“Do you know what happened to me?” she asked and nestled her head against my arm. “I’m going to be hanged,” she said in a voice for a baby, or maybe a lover.
I felt sick at this. Was she happy at this news? Was it the reality? I couldn’t know. She elonged her eyes at the patch of brick next to me. We both said nothing, but I felt my opportunity coming. “The code can help you. I’m exuberant that I know it, of course, but I have been having some glitches with it.”
Holding my breaths, I watched Eszter as she rose and then peered at me awkwardly and from her mouth, at initial, I thought she would vomit but then the most illustrious words rambled out.
“The code,” she crept her voice along the lines of revealing, “… is problematic, Laszlo.”
“Yes, or maybe I just am not remembering it with one hundred percent accuracy.”
“You are always careless with your memory,” she sneered, and her decaying teeth flashed me.
“I know, I know…. I wish it was not having its problems,” I said again.
“Are you starting with the third song of the midnight broadcast?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“And you know the first word in the title will be part of your location,” she said.
“Yes,” I lied times two.
“Well, then you should be able to figure this out. You are not stupid, Laszlo.”
“Okay,” I said, sullen.
“Argh,” Eszter burst out. “You forget things so quickly, but I love you,” she said, and she curled her finger around my hair.
“Please,” I begged, “Help your little Laszlo remember,” I said, mirroring the petite baby voice she used earlier.
“Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay,” she said, very rapid fire like. “The third song, remember that, is where you start. It’s in the midnight show. It’s the first part of your location. The third word in the fourth song will be the second part of your location. Except, you must walk three blocks south of this location, and intersect with the first location. The time is always the same, every day. It’s seven in the morning, but the day is not revealed. You try every day. You arrive every day until you find them.”
I jumbled for joy inside that I had made an acquire of the code. “Your Laszlo thanks you,” I told her, but my mind was racing to process the code. I said to myself it one hundred percent of the time, over and over, to stop from forgetting.
“You are most welcome.” Eszter proceeded to don a half smile and curl to a ball.
When she entered her extra layer of sleep, I exited through the vent, as always. It had already reached five in the morning. I remembered too the midnight broadcast repeated every single hour until six in the morning. Eszter probably did not know of awareness with that. If I could make it toward a radio, and it was not jammed, I could hear the location of the envoy leaving today. The time for action was upon me, Uncle Lanci. This was momentum.
I ventured off to my pastimes swimming locker room, where I knew Andras and his team would prepare for swimming practice by listening to Radio Free Europe. I crossed the river to Buda where the dawn illuminated the hills. In the locker room, I slipped behind sleep-filled huddles of men. I saw Andras, but the second he spied me I placed a finger betwixt my lips, indicating that he should be quiet lest I become discovered. He nodded and then I pointed up toward the radio and his eyes grew. The first song that came on was the typicaclass="underline" “Twist and Shout.” You are so predictable, Uncle Lanci! I waited until the third song, which was “King of the Road.” Then came “This Diamond Ring.”
Placing them next to each other, it became clear and easy. King means Király in Hungarian and Ring, well that could only mean Oktogon, the circle street area just three blocks north of Király út. The location was on Király, three blocks south of Oktogon. The simplicity of the code seemed more than I could bear.
I made it to the meeting place on time and, to my surprise, I saw people converging there. Many fled to work at this hour, but through them, I peered a stubbly man who looked to be in his middle life bent over a large box that he hustled into the back of a car as a woman with exceptional breasts and blond hairs whispered to him. They looked as if they were producing traditional business transactions in a place where that happened most days.
It could have been nothing, of course, but then I noticed an old man, this one with white hair, exit the car and inform himself to the man and the woman as if they had just encountered one another. I spied underneath the interactions of the woman, and the two men, lurked a strained hurry. They barely said words to each other. The blond woman tossed about her eyes here then there to investigate the scene, and the stubbly man refused to look up. I was almost sure these were the exact people who heard the code.
I am so extreme with excitement, Uncle Lanci, because I have accomplished it. I have procured the code and saw it occur. Your guidance proved with fruit, but now the question is, Uncle Lanci, how is it that I actually get passage to one of their missions? Am I to know again an extra code? Is someone supposed to alert them of my presence on board? Did you fixate that for me? I cannot walk up to them all alone and simply ask to come. They will mostly assume their mission has been confiscated. Maybe that is the explanation for you insisting I carry with me Eszter. It is becoming with clarity that I need her more than I wish.
When I viewed the car departing, it became a reality that I was inching closer to departing Hungary too. Once I do, I can’t make a prediction of when I will return home, and I know that there are people I cannot leave behind, and some I have to.
I wrote a note to Anika. It was my formal request that she partake on my mission. I wanted her to believe me with one hundred percent confidence. When I talked to her about leaving, she defied responding. I could see doubts going through her head, and I wanted to pluck them out and discourse them in the trash. I would do anything for Anika, but she is not of the romantic persuasion as I am. And I don’t know of whether I possess time to convince her. I must make tries, no matter, because she is a person of genuinity and kindness. She makes me feel braver than I was ever meant to be, but also more aware of what I am capable of. That is truly the most high gift a person can give you.
Adrienne has halted from asking me questions about my plans because I think she is with fear that they are moving forth. When I returned home this morning, she beckoned me forward to her room. Her radio buzzed and churned out effluence like a gagging dog with grass caught in its throat. She maintained she was listening to “Downtown,” her new number one song, when the screeching overtook it. She said it worried her with immensity because she knows how important it is that the radio stays clear for me. I believe this was her petite way of telling me she supports my departure even though she cannot join.
I fashioned the antennas in a particular position that enforced their ability to carry signal. Out came some music, of the classical persuasion, and not Radio Free Europe. I couldn’t reach it no matter how strange I twisted the antennas. Adrienne rolled her eyeballs and asked me if I would come back in ten minutes to try again. She kissed me on the cheek and told me I am her most favorite person. I assume she used this same strategy with Father recently and that explained why his radio stood in her room. I relented, of course, but I could not get Radio Free Europe even after five more efforts this morning.
I know I possess little time before the radio suffers from complete and utter jams. Now I have to decide whether I will hold my promise and take Eszter in my company. The thought of returning to her capsule is holy daunting. The more worse thought, however, is that she has perished from her sickness. The more more worse thought after that is that she is going to get executed.