Anastasia Read online

  Following showers, the players dressed and talked excitedly of the coming evening and the bars they would crash and the girls they’d meet. But first they had to “voluntarily” endure the half hour lecture from the political advisor assigned to the team. After each game, they had to listen to another dirge on the glorious work being achieved by the Party, the need for vigilance, the supremacy of Stalin, and the wondrous future that lay ahead. Non-attendance was frowned upon but today George felt invincible. He slipped away before the lecture, asking the goalkeeper, Milan Ignotus, to vouch for him – a sick mother. He only hoped Kosak believed him. Kosak, the inside-left who’d won the penalty, was the only true communist amongst them, the only one who took his political obligations seriously.

  George smiled as he crossed the Margaret Bridge into Pest. His team-mates would be in the midst of the lecture now, stealing glances at their watches, desperate to escape, desperate for a drink. He stopped and gazed at the river beneath him, the city lights reflecting in the murky water, the occasional car passing behind him, the fumes hanging in the air. The names of the national players floated in his mind – Puskas, Bozsik, Kocsis. He added his own, slipping it between the familiar names as if trying it out for size. He imagined himself in the famous red shirt and white shorts, standing shoulder to shoulder with these Hungarian giants. ‘This time two weeks...’ he said to himself.

  If only his father could see it. He visualised him, with his pipe and brown suit, teaching the ten-year-old George to play with his right foot. ‘You have to play with both feet if you want to play for Hungary.’ He’d spent hours in the local park learning to shoot and tackle with his weaker foot.

  In the two years following his father’s arrest, George lost himself in football. It was as if his very existence depended on it. He wanted to be as good as he could because one day, one day, his father would return, and he so wanted to impress him. He always had. His mother slowly began to embrace his enthusiasm, even learning the subtleties of the 4-4-2 formation and the offside rule. And as his proficiency improved, so the life returned slowly to her eyes.

  The sound of a truck rattling behind him on the bridge brought George back to the present. His mother would be at home, preparing the evening meal, preparing to welcome home her conquering hero of a son. He couldn’t wait to tell her of his meeting with Decsi. All that stood in his way from realising his dreams was one of the Politburo’s pet teams, a bunch of over-hyped Soviets. This time two weeks, he thought, this time two weeks...

  Chapter 3: Eva

  I work as a history teacher. The school is close enough for me to be able to walk from our apartment. The school is large, about four hundred secondary school pupils, each classroom adorned with posters, proclaiming Hungary is a strong bastion in the camp of socialism or For us work is a matter of honour and glory. History is perhaps the most difficult of subjects, for the curriculum is constantly changing as the political fortunes of leaders past and present fluctuate. What was deemed politically acceptable yesterday is considered traitorous today. Of course, the history of Russia and the Soviet Union features large. At the moment, we are studying the recent Great Patriotic War. Until the end of the conflict we were told to worship the genius of Marshall Zhukov. Now, his role has been marginalised and it is not Zhukov we have to thank for crushing the German fascists but the military expertise of Comrade Stalin.

  My most able student is Tibor, a tall, strong boy of fifteen with floppish blond hair and bright green eyes. He has an absorbent mind and is slavishly devoted to his country and its socialist path. The girls adore him but he has time only for the heroes of communism. He likes to talk to me after class. He thinks we are like-minded, finding his fellow pupils politically immature. But recently, he has become withdrawn, a constant frown on his face. I worry for him.

  Tibor tells me he’s read Stalin’s Collected Works. I am impressed. Now, he’s reading his way through the writings of Lenin and trying to grapple with the principles of Marxist-Leninism. His enthusiasm remains undiminished. But so does the frown. After several days, I can bear it no longer and have to ask him what is it that’s troubling him so. We are in the classroom after school, the other students have gone home but Tibor wants to ask me more about the political education of soldiers during the battle of Stalingrad. I am always astounded by the ground he covers and have sometimes had to confess that he is two steps ahead of me. But when I ask him whether there’s anything the matter he shakes his head and refuses to discuss it with me.

