A sudden look of anxiety crossed Geza’s face. He was loath to part with five-sixths of his worldly possessions.
“Let’s go around the town and see if we can reach the railroad from the other side,” he insisted nervously.
And so they set off.
But there were two more tanks at the farther entrance to the village. They had hiked for more than an hour in the snow to no purpose. George and Aniko stared at Geza. Without a word, he began to unbutton his top jacket. His fingers were trembling — and not merely from the cold.
“Who — who — who’ll do the talking?”
“Come on, Geza,” George replied, “we’ve all had at least six years of Russian. Let’s just be sure we tell the same story.”
“Your accent is the best, George,” Geza insisted. “It would be much better if you spoke for us. Besides, when it comes to inventing lies, you’re something of a genius.”
“All right, comrade,” said George, “I’ll be our ambassador.” After Geza removed his penultimate suit and buried the rest of his garments in a snowdrift, they started off toward the tanks.
“
A soldier asked them to identify themselves. George took a few steps forward and began to engage him in impeccable Russian.
“We are three students from Eotvos Lorand University, visiting a friend who is ill with glandular fever. We would like to take the train back to Budapest. Do you wish to see our papers?”
The soldier had a whispered conversation with one of his colleagues and then turned back to George.
“That will not be necessary.
“Damn,” said Geza, pointing to the station up ahead. “They have tanks there too.”
“Ignore them,” George replied. “I don’t think these soldiers know what they’re supposed to do, anyway.”
He was right. No one stopped them from getting onto the platform, where a very crowded train was about to leave. There was much noise and confusion. All three of them called desperately to various people, “Sopron? Going to Sopron?”
There was shouting and waving from inside the train, which now began slowly to pull out. Geza leapt on board first. George helped Aniko and then clambered on himself. In an instant, they had left the station.
There was not a single empty seat, so they stood in the corridor looking out the window. Each knew what the other two were thinking. In an hour and a half at most they’d be in Sopron. And then the border.
There were startling new additions to the otherwise familiar Hungarian landscape. Russian tanks. Everywhere. All with their guns aimed straight at the train.
They did not exchange a word in the next half-hour.
Then came the shock.
“George,” said Geza, sounding as if a noose were around his neck, “do you see where we are?”
George looked beyond the Soviet armor. His heart nearly stopped.
“We’re going in the wrong direction! The damn train isn’t going to Sopron — it’s going back to Budapest!” Aniko grabbed his arm in terror.
The train suddenly halted with a jolt. Aniko fell against George, who kept his balance only because he was holding on to the window rail. The passengers glanced at one another in fear and confusion. George’s eyes were fixed on the Russian tanks outside the window.
“You don’t think they’re going to shoot, do you?” Aniko whispered.
“I wouldn’t bet against it,” he replied, biting his lip.
Then, suddenly, at the far end of the car, a conductor in a faded blue-gray uniform appeared, trying to weave his way through the crowd. Questions were fired at him from every direction. He cupped his hands and announced:
“We cannot enter Budapest. Repeat, we cannot enter Budapest. The Soviets have surrounded the city and there is fierce shelling.” And then the most startling piece of information: “We are turning back. We must go all the way to Sopron.”
Geza, George, and Aniko looked at one another. There was jubilation in their eyes. In a few moments, the train started up slowly… away from the Soviet stranglehold on Budapest.
The entire journey toward the border seemed to be through a corridor of tanks. When they finally arrived and stepped onto the Sopron station platform, hope permitted them to take one deep breath. So far, so good.
It was now late afternoon.
“Which way is the border?” George asked Geza.
“I don’t know,” he confessed.
“Well, what the hell do you expect us to do?” he snapped. “Ask some Russian soldier?”
Then it occurred to Aniko. “Isn’t there a School of Forestry here? We could ask a student.”
She didn’t have to finish her thought. In a split second, George had obtained directions from an elderly woman and they were off.
The minute they entered the great hail, a young man in a beret asked, “Do you need ammo, comrade?”
The atmosphere inside the school was actually festive. Dozens of patriots were arming to drive the Russian invaders from their homeland.
They were each given a piece of bread, a cup of cocoa — and a handful of bullets scooped out from a large vat.
“Where are the weapons?” George asked, his mouth stuffed with bread.
“They will come, comrade, they will come.”
The three of them went to sit down in a corner and plan their next move. One thing was certain. They had not come all this way to join a doomed rebellion.
“These people are crazy,” said Ceza, shifting a half-dozen bullets from hand to hand as if they were mixed nuts. “The shells are all of different calibers. I don’t see two alike. What are they going to do — spit them at the Russians?”
And then he rose and walked off to seek out geographical orientation.
George and Aniko looked at each other. This was the first time they had been alone in days.
“How do you feel?” he asked her.
“Scared. I hope we can make it.”
She clasped his hand.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. And then after a few minutes inquired, “By the way, what did you tell your mother?”
“I know you’ll laugh, but it’s the only thing she would’ve believed.” She smiled weakly. “I said we were going off to get married.”
He grinned wearily and squeezed her hand.
“Maybe it won’t be a lie, Aniko.”
“Do you really mean it, George?”
He hesitated for a split second and replied, “Why else did I bring you along?”
Then they both leaned back, silent and exhausted.
A few minutes later she said sadly, “I wonder how it’s going in Budapest.”
“You must force yourself not to think of these things,” he replied.
She nodded. But, unlike him, she could not so easily eradicate her memories.
Geza reappeared. “Austria is a few kilometers’ walk through those woods back there. If we left now, we could still get there by nightfall.”
George looked at Aniko. She stood up, saying nothing.
It had begun to snow heavily again. Thick, silent chunks of white. All three of them were soon soaked and freezing. Their thin city shoes made it worse than walking barefoot.
