Alison Littman - Radio Underground

“Yes, Dora. It’s hard for me too,” Ivan said.

“Where is he?”

“We really don’t know, Dora.”

The certainty of Ivan’s words suffocated the small, breathing creature of hope inside of her.

“Here.” Ivan handed Dora the picture. “Let this be a reminder to you.”

“I don’t want this reminder.” Dora started crying.

“I carried it with me for years. I’ve made us safe. That’s always been my priority. You have to make yourself safe too, Dora.”

Dora grabbed the picture and looked at it closer. It was undeniably Boldiszar. She could see the scar on his right hand, which was bent up by his head, as if he was about to go to sleep. She couldn’t believe her dad had shown her this. She wouldn’t take it with her everywhere like he did. It didn’t make her feel safe. It made her feel that, at any moment, whatever love she had left in her life could be savagely killed.

After Ivan so brutally informed Dora of Boldiszar’s death, she started sneaking off to cemeteries to mourn for him whenever she could, the process giving her some relief—at least she was doing something to honor Boldiszar’s memory.

Dora grabbed a rock and placed it on a nearby grave, a mourning tradition she saw others do at the cemetery, when she heard the thud of clumsy footsteps behind her. Clad in a chunky sweater with neon green stripes emblazoned across it, Marta stood above her with a goofy smirk. Marta was Dora’s childhood friend and colleague, a frumpy sidekick with protruding teeth and bangs that, by the end of the day, strayed in opposite directions. She sat down next to Dora and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

“I thought you’d be here.”

“Yeah, I needed it today.”

“Me too. I got another suicide.”

“From who?” Dora feigned interest, wishing her friend could allow her a few more moments of quiet. But subtlety was not one of Marta’s strong points, and her emotions typically required immediate attention.

“A woman in Szeged. She said she’d kill herself tonight.”

“That sounds depressing,” Dora said, though they received letters like that every day. This was just a normal work conversation, but Dora knew Marta needed these discussions for her own sanity.

“Who was the letter for?”

“Her son. He lives in Budapest,” Marta said. Tears began accumulating on the edges of her eyes, but she held them in. “She told him that she was sorry she couldn’t make it to his graduation from university. She was sorry, too, that she bought him the wrong Christmas gift and that she tried to pretend that he wasn’t in love with their neighbor, Maksim. She understood him more now than she ever would and that when she closed her eyes for the final time tonight, the whole picture of him, and who he is, will be in her mind.”

With some research and a phone call, they could have alerted the son of his mom’s crisis. No one would be shocked that someone read her letter. Most people harbored suspicions of the government’s censoring practices, and it was normal for these suspicions to be confirmed at times.

Instead, suicide threats accumulated on their desks like frothy dishwater festering above a clogged drain. And Marta would, like they all did, simply record the author’s lists of laments into a chart, redact any “subversive” information, and send it off on its way. Dora consoled Marta by telling her that it wasn’t their role to alter this woman’s life and that, while painful, being a bystander was the best thing a censor could do for the people. No one wanted their letters intercepted, and the more they could remain hands-off, the better.

“Dora, I’m just glad we’re in this together.” Marta put her head on Dora’s shoulder.

“Me too.” Dora patted Marta’s head. “Although apparently things are changing for me here.”

Dora told Marta about Ivan’s new censoring initiative, producing Mike’s most recent letter.

“It didn’t say anything serious, did it?” Marta adjusted her sweater, which, to Dora’s bewilderment, always seemed to reveal some part of her bra, even in the middle of winter.

“Just more fantasies for his beloved Uncle Lanci. It looks like he is still our Romeo.”

“Well, Dora, if that’s enough for him to qualify as your Romeo, then I know some men I can introduce you to. Although I’m not sure their English would be as…entertaining.”

Offering her friend a tightly bound smile, Dora explained, for the third time that week, she had no plans to meet someone. Though Dora attracted men on a regular basis, she never gave them a chance. When suitors approached her, she would cross her arms, as if binding the layers of her personality to herself. Sometimes she felt like she was saving her love, though she didn’t know what for. She felt it moving inside of her, pushing her toward extreme emotions—sharp pains of sadness when a song touched her or intense joy when the sun hit her face. In those private moments, she felt the promise of love and decided that was better than knowing real, human-attached love, with all its fragility and unwieldiness. Marta sometimes could push Dora to be more social, but Dora rarely made new friends and never a boyfriend.

“So what sort of wisdom did Mike grace us with anyway?” Marta tousled Dora’s hair. “Who has he slept with this week? What song is he requesting today?”

Dora divulged the details of Mike’s letter, concluding he wouldn’t be considered a threat under Ivan’s new initiative. As she said it, a slight tightness gripped her chest—a barely discernable sign that she was lying. She sensed a subtle change in Mike, one that would go unnoticed by any other letter-reader. He had mentioned something that Dora long suspected could eventually lead him into trouble—his lost mom, which he brought up for the third time in a month. She worried Mike might make plans to find her.

The surviving Freedom Fighters were safe, as long as they stayed in Budapest. In case the thought to search for his mom ever crossed his mind, and Mike was indeed a Freedom Fighter, he may be denied a visa. Dora knew he wouldn’t quit looking for his mom because some stuffy bureaucrat decided he couldn’t travel. He would make “plans,” as Ivan called it. After that, it wouldn’t take long for them to find him.

“If this stuff is benign…,” Marta snatched Mike’s letter out of Dora’s hand. “Why not just submit it to Joszef so that you can prove we have nothing to worry about? You could probably take Mike off the list of potentially subversive candidates.”

Dora considered Marta’s suggestion—it wasn’t a bad idea. She had never thought to classify Mike in any way. Over the course of the years, he had become a fictional character over whom Dora had no bearing. She wasn’t the author of his life, just a thirsty subscriber.

“Or,” Marta continued, “maybe you can report him for luring women away from their communist morals because they’ll have to viciously compete with each other for his attention?”

“That would be one list he wouldn’t ever be able to get off of.”

“And one that he could brag about.”

“He’d love that.”

Deciding to follow Marta’s plan to submit the letter to Joszef, Dora spent the rest of the day filling out the necessary paperwork.

After work, she accompanied Marta to a KISZ rally where they were slated to speak about their jobs with the postal agency. KISZ was the Hungarian Young Communist League for children under the age of eighteen. Marta was not a staunch communist, by any means. She liked one of the chaperones, so insisted on going to the meetings and dragging Dora along too. Dora rarely saw the advantages of arguing with Marta, whose loyalty knew no obstacles. Once Marta pledged herself to an idea, a plan, or a person, there was no moving her.