Alison Littman - Radio Underground

The boy’s lower lip jutted out. He nodded, and a few straggling tears fell down his puffy cheeks.

“Please, go home so you can stay safe,” I said. “Now.”

Stepping away while fixating his eyes on us, he slowly backed away from the gruesome scene, saying nothing.

I resisted following him to make sure he went home. I feared if I did, Antal would be scooped up by someone—whoever these enemies were—and tormented once again.

A mess of bloody skin clung to the side of Antal’s arm, barely. It looked like a bullet had skimmed his skin, but not implanted itself there. Antal attempted to pull his arm away from me, referring to someone named “czar.” He displayed sure signs of shock, yet his eyes seemed coherent and alert. They followed me as I inspected his body to make sure he hadn’t broken anything critical. I decided to move him to our office—I reasoned I could let him rest there while I tried to find a doctor.

I wrapped his uninjured arm around my shoulder and yanked him up. Draping his jacket over his disfigured face, I escorted him back to the office, a twenty-minute walk away. Every minute or so, Antal would abandon his strength and plummet into me, pushing me sideways and almost completely over. Each time I veered to the right or left, Antal groaned and let out minor phrases and grumbles. I remember he said something about being hurt and some garbled reference to plans.

A gelatinous liquid snaked down my neck, and I knew it was Antal’s blood dripping from his jaw. At one point he refused to continue walking, like a stubborn dog sensing danger ahead of him. Reminding him that he was safe with me, I cooed into his ear promises about getting somewhere quiet, being comfortable and warm.

We passed Horizont, a Russian bookstore, which had been gutted and burned, leaving tattered paper and ashes heaped in piles on the street. Our shoes carved textured imprints onto the books’ remains, and I knew that it had been said before, and would be true today, that where books burn, people will too.

We passed the offices of Szabad N é p —the regime’s official newspaper—where staff members, their clothes and hair in disarray, threw down leaflets declaring their support of the revolt. I wondered if this desperate attempt at redemption would work or if the journalists would suffer the same fate as their leaflets—torn up, stomped on, and burned in a makeshift bonfire.

The moment we stepped onto Andrássy út, a woman, old enough to be my mom, ran toward one of the patrolmen standing nearby, waving her fists at them. I continued dragging Antal along, hoping to go unnoticed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fattest guard in the group grab the old lady’s braid, turn her around, and smack his stomach into her back. Screaming, the woman stumbled and collapsed.

The wretched officer noticed us—and me, specifically—eyeing him. He turned his attention away from the poor woman and, looking at us, licked his lips. I put my head down, pretending I had seen nothing. I thought nothing. My thoughts were all movement. “Eyes to the ground, go here, move there. Say nothing,” my mind commanded. Never looking again at the soldier, I dragged Antal forward. The twenty-minute walk took us two hours.

DORA BLINKED. SHE opened her eyes. She blinked. She opened her eyes, and still she saw the eyes from the basement plastered on the little children at the KISZ meeting.

She imagined she was staring at one hundred tiny replicas of Boldiszar. Those were his eyes. The second the thought came into her head, Dora discredited it immediately, unwilling to allow her logic to flag even for one second. Those eyes were gray—his were brown, almost black. But cataracts, and time, and suffering could have changed their color.

No, there was no way Boldiszar could still be alive. She had proof he died. She had scrutinized that photo of him. She mourned over and over again. Those were not his eyes. Dora ran the sentence through her mind until she was sure of it: Those were not his eyes. Still, his blank stare watched her as she shifted from one foot to the other backstage. She thought about making an excuse to leave, but then Marta would ask her even more questions. Dora was relieved when the children, led by a mousy girl named Adrienne, staged their rebellion. The meeting ended without her needing to make her speech at all.

For the next week, Dora spent most of her time alone, but busy. At work, she kept to her cubicle, where she read a record number of letters. After work, she invented a new chore to do. On Monday, she bought a new cooking pot. On Tuesday, she replaced all the expired spices in their cabinets. At night, Dora sank into her chair in the study and read beside Ivan. Usually a burden, the tradition now provided her with another way to keep her mind focused on anything but her own thoughts. Sometimes, right before she fell asleep, the eyes would drift into her view and she’d jolt awake, tears already building. When that happened, she would crawl right back into her chair in Ivan’s study and pick up where she left off in her book. Ivan would bring Dora a cup of warm tea and kiss her on the forehead before returning to his work. Just as Dora settled in to her reading that Sunday night and congratulated herself for making it through the week unscathed, the phone rang.

“Dora, you have to come over here now.”

“Marta?” Dora had been avoiding Marta all week for fear that she would try to find out what happened at the ministry.

“Yes, obviously it’s me. I’m at Szimpla.”

“Marta, I’m not going to a bar right now. I’m not up for it.”

“Oh, come on, you never are.”

“I have to go now,” Dora said.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“I have something to tell you. It’s about Mike.”

“Marta, if you’re using that to get me out….”

“I’m not! Just come here immediately. I know your dad is there. I’m not going to say it over the phone.”

Marta knew exactly how to get Dora to do something. She doubted she had anything substantial to say, but in the off chance she did, Dora wanted to find out.

“All right, but I can’t be there for too long.”

When Dora kissed Ivan goodbye, she noticed him squinting a little too much as if he had to exert himself just to smile. The familiar surge of guilt swelled inside Dora at the sign of Ivan’s vulnerability, his hatred of being alone. Dora felt responsible for his happiness and frustrated that, at such a young age, she was already taking care of her dad.

She knew she could never give him the affection he needed, and vice versa. Their love pooled into a dam built by their refusal to talk about Eszter. Their connection stopped short, stagnated and, as the years went by, gradually evaporated. Dora worried that one day the dam would break and their relationship would be exposed for how it really was—broken and beholden to the forces of the past.

Dora gently closed the door of the apartment, wondering if her dad would ever accept that, at times, she would try to make a life for herself. She had no clue what Marta had in store for her, but she hoped she could escape within a couple of hours.

“Remember you said Mike wouldn’t have plans?” Marta asked—or more, announced—the second she saw Dora. “Here are some plans.” Marta slid a letter over to Dora.

“A letter from Mike? How did you get this?” Dora whispered, even though they were at a table in the back, hidden in plumes of stale, lingering cigarette smoke.

“I noticed it on top of some letters being prepared for Joszef’s review.”

“And you just took it?”

“First of all, I don’t think Joszef has seen it yet. And also, this is a copy. Mike’s letter is back in its place.”