  ‘Is it a girl?’ I ask.

  He looks embarrassed. ‘No, Miss.’

  With my chalk duster, I wipe away the day’s lesson from the blackboard. ‘You’re at a vulnerable age,’ I said, as I erased the names of Stalin and Beria. If only it could be that easy. ‘I know I’m only a woman but because of that I know when something’s wrong.’

  He fingered the pages of his book on Stalingrad. ‘Paulus surrendered, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘At Stalingrad. Paulus. Hitler made him a field marshal right at the end because –’

  ‘No German field marshal had ever surrendered before; yes, I know all that, Tibor.’ I put down the duster. ‘And today, four years on from the war, he is still a prisoner. Tibor, tell me, what’s wrong?’

  He did look at me but only for a moment. He wanted to tell me. ‘Nothing’s wrong. He can rot in hell for all I care.’

  I turned my back on him and resumed my attack on the blackboard. ‘Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

  ‘It’s my parents.’

  I stopped. Slowly, I turned round again. ‘Your parents?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can say this.’

  ‘Tibor, look at me... Whatever is on your mind, you can tell me and I promise it won’t go any further. Just you, me and these four walls.’

  He glanced round as if checking that the four walls were to be trusted. ‘They don’t believe.’ He paused, wondering whether to go on.

  ‘Believe?’

  ‘They’re traitors, Miss, they hate my love for Stalin, they say I’m mad.’ He breathed out heavily, as if relieved to have said it out loud. ‘You should hear them, always criticising the Party, saying how they’ve messed things up, how they’re ruining the country. They hate our brothers in the Soviet Union, and reckon the Hungarian leaders are simply puppets for the Politburo to do what they want.’ He was looking at me now, his eyes burning with resentment. ‘They don’t understand what our leaders are doing for the working classes of this country, how they saved us from all the other parties, all those capitalist-loving imperialists. My father and I are... are ideologically irreconcilable.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Oh, she just thinks what he thinks.’

  ‘What do you parents do? Do they work?’

  ‘My father’s an engineer.’

  ‘A noble profession. Tibor, do you love your parents?’

  He looked shocked by the question, his eyes widened. I don’t think he’d ever considered it before. ‘I don’t know any more – I suppose I do...’ He bit his lip and placed his book carefully on his desk. Then, looking at me with an earnestness only the young are capable of, he said, ‘You’re right, Miss, do love them. I mean, I couldn’t say it – not to them. But yes, I suppose I must do.’ He patted his book, smiled broadly and said, ‘Thank you, Miss; you’re absolutely right.’ He turned on his heel and almost bounced out of the classroom. I wasn’t sure what I had said or what I was right about, but it seemed to have erased all his doubts in a single stroke.

  *

  Today, I finished early at school. No post-school lectures for the staff on ideology or the need to remain vigilant, no meetings chaired by the head informing us of yet another change in curricula direction. So with a little free time on my hands, I popped into the local café, the clumsily named Café of the Revolution.

  It was another hot afternoon in late May. How I adore the month of May; when the sun finally appears and the summer months stretch ahead of
one; when nature still feels fresh and full of optimism. The staff in the café know me by now, though not my name, but enough to exchange pleasantries and discuss the weather. The pretty young girl with her flushed cheeks and plucked eyebrows, and the old hag, with acid eyes and smoky voice, almost as round as she is tall. I wonder sometimes if the young girl realises there is probably less than fifteen years between them.

  I took a seat next to the window with my coffee and cake. At a nearby table sat an elderly lady, her hair grey but her eyebrows surprisingly black, reading Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. The two waitresses busied themselves behind the counter, the old hag occasionally remonstrating with her young charge. On the walls are portraits of Stalin and Rakosi, and a rather pleasant Alpine scene.

