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It was a terrifying sight; Zoltan had never seen so many people crowded into a single space, a solidified mass of humanity with a life of its own. The young AVO with the pale face, Paul, had attached himself to Zoltan and, like some nursery rhyme, it felt that wherever he went, Paul was sure to follow.
Word had got to them that something was going to happen in Parliament Square, and every AVO man and woman was ordered straight there. Now, from the rooftops of the Agricultural Ministry, directly opposite the Parliament Building, they gazed down on this seething sea of proletariat resentment, with their slogans and banners and songs. Zoltan now understood the meaning of fear. For years, he and his many colleagues and their army of informers had induced a state of permanent fear on the population. Never had they expected the tables to be so swiftly turned. Never had the AVO expected to be shaking in their boots. And with his rifle at hand, Zoltan was certainly shaking.
At the very moment they needed the government to react, it dithered, unsure what to do; whether to crush the uprising or yield to it. Rumour had it that the Kremlin had sent in some of their top brass to give the shaky ship a guiding hand. God, it needed it, especially with the chief ditherer, Imre Nagy, as prime minister; a cloth-hearted liberal if ever there was one.
Donath had decided to act and was now poised to speak to the mob, loud hailer in hand, his rubbery skin as red as the beetroots the farmers were smuggling into the city. ‘You boys ready?’ he shouted to his teams of machine-gunners either side of him. Satisfied that everything was in place and to his liking, he lifted the hailer to his lips.
‘This is the police,’ said Donath, his crackly voice cutting through the drone of chanting drifting up from the square. ‘This is the police,’ he repeated, ensuring he had their attention. Twenty thousand Hungarians listened. He hesitated, perhaps aware of the magnitude of responsibility that lay with him. His fingers rubbed the metal of his Order of Lenin medal. ‘This is an unauthorised demonstration...’ A howl of jeers thundered up. Donath cleared his throat. ‘I repeat, this is an unauthorised demonstration. You are to disperse immediately.’
‘This is a peaceful demonstration,’ came the reply from a few voices amongst the thousands.
‘What did they say?’ asked Donath.
The voices from below continued. ‘We are unarmed... we carry no weapons... this is a peaceful demonstration...’
‘Peaceful or not,’ Donath replied through the inhaler, ‘it is still unauthorised and illegal. You are hereby ordered to...’
But his voice was lost, drowned out by the mass of responses. ‘Assassins, murderers! Death to the AVO...’
Donath paced up and down the rooftop behind his men, ‘How dare they?’ he seethed. ‘How dare they?’ He raised the inhaler but the jeers and insults intensified. He lowered it again.
‘Pigs, down with the AVO, out with the Russians...’
The sweat was pouring off Donath’s face now as the speed of his pacing quickened. Zoltan knew what was coming next and knew also that whatever happened, they, the AVO were going to suffer for it.
But first, Donath tried again. ‘You are to disperse,’ he yelled through the inhaler. ‘Immediately.’
The insults bounced straight back, louder still. ‘Bastards, killers, death to the AVO!’
Donath threw the inhaler down. ‘Right, that’s it. We’ve got our orders, you know what to do.’
Zoltan and Paul exchanged nervous glances. Yes, thought Zoltan, we know what to do, but we didn’t expect to have to do it.
‘OK, men, I expect you to do your duty, unpleasant as it may be. Remember your loyalty lies not with this counter-revolutionary mob but with our masters, the government, and their worthy fight for socialism. If we don’t show these bastards who’s boss round here, things will only get worse. We fight now, for what we believe in, for the real workers of this country, not these renegades down there who masquerade behind the proletariat mask, these sons of the bourgeois, these capitalist offspring, whose veins run with blue blood.’ He paused, allowing his words to take hold while the noise from below intensified by the moment. ‘We do this for Hungary, for communism, for the advance of socialism. Gentlemen, and ladies, engage...’
Zoltan stiffened as his finger pressed against the trigger, the barrel of his rifle pointing down on the swirling body of demonstrators below.
