My heart beat fast, faster than I ever beat with my drumsticks, because I could see that when he picked out someone he’d make sure they couldn’t wriggle out of it, or escape … though he might enjoy watching them try. I was looking for the emergency exit, but all I saw were walls and bars on the window. Once he paused for breath I quietly asked him to tell me straight what he wanted me to do.
He took a sniff, then told me never again to call at number 60, never even to come near. Once a week I was to ring a number. When someone answered, I was simply to say, “I’m Ede, greetings to the old man.” The voice would then say he’d be delighted to meet me, but where and when? The best place would be City Park, on a bench. Or, in winter, near the marshalling yard at Lágymányos, where there are lots of nice little places that serve liquor. You can spend hours there chatting away in private, in a cozy tit-to-tit. He listed the kind of people to watch at the bar, in the order of importance. If I see someone going into the toilet and then, shortly, another guest walking in after them, I have to hurry after them to check if one of them has left a secret note or some cash. I am to leave the cash there and immediately ring the number he gave me, he said, and they would take care of the rest as an emergency, a matter of priority. The People’s Republic looked after its own, he said, and rubbed his finger and thumb together in the old “money” sign. As a drummer you can pretty well see and hear everything that’s going on in the bar.
Then he coughed, as if to say now he was coming to the succulent plump heart of the matter. The comrades. I had to watch even the comrades, he said, lowering his voice. Because not every comrade was genuine, a true, up-to-his-elbows, worker of the state — there were some who just pretended to be comrades. If I saw the liquor had loosened their tongues, that they were leaning together, whispering quietly, and, say, this was toward dawn and I could see they were getting too cozy, all on the same wavelength … I was to find out and report their names.
He went on like this for an hour, then he summed up. He said I was to make sure I worked hard. If I did, my papers would end up filed away in the records and I’d have a nice, peaceful life, having helped lay down the foundations of happiness in the people’s democracy. He picked up my own file and waved it about. Then he leaned back in his chair, took his glasses off, and started wiping the lenses. A shiver ran right through me as our eyes met. My legs were stone cold from my knees down to the tip of my toes. What it came down to was that he wanted me — a drummer — to sing for the AVO, to sing like a fucking canary. He folded his arms and calmly gazed at me.
I mumbled something about needing time. Naturally, he said, polite as ever. You have till noon tomorrow. He gave me a nice friendly good-bye smile, all teeth, like the handsome guy on those old Lysoform ads used to. I went back to my pad, no longer thinking how nice it would be to go hear Lawherring at the Opera. I lay on my bed till the late afternoon. I ate nothing. I drank nothing. My throat was dry and I felt like shit.
It was getting on to dusk by the time I managed to sit up. I put on my tuxedo. It was time to go to work. But then, as I was putting my black tie on, something stirred in my stomach. Or was it my head? I don’t know even now. All I knew was that I was in a hole. These guys had picked me, a drummer, to sing for them. I was to be like those waiters in the hotels, like those chambermaids in the embassies, like those smart chicks with sharp ears who work in offices. I didn’t need to be told what they wanted me to do. I chewed it over a long time. I didn’t need to sign up for day courses or attend a night class. I knew the score without all that. It was clearer than daylight that those they had once fingered were theirs for keeps. I was stone cold sober and shivering. It was evening before I set off to work.
It was a real nice evening, just like spring. Some of the band was already hanging around the bar. Two were old buddies, family, and I trusted them. The sax guy from Zala who brought me up to the capital, he was a brother. The pianist reckoned himself a highbrow. He was a quiet guy who was only in the band because he needed the cash; I didn’t think it was him that shopped me. The accordionist had been doing jazz for years, sometimes he’d be called home at dawn … it might have been love interest, but it might have been an AVO pimp. I wasn’t sure about him. I just felt a great sadness thinking the glory days, my pure music days, were over. There is no greater sadness for an artist than the sense that the savor’s gone out of his art, that it’s time to give up everything he has ever learned. Don’t go thinking I’m crazy or that I’m pulling some tragic act. Everyone in the business knew I was the best drummer in Hungary … I tell it how it is, no false modesty. Sweetheart told me as much. She knew what she was talking about. She’d worked for rich Jews in London, a refined bunch, who taught her a lot.
That night it was late before the place started buzzing. It was midnight when the first big payers appeared. All three were secretaries of state. They wore striped pants and fancy ties. There were many shortages in the country at the time but there was no lack of secretaries of state, not so anyone complained, anyway. They’d go around in huddles, like field mice after rain. These were fine, handsome examples of the type. They’d brought female company with them, and it’s likely the chicks too were state workers because, I tell you, friend, they carried plenty of flesh on them. They weren’t about to go on diets. The waiters hurried over to show them to a table near the band and they settled down there. They gave us a nice genial smile. They were in a good mood and you could see from their clothes they were new in the job, that they’d been something else before. I recognized one of them since I’d seen him in the bar before, selling rugs on the installment plan. Best not ask where he found the rugs. A lot of people were collecting rugs from bombed houses at the time.
Two regulars arrived with them, the poet Lajos Borsai and the war correspondent Joe Lepsény. They were in every night, holding forth in the bar. The poet made his living after midnight by wearing his patriotic heart on his sleeve and blubbing about his terrible life. He worked out which new customers were worth milking, then made his way over to their table. If they were already a little over the limit he’d pull his mother’s photograph from his pocket and his voice would fill with emotion as he showed it around. He had two mothers … one, a dignified woman, with her hair wreathed round her brow the way Queen Elizabeth had it when praying at the coffin of our great national hero Ferenc Deák. The other was a tiny, humble-looking little old lady dressed in peasant costume, complete with head scarf. He’d size up the guests before deciding which mother to produce. This time he sat down with Baron Báróecsedi, who had arrived with his latest bride, a muscle-bound retired police sergeant. His taste ran to that kind of thing. The baron was a regular too. The poet began in a broken voice:
“This time of the year the yellow clover is just coming into bloom in my little village back home …”