Please help me in the confidence that I will be doing all that I can to ensure my safe delivery to your whereabouts. And, please, play “Downtown” for Adrienne, with many attempts so she can hear it.
Sincerely,
Mike a Korvinközből
Desire is fuelled by all, but fulfillment. —Ernő Osvát
ESZTER TURJÁN
February 26, 1965
MEMORIES FEEL SO thin now, translucent and fleeting, like ghosts of dreams I can’t remember. I see Dora’s face, her beautiful, slight eyes, and her olive skin. She gets closer to me, and her cheeks shimmer with tears. I reach out to wipe them away. She backs up, farther and farther, until she fades into blackness, like I am going blind.
I should have told her goodbye so many times, but it feels like too much effort. It feels like trying to climb stairs when you’re feverish. If you take the wrong step, you’ll smash your teeth or break open your head.
I am this bare and dank cell. That is really what is inside of me, and it makes sense. I try to conjure Dora’s face, and still there is blackness. I can’t remember, but I have nothing to remember either, because the past is not who I am. It is not my life anymore.
The lights flash off, flash on three times, then off permanently. I know that my time is coming. The guard told me today in a whisper, “Just a few more days, Eszter. Just a few more days that I get to enjoy you.”
He howled with laughter until he finished and, whistling, he walked out of my cell and down the line of us, his victims. When he distracts himself, I listen to my lovely music on my lovely radio that I convinced Ferenc to bring me.
If only Laszlo could see me now. Does he know I’m going to take his note seriously and leave here forever? The man who consumed my fantasies and my reality for years boarded up his heart from me and now, only now, is coming back. My anger flashes, like lightning that electrifies me.
So I can hear Laszlo, so I can curse him, I stay up all night until Laszlo’s voice permeates every inch of my skin. I scratch myself all over, trying, trying to hurt him. He is crawling inside and outside of me, and I dig into him until blood is underneath my nails.
I used to convince myself he got on Radio Free Europe to give me a sign that he was alive, thriving, and would soon come after me. He said that’s true, but it’s not.
Ivan must be in charge. If he knew about my little plan, he would enact the jamming in full force and find a way to get it into this cell, to infect my radio. If I die, it would be easier for him. If I leave Hungary, well, what then? There is no freedom from here, just a chain of more prisons that, though open, would be just as suffocating as this one. There is no prison that will set you free. There is no prison that will set you free. I write this on the wall with the specks of blood coming from my fingers, from where I scratched out Laszlo.
I am forever imprisoned because of what I did to Dora. I am more scared of death than an eternity of confines. I am more scared of not existing, even though I don’t deserve it. I live not for meaning, but for inertia. To make meaning of your life is what they will wish upon me. I can tell. Ferenc’s eyes beg for connection, but what he doesn’t understand is that I am past meaning. I am breathing, and I am sitting, and I am scratching, and I am shouting, and that is the sum of who I am. It’s not enough for Ferenc, and it wouldn’t be enough for Dora. But it is enough for me that I won’t let the brute mechanics of my body stop.
I will never know love again. I will never know friendship or family. I will know breath. I will know sleep. I will know hunger. I will know pain. I will know I am alive.
I hug the radio so tight because I heard the code. I heard it so clear, so very loud and clear. I am ready.
Tonight Ferenc abandons me. It’s only a matter of time until he returns. The next time he comes, it’s the last, I decide. I am leaving with him.
MIKE A KORVINKÖZBŐL
February 27, 1965
Dear Uncle Lanci,
I am writing this letter with the immense hope that tomorrow I will be at your doorstep. I persevered to hear the code at midnight, but it was jammed. If the jamming pursues forth, I will melt in fears and desperation. I cannot think atop this now. I have to proceed and proceed.
I said goodbye to Adrienne, which was the most pain I have endured in an enormous time. She was nuzzled in her usual corner on my bed and she looked so perfect, her skin translucent with the moon’s flittered light.
“Adrienne,” I said.
She jolted awake with her eyes globed to the back of her skull. I thought I had invoked a heart attack on her.
“Yes?” she squeaked.
I think she knew in her dreams what was happening or about to happen. She pinched her eyes into petite holes to see me. I glossed her cheek with my hand.
“What?” she queried me severely.
She was the most perfection of a sister. I wanted to tell her that, but she would get even more scared for my delaying of the news. I wished I could have bestowed upon her more. I was the one who failed, who couldn’t deliver the love to her. That is why I would bring Mom back.
“Adrienne…,” I coursed gently times two. “I’m leaving.”
A singular tear escaped vigorously onto my cheek and then her bed. But she did something so marvelous, Uncle Lanci, something so surpassed her current age. Adrienne nodded. Instead of pestering me for details, she leaned her head atop my arms. I could tell she had been crying too because a petite wetness sprung on my arm. Without lifting her eyes, she reached her hand beneath her bed and procured a folder.
“Refrain to open this now. Wait until Munich. It’s everything I’ve assembled about Mom.”
Adrienne, she is my one hundred percent amazer. That she would even cobble together any information on Mom, and how she did it, dumbfounds me. I wanted aggressively to have knowledge of what was in there, and it was more fuel for me to go to Munich. I had to pay back and forward her efforts.
“Okay, I promise.” I kissed her hands, then her cheek. I delivered her one last hug, and when I felt her petite back drop into my hands, I permissed my grief to suffocate me for a second. I rose, in fears that if I stayed by her side any longer, I wouldn’t leave. She offered me the comfort of seeing her retreat back toward bed. I pulled her blankets up until they settled under her chin.
“I’ll miss you,” I said.
“I love you,” she said.
And with that I walked past Adrienne’s bed and pushed into the dawn.
The sun commences rising now, and I have decided there is no turning aback. Today is the day. It won’t be enough time to meet Anika. Please make the announcement to Anika that Mike loves her and will miss her. This is my last hope, this letter I’m going to drop off in Varga’s mailbox right now. Thank you, is the sum of what I want to say to you. I’ll see you on the other side.
Sincerely,
Mike a Korvinközből
Desire is fuelled by all, but fulfillment. —Ernő Osvát
DORA TURJÁN
February 27, 1965
DORA’S FEET CRASHED into the sidewalk, propelling her forward in a manic sprint. Her hair fell out of its tightly-wound bun, sucking up the wind as Dora fought against the cold currents of air. She tucked her hair behind her ears, into the mounds of sweat running down her scalp.