Under Budapest (20 page)

“
I'm
pretending, Agi? You wanted him to run away with you, to be your husband. I just wanted him between my legs. Which do you think he chose?”

Her sister gloats, so in love with her posturing, sure of herself, and her murderous beauty, sure that she'll win because she's always been the lucky one, the untouched and protected one, the brave one. So Agi lets go.

The Safe Room

He hears it first, the crack of his own skull against the brick wall, the pain a moment late. Two uniformed men stand in front of him. Just two weeks ago, they would have been the ones in hiding or running for their lives and this shows in their faces—their satisfaction, happy to be on the winning side again. Revolution over, Gyula, too, is once again exactly what he'd always been: a skinny, bookish man with the hands of a pianist, not a fighter. One punch to the gut knocks the air out of him before he can straighten. He crumples forward. Don't go down. The next one smashes into his cheek, and his shoulder lands on frozen ground. The toe of a boot meets his kidneys. The grunt of pain comes from outside him. Who else is being beaten in this stone-cold yard? Christ. He prays. No one to save him. There was never any other ending, and they all know it's only what he deserves. Another kick, this time to the hand protecting his skull. Fingers splinter. He screams. A boot readies itself above his knee.
Zsofi
.

They caught him on Aldas Utca. He heard the rumbling truck behind him, heard it slowing down. His left hand tightened on the satchel he held, meaningless. An older man walking toward him looked decisively innocent, and Gyula restrained his pace, reminding himself that from the back he looked like any comrade on his way to the office. Before leaving the house, he'd shrugged into one of his father's good coats—about three sizes too big, but it was warm and innocuous. At the last minute, he picked up the soft leather briefcase, its handle polished to a dark shine by years of his father's grip. If he'd seen himself in the mirror, he'd have recognized how inept a disguise it was. His unshaven face hovered pale and hollow-eyed above the clownishly large coat. The briefcase dangled, obviously empty of papers, from an ungloved hand. But Gyula hadn't checked the mirror, and now he just kept going because once the choice is made, it's made. No turning back. Maybe they were slowing for someone else—those hurrying, slender women up ahead perhaps, who were also refusing to look over their shoulders. He kept his gaze straight ahead and put one flimsy-soled foot in front of the other. He'd found these shoes a week ago on a dead man, and they were better than the ones he'd worn right out, but not by much. If he had to run, he'd slip. So he wouldn't run. In less than ten metres, he would take a left and let the truck continue on its way down the hill to the city. He counted every step. Perspiration streamed between his shoulder blades. He just had to get to a pharmacy. Or a hospital. Either would do. Zsofi wouldn't even know he'd left. He'd bandage her up. In a few days, they'd be sharing a can of ham by candlelight, and he'd tell her how, seized by fear, he couldn't turn around and all he could think about was his lousy shoes. She'd giggle like she used to.

“You. Halt.”

Don't look back. Never look back.

“You.” A shot. Gyula dropped his satchel.

He comes to in the back of a rattling canvas-covered army truck crammed full of men like him. His head is on another man's legs. He's not dead. The straining engine, the grind and clatter over broken roads fills his ears. His gaze finds its focus on the face of a boy opposite, no more than twelve years old. Blue eyes stare straight ahead, unseeing, from an unbruised face. He's not dead either. As the truck swerves, bodies shift, a man's elbow lands on Gyula's knee. Again, he loses consciousness.

It didn't occur to him to love her, at first. That seems impossible now, that he might have missed her.

The first time he kissed her, he hadn't meant it like that. It really was a misunderstanding. He climbed out of the tank, his mind swarming with the unimaginable: men with their heads beaten in, men upside down with their hair on fire, men's guts on the sidewalk in front of the store where he used to buy cigarettes, dead men and women and children too. A mind clustered with death. But he was a soldier, a champion. And he pushed himself up out of the tank's belly not victorious but petrified and guilty, and wishing for grace. And there she was, waving both arms in the air like a kid, her hair unbrushed and her smile all joy.
Victory.
She shouted, like he was some hero. And she threw her arms around him and when he kissed her she tasted like onions.

He noticed her in the cafeteria, waiting in line for the boiled potatoes and cabbage.

“Zsofi.”

