The Confession

9

Kaminski was waiting for us. He’d already assembled Moska and Stefan, both of whom looked worried, and after we arrived Leonek sauntered in. The Russian waved us over to Brano Sev’s desk, but Sev himself was nowhere to be seen.

There was a demonstration, he told us, in one of the housing units near the Tisa. “Hooligans.” He shook his head. “Now, we’ve no plans to do anything to these people. Let them shout their heads off. We just need a show of support out there, to make sure they don’t set fire to themselves.” A smile, a half laugh, then he opened his hands, the right index finger jerking. “A lot of our regular Militia have called in sick. I don’t know. The flu or something. And we need more warm bodies out there. Can you spare an afternoon?”

Moska waited for the affirmation that didn’t come, then said, “They can spare an afternoon.”

Within the half hour, all of us-except Kaminski-were in the dim rear of a van, rattling through cobbled streets. There were no windows, so we looked at each other and at our hands.

“Where’s Sev?” asked Leonek.

Moska shrugged.

Stefan and I were preoccupied by our mutual vicinity. The cut on his forehead had healed and disappeared. His beard had grown out in a blond mess, and I wondered what Magda thought of it. I tried not to wonder about anything else. Emil, beside me, was quietly accepting this new aspect of his job. Leonek cracked open the rear door and nearly tumbled out. We pulled him back in. “We should have turned left back there,” he said in a high whisper. “I bet they’re just taking us to prison.”

“No one’s going to prison,” I said.

“Sit down,” Moska said as we clattered through a pothole. “You’ll hit your head.”

“I’ll get out of here is what I’ll do.” But after a moment he sat down again.

The demonstration wasn’t as large as Kaminski had us believing. There were maybe fifty students and workers milling around the entrance to an apartment block, a few with signs that said SOLIDARITY and EYES TO BUDAPEST and FIRST HUNGARY, THEN US! There were murmurs of anxious conversation, and groans whenever more militiamen arrived in white, unmarked vans like the one we’d taken. Some were in uniform, some not. Kaminski was on the edge of the crowd, speaking with a commander from another district. He smiled when he spoke, opening his hands and moving them around in explanation. The commander then walked to a van and spoke to three young militiamen-boys, really-who began gathering short black clubs from the van.

More groans from the crowd, some worried faces. One stared at me a long time, a stout man with oil stains up and down his work clothes. Farther back was a student who I thought I recognized from Georgi’s. I stood beside Moska. “What’s going on here?”

But he didn’t answer. His repulsed expression was clear enough.

“I’m not touching that,” said Leonek when a club was offered to him.

“Orders,” said the boy.

Moska touched Leonek’s shoulder. “Take it, Leon.”

Stefan stared at his own club, as if he’d never seen one before. “It’s like the Americans say.”

“What?” I asked.

“On the radio. They say that we club and shoot demonstrators. I was beginning to doubt them.”

I put my own club under my arm. It was stiff and awkward. Then I looked at all those faces looking back at me. I saw some fear, but primarily hatred. Particularly in the students. A few in the back were trying to start a chant. Russia out of Bu-da-pest!

A couple others picked it up, but it was a weak effort; our presence was draining their resolve. But as it went on- Russia out of Bu-da-pest! — the repetition began to endow them with courage. I noticed a familiar face in the rear of the crowd, open mouth shouting, helping raise their excitement. Round cheeks, straight teeth, three moles: Brano Sev, only half-disguised in a blue worker’s cap. He and a few others raised fists above their heads, their voices turning to mist. But I could see only him.

Wives and mothers leaned out of windows and shouted for their men to come back in. From above they could see there was no escape through the ring of militiamen and white vans. But no one heard them. The chanting rose, the students shouting bravely, taken by a fever, by the knowledge that this was their moment of glory-they would not stop shouting until the last Russian tank had left Budapest. Then-a thump on the van beside me. The raised fists held rocks that began to rain on us. Brano Sev’s piece of ragged concrete cracked a windshield.

The commander bellowed something that must have been an order, because we were all moving forward, clubs held tightly, to round them up. The chant dropped off, and when we reached the demonstrators their open hands tried to push us back. Palms pressed into my chest, faces flashed by. Someone was behind me, stopping my retreat, and we were in the midst of them, in faces and hands and shouts and sweat. Someone hit me in the jaw, and I instinctively struck out with my club. The snap of bone. A student dropped at my feet. I looked around for Emil or Leonek, or anyone, but saw only angry workers and students climbing over each other to get away. Above, women covered and uncovered their faces, screaming. This was too much. I pushed backward through the crowd, outward, elbowing anything that tried to stop me. Something hit the back of my head and I swung the club again, turning, and saw a militiaman floundering on the ground, his ear bleeding. I pushed through them, but the crowd seemed to go on forever, hysterical demonstrators and militiamen, who swung their clubs as if such a small tool could bring silence. Then I was out, and Kaminski stood shouting at me. I couldn’t hear his words, only saw his large mouth, spit-damp, his own club pointing me back into the riot. He reached for me. I grabbed his shoulders and flung him against a van and kept going.

I crossed the street and stood in front of an apartment door, then sat down. Windows slammed shut above me, then I heard gunshots. I thought I would be sick, but wasn’t. From where I sat, I saw a row of white vans, bloody men being thrown into them, and a block where women cried from their windows. Two unconscious bodies were carried into a van. I stared at my rings.

After a long time, the vans started to pull out, beginning their journeys to the prison infirmaries. Stefan and Emil appeared, beaten and numb. They noticed me and turned away. Then they parted without words. Leonek was shouting at Moska, some incomprehensible stream of abuse. Moska said nothing, then started across the street toward me, leaving Leonek to his anger.

“You got out,” he said. He looked back. There was a smear of blood from his ear to his collar; it wasn’t his blood. “Kaminski is after you. Says you attacked him. Says you refused to fight.” He brushed his shoulder with a hand. “Sounds like you just fought the wrong person.”

“Did I?” My hands were between my knees. I didn’t know what had happened to my club. “Did you see Brano?”

He turned to me.

“Sev was dressed up like a worker. This was all a setup.”

Moska grimaced, but didn’t say anything for a while. As the last van left, we saw what remained: a bloodstained sidewalk with spare pieces of clothing-a torn shirt, a shoe, some hats. A crying woman knelt over a hat, and a few dazed militiamen stood perfectly still.

“To dirty us,” said Moska.

My hands were dirty. My clothes were dirty.

Moska sat down next to me. “A trial run, to implicate ourselves. So that if they want to use us later, we won’t hesitate. You, though,” he said, but didn’t finish his sentence. He stood up and said something that, at that moment, struck me as utterly strange: “I wonder where my wife is right now.”