The Secret Speech (38 page)

– You must succeed. Despite everything these people have been through, the arrests, the executions, they will not become violent unless provoked. They are not like…

– Us?

Ready to leave, Fraera hesitated by the door, turning back to face Panin:

– Was there anything else?

Panin shook his head.

– No. Nothing else.

The train was crowded with Soviet soldiers, raucous conversations crisscrossing the carriage. They were being mobilized in preparation for the planned uprising, of which they knew nothing. There was no sense of anxiety or trepidation, their jovial mood contrasting starkly with Leo and Raisa, the only civilians on board.

When Leo had heard the news- Zoya is alive -relief had been muddled with pain. In disbelief he’d listened to Panin’s explanation: the retelling of events on the bridge, including Zoya’s calculated pretense and her willing collaboration with a woman who wanted nothing other than to make Leo suffer. Zoya was alive. It was a miracle, but a cruel one, perhaps the cruelest good news Leo had ever experienced.

In explaining events to Raisa, he’d witnessed the same shift from relief to anguish. He’d knelt before her, apologizing repeatedly. He’d brought this upon them. She was being punished because she loved him. Raisa had controlled her response, concentrating on the details of what had happened and what it revealed about Zoya’s state of mind. There was only one question in her mind: how were they going to bring their daughter home?

Raisa had no difficulty in accepting that Panin had betrayed them. She understood the logic of Fraera’s cooperation with him in order to enact her revenge in Moscow. However, Panin’s attempts to initiate uprisings within the Soviet Bloc was political maneuvering of the most cynical kind, condemning thousands to death in order to consolidate the position of Kremlin hardliners. Raisa couldn’t understand what part of this appealed to Fraera. She was siding with the Stalinists, men and women who thought nothing of her imprisonment or the loss of her child, or indeed the loss of any child. As for Zoya’s defection, if that was the right way of looking at it, defecting from one dysfunctional family to another, Raisa was less puzzled. It was easy to imagine Fraera’s intoxicating appeal to an unhappy teenager.

Leo had made no attempt to talk Raisa out of accompanying him to Budapest. The opposite was true: he needed her. Raisa stood a much better chance of getting through to Zoya. Raisa had asked Leo whether they were prepared to use force if Zoya refused to come, confronting Leo with the grim prospect of kidnapping his daughter. He nodded.

Since neither Leo nor Raisa spoke Hungarian, Frol Panin had arranged for them to be accompanied by forty-five-year-old Karoly Teglas. Karoly had worked as an undercover operative in Budapest. Hungarian by birth, he’d been recruited by the KGB after the war, serving under the hated leader Rakosi. Karoly had recently been in Moscow on a temporary basis, advising them on the potential crisis in Hungary. He’d agreed to act as a guide and translator, accompanying Leo and Raisa.

Returning from the toilet, Karoly wiped his hands on his trousers, taking his seat opposite Leo and Raisa. With a portly stomach, plump cheeks, and round glasses, there was hardly a straight line anywhere in his appearance. A collection of curves, he appeared, at a glance, an unlikely operative, definitively nonlethal.

The train slowed, nearing the town of Berehowe on the Soviet side of the heavily fortified border. Raisa leaned forward, addressing Karoly directly:

– Why has Panin allowed us to go to Budapest when Fraera is working for him?

Karoly shrugged:

– You would have to ask Panin himself. It is not for me to say. If you want to turn back, that is up to you. I have no power over your movements.

Karoly looked out the window, remarking:

– The troops are not crossing the border. From here on, we behave like civilians. Where we are going, Russians are not loved.

He turned to Raisa:

– They won’t make any distinction between you and your husband. It doesn’t matter that you’re a teacher and he’s an officer. You’ll be hated just the same.

Raisa prickled at being spoken down to:

– I understand hatred.

