Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest

The clear voice of the young mother trying to save her son from kidnappers in Hitchcock’s film penetrates the tiny apartment. ‘Que sera sera, Whatever will be will be, The future’s not ours to see, Que sera sera …’ Horvath laughs, but his laugh turns into an insistent hollow cough that nearly makes his eyes start from their sockets.

‘I’ll get the thermometer,’ says Tadeusz.

But Horvath holds up his hand as if to ward it off.

‘I really don’t want to know if I have a temperature or not. In any case, I won’t take anything except aspirin.’

‘Okay, but if it’s bronchitis, we’re going to the hospital.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’

In fact, no one thinks it’s a good idea to go to the hospital in such a wind. It’s late October. The cold has become intense. The city is in the hands of insurgents, and there is a shortage of basic necessities.

‘“The Nagy government,”’ reads Hans in a newspaper just printed and being distributed free in the street, ‘“the new government that contains communists, social democrats, members of the National Peasants’ Party and small proprietors, seems to have been accepted by the Soviets and to be taking its first steps towards normalisation. Cardinal Mindszenty has been freed after many years in prison. The secret police, the ÁVH, has been abolished. Its place will be taken by a National Guard. Maléter has been promoted to general and made Minister of Defence. Free trade unions and cultural associations are being born again …”’

‘So all is well, damn it, everything is perfect, but in that case why is the city so uneasy and why is so much shooting still to be heard? And why can’t we find any food?’

Tadeusz has another newspaper in his hand, the Independence , which is launching a fierce attack on the new government. ‘These people aren’t satisfied,’ says Tadeusz, reading huge headlines printed in an ink that stains the tips of their fingers: ‘“We don’t recognise the Nagy government which is showing weakness towards the Soviet Union. We should not and cannot bargain. We no longer want the Soviets here. They have been occupying our country for eleven years. We don’t want them on our territory any more; we don’t want them shaping our politics for us, choosing our leaders, deciding our agrarian policies, our military investments, the products we manufacture, or planning our towns. Above all we don’t want their censorship. No more denunciations, disappearances, concentration camps, farcical trials and tribunals whose only aim is to suppress those who do not see things the way they do!”’

‘It’s not as if they were speaking straight out!’ remarks Ferenc, walking about violin in hand without ever finding time to play it. But Tadeusz intervenes: ‘This is no time for music, Ferenc. Go and find some meat for our supper.’ But the voice of Doris Day has moved them all. Like the voice of freedom.

‘“Let us ask the United Nations for military assistance in liberating a country that has spent too many years under the Soviet yoke. We demand a neutral Hungary. We insist on leaving the Warsaw Pact immediately. We want all Russian troops out of the country. Asylum and Hungarian citizenship, if they want it, can be granted only to soldiers who have fraternised with the insurgents,”’ reads Hans, smiling.

‘All this is extremely naïve.’

‘But it’s the truth.’

‘What truth, you fool?’

‘What the people are thinking, idiot, can’t you understand that?’

‘“Don’t touch anything in the shops, even if the windows are shattered!”’ Hans reads on, nodding. ‘“Let no one accuse us of being bandits! Even if you’re dying of hunger, don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you! We are in the process of organising points for the free distribution of bread and milk. Come and find us at the Corvin cinema or the newspaper offices, there will always be something for you. Signed József Dudás.”’

‘You know what, I’m going at once.’

‘Wait, I’ll come too.’

Amara and Hans start down the stairs. Outside it’s drizzling. Amara ties a scarf round her head. Hans puts on a Russian sailor’s cap, made of a limp waterproof material, with a little rigid peak from which a small red star has been ripped.

Amara and Hans come out of Magdolna, take Baross utca to Kálvin tér, from there pass along a section of Múzeum körút and head for Dohány utca. They run into a long queue of people waiting their turn to get a little bread. A woman wrapped in two coats, one longer than the other, is selling perecs from a pile on top of a chest of drawers dragged goodness knows how to that place. But they are of such poor quality and so mouldy that no one stops to buy. A group of students pass them at speed, singing the ‘Marseillaise’: Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé, contre nous de la tirannie, l’étendard sanglant est levé …

Hans sings with them, moved. Amara watches silently. How much that music brings back to her! Amintore repeating the forbidden words in a low voice after checking that no one was listening. Her mother running to close the windows before joining in, mangling the words: Aux armes citoyens, formez vos bataillons. Marchons, marchons! qu’un sand impur abreuve nos sillons!

At every step there’s someone giving out leaflets. Hans takes them all and thrusts them into his pocket.

‘What do they say?’

‘I don’t know, we’ll look later.’

‘There, that’s the Kilian barracks,’ Hans points with his finger and stops in consternation. Nothing is left of the barracks but walls riddled with holes. Its roof has collapsed, its doors have been broken down, its windows are black cavities. In front, covered with chalk, is a line of dead bodies. Russian soldiers and Hungarian citizens lying side by side close to the road. They look the same under the layer of lime someone has strewn on them. Twisted statues like the dead recovered from the ash of Vesuvius and preserved in the museums of Naples, caught in a moment of confusion when trying to escape. Very young boys, their uncovered faces stained with blood and their eyes wide open as if in an attempt to understand the mystery of this defining journey. Poor quality clothes and boots smeared with mud.

A lorry backs up slowly. Two men in uniform, their red stars replaced by ribbons in the national colours, start dragging the bodies towards the lorry. Two others, sub-machine guns slung over their shoulders, lift them up to the level of the lorry, almost making them fly through the air.

Amara is deeply upset. In spite of herself her eyes fill with stinging tears.

‘Let’s go away!’ says Hans, for whom the excitement of the ‘Marseillaise’ has been replaced by depression and angry brooding. But Amara plants her feet like a mule and goes on staring at those bodies almost playfully lifted with an undulating movement before being unceremoniously thrown onto the lorry.

‘Wait a moment, I’ll ask what’s been happening,’ says Hans, going up to a man who is leaning against a tree smoking. He too has his rifle over his shoulder and seems lost in contemplation of the dead.

The two talk for a while. The man stays leaning on his tree. Hans presses him with questions. Then, after a quick salute, returns to Amara.

‘Colonel Pál Maléter was ordered to recapture the Kilian barracks from the insurgents. They gave him five tanks and the men of the Esztergom armoured division, plus a hundred officer cadets from the Kossuth Academy. But by the time he reached the Kilian on the morning of the 24th he had only one tank left. The others had stopped on the way, seized by armed citizens. The officer cadets refused to fire on civilians. So Colonel Maléter, instead of attacking the occupants of the barracks, decided to negotiate a ceasefire with them thus clearly putting himself on the side of the insurgents. Then the Hungarian military authorities called in the Soviets who arrived and began bombarding the barracks. A full-scale battle followed. Men were killed on both sides. Let’s go.’