Alison Littman - Radio Underground

“He will see you now,” the boy said, returning. “But you only have ten minutes.”

“Thank you.”

Patting me up and down, the boy searched for weapons. Finding nothing, he sighed and opened the door to Boldiszar’s office.

Boldiszar was sitting in a large, leather chair examining something on his desk. I stopped for a second to admire how grown up he looked. He wore a beautifully tailored, olive green military uniform, though you could tell where Hungary’s official military ornaments had been ripped off the woolen jacket and sewn over. His hair was slicked back, the only relic of his wild curls by his ears, where a few strands escaped the wrath of hair gel. When he stood up, I swear he looked taller than I remembered. But when our eyes met, he gave me that same toothy, eager smile that made everyone adore him.

“Eszter! It’s good to see you,” he said, kissing me on both cheeks.

“Boldiszar, hello.”

“Come, sit down. Tell me why you’re here.”

“Well, I’m sure your… comrades… already told you. I was sent here by Jedidiah.”

Boldiszar nodded, as if he was personally acquainted with someone named Jedidiah. I almost laughed, he seemed so eager to act like a seasoned professional. Instead, he just reminded me of someone listening to an assignment on his first day of work.

“And what news does Jedidiah have for us today?”

“Today?”

“Yes, we get intelligence from Jedidiah regularly.”

“Oh, I had no idea.” I wondered who else Anya used to relay intelligence to Boldiszar, and felt a pang of jealousy. Why didn’t they trust me sooner?

“The U.S. is here. They want to meet to coordinate resistance efforts.”

“Where?”

“In Buda. I can show you.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Boldiszar curled his fingers in and out of his palms, making small fists and releasing them over and over. He stared at me, his tar-colored eyes resting on mine. He started nodding his head, and I couldn’t tell if he was thinking, or pretending to think, or basking in the immense responsibility before him.

“Eszter,” Boldiszar sighed. “I want to listen to you. I want to believe you. I know you are telling me everything you heard, but how do we know that wasn’t a saboteur calling? How do we know it was really Jedidiah? This is the most extreme thing he has asked me to do….”

“She.”

“What?”

“Never mind, just turn up the radio. I can prove to you I’m not lying.”

Anya and Antal had prepared me for this very situation.

“Sure,” Boldiszar said, reaching for the nob.

On air, Zultán Thury delivered the news in a quieter, more subdued voice. He recounted the day’s horrors and named the students and other Freedom Fighters who had been killed. I didn’t recognize any of the names, thankfully. Boldiszar kept a straight face, though I could hear the soft, nervous tapping of his foot against the desk. Thury instructed us to help the wounded now lining the streets and offered a cursory lesson on wound care and CPR. He discussed rebel movements outside of the city. Workers in the villages had taken over factories, standing up to their dictatorial bosses.

Looking at the radio, then me, then at the radio, Boldiszar finally said, “What are we waiting to hear?”

“Just wait.”

“With the help of our intelligence operatives in the field,” Thury began, “our troops will be aligned with military efforts from the United States.”

Boldiszar’s eyes perked up. I placed my finger to my lips, hoping to ensure his silence.

“And that wraps up the news,” the reporter continued. “But, we have an important message for the Freedom Fighters. First, listen to Eszter. Second, Feri is in the tunnel. And third, light will lead the way.”

Boldiszar’s lips, thin and pale, parted for a second, then snapped back shut. He examined me from the corner of his eye.

“So you are the Eszter, then? I heard those codes earlier this evening, but I didn’t even think it was you….”

“It is. Now will you believe me?”

“I can imagine,” Boldiszar said, more to himself than me, “that it would be hard to fight off the Soviets without knowing someone like me to get the U.S. connected to the right people and place the guns in the hands of those who want victory the most… who can be trusted….”

“Exactly, now we really don’t have much time. We need to get to work.”

“Wait, Eszter….”

“What?”

“Why aren’t they giving us any time to fight on our own? We deserve that, at the very least.”

“You know we can’t win on our own, Boldiszar. There is no way we have enough resources or people to take on the Soviets. And the U.S. wants to see the Soviets lose as much as we do.”

Boldiszar looked down and studied the document on his desk.

“I know,” he said quietly. “You’re right.”

“Can I show you where they are now?”

“Yes, you might as well.”

I rushed over to the map. Pins marking demonstration spots and battlegrounds pierced the sprawling city. A red pin sat on the radio building, where the first young deaths of the revolution occurred, and another on Bem Square, where students protested at the feet of Józef Bem, a hero of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. Blue pins marked Kossuth Square and the Ministry of Agriculture, all of which had yet to see conflict, as far as I knew. I wondered what offensives the Freedom Fighters planned to launch at those sites. Perhaps Antal wanted me to go on this mission so I could gather some intelligence too. If Laszlo and I monitored these areas, we could send out calls for troops and arms.

I ran my fingers along the map until I found the meeting point with the Americans. It lay nestled far away, miles past BatthyánySquare on the other side of the bridge, in the hills of Buda.

“This is where we have to go,” I said.

“That is far, almost too far.” Boldiszar studied the map.

“I assume they needed somewhere safe.”

“But once I’m there,” Boldiszar shook his head. “I’m theirs.”

I refused to say anything. I started to back away from him, toward my chair. I had seen many men, even men as compassionate as Boldiszar, turn on me in times like these. The second their doubts took hold of them, I became an unwelcome witness to weakness.

Boldiszar sat back down and began biting his fingernails, his eyebrows furrowing more and more with every nibble. I kept thinking about the boy who warned me I would only have ten minutes with Boldiszar. My time was almost up.

“What do you think I should do, Eszter? Would you follow these orders?”

“Yes, because they’re from Radio Free Europe. Do you know what’s behind that radio station? Money. Power. The West. That is what Hungary needs for this revolution to succeed.”

“You forgot us.”

“What do you mean?”

“The revolution needs us to succeed.”

I reached across the desk and grabbed Boldiszar’s hand. “Without people like you, and me, there wouldn’t be a revolution. But we need more now.”

“This is a huge risk, Eszter.”

“Your other risks have paid off, haven’t they? They led you to this point.”

“Because I have been smart.”

“And you trusted the right people,” I said.

Boldiszar paused. He stared at me without really seeing me, his eyes glossing over into a daze. He moved his mouth ever so slightly—maybe he was talking himself into, or out of, it.

“I trust you,” Boldiszar sighed. “We’re in.”

We crossed the river, abandoning the urban streets of Pest for the quiet hills of Buda. Our meeting point with the Americans was nothing more than a rickety old house, its paint peeling off in random patches to expose rotting, splintering wood. The house sat on top of a steep slope, its contours hardly discernable due to a string of broken streetlights. Darkness surrounded us, and with it, silence. We stared at the house and heard nothing. Of course the Americans would choose a secret meeting place, though I think we expected some indication of activity. Thousands of bureaucrats lived in these Buda hills and wouldn’t emerge from their apartments until the fighting ceased. I wondered how many of them peeked through their blinds now, following our every move.