SAME DAY
LEO EXAMINED THE ROOM, searching for a way out. Engrossed in his study of the door, the window, the floorboards, he noticed the relative quiet. The sound of explosions and gunfire had stopped. There were footsteps outside the cell. The door opened. Fraera strode in:
—Listen!
A radio in the adjacent room was turned up to full volume. The announcer was speaking in Hungarian. Leo turned to Karoly. He listened for several seconds. Impatient, Fraera called out:
—Translate!
Karoly glanced up at Leo:
—A cease-fire has been declared. Soviet forces are pulling out of the city.
SAME DAY
SENSING SKEPTICISM, FRAERA INSISTED on a victory tour. They set out, Leo, Raisa, and Karoly, surrounded by insurgents and the remains of her gang. Leo counted only four vory excluding Fraera and Malysh, far fewer than there had been in Moscow. Some might have been killed. Others must have abandoned her cause: the life of a revolutionary was not the life of a professional criminal. Fraera didn’t seem to care, leading them down the central thoroughfare of Sztalin ut as proudly as if she were marching on Stalin’s tomb. Raisa was beside Leo, Karoly just behind, dragging his injured leg. Through the ring of armed men, Leo caught glimpses of Zoya orbiting the group. She walked beside Malysh. Though Zoya ignored Leo completely, from time to time Malysh would flick a hostile glance in his direction. Raisa was correct. They were, unquestionably, in love.
Leo didn’t see how a Hungarian triumph was even a theoretical possibility. He’d observed the insurgents armed with bricks and gasoline-filled bottles. They fought fearlessly, fighting for their homes, the ground on which they stood. But as a former soldier he saw no strategy. Their campaign was haphazard and improvised. In contrast, the Red Army was the most powerful military force in the world, numerically and technologically. Panin and his coconspirators intended to keep it that way. The loss of Hungary would never be tolerated, no matter how bloody the conflict became. Yet pacing the streets Leo was forced to accept that there was no longer any Soviet presence in the city. There were no tanks or troops. Many of the Hungarian fighters had abandoned their positions.
Fraera stopped walking. They’d arrived at an office, a medium-sized, unremarkable building. There was a commotion at the front doors, a great number of people entering and exiting. Karoly dragged himself forward, catching up with Leo:
—This is the headquarters of the AVH.
Leo replied:
—Your son?
—This is where he works. The officers must have fled as soon as the uprising began.
Fraera noticed their exchange. She moved through the line of her men, asking:
—You’re familiar with this building? It is the home of the Hungarian secret police. They’ve abandoned it and are now hiding somewhere. But we will find them.
Karoly managed to conceal his concerns. Fraera continued:
—Now that the city is free, the building is open to the public. The secrets held here are secrets no longer.
Most of the insurgents remained outside. The building was too busy to accommodate the entire gang. Fraera led a smaller group through the doors, entering an internal courtyard. Sheets of paper, typed and stamped, the bureaucracy of terror, fluttered down from the balconies. It was dusk. Electricity was spotty. To compensate, candles were lit, spread across the balconies and floors. The offices were filled with citizens searching through files. Reading by candlelight, men and women thumbed through the information stored about them. Watching many of them cry, Leo didn’t need the documents translated. The files contained the names of family and friends who’d denounced them, the words spoken against them. Like a hundred mirrors dropped on the floor, all around he saw faith in mankind shattering. Fraera whispered:
—Downstairs.
Whereas the offices had been crowded, the stairs leading to the basement were empty. Taking a candle each, they descended. The air was damp and cold. Just as Leo knew the words in those files, he knew what they’d find downstairs—the cells where suspects had been questioned and tortured.
Water dripped onto cracked concrete floors. All the cell doors had been opened. In the first, there was a table and two chairs. In the second, there was a drain in the center of the room and nothing more. Leo watched Zoya’s face, desperate to pick her up and carry her out of this place. She took hold of Malysh’s hand. Leo scrunched his fingers into a tight fist, wondering how long Fraera would make them stay down here. To his surprise, Fraera, apparently fearless, seemed shaken by this place. He thought upon the tortures she must have gone through after her arrest. She sighed:
—Let’s drink to the end of all this.