‘Fire!’ The command seemed to provoke the end of the world. And the end of the world started with a scream; a communal scream that arose from the square, the like of which Zoltan had never heard before; a scream that encompassed every octave and each note between to produce a single sound so terrifying, he knew he would carry it within him for ever more.
Zoltan closed his eyes and pressed. No chance of missing, no hope of a single bullet being wasted. The consolation was that he didn’t have to man the huge machine guns either side of him, both now spurting their continuous and vile discharge into the crowd.
But as the screams crescendo, it was of scant consolation.
*
Zoltan is running. Again. How long did it last? Five minutes, two hours? He doesn’t know. It doesn’t take too long to kill so many so quickly. The Hungarian tanks had moved in – but on the side of the rebels. The army had gone over, as had the regular police force. They’d all deserted the regime, merrily gone over to the insurgents, handing out their guns like lollipops, raiding the arsenals, the ammo dumps. There was no time to lose, not with the tanks there. Some of the tanks were Soviet – T-54s and T-34s, but who was shooting at whom? Donath, fortunately, wasn’t prepared to hang about to find out. They, the AVOs, knew when it was time to go. A last look down onto the square. It was like peering down into Hell. Bodies prostrate, huddled, torn apart. The place was almost empty now, like a swarm of flies caught in a funnel of smoke, they’d panicked and battled and eventually escaped. Now only the dead and the dying remained. And a few others, those unable to pull themselves away from their fallen brothers and sisters. The dying who begged not to left alone to face the darkness by themselves; to have someone to hold their hands for those few last moments in that solitary region between dying and death.
How they’d got down the stairs, Zoltan didn’t know, nor did he know what had happened to Paul. What their orders were, he didn’t know that either. There was a truck waiting for them, thirty yards away. Some made a run for it, their guns still in their hands, but the insurgents came from nowhere, hundreds of them. Shots were fired but not for long. Zoltan didn’t wait. He ran and he was running still. They’d been lynching the AVOs. Boys he’d known, informers he knew but pretended not to, strung up, beaten to death. Or burnt.
People were dangerous now. That first day, that was still largely confined to the students and a few sympathetic workers. Now, it was the whole fucking lot of them. Bare-handed assassins, every one of them. Right now, tears marked every face, people hugging one another, seeking comfort, contact. Whatever they sought, Zoltan didn’t care, as long as their grief saved him, allowed him to escape. A boy in a roll-neck pullover holds a machine-gun so big he can hardly lift it. But attempt it, he does. He wants to make a name for himself. But not from me, thinks Zoltan, as he picks up speed and disappears round the corner.
And now he too is crying, his heart pleading for the warmth of her touch, the silkiness of her voice, the way she strokes Roza’s hair and talks gently into her ear, a voice capable of keeping away the worst of monsters.
‘Zoltan, Zoltan, speak to me, what’s happened?’
But he can’t talk, his throat too dry, his mind filled with too many images; diabolic images he helped to create. She doesn’t realise it, his dear wife, but this time the worst of all monsters is in her arms.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ He repeats it again and again; no other words come to him. ‘I’m sorry.’
Slowly, Petra comes to understand the meaning of his story merely by listening to him uttering the same word repeatedly.
‘My God, Zoltan, what have you done?
‘I’m... I’m sorry...’
‘We’re dead. They catch us here, we’re as good as dead.’
The words permeate. He looks up at her, his head nestled in her bosom. It’s been a long time since they’ve had such physical contact. He knows it’s meaningless, but he’s grateful nonetheless. ‘What do we do?’ The very sentence signifies his final submission. All his working life, he’s tried. Tried to be the man he wasn’t, tried to be the hard bastard, tried to do his best for his family. But no more. No more. But Petra... she’ll know what to do; she’ll save them. ‘What do we do?’
‘Get you out of this uniform for one thing.’
Yes, she knows what to do; she’ll save them, all three of them.