after a few steps, I wanted to look back, and that is how my leaving became irrevocable.

Even though I too could have lugged ammo on my shoulder.

Which in the language of feelings meant that it would have been better, after all, for me to stay with him. The situation of the street could be gauged in a second.

Their ammo dump was in the onetime concierge’s booth in the building opposite; from there they carried the ammo up to the roof for the sharpshooters. For days people on the radio had been talking of snipers, who did not stop until the final cease-fire was established among the Russians, the government, and the rebels. The rebels chose firing positions that bullets from the street could not reach. Tank barrels could not be raised to such a steep angle, so from a roof the rebels could control an entire street. Buildings were destroyed by cannon fire from far away, or Russian tanks fired until every support beam and wall underneath had been blown out, when the roofs, along with the rebels’ firing positions, crashed to the lower floors.

Nevertheless, important transportation hubs remained in rebel hands.

Just such a battle must have raged here the night before, and the Russians, unsuccessful in their efforts, retreated with their cannons to the basilica. But I had barely reached the pillaged corner, where the contents of the former photo store with all its furnishing and equipment had spilled out on the sidewalk and glass mixed in the debris was creaking under our feet, when I was already forgetting my stupid wish to stay with that boy. I gave up the idea of fighting and with it I also gave up any moral superiority. I was on my way to get bread, and the more important question was how to cross the street and who’d have the courage to go first. Even without aiming accurately, from the basilica the Russians could fire into any part of Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Road; a careless step or movement in the early morning darkness would be enough to set them off.

By the summer of the following year, however, I couldn’t even remember on what day this happened and at first had no idea from where I knew this boy.

Maybe it happened on Sunday, but probably on Monday, at dawn on October 29.

For a short time, standing near the train toilet, we tried to figure out when we had met. Sunday, he exclaimed, because the bakers didn’t work over Saturday-Sunday night.

I already had my hand on the toilet door handle—that’s where we met again, on the speeding train, in front of the toilet.

Definitely not on October 30, because that day I’d never confuse with any other, not even accidentally. That was the day of lynching, with riffraff loose on murderous rampages everywhere in Budapest. And I don’t think he meant to remember or to remind me of anything in particular; he began to talk just to ease his embarrassment.

In fear that he might involuntarily have exposed himself to me and I might inform on him to the police.

Even among the rebels, most of them are sleazebags.

I didn’t quite understand why he called them sleazebags, but in fact I was an eyewitness; I could testify against him anytime.

That summer, normal people no longer talked about the events of the previous autumn, and certainly not about what kind of people the rebels might or might not have been. The rebels were no longer spoken of. For a while, I was grinning in embarrassment that I had initiated such a conversation right by the train toilet and was ready to listen to such an unpleasantly candid recitation. What did he want with this story. He was trying to figure out whether I was a provocateur and I was wondering whether he was an informer. At times like this you can feel in the corner of your mouth the unpleasant twitching of the other person’s distrust. True, we were talking in very low tones, the train was rattling underneath us, and we were on an open platform, children were asleep inside, piled on one another, and, their jaws open, the German nurses or whoever they may have been were dozing off in their compartments. We were in the charge of Sister Klára, an older woman with very observant eyes who paid particular attention to me. I could see she wasn’t watching me so much because I spoke a little German, but she watched me everywhere and whatever I was doing. I was anxious about her attention. These nurses wore gray uniforms with white collars and white aprons; the small gray caps on their heads had a large cross with red borders.

Nobody could hear what we were talking about.

Another reason it was inadvisable to talk was that it seemed better not to know about things that someone else knew. I had no way of knowing the things he didn’t talk about. And maybe that was the reason we couldn’t stop talking. With every word, our knowledge of each other accumulated, and that’s why we had no choice but to trust each other.

It was as if we were mutually forcing our secrets on each other.

Later, we urinated together, which he initiated.

He said, fuck, we were already buddies forever, weren’t we. Why would we be ashamed of showing our cocks to each other.

There was some profound truth in this because, thanks to our jabbering, we had instantly lost our independence.

Whenever he said something concerning which he counted on my confidence, I had to reciprocate by saying something with which I would gain his. I couldn’t tell him that I wouldn’t urinate with anybody and certainly not because of my cock. This was the hardest thing, to trust each other, to entrust him with something secret that would make life riskier than it already was. Because you had the feeling you were becoming somebody’s friend not of your own free will but because of a compelling necessity, and that is not a pleasant feeling at all. Or as if you were flaunting your own candor and confidence so that you could appease the other person or bring him to his knees with his voluntarily accepted vulnerability. This kind of chumminess could be nauseating. But now, the train and the insane journey had somehow lifted or torn us out of the conventional, shadowy world of compulsions and unpleasantnesses, had somewhat lessened the force of its strict regulations.

