Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

The massive fullness of this sound, the relentlessly even, rhythmic echoing that now filled the deep canyon of Szent István Boulevard, was strong enough not to lessen but to increase the feeling of fellowship, a feeling further intensified by the sight of people clustered in wide-open windows all around; separated from us, they were waving to us, were with us, and we, down on the street, were also with them up there; the crowd began to feel its own weight and strength, and developed with each step a slower, heavier solemnity.

Broad Szent István Boulevard begins to climb near Pannonia Street— today's Lászlo Rajk Street — and at Pozsonyi Road gently slopes as it runs onto Margit Bridge; on ordinary days this slight rise and downward slope can hardly be detected, and if I hadn't been in that huge crowd that evening I wouldn't have noticed it either; one simply uses one's city, unaware of the peculiarities of its streets and squares.

At the foot of the bridge, at this little incline, two streams of people met, coming from opposite directions and with very different dispositions, which immediately made clear why our steps had to slow, our ranks become more solid, solemn, silent: we were going up the gentle incline while opposite us people were coming down from the bridge, a crowd that was stronger not only because of its potential energy but also because it seemed more organized, cheerful, homogeneous and youthful, the people looking as if they had already achieved a significant victory; they came arm in arm, singing, belting out rhymed slogans to the beat of their feet, and without breaking ranks swept around the foot of the bridge, cutting a wide path across the intersection, turned onto Bálint Balassa Street, marching in orderly rows; our groups, ascending, tighter but more disorderly, cohering with so many mismatched personal impulses, had to merge into the opening and closing wings of this unending huge fan of people, we had to push our way into the available spaces, increasing our disarray as we went for any crack, any opening.

There are moments when the sense of brotherhood makes you forget all bodily discomfort and needs: you are not tired, love no one, are neither hungry nor thirsty, neither hot nor cold, don't have to relieve yourself; these were such moments.

While we were running, Szentes told us that these were university students coming from Bern Square; the ranks closed around us, we were in them and although we momentarily upset their orderly ranks and unity, we caught their upbeat mood; everyone began to talk, people coming from different places, in different moods, eagerly exchanged views, compared notes, addressed strangers as friends; we learned who had spoken at that other assembly, what demands had been made and how they'd been received; and we told them about the tanks, the soldiers, the workers from Váci Road and the army being with us now; this heated exchange of information and mixing of the two groups made for a certain diffusion, but the somewhat lax procession found cheerful new strength and vigor.

This is how we marched toward the Parliament.

Assuming that I must have a different view of what was going on but not wanting to expose me publicly, Szentes leaned close, making sure that Stark wouldn't hear — in our excitement our faces almost touched — and whispered, There you are, now you can see for yourself, this system has had it.

Of course I see it, I said, and jerked my head away, but I don't know how all this is going to end.

The dark dome of the Parliament was now straight ahead of us; the illuminated massive red star on top had been installed only a few months earlier.

I must have looked pretty funny with my drawing board, my bulging schoolbag, and my self-consciously solemn expression, trying to reconcile the extraordinary events of the evening with my peculiar family experiences, because my apprehension regarding the future so surprised Szentes that he had to laugh; in that very instant, as I tried to figure out what his laugh meant, somebody threw his arms around me from behind and a hand, firm and soft and warm, covered my eyes.

He's at it again, drawing conclusions, he's at it again! it was Kálmán, shouting and jumping for joy, waving his arms, in the middle of a bunch of uniformed baker's apprentices with three flustered high-school students facing him; but we couldn't stand around, we all had to move on.

By the way, I lost my drawing board at the foot of Kossuth's statue; Kálmán climbed up and I climbed after him, we wanted to see the people filling up the square, as earth-shattering shouts went up: Turn off the star! turn off that star! and then, in the blink of an eye all the lights in the square went out, only the star shone on top of the dome, a rumble of discontent raced though the crowd, followed by whistles and boos, and then silence, and in this silence people raised newspapers over their heads and lit them into torches; like a whirlwind sweeping across a huge field, the flames flashed and leaped, flooding the square in light, dying quickly, but flaring up again and again, spreading, glaring in spots, a white conflagration turning into yellow waves, blinking, flickering into red, and falling in glittering crystals at people's feet; a few hours later I left my schoolbag at the corner of Pushkin and Sándor Brody Streets, where it stayed on the empty pavement where Kálmán, just as he was about to bite into a piece of bread spread with jelly, dropped to the ground to avoid a burst of rifle fire coming from the rooftops; I even thought how quick and clever he was to duck, I thought his face was smeared with jelly.

If later, when Hédi was saying goodbye and looking at me pleadingly, expecting me, an eyewitness, to confirm what still seemed unbelievable, if I could have talked about this, or if she herself hadn't been convinced that talk was futile, then I should have talked about that strong, soft, and warm hand, the palm of a friend's hand, and not about the ultimately useless fact that he died, that it was the end of him, he was dead, and we dragged him across the street into the lobby of a house, and then into an apartment, though it was of no use, he died on the way, or maybe before that, on the spot, but the man who helped me and I both pretended that by dragging him like that we could make him live a little longer or that we could revive him; his whole body was full of holes, but one had to do something, so we carried him, his dead body, and as we did, his blood was dripping, dripping, trailing us, it wet our hands and made them slippery, his blood lived longer than he did, he was no more, he was dead, his eyes were open, and so was his mouth in his mangled bloody-jellied face, he was dead, and all there was left for me to do that evening was to tell his mother, who worked in Szent János Hospital; and then, a few days later, two months before his suicide — with János Hamar's light summer suit in my hand — I had to call my stealthily returning father a murderer; and that, too, I did as I was supposed to.

It wasn't about my friend's death, or about any of the other deaths and funerals, or the cemeteries glowing with candlelight and all the candles of that autumn and winter that I wanted to talk about, but about the last touch of his living body, that I was the last one he touched, and how he was holding that lousy slice of bread with plum jelly he'd gotten from a woman, a woman in the window of her ground-floor apartment at the corner of Pushkin Street who was slicing bread, spreading the slices with jelly out of a jug, and handing them to everybody passing by; I should have talked about the unmistakable smell and feel of Kálmán's hand, about the uniqueness of muscles and skin, of proportions and temperatures, that enables us to recognize a person, about the soft, warm darkness that suddenly makes us forget every historical event and with a single touch leads us back from the unfamiliar into the familiar world, a world full of familiar touches, smells, emotions, where it's easy to pick out that one unique hand.