Victory Square

TWENTY-THREE

I reached Tisakarad a little after two. The low winter sun tried to break through gray clouds, and trees in the fields around me made bleak shadows. The Citroen’s heater had started sputtering halfway through the journey, then died soon after. I’d zipped up my coat against the cold, but my fingers felt like ice. I took two Captopril, then turned off a side road before the city limits, following a bumpy path through fields and taking more turns past the cooperative offices that ruled over the farms in the northeastern quadrant outside Tisakarad. I soon reached the Kolyeszar farmhouse.

When Ferenc was shipped off to a labor camp in Vatrina in 1956, charged with treason, Magda brought little Agota out to the countryside. They waited for him in her parents’Pocspetri farmhouse.

I was the one who picked him up from Work Camp #480 upon his release early the next year, and I remember being shocked by his appearance. He was a lice-ridden skeleton, covered in sores, and seemed in a perpetual state of shock. I probably wasn’t much help, as Lena had just suffered her first miscarriage, but I took him to a Vatrina hotel where he washed and ate and dressed in fresh clothes Magda had given me to bring along. By the time I got him to the Pocspetri farmhouse, he was just starting to become human again.

That was a long time ago. Since then, Magda’s parents had died, and they’d been transferred to this smaller farmhouse in Tisakarad. While tending his hectares of apple orchards, Ferenc had produced a series of samizdat novels that over the years, and largely by the work of Georgi Radevych (during his sober hours), found their way westward. By the midseventies, French papers were writing about this “genius” living behind the Iron Curtain, whose books could not be published at home. That was true, but the crudely bound manuscripts still found their way into our hands. I’d read all five of his books and was always deeply impressed by my friend.

When I parked in front of the house, next to the Russian flatbed, the door opened, and Magda came out holding a Kalashnikov rifle. The sight stunned me. “Get out!” she shouted.

“It’s me!” I called, rolling down the window so she could hear. “Emil!”

She lowered the rifle, confused. “Emil? Where’d you get that car?”

I climbed out and went over to hug her, but the Kalashnikov kept getting in the way, so I gave up. “Jesus, Magda. That’s some firepower.”

“This?” She took it off her shoulder and looked at it. “No bullets. But it’s still scary, isn’t it?”

“You’re alone?”

“Everyone’s in Patak making trouble. With the roads the way they are, it’s an hour each way, but they seem to think it’s worth it.”

I gave a hug another try, pressing into her gray hair that had once been so dark and rich. She squeezed me tight, whispering, “I’m sorry about her.” She kissed my cheek hard, then pulled back to look into my face. “How’re you dealing?”

“Not well,” I said, because it was true.

“It’s only been a couple of days.”

That was also true, but my sense of time was all wrong. It felt as if Lena had been killed just a few hours ago, but with everything that had happened since then, it seemed that a month must have passed. I think that’s what happens when you go mad. Time stops agreeing.

Magda and Lena had never been particularly close, despite Fe-renc’s and my efforts. We stuck them in the same room during visits, while we stepped onto the back porch to drink beer and reminisce, with plenty of lies, about the old days in the Militia. The women suffered each other, but I knew that Magda had always found Lena an unbearable snob, and Lena often told me what a prole Magda was. But what can you expect from a farm girl?

Despite this, I was always fond of Ferenc’s wife. Like anyone else, they had their problems, and during that nasty year, 1956, they nearly divorced. I was glad they hadn’t.

She boiled tea in the kitchen, whispering because Sanja was asleep in the bedroom. I watched her move instinctively between the stove and the cabinets; she’d gained weight, but on her it looked like health.

“What’re they doing in Patak?”

“Getting things working again. It’s a real chore.”

“Isn’t there help from the Capital?”

She grunted as she poured my cup. “The Galicia Committee? They’ve got their hands busy getting the Capital in working order. And the snipers.” She paused. “Did you see any?”

“I saw some of their work.”

“Oh.”

She told me that after the massacre on Wednesday night, the only violent deaths in Sarospatak had been Tatiana Zoltenko and, on Thursday evening, Mayor Natan Pankov. I hadn’t heard.

“It was a mob. Hundred or so people. Broke into his place up in the Castle District. Didn’t touch the wife or any of his three kids, though-I suppose that’s something-but they got hold of him and dragged him out into the street and beat him to death, then hung his body up on a lamppost so everyone could see.” She set the cups down and settled opposite me. “Some miserable stuff. But I guess it’s to be expected. No one else dead that I’ve heard of. And last night, the army officially announced it was with us.”

“No Russians?”

She shook her head. “Ferenc was terrified they’d show up in army uniforms and start shooting, but it didn’t happen. That guy they found before, Malevich-there’s been no sign of him since.” Magda peered into her cup. “You going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“It’s all over the news, you know. Rosta Gorski and that woman.”