At the border, Karoly handed over the papers. He glanced back, watching Leo and Raisa, in conversation, seated in the back of the car-paying careful attention not to glance at him, a giveaway that they were debating how far they could trust him. They would be wise not to trust him in any way. His orders were simple. He was to delay bringing Leo and Raisa into the city until an uprising had begun. Once Fraera had served her purpose, Leo, a man reported to be of great tenacity and zeal, a trained killer, could be allowed his revenge.

Exhilarated, Zoya clutched Malysh’s hand, not wanting to lose him among the thousands of people pooling into Parliament Square from every street and junction. Having spent so many years romanticizing death, certain it was the only answer to her loneliness, she now felt like jumping up and down, as if she owed the world an apology, shouting out- I am alive!

The march had far exceeded expectations, no longer merely made up of students and dissidents. The whole city seemed to be gathering in the square, drawn out of their apartments, offices, factories, unable to resist the demonstration’s gravitational pull, which grew stronger with each new person joining. Zoya understood the significance of their location. A parliament should be the center of power, the place where a nation’s destiny was decided. In reality, the building was irrelevant, an ornate, majestic front for Soviet authority. Its beauty somehow made the insult worse.

The sun had set. Yet the night didn’t diminish the excitement. More and more people were arriving, disregarding habits of prudence and caution, the influx continuing even though the square was already full, the new arrivals forcing the crowd closer together. Far from claustrophobic, the atmosphere was affectionate. Strangers talked and laughed and hugged each other. Zoya had never been caught up in a public assembly like this before. She’d been compelled to attend May Day celebrations in Moscow, but this was different. It wasn’t the scale. It was the disorder, the absence of authority. No officers stood in the corner. No formations of tanks rolled by. No troops clicked heels as they passed rows of handpicked children waving flags. A fearless protest, an act of defiance: everyone was free to do as they pleased, to sing and clap and chant:

Russkik haza! Russkik haza! Russkik haza!

Hundreds of feet stamped the three-beat-rhythm and Zoya joined in, fists clenched, punching the air, overcome with an indignation that was, considering her nationality, absurd.

Russians go home!

She didn’t care if she was Russian. Home was here, among people who had suffered as she’d suffered and who understood oppression as she understood it.

Shorter than the men and women around her, Zoya strained on tiptoes. Suddenly she felt two hands clasp her waist as Fraera lifted her up, placing her onto her shoulders, giving her a view of the entire square. The crowd was larger than she’d supposed, stretching up to the Parliament building and the river behind it. There were people across roads and lawns, tram tracks, clambering onto pillars and statues.

Without warning the Parliament lights shut off, plunging the square into darkness. There was confusion among the crowd. There was power in the side streets. It must be a deliberate act against them, an attempt to drive them away, to break their resolve with darkness as a weapon. A cheer sounded out. Zoya saw a single burning torch, a newspaper rolled up. Quickly, more spots of fire appeared, improvised torches. They would make their own light! Fraera handed Zoya a rolled-up copy of the daily journal A Free People. A vory lit the end, turning it slowly, until the flame spread. Zoya held it above her head, the flames tinted blue-green by the ink. She waved it from side to side and a thousand burning torches waved back.

As Fraera lowered her to the ground, flush with emotion, Zoya strained forward and kissed her on the cheek. Fraera froze. Even though Zoya’s feet were on the ground, Fraera’s hands remained tight around her waist, not letting go. Zoya waited, holding her breath, fearful that she’d made a terrible mistake. In the darkness she was unable to see Fraera’s reaction until a nearby man lit a newspaper. The flickering red light revealed Fraera’s expression, shaken as if by the sight of a ghost.

Fraera felt the kiss lingering on her cheek, burning hot. She pushed Zoya aside, touching the place where she’d been kissed. It had been a mistake to place Zoya on her shoulders. Unwittingly she’d allowed Anisya to return, her former self, mother and wife. Tenderness, affection, characteristics that she’d exorcised, had crept back. Drawing her knife, she raised the blade to the side of her face and pulled down, scraping the skin, shaving off the remains of the kiss. Feeling relieved, she wiped the edge of the blade and put the knife away.