  I flipped through the pages of Free People, the Party newspaper. I like to read of the Party’s latest achievements, the exalted statistics, the rise and fall of the prominent, the promises of a bright new tomorrow, and our wonderful Soviet friends. Every invention, every innovation, every new design is Soviet: Russian technological and scientific advances surpasses all else; in sport and the arts, they are supreme. Of course, it’s all poppycock but no one dares say so. Not even the closest of friends, not even lovers whose whispers flutter to each other across their pillows.

  Everyone lives a dual existence – the public persona and the private self. The public side keeps us safe – we repeat the Party slogans, we derive our opinions from Free People, and if the newspaper hasn’t pronounced on a subject, then nor do we, we wait until we know what our opinion is supposed to be before we dare voice it. It’s a bit like the joke about Trotsky. Trotsky wakes up one morning. "How are you?" an assistant asks. "I don’t know," he says. "I haven’t read the papers yet." We’re terrified lest we should overhear a private thought – for one who listens without protest is as guilty as the speaker of such traitorous words. Idle conversation becomes a minefield as Party opinion constantly changes – we find ourselves criticising vehemently the very things that not long before we supported with gusto. We are all constantly frightened. And the more frightened we are, the stronger our commitment to the cause, the harder we work, and the greater our loyalty. But I am no longer frightened. Fate has dealt me a blow crueller than even the state could devise.

  I cannot think of a tomorrow; for me tomorrow doesn’t exist. The weeks and months ahead are but a vacuum. Neither can I think of yesterday, for my whole past is simply one long series of events in preparation for tragedy. Whatever the recollection that flashes across my mind, be it a childhood memory or more recent, I cannot see it as an isolated incident but part of a gradual slide of time that ultimately finishes with sixteen days a month ago. However long I live, my life will be divided by those sixteen days. And I don’t know which is worse – knowing what’s been or not knowing what’s to come – like a blind man walking towards a cliff edge. I see myself as a little girl playing tag with my friends, laughing. But no pleasure comes from such images, because I believe that somewhere inside, I knew my life would be tainted by catastrophe. I’d always known, but sometimes I just didn’t realise it. Whatever memory springs to mind, I find myself calculating how long I had left – x years and y months before the inevitable struck. My whole life hitherto has been but a tragic preface; the future now a mere aftermath.

  On the radio I recognised the deep baritone voice of Paul Robeson, the black American. As a communist sympathiser, he is one of the few American singers we ever hear. All our old favourites – the jazz players, the big bands – have been banned, along with all other things American, the ‘vestiges of capitalism’ as they call it – books, records, films. All but Paul Robeson.

  The elderly lady with the black eyebrows was leaving. I noticed the generous tip she left on the table and, as she passed, she winked at me, perhaps acknowledging that the staff hardly deserved such a token of generosity. The young waitress cleared her table, saw the tip, turned round to check the old hag wasn’t watching, and then deftly pocketed the change into her apron. I quietly cheered her triumph.

  ‘Eva?’

  A woman my age hovered next to my table, fair-haired, eau-du-cologne, lipstick, wearing a linen summer jacket. She knew my name; I recognised her because of her distinctive eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You don’t remember me – Karolina, my husband was your husband’s assistant.’

  Ah yes, I remembered his face but not the name: vain, lazy and self-important, I think that was Josef’s summing up of him following his dismissal. ‘Of course, Karolina, how are you? And...’

  ‘Vida. Fine,’ she said, in such a way it was obvious that he was anything but. ‘Can I...’

  ‘Yes, of course, take a seat, can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. White. No sugar.’ She sat clutching the top of her handbag and didn’t remove her jacket. Her eyes were of different colours – one brown, one green. It gave her the look of one who was very cunning – talking to her one had the feeling one was talking to a fox. I’d only met her on the odd occasion. The one time I particularly remembered was when Josef’s workplace organised a party for the wives of bosses – a suffocating affair of empty conversations and poisonous smiles.

