Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest

‘Please stop!’

‘If we must make a present of eight days of our lives, we might just as well make a present of a hundred years.’

‘Well said! But that’ll do now. Let’s listen to the voices from the city.’

‘Or from the whole nation.’

Horvath lifts his eyes from the book and studies the others with compassion. He fearlessly opens another page and reads on, ignoring their protests: ‘When I consider the brevity of my life, absorbed in the eternity that has gone before it and will follow after it, and the tiny space I fill and am scarcely even aware of, buried in the infinite immensity of a universe I do not know and that does not know me, I am terrified and wonder at the fact that I am here rather than there, now rather than later. Who put me here?’

‘Horvath, you horror!’

‘Can’t you stop being a librarian even for a minute?’

But Horvath is unrelenting, and while the radio continues to crackle and spit, he remorselessly continues to read Pascal’s words: ‘Are you less of a slave because your master loves you and flatters you? Lucky slave! Your master may flatter you now, but he’ll be beating you soon enough.’

‘Well said, Pascal! There you have those slaves of Rákosi and Gerö who think their Soviet master’s their friend because he gives them a slap on the back.’

‘We are fools to entrust ourselves to the company of those who are like ourselves: as miserable as we are, as impotent as we are, they will never be able to help us; we shall die alone,’ continues the Old Testament prophet, lifting the page close under his nose.

‘That’s enough, Horvath, you’re making me nervous.’

‘Just be careful. If you don’t stop I shall throw your book out of the window,’ adds Tadeusz, raising his voice.

The violinist is playing Paganini again. A little ray of sunlight comes in from the kitchen window. On such a grey damp day it seems a miracle. Everyone watches it light up a dancing whirl of dust.

Horvath sighs and closes his book. But he can’t resist repeating the last Pascal aphorism that he has just read: ‘It is horrible to feel everything you possess is failing. Amen.’

‘Throw that book away! Come here and listen,’ urges Tadeusz, still searching out new voices on the radio.

‘Well, here we are with comrade Dudás and his bodyguards, and the hundred and fifty men with him who have occupied the editorial offices of the Party paper Szabad Nep . What are your plans, comrade Dudás?’

A sound of chairs being moved and heavy breathing. Then the voice of Dudás, raucous and determined: ‘We are already printing a hundred thousand copies of a new paper to be called Magyar Fuggetlenseg . Our response to the concept of the single party.’

The sound of a rotary press can be heard.

‘When will the first number be ready?’

‘This very day,’ shouts Dudás happily.

‘We must get a copy of this new paper,’ says Hans.

‘For news?’

‘As a souvenir.’

‘Comrades, comrades,’ cries the radio. The five fall silent. The voice has managed to grab their attention despite Horvath’s Pascal, Ferenc’s violin and shots fired in the street.

‘Comrades, here is the speech Nagy made in front of parliament. Unfortunately we did not manage to record it because our batteries were flat. He said he recognises the national and democratic character of the insurrection. Those were his exact words. He announced that the Soviet troops will withdraw and the ÁVH will be dissolved, and that Gerö has already left for Moscow to join Rákosi. Comrades, we are free!’

Tadeusz starts leaping about the room. Horvath watches him with pity. Ferenc strikes up a jig. Tadeusz begins going round in circles. After a bit even Horvath is infected by the euphoria and joins the others in the middle of the kitchen with huge ungainly capers.

Horvath has developed a high temperature and is treating himself with powdered aspirin that Hans has procured at considerable expense. The serving of the medicine on a Eucharistic host found in Ferenc’s cupboard (which is full of the most unlikely objects), has become a ceremony in which everyone takes part. Hans spreads what is supposed to be half a gram of aspirin on the middle of the host which Ferenc holds open with three fingers, seeing that the soft little disc has a tendency to roll itself up. Tadeusz adds a drop of water and the host is then closed by the wise hands of Hans who folds it carefully and lifts it on high. At this point Horvath closes his eyes like a child and sticks out a long tongue red with fever, on which Hans places the host. Immediately after this Horvath protrudes his lips and tries to swallow the medicine with the help of a mouthful of tap water.

The coffee is finished and no more can be found anywhere. In its place there has arrived on the market a tea from China with very dark curled leaves that tastes like sundried straw. It seems Khrushchev has paid a visit to Mao and the two have decided to increase their trade links to include tea, poultry, lard and soya beans, which reach Hungary via the Soviet Union.

It’s even difficult to find bread. There are the usual perecs which Hans calls pretzels and eats with gusto even though they are made from potato flour and stick to your teeth. ‘They’re supposed to be crisp,’ says Hans, ‘but hunger is hunger.’ The great Orion on top of the iceless icebox is kept permanently on. Radio Kossuth and Radio Petőfi transmit classical music, most frequently Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, Borodin’s D Major Quartet, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Shéhérazade , Kodály’s Galánta Dances and Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance . Every so often the music is interrupted by an appeal for calm. And above all, an insistence that people should hand in their arms. ‘All weapons, even the smallest, must be handed in to the government.’ But judging by the continued insistence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the arms are not being given up.

Every now and then they pick up the voice of a free radio station, but these tend to be no sooner born than they die again. Young voices that tell of a great longing for change. They announce that new workers’ councils are being formed spontaneously in factories throughout the land. Some discuss the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Others go back to Trotsky’s theories of permanent revolution, while others again refer directly to the young Marx, and many invoke the free market. In fact, huge confusion. There is only one thing they all agree on: Soviets out of Hungary! And immediate free elections!

Shoot-outs are constantly denounced in various parts of the country, above all battles between the ÁVH and the insurgents. The Soviets take little part preferring to leave things to Rákosi’s old military police, the most hated force in the whole country.

The five get some hot soup inside them, made from the broth of a few meatless chicken bones, lots of margarine, half an onion and two rather soft potatoes. Suddenly an unusual voice comes over the radio. A tender woman’s voice singing in English. Something really unexpected.

‘But that’s Doris Day!’ says Ferenc, lifting his head.

They all listen. It really does seem to be Doris Day, the blonde girl with shining eyes who draws crowds to the cinemas throughout the world. Except in the self-styled socialist countries where she can only circulate in clandestine form in a few smoky film clubs frequented by youthful film lovers and only tolerated by the censorship because they appeal to such small audiences.

‘What’s Doris Day doing on Hungarian radio?’

‘Someone must have recorded the song secretly after picking it up on long wave, and is now broadcasting it from one of the free radio stations.’