The Confession

25

There really was no getting out of it, and since, for once, Magda wasn’t occupied with Lydia, we arrived at the Brod household at five. Agnes was happy to see us go. “Have a good time!” she called from the door, and that only made me worry. Lena’s olive, floor-length dress seemed a little much for the occasion, but Magda complimented it with sincerity.

“Come now,” said Lena as she used her pinkie to wipe excess mascara from her eyeball. “ You need nothing to help you shine. When you’re as over-the-hill as me, you’ve got to buy your beauty.”

Emil opened a bottle of champagne.

We drank in the living room and listened to a sweet-voiced American singer on the record player-Sarah Vaughan, Emil explained-and began to loosen up. Despite her apprehension when I had told her our plans, Magda was awed by the size of the apartment and the glittering rocks hanging from Lena’s ears. “Tell me,” she said after her second drink, “what is it like to travel out of the country?”

“Haven’t you been?” asked Lena.

Magda shook her head.

Lena took a deep breath before launching into a description of the glories of international travel. She had been to Paris, Rome, Zurich, London and Stockholm, and had found each one more enchanting than the last. “Except, perhaps, London,” she said as her lip began to twitch at the corner. “Well, it’s obvious, the problem with that town, isn’t it? It’s filled with the English. What a dry, dour race. Do you know, not one person in all of London looked at me crossly? If I bumped into someone-you know what they did? They apologized. Can you believe it? The entire nation, and not a single testicle among them. But,” she said, looking sadly into her empty glass, “Westminster was beautiful.”

Emil had gone with her on a couple trips, but admitted he seldom had the urge to leave. “I used to love to travel. But I don’t anymore. Not sure why. Anyway, it takes twice as long for me to get a visa. I just slow her down.”

Lena stood to refill our glasses. “They seem to think I couldn’t stand to leave the country for good if my husband wasn’t with me. They don’t know much, do they?”

Emil slapped her thigh as she passed, then held up a finger. “Let me show you something.” He went to another room and returned lugging a large reel-to-reel recorder.

“Not that, ” muttered Lena.

He set it heavily on the coffee table and plugged in a microphone. He flipped some switches and the reels began to turn, the tape sliding through metal gears and heads to the take-up reel, humming.

“I don’t hear anything,” I said.

Magda leaned close. “I think I hear something.”

“It’s recording,” said Emil. He returned to his chair. “Just act normal. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, and I want to see what we sound like.”

It took a few more drinks to act normal, to pretend that the big humming machine in the middle of the room did not exist. But we did normalize finally, touching on the Magyars, which was the only subject that could effectively silence Lena, then the Sixth of November Strike. “It’s a shame,” Emil said. “I would have liked it to do something in the end.”

“You don’t think it did?” said Magda. “I was under a different impression.”

“What was your impression?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I don’t mean it accomplished anything really apparent. More than anything it set a precedent, don’t you think? It’s clear that, if another crackdown like that comes along, there’s an option for people. Striking is an option.”

“But striking’s always been an option,” said Emil, leaning into the debate. “It’s been done enough times in East Germany, in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and, of course, Hungary. It took a long time for us to get around to it.”

“Everything takes a long time here,” Lena said.

“But it’s something,” said Magda. “It’s late, but it’s something.”

We all looked as the end of the tape emerged from the recording heads and flapped in the full reel.

Emil rewound the tape and rethreaded it. He was grinning. “Now we can find out what we really sound like.” He tugged the switch.

At first, there was little conversation-half phrases and spare words-and then the clink of glasses and muted drinking. Then I was saying something about Agnes, and the sound of my voice gave me pause. “I sound like that?”

Emil shrugged. Magda stared at the reel-to-reel. “Of course you do,” said Lena, leaning close to the speaker as her own voice chattered about something insignificant, and I could see the disappointment in her face.

Magda talked and Emil talked and when my voice appeared again I was still surprised by the lilt of my deep voice, the singsong quality. It was effeminate and soft, as if it did not want to offend. It was an embarrassing realization.

Then Magda was talking again-… there’s an option for people. Striking is an option.

We had the same thought at the same time, all four of us. But it was Emil’s machine, so we waited for him to do it. He rewound it again, rethreaded the tape, and pulled the switch to the marker that said ERASE.