Tom Smith: Secret speech

– 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 cigany 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.

– 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.