And briefly, in the darkness, she was human again.
TAKING PLACE IN THE COURTYARD of her apartment complex, Fraera intended to host the first victory celebration. Open to all, she provided crates of alcohol, spirits, liqueurs, and champagne—the preserve of the elite, drinks many had never tasted before, secreted away for exactly this moment. Leo noted these preparations: proof that she always believed victory was possible. To offset the cold, a fire was built in the center of the courtyard with timber stacked as tall as a man, flames reaching high into the night sky. Crude effigies of Stalin and his Hungarian equivalent, Rakosi, were dressed in uniforms stripped from the corpses of Soviet soldiers. Leo noted that Fraera, standing on the top-floor balcony, photographed the flaming figures, taking care over the shots before putting her camera away.
As the burning uniforms turned to ash, a cigány band arrived clutching hand-painted instruments. After a timid start, as if worried that their violins would draw a barrage of Soviet shells, they gradually forgot their anxieties. The music became louder and faster and the fighters began to dance.
Leo and Raisa were sat back from the party, under armed guard, spectators as Zoya became drunk, sipping champagne, her cheeks turning red. Fraera drank from a bottle, which she did not share, always in control. Catching Leo’s eye, she joined them:
—You can dance if you want.
Leo asked:
—What are you going to do with us now?
—The truth is, I haven’t decided.
Zoya was trying to persuade Malysh to dance. Unsuccessful, she grabbed Malysh’s hand, pulling him into the ring of people circling the fire. Though she’d seen him clamber up drainpipes, nimble as a cat, he was awkward. Zoya whispered:
—Pretend it’s just you and me.
Under the pretense that they were alone, they spun around the fire, the world becoming a blur, the fire hot on their faces, dancing faster and faster until the music stopped and everyone clapped. But, for them, the world continued to spin and they had only each other to hold on to.
30 OCTOBER
THE FIRE HAD BURNT DOWN to a mound of red embers and charred stubs. The cigány band was no longer playing. The revelers had returned home, those who hadn’t passed out. Malysh and Zoya were curled up under a blanket, close to the remains of the fire. Karoly was humming an indistinguishable tune, drunk after having pleaded for alcohol to numb the pain of his leg. As energetic as if she’d rested the entire night, Fraera declared:
—Why sleep in cramped apartments?
Forced to take part in Fraera’s expedition, they left the courtyard, crossing the Danube, treading wearily toward their destination—the ministerial villas on the lush Buda slopes. Malysh and Zoya accompanied them, along with the vory and her Hungarian interpreter. From the top of Rose Hill, they watched dawn rise on the city. Fraera observed:
—For the first time in over ten years, the city will wake up to freedom.
Arriving at a gated villa with high walls, there were, remarkably, guards stationed at the perimeter. Fraera turned to her interpreter:
—Tell them to go home. Tell them this is now the property of the people.
The translator approached the gate, repeating her words in Hungarian. Perhaps having watched the fighting the guards had already come to a similar decision. They were protecti
ng the privileges of a fallen regime. They lifted up the gate, took their things, and left. The interpreter returned, excited:
—The guards say this villa belonged to Rakosi.
Slurring his words, Karoly remarked to Leo:
—The play-place of my former boss, the once glorious leader of my country. This is where we used to phone him and ask: Do you want us to piss in the suspect’s mouth, sir? Do you want to listen while we do it? Yes, he would say, I want to hear it all.
They entered the immaculately landscaped grounds.
Fraera was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. From the smell Leo guessed it contained stimulants. Amphetamines would explain how she maintained her ferocious energy level. Her eyes appeared completely black, pupils that were like puddles of oil. Leo had used her drug during the all-night arrests and interrogations he’d performed as an officer of the MGB. It would exacerbate aggression. It would make reasoning impossible, skewing her mind toward violence while sealing every decision in unshakable confidence.
