“They looked menacing to me, standing with their hands in their pockets, and when they watched me pass I was a little scared. I don’t know what they were thinking.”
I said, “I can imagine what they were thinking.”
“No-not that. I know that look. They were thinking something different.” She paused. “But you can’t really read faces, can you?”
“Sometimes you can.”
“They’ve been through a lot,” said Leonek.
We both turned to him.
“After the funeral, I talked to one of them in a bar.” He thought a second, eyes glazed, then returned. “Slavery. That’s what it was. And after years of being watched over by guards, after the malaria and executions- yes, that’s what he told me: They often executed men in a field near the barracks. After all that, what can you expect from someone?”
Agnes was in her chair now, paying attention. She stared at Leonek with something approaching wonder.
“Remember in August?” he asked me. “Just before your vacation. There was that Ukrainian. He came back from the camps and beat his son to death because he’d become a clerk for the Central Committee.”
“Lev Urlovsky,” I said. “He was at the Vatrina Work Camp.”
“Yeah.” He leaned forward. “When we arrested him, he showed no remorse. None at all. It was strange to see.”
“After killing his own son?” said Magda. “That’s horrible.”
“Agnes,” I said, and it took a second for her to hear me. “Agnes, take Pavel for a walk.”
She sighed loudly, but got up and left the room. Pavel followed, nails clicking on the floor.
“You don’t know,” said Leonek. “You just don’t know what they’ve been through. The Turks were going to take my father to prison, but they shot him instead.” His hands settled on the table, on either side of his plate. “Maybe he was lucky.”
I heard the front door open and slam shut.
21
The two wine bottles were empty, so I went to get another from the kitchen, and when I returned, Leonek was leaning back in his chair, legs stretched out beneath the table, frowning again. Magda shrugged. When I filled his glass, he took it absently and pressed it to his lips, but did not drink. Then he set the glass back on the table and looked at Magda. “I’m going to do it,” he said.
I was almost afraid to ask. “Do what?”
He turned to me. “I’m going back into the files. I’m going to investigate Sergei’s murder.”
“You’re sure?”
“Why not?” He drank some wine. “I told you before, there are no more responsibilities for me. This is the only responsibility I have left.”
“Who’s Sergei?” Magda asked.
“You met him a couple times during the Occupation.”
“My partner, Sergei Malevich.” Leonek put his elbows on the table. “He was killed just after the war. Shot in the back of the head.”
“I think I remember. The Russian, right?”
We nodded.
“He was nice.” She looked at Leonek. “And it wasn’t investigated?”
I spoke up. “He was looking into the rape and murder of a couple girls in a synagogue. We knew who had done it, everyone knew: Russian soldiers. But we couldn’t do a thing. Sergei was insistent, though.”
“Because he was Russian,” said Leonek. “It tore him up that everyone in the Capital thought of Russians this way, as rapists and murderers.”
Magda refilled our glasses.
Leonek took another drink. “He wanted to prove either that the killers weren’t Russian, or that if they were, a Russian could bring them to justice. You remember that night?”
I did.
“He called me,” said Leonek, “then I called you. He wanted us to meet him down by the water. There was that thick fog, and by the time we showed up he was dead. It was unreal. We could even hear the gunman running away, but couldn’t see more than a foot ahead of us.”
“Is there anything left of it?” I asked. “In the files. After so long, it’ll be hard to follow the leads.”
“I can at least try.”
“What about his family?” Magda asked. “Wasn’t he married?”
“His wife and son, Kliment, moved to Moscow.” Leonek smiled. “Kliment became a militiaman too.”
Magda stared at Leonek, cheeks flushed, and I realized then that she had been doing most of the drinking. She was a little drunk, and maybe I was too.
Leonek looked into his glass, then popped his head up. “This is really good wine!” I guess he was drunk as well.
I heard the front door open, saw Magda’s face turn to me, flushed and radiant, and that was when it bubbled through me, and over me.
I was in the present. I was not thinking of later that evening, when we would be alone again and the strained silence would keep us far from the one sad subject that was the only thing we could ever think about. I was in the present, where I was generous and could forget a single night almost two decades old, because marriage and all the years, and Agnes-they were so much bigger than one carnal act. I could see her cheeks redden; her smile warmed me. I saw my daughter watching from the doorway. Our guest smiled at all the riches I had in this house, his admiration all over him. And that’s when I thought, hopefully, that Magda and I still had a future together.
“Leonek,” I said. “That really is a nice tie you’re wearing.”
He looked down, flipped it with his fingers, and we all laughed, even Agnes.
You can read it all; it’s no secret. The Magyars have grown loud. Because if they scream enough, they might get their Nagy with the mustache like two paintbrushes, just as the Poles have their Gomulka. And after a momentary face-off, the Empire bows its head and allows Imre Nagy to control their path to socialism. You read this, and you wait. And far a while you’re encouraged-who isn’t? Collectivization is halted in the Hungarian plains, and People’s committees are formed to air complaints. The Spark calls these moves bold, unprecedented. The sun shines on the Magyars, and even over here in the Carpathian basin the clouds are dispersing. Kozak the Engineer opens the Tenth Central Committee Meeting with a declaration of solidarity with the revered Comrade Nagy. Mihai does not condemn the phrasing, and his silence is greater than any words. Bobu the Professor asks for an investigation into the benefits of trade agreements with nations outside the socialist neighborhood.
Yet just as quickly, the cooling begins. In their enthusiasm, Magyar workers seize government buildings and form revolutionary councils. Bobu says nothing, and even Kozak stares quietly at his podium. Nagy announces the end of the one-party system in the Hungarian People’s Republic. Breaths are being held; the oxygen grows thin. The Magyars decide to take their soldiers out of the year-old Warsaw Pact and ask to be united with the nations of the West. Exhale. The Empire mobilizes. Russian tanks reach the edge of Budapest. The lack of air makes everyone a little crazy-there are barricades in the streets along the Danube, then the tanks move in. The American radio gives instructions on guerrilla warfare. The radios of the Empire shout of imperialist-financed counterrevolutionaries. And in the Budapest streets busses are turned over and rifles disseminated and Magyar students and Magyar workers line up at the barricades. Nagy calls for quiet and calm, but he is whispering to a hurricane. On Radio Budapest he says, Today at daybreak, Soviet troops attacked our capital with the obvious intent of overthrowing the lawful democratic Hungarian government. Then Radio Budapest sends an SOS signal and drops quietly off the air.
Here in the Capital the silence reigns. But it is a tense silence, like the one that hangs over a failing marriage. No one in the street can smile cleanly, and even you hear whispers about the tremblings beneath the surface. Here,
