Crouching over the typewriter, putting words to our plan, I began to write. I felt like a leader forging Hungary’s future before she was even ready for it. I prepared her for what she did not see coming.
“This needs to go to Radio Free Europe first.” Antal rested his hand on mine. I could feel it emitting an immense amount of heat. He surely had an infection.
“But… then we have to use the teleprinter….” I promised Laszlo I wouldn’t use it unless there was an emergency. The machine could send and receive messages, but at the risk of being intercepted and revealing our whereabouts.
“We have no choice,” Antal said.
Laszlo pretended to read a book, and I, once again, took his silence for permission.
During the Radio Free Europe broadcast, we all retreated to different sides of the room. Antal and Laszlo crouched in their respective corners and I sat at my desk, biting my nails. Antal’s face was twisted into a disconcerting combination of exhaustion and excitement. Ashen and swollen, his skin lacked any sort of pigment. A faint smile tugged at the edge of his battered mouth. Laszlo smoked five cigarettes in succession and his eyes seemed almost jumpy, as if trying to grip every word the broadcaster said.
As Laszlo put out his last cigarette onto the carpet, the broadcaster summarized the words I crafted, the words that Laszlo neglected to prevent from airing.
“If the Soviet troops really attack Hungary, if our expectations should hold true and Hungarians should hold out for three or four days, the United States will send military help to the Freedom Fighters,” Zoltán Thury, the broadcaster, said. “If the Hungarians continue to fight until Wednesday, we shall be closer to a world war than at any time since 1939, and in the Western capitals a practical manifestation of Western sympathy is expected any hour.”
Thury had expanded upon my words, making the broadcast even more reactionary than I predicted. I felt high, almost manic, like I could do anything. I imagined the head of Radio Free Europe reading Realitás and calling the president of the United States to convince him of our cause. The energy of my success buzzed through me, and all I wanted to do was run and yell.
“We did it. I can’t believe we did it,” I said, beginning to stuff my bag with copies of Realitás. I had to start distributing it to the people who missed the broadcast.
“Do you know what this means?” Laszlo’s eyes were moist, and I thought, finally, he was softening.
“What does it mean?” I put down my things and rubbed his back, ready to coax out the tenderness I had been waiting for.
“We are fucked.”
“What?” I hissed, the energy I gained from our success converting into rage.
“I said… we are fucked.”
I squeezed his shoulders, letting my nails dig ever so slightly into his back. “How can you take this one glimmer of hope, Laszlo, and completely destroy it?”
“You think being pawns of the Soviets is bad? What’s going to happen when the Americans get their chance to play with us?”
At that moment, I wanted to leave the office and never come back, if only to make Laszlo regret what he said. But then the phone rang.
ESZTER TURJÁN
October 23, 1956—Evening
WE ALL STARED at it. Was it a coincidence the phone started ringing only minutes after Radio Free Europe announced Western aid would come to our country at any time? Or was it fate? As a precaution, we never gave out our number or accepted phone calls. But tonight, as the revolution spat the unknown throughout our city, we abandoned our former rules.
Antal scooped up the phone, cradled it to his ear, and turned his back to us. Laszlo ignored him, busying himself with posthumously correcting the already-published Realitás. He scribbled all over the paper, sighing as red and black ink rubbed off on his arm, making it look like he went to battle with the paper, and lost.
Antal beckoned me to him, subtly, and without the notice of Laszlo, though I’m sure he heard me as I tiptoed across the room. Antal handed me the phone. Raspy coughing echoed on the other line followed by someone clearing their throat.
“Eszter,” the voice of a woman spoke. “We need you to do something for us.”
Her voice had an intoxicating fragility to it, as if every word was in danger of being overtaken by sheer exhaustion. Covering the mouthpiece with my hand, I asked Antal who she was. “Anya, the Radio Free Europe chief,” he replied, solemnly.
The second Antal said that to me, I knew it was true. I had heard Anya a few times over the radio, when she stepped in for an absent colleague. She had taken the place of regular broadcaster Zultán Thury just last week.
“Yes, what do you need?” I held the phone so close to my mouth, it became moist.
“This is classified. Not even Laszlo can know what I am going to tell you.”
“I understand.”
“We need you to deliver a message to the military leader of the Freedom Fighters—Boldiszar Balasz.”
I almost tripped over the cord.
“Who?”
“Boldiszar. Balasz.”
That was the name of Boldiszar. Our Boldiszar.
“There is no way he is the leader of the Freedom Fighters.”
“He is in charge of a major contingency of students fighting in district five,” Anya said.
“No… no… no… this is all my fault.”
“What?”
“I did this to him.”
It was only two years ago that I first started slipping Boldiszar anti-regime pamphlets, the ones that his parents and Ivan hid from him, but that sometimes were dropped from balloons into the countryside. I also saved a copy of Realitás for him every week, folding it in the envelope we gave him as payment for taking care of Dora. While I knew Boldiszar wouldn’t be so careless as to discuss the paper with me in our home, within the vicinity of Ivan, Boldiszar always gave my hand an extra squeeze when I handed him his payment.
Once, I even asked him to contribute to Realitás to give the paper a young person’s perspective. When Ivan saw that copy, he made sure I never spoke to Boldiszar again. Anytime I stepped near the boy, Ivan would swoop in between us, rest his arm on Boldiszar’s shoulder, and usher him away.
I tried to understand how it could be true that, over the course of that time, Boldiszar had become a leader of the Freedom Fighters. I remembered some of Boldiszar’s classmates used to tease him for taking care of Dora every day after school. Their jeers failed to dissuade him from his duties, the happiness of a little girl more important than his popularity. Maybe the students saw Boldiszar’s kindness as radical and noble, a relief from the regime’s incessant cruelty.
“I know him,” I finally said to Anya. “He’s a good boy.”
“We know. That’s why we’re asking you to do this favor for us. We’re scared he wouldn’t trust anyone else. We need you.”
“For what?”
“The U.S. is on their way to Hungary as we speak. We need their troops to connect with Boldiszar immediately.”
“The U.S. is coming to Hungary?” I asked, shocked that they would actually heed our call.
“You’re surprised? You’re the one who suggested this in the first place.”
“Right. I’m just… relieved they are following through.”
I couldn’t believe I had predicted the course of the revolution so accurately—the U.S. was coming to our aid. I no longer felt like a journalist, but a driver of news. I felt manic and powerful, like the country needed me to get to work immediately. I also felt a deep sense of relief knowing Boldiszar would have one of the most powerful militaries in the world behind him.