She turned around to the window behind her. Outside, on top of the windowsill, sat three radios. A group of boys, probably university students, huddled over them. They prodded at the knobs, oblivious to the people sitting behind the glass.
“Someone has to tell them to move. This is awful.” Dora began massaging her temples.
Ivan leaned back in his chair and bent his arms behind his back.
“I actually like it.”
“What? You do?”
“Yes. It’s sending a good message.”
“Oh, that’s right. Of course.”
Dora remembered herself, and who sat across from her. Obviously, Ivan preferred the static. This was better than the alternative.
“Kids should know that they can’t just listen to rock ‘n’ roll whenever they want,” Ivan said. “It’s just capitalist propaganda.”
“Well, at least you stopped them this time,” Dora said.
As part of Ivan’s work at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, he orchestrated a massive operation that blocked Radio Free Europe’s broadcasts and replaced them with a jarring racket.
“This isn’t my doing,” Ivan said.
“What do you mean? You didn’t jam the radio today?” Dora asked.
“Nope. We’ve shifted our priorities elsewhere, at least temporarily. I’ll tell you about it when this ends.” Ivan nodded toward the window. “Anyway, it doesn’t even look like we need to jam. Look at them; they can’t find the station.”
Dora smiled meekly at him. She could feel a migraine coming on. She pressed her fingers into her ears. Closing her eyes, she thought about something that would make her happy.
The image of Boldiszar inched into her mind, as it often did. She thought about his black hair and how his curls overtook his dark eyes. She remembered the smile that pulled his entire face into it, like the eye of a hurricane. She remembered how, every birthday, she wished she could be old enough to date Boldiszar instead of being his first and longest babysitting job. When Dora’s thoughts inevitably collided with the terrible thing that happened to Boldiszar, she opened her eyes and ears, preferring the static over her wandering memories. But, it soon gave way to something much smoother. For a split second the noise tickled Dora, producing a lightness at the bottom of her stomach.
Surrounding them were the undeniable notes of The Beatles’ “She Loves You.” The boys belted, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah…” as they teetered back and forth like penguins, trying to dance in their stiff winter coats.
After only a minute, the song faded, and a honeyed voice took over.
“Our countdown continues on Radio Free Europe. We’re playing the top hits of 1964 for you today.” It was Laszlo Cseke, or Uncle Lanci, the Hungarian disc jokey who fled to Munich and became a Radio Free Europe icon.
“We’ve finally reached the top, so without further ado,” Uncle Lanci continued, “here’s the number one song of 1964, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’”
Forgetting herself, Dora wiped away the condensation accumulating on the window so she could see the boys better. Turning up the radio and shedding their coats, the boys belted out The Beatles lyrics, even trying to hold the hands of passersby, who shuffled to the other side of the sidewalk as if avoiding a massive sinkhole.
Ivan sat there frowning and puckering his lips as if a lemon slice was wedged between his teeth. He summoned their server with a flick of his hand. “Excuse me, what is your name?”
“Lajos.”
“Lajos what?”
They all knew why Ivan was asking. Ivan would hold this Lajos accountable for whatever he was about to ask him to do.
“Adler.”
“Do you like this music?”
“No, not in the slightest.” Lajos vigorously shook his head.
“Good, because Radio Free Europe is just trying to brainwash you. They think if you like The Beatles, you’ll like capitalism.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. Then can you please tell those men to go elsewhere, Lajos Adler?”
“Yes, right away, sir.”
As he confronted the boys outside, Lajos pointed inside at Dora and Ivan. In unison, they craned their necks toward the window. They zeroed in on Dora, their eyes scaling her high cheekbones before descending to her lips, where they lingered far too long. She looked down, finally getting the motivation she needed to focus on eating her chicken.
Dora heard a muted version of Ivan’s name percolate through the glass. They had recognized him. Soon the words “I want to…” met their end. By the time she looked up again, they had disappeared.
“It’s actually good we just witnessed that,” Ivan said.
“Oh, really? How come?”
“Uncle Lanci, Radio Free Europe, The Beatles… they are all connected to these changes I was talking about.” Ivan smiled and lifted his coffee mug, the veins in his arms jutting out, abandoned long ago by their fatty cushions. “You see, we’re picking up some intelligence…. We’ve heard that some counterrevolutionaries are making plans.”
Following protocol, Ivan referred to the Freedom Fighters who battled against the regime in the 1956 revolution not as revolutionaries, but as counterrevolutionaries.
“What kind of plans?” Dora asked.
“It looks like some of them are talking about leaving Hungary… illegally.”
“But I thought people could go abroad now?”
“Some people can, but others can’t. Especially counterrevolutionaries. We’ve installed extra security at the border, but we need to catch them before they get there.”
Now Dora understood where this conversation was going.
“That’s where you come in, Dora. I thought you could be extra vigilant with the Uncle Lanci letters.”
Dora censored mail for a living, focusing specifically on letters written to Uncle Lanci. Using code names, his fans wrote to him to request their favorite rock ‘n’ roll songs and to relay messages over the air. But these requests weren’t as benign as they seemed. In their letters, young people attacked communism, recounted abuse by the state police, and now, apparently, discussed plans to illegally leave the country. The regime hired people like Dora to monitor the letters and black out any subversive content. They didn’t just throw out the letters altogether because they had to give people some freedom—and provide them with enough small victories—so they didn’t agitate for another deadly uprising.
“Uncle Lanci has a huge influence over these young people, especially the counterrevolutionaries. We think they’ll use Uncle Lanci to escape,” Ivan continued.
“And that’s why you don’t want to jam the radio….” Dora was figuring it out. If they completely jammed Radio Free Europe, people would stop writing to Uncle Lanci. Any discussion of travel plans would be funneled elsewhere.
“Exactly. Now they’ll write to him and ask for help, I’m sure. And we will be there to catch them.”
“What will happen to them?”
“That’s for the police to decide,” Ivan said. “They might be put in jail or sent to a work camp.”
“I’ll pay special attention to the letters.” Dora held her breath, hoping that was all her dad wanted. She didn’t tell Ivan that one of her favorite letter writers might have been a counterrevolutionary. He used a pseudonym, as so many letter writers did, calling himself Mike a Korvinközből. The name referred to a famous movie theater-turned rebel stronghold in the 1956 revolution. Mike may have fought there, but he never discussed it in his letters. Writing in English, or “the tongue of The Beatles,” as he called it, Mike described a love life that far surpassed anything Dora ever experienced. His broken English made him seem sincere and innocent, despite his womanizing tendencies. Mike reminded Dora of Boldiszar, in a way. They both had an easy sweetness about them, one that didn’t demand reciprocity and instead existed solely as an inherent, inescapable part of their personalities.