Ivan gave up on cleaning his shoe and sighed, defeated. “We have to talk about your mom.”
“Mom…?” Her dad had just brought up Eszter for the first time in nine years. She couldn’t believe it. Did he know Dora had just learned about Eszter? No, he wouldn’t… he couldn’t…. Dora lost her balance on the snow. She fell into Ivan, grabbing his arms to save her from crashing onto the sidewalk.
“I thought you should know something.” Ivan helped Dora up and pulled her cap down around her ears.
“You told me we couldn’t have anything to do with her,” Dora said. Ivan made her promise that the day after they took Eszter away, saying she committed a crime for the Freedom Fighters so egregious it put Dora and Ivan in grave danger. They couldn’t associate with her anymore, not with the regime rounding up anyone involved in the revolution, throwing them in jail, shipping them off to work camps in Russia, or killing them. Dora understood that forgetting about Eszter, at least for the time being, would be the only safe route.
Ivan carefully displaced the snow on a bench, motioning for Dora to sit down. “Things are different now.”
“How so?” Dora refused to sit. She wanted her dad to just give her the information and leave. She was not his mom or wife. She would never be that, and yet she felt him searching for the comfort a child could never provide.
“They’re having a hearing to determine if she will remain in prison or if her crime is worthy of something… else,” Ivan said, growing quieter as his voice tripped over his tears. “Your mom’s chances of being deemed innocent are slim. They will either confine her to a labor camp or sentence her to death.”
Dora closed her eyes and pictured the woman described in Ferenc’s letters. Her mom had no life at all. How could she possibly lose more of it? In Eszter’s state, she wouldn’t stand a chance against any judge.
Ivan placed his hand on Dora’s shoulder and squeezed it, perhaps a little too firmly. The best way to secure their sanity, and return things to normal, was some sort of jail sentence for Eszter. Death, however, would shatter them.
“Is there anything we can do?”
“I made sure to file the appropriate paperwork and extend deliberations as long as possible. However, a new police chief is being sworn in. He wants to rid us of the past, especially the people who committed crimes like your mom’s.”
“What was her crime?”
“You know I can’t share that information with you.”
“Except you’ll tell me that she might be sentenced to death?” Dora felt an old, and nearly forgotten, frustration mounting inside of her. Even at twenty-six, Ivan denied her knowledge of Eszter’s specific crime, though Dora now knew it had something to do with a murder, based on Ferenc’s letters.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have told you any of this.” Ivan stood up, trembling and nearly falling back onto the bench. Dora grabbed his shoulders and steadied him. She wondered if her father had the strength to even get home.
Just as he ambled out of sight, Dora noticed that Ivan forgot his briefcase. It was a brown, worn thing, its leather straps shedding ugly strings. She didn’t feel like calling out after Ivan, and decided instead to carry it home for him. As she bent down to pick it up, she spied a folder sticking out from the rest. Faintly written on its label was the word Eszter.
Dora slid the folder out of its rightful place, wondering if she was about to make a serious mistake. The first document contained a simple profile of Eszter—her age, weight, how many children she had. The sight of Dora’s name gave her pause, reminding her that, yes, she was Eszter’s daughter, a fact she had tried to ignore for too long. She quickly turned to the next document, a memo written in the aftermath of the revolution.
Eszter Turján and Laszlo Cseke: Escape Routes and Prospects
This report is an accounting of the events of October 24, 1956.
We searched for Laszlo Cseke, co-founder of Realitás, but failed to locate him. We discovered a note written to him from his colleague, Eszter Turján. In the note she divulged a code. We assume that this code assisted Cseke in his escape from Hungary.
Dora turned to the next page to see a note in her mom’s handwriting sitting, undisturbed, on top of a stack of papers. Dora hadn’t been this close to anything so reminiscent of her mom as she knew her (not that sliver of a person she saw in the ministry’s basement) in years. She lifted the note with caution, as if it was a shard of glass that could slip and cut her at any moment.
Laszlo, I am leaving now. I have to complete a mission. If I don’t come back or something happens and our position is compromised, there is hope. You can escape to Munich. Covert envoys go there weekly. Say you found out from me. They’ll know what that means. There is a code you must follow to find the envoys. The code is our favorite one. It’s the lullaby I sang to you sometimes at night. It’s the one I made you memorize. I never told you what it meant because I always wanted you here, for me. Just use it and listen to the midnight broadcast of Radio Free Europe. It will be clear where to go. But if you decide to do this, please do everything you can to find me and take me with you. I know that if the situation forces you to go, you will be in dire circumstances and so will I. Please, know that I love you. I always have, and I always will.
So there really was a code. Dora had a hard time believing it still existed, yet at the same time, a part of her hoped it did. And she knew her mom had been having an affair. She just knew it. Still, it hurt to see more proof that their family hadn’t been enough for Eszter. Her heart and mind belonged somewhere else. Laszlo’s betrayal must have hit her hard if she could still focus on it, through her madness. The memo gave Dora a light with which to shine on the past, and she wanted to see more. Dora reached for another memo.
Eszter Turján – Class Three Threat
Eszter Turján regularly corresponds with Radio Free Europe. She harbors knowledge of a code played to reveal coordinates of an escape route. We have yet to possess knowledge of this code, and all efforts must be taken to extract it from Eszter. We thereby recommend enacting punitive measures that will force her to provide us with said information. These measures can include, but are not limited to, putting high degrees of pressure on her back through weight presses, cutting off her toenails and eyelashes, as well as keeping her in a bright room to prevent her from sleeping.
At the bottom of the letter Dora noticed a number of signatures, including one that belonged to Ivan. Once again, Dora felt the shift happen, her world transforming to reveal a side of her father she didn’t know existed. Could he really be that cold and unfeeling to sign an order promoting the torture of his wife? Dora knew he probably didn’t have much of a choice, with his singular focus to protect Dora and prove they had nothing to do with Eszter’s crimes, whatever those were. She hated her dad for his bureaucratic heartlessness and how he continuously tucked away his emotions in the folds of procedure and law. She saw now that beneath those folds, anger and sadness grew like a mold, uncontrolled and infectious, turning her dad into a fragile shell of who he once was and causing him to turn on a wife he still loved.
Dora knew he had never quite abandoned his love for Eszter. Sometimes when Eszter walked into the room, Ivan’s eyes would stay on her for an extra minute, long after the two of them said hello. Dora would watch as Ivan took in Eszter, following the steep curves of her hips to her slender waist, and up to her eyes, so sharp they could cut you. Eszter, too caught up in her own world, never stopped to see the faint outlines of compassion and desire etched onto Ivan’s face in those moments.