After Utopia

Yes, it had been quite a war. Dan’s biggest regret was that it was the Russians who had liberated him. By this time, he hated their guts.

Tracy was sitting in their favorite meeting place, the Gosserkeller, a beer hall located at Elisabethstrasse 3, near the Opera, having a stein of the superlative Schwechater dunkles beer. He was at a small table off to the side. One of the advantages of the oversized beer hall was that it was so noisy and packed that you could carry on any kind of a conversation whatsoever and nobody would hear you.

Whiteley came in, excitement in his less than handsome face. He took the chair across from his companion.

He said, excitedly, “Been following the news?”

Tracy snorted and said, “You mean from Poland? Now that they’ve brought that old Party hack Gomulka into power, things will simmer down. There won’t be any basic changes in spite of all this gobbledygook about his standing up to Krushchev.”

Dan reached across the table and picked up Tracy’s stein and took a heavy gulp of the dark beer. He said, “I mean from Budapest.”

“What’s happened now?” Tracy said cynically. “I understand that they’re bringing Imre Nagy back into power, kicking Mayyas Rakosi out. But so what? Nagy’s just another Communist party hack.”

Dan Whiteley was jubilant. He said, “You should have heard the radio this morning. Hellsapoppin in Budapest. All over the country, for that matter. Tracy, this is it. All Hungary is up. The students, the teachers, the intellectuals, and the workers are forming worker’s councils to take over production. Even the army has come over. Pal Maleter is heading the army. They’ve all come in. Hell, even the church. Cardinal Mindszenty is backing the revolt, getting into the act… they have to. Tracy, this is it. The people are taking over! I’ll spread. If Hungary goes, Czechoslovakia will be next, then Poland, East Germany. It’ll go both East and West. Spain, Portugal, Rumania, Yugoslovia to begin with. Eventually, the world. The people are taking over!”

Tracy said, “For Christ’s sake. Let’s go back to the hotel. I want to hear the latest developments.”

They were staying in a small pension on Schellin Gasse, two blocks over from the Schubert Ring in an older part of the town. For economy reasons, they shared a room and took all of their meals at the pension rate. They walked, to save the cab fare, but they walked fast. It was only five or six blocks.

Even as they strode, Tracy said, “What’s the AVO in Hungary doing about all this?”

“The Security Police? There’s fighting going on in the streets, but evidently they’re scared spitless. Hundreds of thousands of students, workers and whoever, and his cousin, are out in the streets. When they catch an AVO man they shoot him and usually string him up to the nearest lamppost.”

“It couldn’t happen to nicer people,” Tracy growled.

“They’re evidently storming the Budapest radio station in Sandor street. The broadcasts coming from it are really typical commie. They claim the revolt is being headed by foreign fascists and secret agents from the United States.”

“Typical is right,” Tracy snorted.

Dan said excitedly, “A big strong point is the industrial area of Czepel Island in the Danube between Buda and Pest. It seems the people from there stormed an arsenal and armed themselves.”

“Jesus,” Tracy said.

They reached the hotel and took the stairs two at a time.

They flicked on the radio. Dan sat on one of the beds, Tracy straddled a chair backwards, and they stared at the speaker.

Since Spain, and the formation of the organization, Tracy had become the more dominant of the two, even though he was younger. His dedication was strong and for years he had been working full-time for the movement. Dan was utilized often, when his expenses could be met by the meagre organization treasury, but he didn’t have quite the reputation that Tracy did.

Finally, Tracy reached over and flicked the set off. He looked at his friend and colleague. He said, “We’re going to have to get on over there, Dan.”

Dan Whiteley licked his lips. “Yeah. I guess so. Should we check with the Executive Committee?”

“No time. Besides, we’re on the scene, and they aren’t. We’ll have to play it by ear.”

“What’s our cover?” Dan said.

“The same as it is now. We’re American journalists. Nobody ever shoots a journalist. Not on purpose. It causes too much of an international stink.”

Dan said sarcastically, “A hell of a lot of good a stink does you after you’ve been shot. Who’s our contact in Budapest?”

Tracy said, “Damned if I know. Franz Zieglar would know. We’ll get in touch with him. I don’t think we have many members in Hungary. It’s like the other commie countries. Hard to organize there.”

Dan said, “You ever been in Budapest?”

“No.”

“I was there once. Few days. Great town. Good food, good booze. Nice people… in a Hungarian sort of way. They say that Hungarians are the only people who can go into a telephone booth and leave by a rear entrance.”

Tracy laughed and said, “The way I heard it was that they were the only people in the world that could go into a revolving door behind you and come out in front.”

Dan left to go to the public phone out in the hall and call Franz Sieglar, one of the local Austrian organization men.

While he was gone, Tracy growled to himself. “I’ll bet it’s a great town, these days. Gypsy music and everything… played from the top of Joseph Stalin tanks.”

Franz Zieglar was efficient, as Austrians went. About forty years of age, plump, and innocent looking, he was one of the organization’s liaisons between the western groups and Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, and Bulgaria. He had a beautiful cover. He owned a small antique shop on the Kohlmarkt, just behind the Hofburg former Imperial Palace.

He periodically made shopping trips to Budapest, Prague, and Belgrade, quite legitimately. His specialty was buying antiques, old paintings, and first editions from former aristocrats now on their uppers and unable to get employment. They would often have something valuable, left over from the old days, and would sell it for very little, by western standards. Zieglar broke no laws in so buying. The local Communist governments were glad to have him bring hard western currency into the country… sooner or later it would wind up in their coffers.

He gave Tracy and Dan a complete rundown on the state of the movement in Hungary, and particularly in Budapest. Tracy had been correct, there weren’t many members, and most of them were concentrated in the capital and most were intellectuals; that is, writers, artists, teachers, students. There were a few engineers and technicians out in the industrial towns such as Miskolc, Gyor, and Pecs. In fact, one member was a factory manager in Szolnok.

Their immediate contact was to be a poet named Gyula Rajk, who belonged to the Petofi Circle.

“A poet!” Dan said in disgust.

Franz Zielgar looked at him. “The poet’s art is more highly regarded in Eastern Europe than it is currently in England and America.”

Tracy said, “What’s the Petofi Circle?”

Zieglar turned his eyes to the American as though he couldn’t believe the question had been asked.

“The Petofi Circle! Why, it’s the group that started this whole thing. It was begun in April of this year, organized by students and members of the writer’s union. They brought out the Irodalmi Ujsag, the Literary Gazette, and from the first they criticized the bureaucratic interference with the writer’s freedom. Their meetings were soon attracting thousands of people.”

“All right. Okay,” Tracy said. “We’ll check ourselves out on that more when we get there. Now, what do you think of our going in as journalists?”

“Every newspaperman based in Vienna is either already in Budapest or is heading there. And more are being flown in from Paris, London, and everywhere else, by the minute. They fly here to Vienna and then take cars to Budapest. It’s about a hundred and eighty miles.”

“And they don’t stop them at the border?”

“The border is chaos. Nobody knows who is in charge, and thousands of refugees are crossing every day.