He meant to greet her casually, soldier to soldier, but when she turned, he felt a flutter in his belly and blushed.

“Thank God. Nobody's seen you all day, Gyula.”

His tongue twisted. He had no answer. His heart ham­mering. Could she tell?

Yes. Yes, she could. She grinned now, sure of her power. “You look hungry. I'll let you butt in line if you want.”

She came to him that night. The room was freezing cold, and under the covers he was fully dressed. Around them, the slumber, snores, sleep-mumbles of the other revolutionaries. She said nothing as she wrested him first from sleep and then from his clothes. No speaking, no naming, no imagining. No permission. No hesitation. Only a hurry of hands, the scrape of held breath, the fall of smooth hair in his face and her skin was cold, but her mouth so hot.

November 8, when it was clear the revolution was crashing, they hid in a burnt-out building along with six others. They had two nights together there. They found a shell of a room and called it their own. No roof to shelter them from the snow that had only just started falling so they burrowed under old rugs, made a cocoon, heated it with just body and breath. There was nothing more they needed. He fell asleep between her legs; he woke with his cock in her mouth. He licked her, bit her, screwed her. They fucked so hard they bruised. It was happiness so furious and so real it made everything else go away. Then someone warned them and they scrambled out of their perfect home and they ran, hand in hand, back ways that Gyula knew. To the safe room. They should have gone there first. Why hadn't they?

She was hit. He couldn't blame himself for that; it was so random. They were running, there was gunfire. It could have been anyone.

The truck stops. Outside the truck, men call out.

“Good haul?”

“Not bad for a day's work.”

Tires screech and the truck's back door clanks open. Cold rushes in. Those who can walk are hustled off. Those who can't are dragged. He forces himself to sit up and, pushing against shoulders and grasping the cold metal of the truck's ribs, cantilevers himself to standing. A hand yanks him from truck to ground. The pain in his knee nearly overtakes him—a dark, dizzying, nauseating wave.
Don't fall
. And he's fol­lowing the man in front of him across a courtyard, through an ordinary open door that could be anywhere but isn't. His bad leg is a stubborn old dog on a leash. Step, drag. Step, drag. Another door and a stairwell. He steadies himself against the wall to get down the stairs. He's slowing down the line. The man behind him—who?—comes around front and puts Gyula's two arms over his shoulders. One flight and another he descends, half carried on the back of this strong, two-legged soul.
Thank you
. At the turn of each flight, a grey-painted metal door bears a white number: -1, -2, -3. The paint is flaking. Some numbers are partial. But he's not going to die today. He can't die. -5. How deep is this prison? With every level they descend, panic mounts: panic -7, -8.

Agi's mother had always claimed there was a city down here, an insane negative of the world above, where her husband (against all odds) survived. Gyula pitied the woman for her irrational fantasies, pitied Agi for having such a mother. “She just can't bear the truth,” he soothed, stroking Agi's cheek.

And yet here he is, dragged and hobbled, being carried deeper and deeper as if captive in someone else's nightmare. They reach an open door, finally, and still draped over this stranger, he proceeds through it: -11. The hallway extends the length of a city block, at least. Door after door after door. Four at a time, men file off. It's a dance, a measured courtly counting without music. A flat-nosed guard is in charge of doors. His keys rattle; locks unlock; locks lock.
Rattle-rattle.
He loves his keys. He hates these men. Cell 1108. You, you. Gyula's new friend dumps him on a thin, uncovered mattress. Two men follow.

“Welcome home, boys.”

Keys rattle. Lock locks. “NO.”

Gyula tries to push himself off the cot, but his knee buckles. “NO,” he screams again, as if he's the only one condemned. As if anyone's listening. “NONONONONO.”

“Look at me.” The voice is stern, commanding, and in his face. It's the man who carried him. “I am Molnar Dezso, but people call me Gombas. What's your name?”

Gyula swerves, veers, focuses on the face: ugly, deeply cratered, eyes black as a gypsy's.

“
Look
. You're in prison, but you're alive. You hear me? They haven't finished you. Your name,” the man repeats, firmly this time.

His name? What does it matter? He dropped it in the sewer, for Chrissake. They were eleven fucking storeys below ground and he'd never get out and if
he
never got out,
Zsofi
would never get out. A scream of terror gathers at the base of his skull, but the ugly face stays put.

