Alison Littman
RADIO UNDERGROUND
For my grandma
ESZTER TURJÁN
Budapest, Hungary—October 23, 1956—Midnight
THE CUTS IN my hand opened wide. The blood dispersed in thin, chaotic lines across my palm. I held my breath as the pain peaked and relented in nauseating pulses. Plucking all the tiny flecks of glass from my hand would take hours, and I didn’t have hours. Burying the broken wine glass in the trash, I tried to hide the evidence of my recklessness. I ran my hand beneath the faucet, hoping that would dislodge the stubborn shards.
I leaned closer to the radio as Radio Free Europe began its midnight broadcast. It always came on at the right time, when I could barely endure living without myself anymore. I had been who the government, who my family, wanted me to be all day. Now, I could finally reconvene with my real self.
According to reports, thousands of students had compiled a list of demands, mandating Soviet troops leave the country and that we elect a new leader in free elections. The reporter, a Hungarian émigré, commended the students for their courage. But I knew better. These kids, too young to know failure, didn’t understand their passion was no match for a government trained in killing hope. And those harboring it. The part of me that knew what I had to do to protect these students felt numb and ready to click into autopilot. The other part of me—the part that clung to the same hope they did—was just as terrified as they probably were in the brief moments they caught their mothers looking at them with concern. They too would break, like the wine glass hidden in my kitchen garbage.
This Radio Free Europe broadcast missed too many key points. The information I spent my day secretly gathering would not appear on its airwaves for hours, at best. Would it be too late? Regardless, I would do my job. And it was time.
I could hear my husband and teenage daughter snoring in their rooms, reassuring me of the isolation I sought, and needed. I wrapped my hand in gauze and tiptoed toward the door. Yielding in tiny whines, the floorboards lamented their years of abuse, of children’s toys crashing, of parents stomping off livid. With every step, I verified my family continued on in their perfect oblivion. Step. Snore. Step. Snore. Until, with shaky hands, I found the doorknob. A turn, and I slid into the night.
My hand throbbed, reminding me to be careful, even though I needed to hurry. I only had twenty minutes to reach Antal. I was bringing him information that would change this restless city entirely. We had been quiet for far too long. We taught ourselves how to make plans in whispers. We knew how to hide in routine. We turned down Radio Free Europe or the BBC so our neighbors couldn’t hear us listening to the banned Western broadcasts and report us to the secret police. The information I carried with me would break the silence—if I could just reach Antal in time.
Passing the music academy and a row of darkened offices, I crept onto Lenin Avenue and began making my way north. A bitter breeze blew past me, as if exhaled by the dank, rat-filled alleys in my wake. Flickering lamps hung on wires suspended over the streets. I stuck close to the buildings, where the light could hardly reach, and prayed no one could see me.
A black Zis-110 idled ahead of me, the car’s curtains drawn on its passenger windows. I shivered at the sight of the secret police’s hallmark car, thinking of all the friends who had disappeared for no reason, taken away by henchmen in the middle of the night, never to return. It was no coincidence the Zis looked just like a hearse. I scurried onto a side street, dodging the car and the poor captives I assumed sat, trembling, inside of it.
I tiptoed past the Ministry of Interior, where red geraniums lined the building’s windows. In the secret prisons below, police tortured people with whips, limb crushers, nail presses, and scalding and freezing baths. Or else they just executed them. But the geraniums were always fresh.
I slid my fingers across the building’s dusty exteriors, imagining I could somehow transfer my nerves onto the cold, unfeeling brick. I had snuck through the streets after curfew for years, but tonight was different. I could feel the regime sensing our newfound courage, like a dog pushing its nose high into the air, catching the subtle perfume of a rabbit nearby.
After walking several blocks, I spied smoke unfurling in the path before me, like a languid snake expanding as it digests a fresh kill. Following it, I found Antal, his eyes closed, relishing in a cigarette.
“Antal, it’s me,” I said, coughing on the smoke now choking me.
Antal smiled and opened his eyes, his cataracts reflecting the glow of the street lamps. “Eszter, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too.” I kissed Antal on both cheeks, feeling his dry skin against mine and wondering how long he’d been outside waiting for me in the cold.
“Tell me, what information do you have for me today?”
“It will happen tomorrow,” I said. “Today, technically.”
It was already past midnight.
“So it’s here, isn’t it?” Antal said.
“Yes,” I said. “I went to their meeting. The students decided they’re going to march. I heard them talking about gathering arms.”
“How many people are participating in this… this march?” Antal asked as he stamped his cigarette into the ground and lit another one.
“Hundreds, thousands, maybe. I can’t be certain.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to predict how Gerő will react.”
“Gerő will slaughter them,” I said, feeling dizzy as I said aloud what we both knew. Hungary’s leader, Erno Gerő, was a Soviet puppet with an arsenal at the ready. “Without enough people hearing about it and organizing, it will just be a bloodbath.”
Antal fell back against the brick wall, suddenly losing his breath. He was always so levelheaded, so much so it often drove me to even greater heights of anxiety as I tried to compensate for his indifference. His fingers, still clutching the cigarette, quivered as his eyes searched the space behind me.
“The state radio will probably ignore this and just keep spewing out its propaganda,” he said.
“Exactly. We’re going to print with this too. But Realitás won’t reach enough people in time. An announcement on Radio Free Europe is the students’ only hope.” I held on to Antal’s shoulders to steady him. “It has to happen first thing in the morning, so people will have time to plan.”
The closest Radio Free Europe outpost was in Vienna. If Antal left now, he would get there by four in the morning.
“I already have meetings scheduled in Vienna for today,” he said. “I’ll visit our Radio Free Europe contacts as soon as I get there and cancel my other meetings to get back in time for the march. Gerő will think I cut short a routine visit to be by his side.”
Our lives by day were lies—Antal’s more than most. He served as the regime’s Deputy Interior Minister. After being forced to coordinate the executions of his friends—communists who threatened the power structure when they became too popular—he resolved to undermine the regime in any way possible. He began relaying intelligence to the American-run Radio Free Europe. With the freedom to travel at will and deep knowledge of the government’s inner workings, he also became an asset to Realitás, the underground newspaper I ran.
“It’s already one in the morning,” I said. “What will you do when they ask you why you’re crossing the border so late?”
“This is normal for me. I go to Vienna at all times of the day and night, just to keep them guessing. Just in case I run into a situation like this.”