The train was taking us on a vacation so exceptional that we could not know in advance when it would end or even where exactly we would spend it. Everything would be decided in Dresden, where they might put us on a different train or not; some kids might be taken to the sea, others to the mountains.

Sister Klára talked of these things in big generalizations, as if she herself was not quite certain of them.

In brief, although the general emergency condition continued in uncertainty, no authority or person could come up with surprises, at least until we reached the border.

We were still clattering across the landscapes of our country; our train didn’t stop at any stations but sped through them, blowing its whistle, or stopped for long periods in open areas. A special train illuminated by pale lights in the sweltering summer night. We were truly free on the train.

When the train suddenly braked and stopped in an open field, the night around us, resounding with crickets, seemed to pulsate.

Or if we were not quite free yet, we would be somewhat free out there, beyond the border.

That year, the sizzling summer had burst on us suddenly just as the school year ended.

The official notification said that one should report at such and such a time to the departure hall of East Station; having to be in the departure hall was itself a good sign. Assembly at train number 2; length of stay abroad undetermined; group passport in conformity with ticket of participation. Didn’t understand a word of this. The only difference in our papers was that some had to report to train number 1 or 3; I had to go to number 2. But nobody knew what this meant or how a ticket of participation would turn into a group passport. I had never been abroad. It felt as if I were going to Paris to see my mother, who of course was not expecting me, was not in the least interested in me, and whom I did not even remember; I didn’t even know whether she was still living in Paris or if she was alive at all.

I yearned, I thirsted for the sea because abroad meant not only my mother but also infinity.

The two distant objects of my yearning had somewhat blended together the night before my trip, and because of that, like a child, I developed a temperature and fell asleep at the table, my head buried in my arms. As if along with the sea, I might have my mother again too. Or if I couldn’t, I’d be given an even larger body of water, one unknown to me but whose grandeur I would remember. Nobody knew of this pipe dream of mine, just as I had to keep secret that I had a temperature. They might have noticed, though, that I was paler and even more reticent than usual. Nínó felt my forehead. I was still shivering in the rapidly warming morning as we hurried to the railway station with Ágó.

In the huge, glass-covered sunlit station several thousand children and even more relatives were thronging and grumbling. Since my grandmother had died nobody had kissed me, nobody had touched me, nobody had hugged me. Beautiful Ágó and I could not stand each other. I did not have to fear tenderness from him; he would definitely not have noticed that I had a fever. He did not care much about anybody but himself. Just then he was preoccupied mainly with his ancient Mercedes Nürnberg, left parked in the blazing sun, which he claimed had been made especially for Pope Pius and in which for days the radiator water had been coming to a boil.

As soon as we set foot in the station, the sight of the crowd made him even crosser, he mentioned his car again, and my yearning had to subside, perhaps my temperature too. In the throng there was no longer room for promises made to individuals. I knew what I could expect; the collective dread would continue. Neither of us felt like wading into the crowd; I set down my suitcase at my side. It would have been better to be sick and stay home. Who could have known that the children’s vacation operation in East Germany would be so enormous. We were counting on being offered some privileges to cope with our problems.

Ágost kept looking around to see whom he could turn to in the crowd, wondering what he should do among so many disgusting human beings.

The glass-covered part of the station was completely empty that morning; the usual traffic had been redirected to the outer tracks. Only three long trains stood on the indoor tracks, but the police had cordoned off the way to them. Even the railroad workers couldn’t tell the hysterical relatives where these trains were going, or maybe they were not allowed to say. It seemed there was no information to be had from anyone. Ágost did not move; he stood like a statue. I asked people what was happening here, what was supposed to happen to us. Only people who had registered earlier could cross the police cordon, which meant people who had turned over their participant’s tickets at the table where the crowd bunched up and everybody was shouting. A child’s name would be looked up and checked off on a list, then the child’s papers would not be returned, and instead they gave the child a number, whereupon the boy or girl had to say good-bye to the accompanying adults.

The German sisters practically tore the smaller children away from their relatives or escorts and pushed and shoved them along with their luggage across the cordon, from where they staggered to their trains, mainly by themselves, while the sisters kept yelling after them in German, there, not that way, the other track. These were stern, disinterested women, though some gently smiling deaconesses were among them.