Tom Smith: The Secret Speech

— 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.

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 protecting 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.