Iván Sándor - Legacy

More than an hour has passed since they set off with the buckets.

I find no one in the apartment on the second floor; I dare not look in on Évie’s room, but Vera and the little girl are snuggling up to each other on the landing. Vera has cracked lips. The little girl is sucking a small piece of iron. She says she was given it by her mummy. Vera asks her for it, carefully wipes it on her coat, then she, too, starts to suck it.

The apartment was not unoccupied after all. Both Mother and Aunt Klári were in Évie’s room.

Two hours have passed since they set off with the buckets.

Mother gives me a hug;. I can’t see her face in the dark.

Aunt Klári suggests we should move down to the cellar, as the firing is very intense; she will stay upstairs with Évie.

Vera says that she would not like to go down into the cellar.

A lot of people are seated on the stairs.

There are yells for Aunt Klári from downstairs. I can hear thumping on the front door and race up to the fourth floor. Many houses in the street are on fire. I lean out and can see there are two Arrow Crossers pounding on the gate, letting a burst fly and running away towards the Outer Circle. I dart down to the gate. Aunt Klári is making her way up. I tell her that two Arrow Crossers fired at the door but ran away. She says fortunately no one was injured. I go back to the fourth floor.

There has been no news from the water carriers for three hours now.

I do not want to be near Mother. I do not want her to say something. I do not want to try to say something to her. Vera is getting on well with the little girl and the piece of iron which they are taking turns to suck.

Three hours is easily enough time for them to have returned with the buckets.

Three hours is easily enough time for them to have got back.

Three hours is three hours.

I am not alarmed.

Anything can happen at any time — that knowledge is part of me. No one can deprive me of it. I cannot forget it; it is so much a part of me that if I did then I would forget myself.

I need to look for Mother. It could be that she is already down in the cellar.

The house is under fire.

One of the walls of the house at the corner is collapsing.

Vera and the little girl will surely be sucking the piece of iron in turns.

Later on I’ll give the little girl the conch shell that is hidden in my haversack. It may appeal to her, and she will forget she is thirsty for a few minutes. Maybe she will sing into it. The little girl and her mother resemble each other. I noticed straight away when I first saw them that have similar countenances, but — how can I put it? — the mother’s face seems like a child’s and the little girl’s like an adult’s.

I can hear submachine-gun bursts coming from the Danube bank.

The blood has soaked through my handkerchief over the wound made by the splinter.

I lean out of the window.

Two people are running from József Katona Street, dangling buckets as they run. Only empty buckets swing as easily as that.

Two people are running towards our gate, not four.

I race downstairs and slip, knocking my knees. I limp. I kick an old woman who is sitting on the turn of the stairs. Beg pardon. There are yells at every hand, yelling on every floor, yelling at the cellar door.

Mother is on one side of the gate, Aunt Klári on the other. The four guards at the gate are right next to one another, one with a pistol. I had only seen a pistol on Gyuri, but the man with the beret has a pistol which he is aiming at the gate. I cry out, they’re coming, although I don’t call out that two are coming. Mother and Aunt Klári are about to open the gate, but I yank Mother back and the man with the pistol yanks Aunt Klári back. She very quietly orders the guards at the gate to open it up. The man with the pistol waits, looks at Aunt Klári, salutes and opens the door. The house on the corner is burning with a ruddy glow. There are burst of submachine-gun fire. Two men dive through the gate, the empty pails flying out of their hands. Aunt Klári hugs the warden to herself. That’s the last time you leave me, she exclaims, embracing him. Why the shouting if her mouth is right by her husband’s ear? Father retrieves one of the pails that had been flung aside, sits down on it, the bucket being hidden by his winter coat as if he were squatting. Mother and I got either side of him and haul him off the pail. The lad took away my pistol when all four of us were shoved into a group that was being harried towards the bank of the Danube. He was shot dead straight away. Uncle Laci started shouting at the Arrow Crossers and did not leave off, so he was shot at the next corner. I wanted to block my ears; the screaming was unbearable. Who was screaming? Bombers were flying over, the Arrow Crossers were dropping down flat on their bellies. The warden and I jumped under a gateway, says Father. The screaming was unbearable; it started from low down, by now a shrieking. I can’t understand how Aunt Klári can still be hugging her husband so joyfully and yet meanwhile is capable of yelling as she is. The warden is muttering, as far as I can make out, the same thing as Father said. Aunt Klári is giving him kisses on the cheek and meanwhile shouting, and I suppose they must be able to hear her in the cellar and on the upper floors, because it is quiet there. Maybe everyone is disposed to give way to the shouting: it spreads out, penetrates the cracks, even permeates me as if it were breaking out of me. Vera looks on in terror, perhaps terrified by how she can hear me shouting when my mouth is closed. The leader of the guards on the gate is also looking at me, but why so long? Father resumes his seat on the bucket, stands up and embraces Mother. They step over to me and embrace me. The screaming is even louder; that cannot be taken away from me either; the screaming is also part of my knowledge. Aunt Klári’s mouth is an O shape, the sound fills everything. Vera puts her fingers in her ears, the little girl races up from the cellar, takes the piece of iron from her mouth, hands it to Vera. The doctor pokes a syringe needle into Aunt Klári’s arm, and the shrieking becomes fainter. The burning houses are throwing out light. The warden details four new guards for the gate.

1 Now György Dózsa Avenue (XIVth District).

2 Katalin Karády (1910–90) was a leading actress in Hungarian movies made between 1939 and 1945, after the release of Halálos tavasz ( Deadly Spring ), her first screen role, made her an instant star. She is better known outside Hungary for being awarded the honorific Righteous Among the Nations for rescuing Hungarian Jews from the Nazis and their allies.

3 Number 60 Andrássy Avenue was a building used as a notorious prison by the Arrow Cross Party from 1937. After the end of the war it became headquarters for the secret police (ÁVH/ÁVO) during the Communist era. It is now a museum called the House of Terror.

4 A greeting — which translates as ‘persistence’, ‘endurance’ or ‘perseverance’ — used by the the fascist Arrow Cross Party in Hungary.

5 Having been called Hitler tér (Hitler Place) from 1938, this was renamed Körönd (Circus) from 1945 and Kodály Körönd in 1971.

6 Now known as the Oktogon.

7 Now Köztársaság (Republic) Square (VIIIth District).

8 Called the Városi Színház (Municipal Theatre) from 1917 to 1940, in 1953 it was renamed the Erkel Színház (Erkel Theatre of the Hungarian State Opera House).

9 Now Miklós Radnóti Street (XIIIth District).

10 The Locarno Pact was part of a security conference that took place between 5 and 16 October 1925 under the auspices and jurisdiction of the League of Nations, the main part of which was the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee between Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain and Italy — the Rhineland Pact. While Germany was willing to recognize the borders of its western neighbours, it was not willing to recognize the borders of Poland and Czechoslovakia. To offset that refusal France (but not Great Britain) contracted mutual defence pacts with both countries.