With the keys from the security guard’s hut, Fraera ran up the stairs, unlocked the doors, and threw them wide open. She bowed to Malysh and Zoya:
—A new couple should have a new home!
Malysh blushed. Zoya smiled as she entered the house, her exclamation of amazement echoing around the grand reception hall:
—There’s a pool!
The swimming pool was covered in a protective plastic sheet, spotted with dead leaves. Zoya dipped her finger in the water:
—It’s cold.
The heaters had stopped working. The teak chairs had been stacked in the corner. A deflated brightly colored beach ball was nudged this way and that by the wind.
Inside the house, luxury had decayed. The kitchen was covered with dust, unused since Rakosi was forced to leave Hungary, exiled to the Soviet Union after the Secret Speech. Built to the highest specifications, the appliances were foreign. Crystal and fine porcelain filled the cupboards. Bottles of French wine were unopened. Fascinated by the contents of the fridge, trying to identify items turned patchy with mold, Leo and Zoya chanced across each other. Side by side, it was the closest they’d been since his capture.
—Zoya…
Before he could finish, Fraera called out:
—Zoya!
Zoya ran off, obeying the call of her new master.
Following behind, entering the living room, Leo came face-to-face with Stalin. A vast oil portrait hung from the wall, staring down, a god keeping watch over his subjects. Fraera drew a knife, offering it to Zoya:
—There’s no one to denounce you now.
Knife in hand, Zoya stepped up onto a chair, her eyes coming level to Stalin’s neck. In the perfect position to mutiliate his face, she did nothing. Fraera called out:
—Gouge out his eyes! Blind him! Shave off his mustache!
Zoya stepped down, offering the knife to Fraera:
—I don’t… feel like it.
Fraera’s mood switched from elation to irritation:
—You don’t feel like it? Anger doesn’t come and go. Anger isn’t fickle. Anger isn’t like love. It isn’t something you feel one minute but not the next. Anger stays with you forever. He murdered your parents.
Zoya raised her voice in reply:
—I don’t want to think about that all the time!
Fraera slapped her. Leo stepped forward. Fraera drew her gun, pointing it at Leo’s chest but continuing to speak to Zoya:
—You forget your parents? Is it that easy? What has changed? Malysh has kissed you? Is that it?
Fraera walked toward him, grabbing Malysh and kissing him. He struggled but she held him fast. Finished, she pulled back:
—Nice, but I’m still angry.
She fired a shot between Stalin’s eyes and then another and another, emptying her gun into the oil portrait, the canvas shaking with each bullet. With no bullets left, the trigger clicked against the chamber. Fraera threw the gun at his face, the weapon bouncing off, clattering to the ground. She wiped her brow before laughing:
—Bedtime…
The statement was loaded with innuendo. She pushed Zoya and Malysh together.
STARTLED, LEO WOKE, shaken by one of the vory:
—We’re leaving.
Without any explanation Leo, Raisa, and Karoly were rushed to their feet. They’d been locked in the marble bathroom, using towels to make a bed. They couldn’t have snatched more than a couple of hours of sleep. Fraera was outside by the gate. Malysh and Zoya were beside her, everyone exhausted, except for Fraera, jittery with chemical energy. She pointed downhill, toward the center of town:
—Word is that they have found the missing AVH officers. They’ve been hiding in the Communist Party headquarters all along.
Karoly’s expression changed. His exhaustion disappeared.
It took an hour to descend the hills and return across the river, approaching Republic Square where the Communist headquarters were located. There was gunfire and smoke. The headquarters was under siege. Tanks under insurgent control shelled the outer walls. Two trucks were on fire. Windows were smashed: chunks of concrete and brick were falling to the ground.
Fraera advanced into the square, taking cover behind a statue as bullets whistled overhead, fired from the rooftops. Held back by the crossfire, they waited. Abruptly the gunfire stopped. A man with a handmade white flag stepped out from the headquarters, petitioning for his life. He was shot. As he collapsed, the foremost insurgents rushed forward, storming the premises.