  She talked quickly, pausing only briefly when the waitress brought her a coffee, skating over her words as she described her children, such lovely children, her new job, so wondrous and exciting, what a lucky girl she was. Then why are you talking to me? What catastrophe has befallen you to seek me out? I knew enough to know she wanted something; why else had she stopped to talk? What could she possibly want from me? I waited for her to finish extolling her life, waited patiently for the prelude to end. Not once did she ask after me or my life. But then I wouldn’t want her to.

  ‘Oh, Eva, I’m so pleased to have bumped into you, you see, I do have...’ She glanced round and, lowering her head, continued, ‘a bit of a problem.’ She dropped two sugar cubes into her coffee. ‘I’m trying to give up. You see, it’s Vida.’ Ah, I thought, here comes the rub. ‘He’s been arrested.’ She’d said it so quietly and so quickly, I thought at first I’d misheard.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’ I think perhaps I meant it.

  ‘Last night. Well, the early hours of this morning.’

  ‘How terrible.’

  ‘I’ve been frantic, I can’t tell you. Eva, I need your help.’

  ‘Me?’ The word came out louder than I’d meant, embarrassing us both.

  ‘Yes, your husband liked Vida, and Vida worked hard for him, was always very loyal. Josef must’ve talked of him.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I was thinking, if Josef could put a good word in for him.’

  ‘I don’t know if...’

  ‘You never know, it could make all the difference.’

  ‘But what could Josef do? He can’t exactly approach the AVO.’

  Karolina leant forward, her lipstick glistening. ‘No, but he has contacts, you know, higher up. I’m desperate, I don’t know what else to do.’

  I shook my head. ‘You don’t understand; Josef never listens to me. I’ll be frank with you – he’s too concerned with his own self-protection to risk his neck for an ex-assistant. I don’t mean that to sound rude but you know how it is.’

  ‘So, you won’t ask him?’ There was an edge to her voice now.

  ‘There’s nothing he could do; there’d be no point.’

  ‘Persuade him.’ It sounded more like an order than a request. She looked away, unable to meet my eyes.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Vida told me things – about your husband.’

  ‘About Josef? What sort of things?’

  ‘Things to do with work. How I shall I put it? Certain irregularities.’

  I sighed, the poor, silly girl. ‘And they would believe you?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. You know they take such things very seriously.’

  She was looking at me now, with a concentrated gaze, waiting for me to give myself away. I didn’t know what els
e to say. The poor woman was more desperate than I thought. Perhaps on no more than a few passing comments from her husband she thought she had the means to blackmail me. Perhaps she was right, perhaps it was a weapon. The more I thought of it the more I realised I was on dangerous ground.

  ‘Ask him, Eva. Ask him tonight.’

  ‘Tomorrow night. He’s out tonight.’ It was a lie but I had to stall her, I had to have time to think.

  ‘Tomorrow night then. God knows what they’ll do to him by then. Come see me Saturday morning. Here...’ She handed me a slip of paper with some writing on it. ‘My address. Saturday, Eva. You must come to me on Saturday. Early.’

  ‘OK, I’ll try.’ I wouldn’t stand a chance. Josef never liked him and any amount of pleading wouldn’t do any good. ‘You’d better tell me everything; when was he arrested? And why?’

  Chapter 4: Zoltan and George

  Zoltan shielded his eyes from the sun and scanned the football pitch in front of him. Bordas, the manager, had his boys running round the field, a slow steady jog, interspersed with sudden bursts of speed. What an easy life, thought Zoltan – the occasional morning spent training and a game on Saturday afternoons. He knew it wasn’t as simple as that; that most of these boys also had jobs or were students, but he preferred to dwell on his idealistic version of a footballer’s life.

  The players swung round the corner flag and were heading in his direction, their shadows preceding them. George was amongst them – the tallest on the field, his black hair stuck to his forehead, the circles of sweat under his arms. How fit he looked, how strong, how pronounced the muscles in his legs. As they passed, he noticed his eyes, fixed ahead, in full concentration; strong in mind as well as body. The boy was a true athlete, a thoroughbred. Only thirty himself, Zoltan envied George’s youth, his vitality.