halt. Two AVH officers jumped out.
The crowd closed ranks around the streetlight as though it were territory to be defended. One of the officers grabbed the flag, which was wrapped around Zoya, pulling it free, holding it up contemptuously. It was only now that Zoya noticed the Communist hammer and sickle in the center had been cut out, a gaping hole in the middle of the material. The AVH officer sounded like a barking dog, Zoya unable to understand a word he was saying. He searched Zoya’s pockets, infuriated by her silence. Finding nothing apart from the beret he threw it back at her. A single bullet trapped inside the material fell to the street.
The officer picked up the bullet, staring directly at Zoya. Before he could speak the drunk woman reached down and grabbed the beret from the street, placing it proudly on her head. It looked ridiculous, too small for her. The officer turned to the woman and Zoya didn’t need to speak Hungarian to understand that he was asking if the beret belonged to her. The officer raised the bullet to the woman’s face. Did this also belong to her? he must have asked. In reply, she spat in his face. While the officer wiped the glob of phlegm from his cheek, the woman flicked Zoya a glance: run!
Cutting a diagonal across the street, Zoya ran. Mid-sprint, she turned around, peering over her shoulder. She saw the AVH officer swing a punch, connecting with the side of the woman’s face. As if the punch had connected with her own face, Zoya’s legs crumbled and she collapsed, her hands scraping across the ground. Rolling onto her back, looking over the tips of her shoes, she saw the woman fall. A man jumped forward, grabbing the officer. A second man joined the fray. Scrambling to her feet, Zoya lurched into another run, this time reaching the side street. Out of sight, she didn’t stop. She had to get help. Fraera would know what to do.
Fraera and her vory occupied several apartments within a small courtyard set back from Rakoczi ut. Accessed by a narrow passageway, the apartments couldn’t be seen or spied upon from the main street. Reaching them, Zoya stopped running. No one was following her. In the unlit passageway, relieved to be off the street, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Malysh. They hugged. He said:
– Are you okay?
She shook her head.
They entered the courtyard. There were six floors of apartments. Fraera had occupied several apartments, spread across various floors, each put to a different use. There was a small printing press, producing leaflets and posters. In another apartment there were stocks of guns and munitions. A third apartment served as a meeting place, to eat and sleep and discuss. Entering the communal apartment, Zoya was surprised by the number of people-far more than usual. On one side were Hungarian men and women, most aged in their twenties, arguing passionately. On the other side were the vory. Most had not made the journey from Moscow to Budapest, remaining behind, preferring the certainty of the criminal underworld. They didn’t understand the deal Fraera had made with Panin. They couldn’t conceive of a life outside of Russia. Only a small number of her most ardent supports had followed her, partly out of loyalty, mostly because they knew no other vory gang in Moscow would want them. From fifteen, only four remained.
Fraera was in the middle of the room, in between the two groups, listening even when Hungarian was being spoken, sensitive to body language and gestures. She saw Zoya immediately, spotting her distress:
– What happened?
Zoya explained. Fraera’s eyes came alive, turning around, addressing her translator, a Hungarian student named Zsolt Polgar:
– Find as many Hungarian flags as you can. Cut the hammer and sickle out of them, so that there is a hole in the middle. This is the symbol we’ve been waiting for!
Fraera had no interest in the woman who’d risked her life to save Zoya. Upset, Zoya left the apartment. She leaned against the balcony rail. Malysh joined her. He lit a cigarette, a habit he’d copied from the other vory. She took the cigarette from his lips, stubbing it out under her foot:
– It makes you smell.
She regretted her words. The smoke did make him smell: it made him smell like all the other vory. But she hadn’t meant to embarrass him. Hurt, he slid off the rail, sulking back inside the apartment. She needed to remember that he was not her little sister to boss around.
At the memory of Elena guilt clutched her throat like a hand. She’d contemplated her decision countless times-had she not joined Fraera, she would’ve been killed. Yet the truth was that she had wanted to leave, to run away, and had there been a free choice, had Fraera offered her a chance to go home or come with her-she would’ve left her little sister behind.
– You’re angry?
Startled, she faced Fraera. Although they’d lived together for five months, Fraera remained intimidating and inaccessible, more like a source of energy than a person. Zoya composed herself:
– The woman with the flag saved me. There’s a chance she’ll die for it.
– Zoya, you should prepare yourself… many innocent people are about to lose their lives.
SAME DAY
Descending the stairway and leaving the courtyard, Fraera checked that no one had seen her. It was late at night. The streets were empty. There was no sign of the AVH officers that Zoya had described. Fraera set off, frequently stopping with calculated abruptness, turning around and making sure that she wasn’t being followed. She trusted no one: including her supporters. The workers, students, and representatives of various underground anti- Soviet resistance movements were indulgent and impractical, preoccupied with irrelevant theoretical debates. It would be easy for the AVH to infiltrate their ranks. They’d be too self-absorbed to notice the signals, putting all of them in danger. Despite Fraera being here under Frol Panin’s instructions, the AVH knew nothing of her operations. If she were caught she would be shot. No one outside of the conspirators in Moscow had been trusted with information regarding the plans to trigger an uprising. If her dissident supporters found out that she was simultaneously working with Soviet ministers, they’d kill her.
Bending down, Fraera scooped up a leaflet fluttering in the gutter-a copy of the revised sixteen points, sixteen demands for change. The points had been formulated yesterday afternoon in a crowded meeting at the Technological University. Unable to pass for a student, Fraera had loitered outside. When she’d heard that the intention of the meeting was to debate whether the students should leave DISZ, the campus Communist Party organization, as a protest against their Soviet rulers, she’d decried their lack of ambition, encouraging her student acquaintances to divert the discussion onto bolder issues. Fraera had been working in this fashion for the past four months, applying pressure, offering material support, and stoking resentment against the occupation as best she could. While the anger was real and deep, she’d struggled to convert sentiment into direct action. There was only so much she could do herself. Her role was to professionalize amateur dissident. Yesterday, finally, there’d been success. With a determination and clarity that surprised Fraera, the students had distilled their debate into sixteen points: We demand the immediate withdrawal of all Soviet troops, in accordance with the declaration of the peace treaty.
On the scruffy handwritten notes carried out from the hall, that demand had been ranked fourth. Fraera had hurried back to her apartment, transcribing the notes and making one amendment: placing the demand for Soviet troop withdrawal at the top. Within hours her vory were handing out revised copies interlaced with the most provocative extracts from the Secret Speech.
Outside of the few vory, the remnants of her gang, Fraera’s closest associate was Zsolt Polgar, her translator, an engineering student she’d met in a revolutionary underground bar, located in a factory basement. With low ceilings that were never visible because of the thick haze of cigarette smoke, Fraera had found the venue’s population rich in ambition. Zsolt-the son of a wealthy Hungarian diplomat, destined for power and money were he only to conform to the Soviet occupation and find his place within it-spoke fluent Russian and Hungarian and had quickly become Fraera’s most valued intermediary. She humored him, slept with him, beguiling him with stories of her ruthlessness. Appreciating his skills, she flattered him as a libertarian and revolutionary. In reality, she saw him as little more than a rebellious young man, kicking out against his father whom he despised as a sycophantic Soviet appeaser. Regardless of his motivation, he was brave and idealistic, easy to manipulate. He had suggested a demonstration in support of the sixteen points-an inspired notion. As it happened, the idea had been duplicated