Having regained her composure, she stared at the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, furious with Panin for failing to post snipers. Zsolt Polgar followed her glance, asking:

– What are you looking for?

– Where are the AVH?

Zsolt replied:

– You’re worried about our safety?

Fraera hid her scorn at his naivete, replying:

– There’s no one to fight against.

– At the radio station students are trying to broadcast the sixteen points. Rumor is that the station management is refusing. The AVH is protecting the building to make sure it remains under Soviet control.

Fraera took hold of his shoulders:

– That’s it! That is where we will make our fight!

Elbowing through the crowd, Fraera worked her way free from the peaceful assembly, suffocated by their passivity. Farther away from Parliament Square the mood changed. Along Muzeum korut, toward the Nemzeti Muzeum, people were running in a chaos of directions, some scared, others angry, carrying slabs of rock, ripped-up paving stones. The focus of their activity was the radio station, situated along Brody Sandor ut, a narrow street that ran beside the museum. Whatever peaceful protest might have begun here had evolved into a violent mob-the radio station’s windows were smashed, glass shards on the street crunching underfoot like frozen puddles. A van lay overturned in the middle of the road, wheels spinning, the front crumpled. The radio station doors were shut and secure.

Zsolt questioned the nearby men and women and returned to Fraera, switching from Hungarian to Russian, speaking in hushed tones:

– The students demanded to read the sixteen points. The woman running the station Fraera interrupted:

– Who is she?

– Her name is Benke, a loyal Communist, but not too smart it seems. She proposed a compromise. They couldn’t have access to the station but she’d give them a mobile broadcasting van. The van arrived. The students read the points.

Fraera was already ahead of him:

– It was a trick?

– The van wasn’t transmitting. Instead, the station continued to broadcast orders for everyone to go home, condemning the disruption. The students flipped the van over and rammed it against the doors. Now they want the station, nothing less, they say it’s the national station and it belongs to them, not the Soviets.

Fraera glanced around, assessing the mob’s strength:

– Where are the AVH?

– Inside.

Fraera glanced up. Figures appeared at the top-floor windowsofficers. There was a hissing noise, plumes of smoke unraveled within the confines of the street. Tear gas was twisting out of steel canisters like vengeful genies released from bottles, swelling in shape and size, rising up. Fraera pulled her men back, checking on Zoya and Malysh, retreating, clambering over the rails, toward the museum as the gas chased them, carpeting the grass like morning mist. Reaching the top of the museum steps, they turned. White wisps swirled around their ankles but posed no danger. The bulk of the tear gas had been funneled down the street, spewing onto the main road. Out of the chemical fog emerged men and women, dropping to their knees, retching.

As the gas began to thin Fraera moved closer, surveying the empty street. A gloomy stillness prevailed. The mob was broken. The fight had been extinguished. Fraera shook her head. If tonight passed without serious incident the authorities would regain initiative, control would be reasserted. Fraera strode toward the station:

– Follow me.

The gas hadn’t cleared. Fraera wasn’t going to wait, climbing the rails, walking into the middle of the street, plumes of gas hugging her. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand. Almost immediately she began to cough but she continued, staggering toward the radio station entrance, her eyes streaming.

Zoya grabbed Malysh’s arm:

– We have to follow her!

Malysh ripped his shirt, fashioning a mask for himself and Zoya. Climbing over the rails, they entered the street, the two of them standing beside her. The gas was lifting, circulating into the broken windows of the radio station, making it easier to breathe on the street and forcing the figures back from the windows. Slowly the mob reassembled around the nucleus of Zoya, Malysh, and Fraera. The vory returned with steel bars. They took to the doors, trying to splinter them open.

Zoya looked up. AVH officers were at the windows, this time armed with rifles. She grabbed Malysh, rushing forward. They pressed themselves flat against the wall just as a volley of shots rang out. Everyone in the street ducked, stooping, checking to see who’d been hit. No one had been hurt. The shots had been fired above their heads into the walls of the building opposite. The volley had been intended to cower them, timed exactly as the front doors to the station opened.