In the safety of the lull, Fraera led them from behind the statue across the square. A crowd of fighters gathered at the entrance beside the smoldering trucks. Fraera joined them, Leo and the others around her. Under the truck were the blackened bodies of soldiers. The crowd waited for the captured AVH officers to be fed out to them. Leo observed that not all of the crowd were fighters: there were photographers and members of the international press, cameras hanging around their necks. Leo turned to see Karoly. His earlier expression of hope that he might find his son had transformed into dread, longing for his son to be anywhere but here.
The first of the AVH officers was pulled out, a young man. As he raised his hands he was shot. A second man was pulled out. Leo didn’t understand what he was saying but it was obvious the man was pleading for his life. Mid-plea, he was shot. A third officer ran out and, seeing his dead friends on the ground, tried to run back into the building. Leo saw Karoly step forward. This young man was his son.
Infuriated at his attempt to run from justice, the fighters grabbed the officer, beating him as he clung to the doors. Karoly pushed forward, shrugging Leo off, breaking through the fighters and wrapping his arms around his son. Startled by the reunion, his son was crying, hoping somehow that his father could protect him. Karoly was shouting at the mob. They were together, father and son, for less than a couple of seconds before Karoly was pulled away, pinned down, forced to watch as his son’s uniform was ripped off, buttons popping, the shirt shredded. The boy was turned upside down, rope lashed around his ankles, carried toward the trees in the square.
Leo turned to Fraera, to petition for the boy’s life, only to see Zoya had already grabbed hold of her arms, saying:
—Stop them. Please.
Fraera crouched down, as a parent might when explaining the world to a child:
—This is anger.
With that, Fraera took out a camera of her own.
Karoly broke free, staggering lamely after his son, weeping as he saw him strung up, hanging upside down from the tree, still alive—his face bright red, veins bulging. Karoly grabbed his son’s shoulders, supporting his weight only for the butt of a rifle to be smashed in his face. He fell backward. Gasoline was poured over his son.
Moving quickly, Leo strode up to one of the vory, a man distracted by the execution. He punched him in the throat, winding him, taking his rifle. Dropping to one knee, Leo lined up a shot through the crowd. He’d get one chance, one shot. The gas was lit. The son was o
n fire, shaking, screaming. Leo closed an eye, waiting for the crowd to part. He fired. The bullet struck the young man in the head. Still burning, his body hung still. The fighters turned, regarding Leo. Fraera already had a gun pointed at him:
—Put it down.
Leo dropped the rifle.
Karoly got up, clutching his son’s body, trying to smother the flames, as if he could still be saved. He was now burning too, the skin of his hands bubbling red. He didn’t care, holding on to his son even as his own clothes caught alight. The fighters watched the man grieve and burn, no longer boisterous in their hate. Leo wanted to call out for someone to help, to do something. Finally a middle-aged man raised his gun and shot Karoly in the back of the head. His body fell on top of the fire, underneath his son. As they burned together, many in the crowd were already hastening away.
SAME DAY
BACK IN THE APARTMENT, among the hungover vory and joyous Hungarian students, Malysh tried to find some space, retreating to the kitchen, making a bed under the table. He took hold of Zoya’s hands. As if rescued from a freezing sea she could not stop shaking. When Fraera entered the room he could feel Zoya’s body tense, as if a predator were nearby. Fraera had a gun in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. She crouched down, her eyes bloodshot, her lips cracked:
—There’s a party in one of the squares tonight, thousands of people will be there. Farmers from the country are bringing in food. Pigs will be roasted whole.
Malysh replied:
—Zoya isn’t feeling well.
Fraera reached out, touching Zoya’s forehead.
—There will be no police, no State, just the citizens of a free nation, and all of us without fear. We must be there, all of us.
As soon as she left the room Zoya began to shake again, having contained her emotions during their conversation. The soldiers who lay on the streets, bodies coated in lime, were uniforms more than they were men, symbols of an invading force. The dead Hungarians, flowers thrown over their graves, were symbols of a noble resistance. Everyone, dead or alive, was a symbol of something. Yet Karoly had been first and foremost a father and the officer strung up had been his son.