“Your name.” The man's voice is a rope. It smacks him.

“Gyula.” For one, two, three seconds, it's true. “Gyula Farkas.” He is in a small, cold concrete cell, with this man and two others. The others stand; they, too, watch him. I am Gyula Farkas, and the world holds steady. I am Gyula Farkas, and the pain in his jaw when he says the words pins body and soul together.

“Good to meet you, Gyula,” says Gombas. “We will look after each other in here.”

Gyula nods, but he can't breathe. The bare bulb in the ceiling pulses, erratic and accusing:
You took the key, you idiot. You took the goddamn key
.

The first time his father pushed the wine rack aside and unlocked the hidden door was a few months before the revolution. He explained nothing at first, only motioned for Gyula to go first. Gyula still remembers the scurrying underground fear as he dropped to his knees and crawled into the dark. He felt the earth closing in and imagined he could hear the soft sift of dirt falling. And then his father was there beside him with his flashlight. A moment later, his father found the switch and the room lit up. The safe room was square, about eight feet by eight, the ceiling just high enough for Gyula to stand, its four walls lined with rows of wooden shelves stacked upon bricks. The shelves held all kinds of necessities, many of which hadn't been seen in Budapest stores since before the war: canned goods—beans, ham, pickles, peas, peaches, sauerkraut; boxes of candles; stacks of fine white writing paper; rolls of rough grey toilet paper. At the centre of the room, directly below the lightbulb, was a small, cheap table—Gyula recognized it as the one that used to sit on their front porch—and a single chair. At the time, Gyula suspected his father must have his own reasons—smuggling, the most likely one—to create this safe, well-stocked room. He didn't ask. Though his father didn't explain why he'd suddenly decided to share his secret room with Gyula, the reason was pretty clear; Gyula's politics were going to get him in trouble eventually. And Gyula felt a deep, uncomfortable gratitude for this man whose hypocrisy he despised.

His father placed the key in the lock—a habit, obviously.

At the other end of the room was another door. “I was about eight years old when I found the tunnel,” his father said, motioning to this second door. “No, not this one. I was on Gellert, running away from bullies. I squeezed myself into a crevice to hide and found myself in what I thought was a cave. I had no idea at the time how extensive, but I came back later with matches and candles.” His fingers tapped a can of condensed milk on the shelf, and he looked at that rather than meet his son's gaze. “I spent hours underground, and not once did I see signs of anyone else. No one knows about it, Gyula. It's why I had the house built here. I'm sure there are kilometres upon kilometres of tunnel under these hills. So far, I've found only the one entrance, but there must be more. There must be, or they would have been of no use to them.”

“Them?”

“Our ancestors, Gyula. The first Hungarians. The real, true Magyars.” He looked to his son now, daring him to contradict or scorn his version of history as he opened the other door, the door to the tunnel. “Where did they go when the Turks invaded? Did you never wonder? They came here. Underground. I think they lived inside these hills, maybe for decades, maybe longer. They preserved our language, our culture, our Christianity.”

Gyula expected that the second door from the safe room would open onto a beautiful and vast underground cathedral or a well-scaffolded hall that stretched beyond what he could see. But the door opened onto a narrow passage no more than three feet wide, five feet high where he stood, which dwindled to probably just two feet high.

“Through there, Gyula, right through that hole, a whole network of ancient tunnels. We just have to find the way in.”

What was clear to Gyula was that his father was mad, delusional. Kilometres of tunnels? A thousand years old? But, at the same time, perhaps tunnelling in search of tunnels was no more or less insane than what his father did every day, which was to send men to Siberia and then come home to dinner with his family, make love to his wife, help his son with his math homework as if with a clear conscience and whole mind.

His father turned the key in the first door, from safe room to the cellar, and again motioned for Gyula to go first. Once they were back in the cellar that had once seemed so normal, his father placed the key in his hand. It was preposterous: ornate, too big to carry comfortably in a pocket.

“Door locks automatically,” his father said. “I keep the key here.” And he went to a corner of the cellar, lifted a stone from the wall. At his father's nod, Gyula snugged the key in.