The obese boy at the table, who wore army fatigues and kept combing his brown, greasy hair, raised his voice above the others.
“What do you want?”
“U.S. troops are coming. I have to tell Boldiszar where to meet them.”
They quieted in unison.
“That can’t be true,” the boy said.
“It is, and I need to speak to Boldiszar immediately.”
“Well, you used the code. Wait here,” he commanded.
I nodded.
The boy slipped inside a back room. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, comforting myself with the notion that, at the very least, my feet were prepared to launch into action. I wondered if Boldiszar was scared. Was he hurt? Did he know what he was doing?
I still had a hard time believing he had the tenacity to lead this revolution. In the face of conflict, he always acted so tenderly. When Dora misbehaved, Boldiszar would just wait for her to calm down. He never lectured her. Instead, he asked her questions, prompting her to understand her motivations and, ultimately, her errors. She usually reached the conclusion that she was wrong on her own, and the conversation ended in an apology. How would our gentle Boldiszar last an entire revolution? I wanted to know, and at the same time, I didn’t.
“He will see you now,” the boy said, returning. “But you only have ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Patting me up and down, the boy searched for weapons. Finding nothing, he sighed and opened the door to Boldiszar’s office.
Boldiszar was sitting in a large, leather chair examining something on his desk. I stopped for a second to admire how grown up he looked. He wore a beautifully tailored, olive green military uniform, though you could tell where Hungary’s official military ornaments had been ripped off the woolen jacket and sewn over. His hair was slicked back, the only relic of his wild curls by his ears, where a few strands escaped the wrath of hair gel. When he stood up, I swear he looked taller than I remembered. But when our eyes met, he gave me that same toothy, eager smile that made everyone adore him.
“Eszter! It’s good to see you,” he said, kissing me on both cheeks.
“Boldiszar, hello.”
“Come, sit down. Tell me why you’re here.”
“Well, I’m sure your… comrades… already told you. I was sent here by Jedidiah.”
Boldiszar nodded, as if he was personally acquainted with someone named Jedidiah. I almost laughed, he seemed so eager to act like a seasoned professional. Instead, he just reminded me of someone listening to an assignment on his first day of work.
“And what news does Jedidiah have for us today?”
“Today?”
“Yes, we get intelligence from Jedidiah regularly.”
“Oh, I had no idea.” I wondered who else Anya used to relay intelligence to Boldiszar, and felt a pang of jealousy. Why didn’t they trust me sooner?
“The U.S. is here. They want to meet to coordinate resistance efforts.”
“Where?”
“In Buda. I can show you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Boldiszar curled his fingers in and out of his palms, making small fists and releasing them over and over. He stared at me, his tar-colored eyes resting on mine. He started nodding his head, and I couldn’t tell if he was thinking, or pretending to think, or basking in the immense responsibility before him.
“Eszter,” Boldiszar sighed. “I want to listen to you. I want to believe you. I know you are telling me everything you heard, but how do we know that wasn’t a saboteur calling? How do we know it was really Jedidiah? This is the most extreme thing he has asked me to do….”
“She.”
“What?”
“Never mind, just turn up the radio. I can prove to you I’m not lying.”
Anya and Antal had prepared me for this very situation.
“Sure,” Boldiszar said, reaching for the nob.
On air, Zultán Thury delivered the news in a quieter, more subdued voice. He recounted the day’s horrors and named the students and other Freedom Fighters who had been killed. I didn’t recognize any of the names, thankfully. Boldiszar kept a straight face, though I could hear the soft, nervous tapping of his foot against the desk. Thury instructed us to help the wounded now lining the streets and offered a cursory lesson on wound care and CPR. He discussed rebel movements outside of the city. Workers in the villages had taken over factories, standing up to their dictatorial bosses.
Looking at the radio, then me, then at the radio, Boldiszar finally said, “What are we waiting to hear?”
“Just wait.”
“With the help of our intelligence operatives in the field,” Thury began, “our troops will be aligned with military efforts from the United States.”
Boldiszar’s eyes perked up. I placed my finger to my lips, hoping to ensure his silence.
“And that wraps up the news,” the reporter continued. “But, we have an important message for the Freedom Fighters. First, listen to Eszter. Second, Feri is in the tunnel. And third, light will lead the way.”
Boldiszar’s lips, thin and pale, parted for a second, then snapped back shut. He examined me from the corner of his eye.
“So you are the Eszter, then? I heard those codes earlier this evening, but I didn’t even think it was you….”
“It is. Now will you believe me?”
“I can imagine,” Boldiszar said, more to himself than me, “that it would be hard to fight off the Soviets without knowing someone like me to get the U.S. connected to the right people and place the guns in the hands of those who want victory the most… who can be trusted….”
“Exactly, now we really don’t have much time. We need to get to work.”
“Wait, Eszter….”
“What?”
“Why aren’t they giving us any time to fight on our own? We deserve that, at the very least.”
“You know we can’t win on our own, Boldiszar. There is no way we have enough resources or people to take on the Soviets. And the U.S. wants to see the Soviets lose as much as we do.”
Boldiszar looked down and studied the document on his desk.
“I know,” he said quietly. “You’re right.”
“Can I show you where they are now?”
“Yes, you might as well.”
I rushed over to the map. Pins marking demonstration spots and battlegrounds pierced the sprawling city. A red pin sat on the radio building, where the first young deaths of the revolution occurred, and another on Bem Square, where students protested at the feet of Józef Bem, a hero of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. Blue pins marked Kossuth Square and the Ministry of Agriculture, all of which had yet to see conflict, as far as I knew. I wondered what offensives the Freedom Fighters planned to launch at those sites. Perhaps Antal wanted me to go on this mission so I could gather some intelligence too. If Laszlo and I monitored these areas, we could send out calls for troops and arms.
I ran my fingers along the map until I found the meeting point with the Americans. It lay nestled far away, miles past Batthyány Square on the other side of the bridge, in the hills of Buda.
“This is where we have to go,” I said.
“That is far, almost too far.” Boldiszar studied the map.
“I assume they needed somewhere safe.”
“But once I’m there,” Boldiszar shook his head. “I’m theirs.”
I refused to say anything. I started to back away from him, toward my chair. I had seen many men, even men as compassionate as Boldiszar, turn on me in times like these. The second their doubts took hold of them, I became an unwelcome witness to weakness.