I knew there would be some report on Gorski’s shooting, but I didn’t know if they’d use my name. Then her words sank in. “What woman?”

“The Frenchwoman. They say you shot her.”

My hand jerked, and I spilled my tea. “Gisele Sully? Is she all right?”

“They say you killed her.”

“No!” The word came out involuntarily, then I had trouble breathing. “She had nothing to do with it!”

Magda looked at the puddle of tea on the floor, then at me. She spoke calmly. “I don’t know, Emil. I’m just telling you what they said. They said you kidnapped her and tried to kill Rosta Gorski. You only got him in the leg, but on the way out you shot and killed this Sully woman.”

I got up. My knees weren’t working right, and I nearly fell, but I used the wall to right myself and walked out the back to the screened-in porch, then through the door onto the cold, hard earth. The Capto-pril wasn’t doing its job; I could feel every one of my stiff veins. I paced for a while in the fresh darkness, my anger building, and when Magda came out, holding my coat, I could tell she was very uncomfortable.

“I didn’t shoot her,” I said, “but I did trick her. I’m the reason she’s dead.”

Magda didn’t speak, just handed me the coat and waited.

I was crying again. “I used her to get into the Central Committee Building because I wanted to kill Rosta Gorski. He and his father killed Lena.” I looked at her; she was blurry through my tears. “You understand? But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just kill the man. So I made sure Gisele was safe and I put a bullet in Gorski’s leg because I had to do something. Anything. And now“-I turned away from her steady gaze-”now she’s dead, too.”

Lena was right-Magda was a prole. But Lena never understood what a good thing this could be. The proles of the world understand misery. They know misery because it comes to visit every day. Magda knew it had to be kicked, and kicked hard, before it would leave.

She grabbed my shoulders. “You’re right, Emil. She’s dead because of you. You screwed up. Right?”

I nodded like a weepy child.

“Now cry and then get over it. Figure out what you did wrong and make sure you don’t do it again.”

She spoke with such sternness and strength that I was almost frightened of her.

“I’m going inside to make dinner. When you’ve figured it out, come in and eat. But I don’t want you inside until you’ve figured it out.”

I nodded.

“Because my family’s here. If you fuck up again, and someone I love is killed, I will kill you without hesitation. You understand?”

I blinked at her. She meant it, and she was right to mean it. “Okay,” I said breathlessly.

She gave me a soft pat on the cheek. “I don’t want to kill you, Emil Brod, because I love you, too. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”

Then she went inside to make her family dinner.

An hour later I was still outside, freezing, when I heard the others arrive in the coughing Militia Karpat Bernard had stolen from the station. I’d figured out my mistake, just as Magda had ordered, but didn’t come in because I had more to face. Lena’s death was also my fault. While I had killed Gisele Sully by using the poor woman to get my revenge, I had killed Lena by not taking care of Jerzy Michalec back in 1948. I could have, but the fact was that I’d never been the kind of man who could simply commit murder. It’s much more difficult than pulp novels make it out to be.

That was my real mistake. Had I been a stronger man and killed him in 1948, there would have been no son to shoot in the leg, and Lena, Gisele, and the others from that list would still be alive.

I heard the screen door open. Ferenc lumbered through the darkness toward me. He had a solemn expression on his face; I didn’t know if it was because of Lena or because Magda had discussed her threat to kill me.

No. She was too much of a prole to talk about what didn’t need to be said.

“Mag tells me this Rosta Gorski’s responsible for Lena.”

“Him and his father.”

“Father?”

“Jerzy Michalec.”

Ferenc frowned, then remembered. He’d been around that year, but we weren’t close yet, and what he knew of that case was hearsay, much of it rehashed from our nostalgic beers on his back porch.

He put a heavy hand on my shoulder. He was going through mixed emotions-a revolt he’d put the last ten years of his life into had come to fruition, and that ecstatic joy was running head-on into Lena’s death and my depression. “Well, then,” he said, “let’s go get the bastard.” It was all he could think of to say.

I shook my head. “You’re busy enough. Besides, I don’t want anyone else dying.”

“Take Bernard. He’s a lousy son-in-law anyway.”

He seemed to be smiling in the darkness, but it was hard to tell.

“Did you ever tell Magda or Agota about him?” I said. “About those Ministry reports?”

“No. We came to our agreement, and he stuck to it.”

“Good.” That’s when I noticed my teeth were chattering.

“Come inside,” said Ferenc. “It’s freezing out here.”

Halfway through the pork Magda had baked with apples, Ferenc shook his head at what I’d been telling him. “That’s impossible. We own the town now, and the whole country looks to Patak for direction. They’re not looking to the Capital anymore.”

“You’re being naive,” said Bernard. Sanja was propped on his knee while Agota, beside him, fed the child soft apple mush. “All you’ve seen is Patak, day after day. There’s a lot more country than that town. And they’re watching television. Television comes from the Capital.” He shrugged. “It just makes sense.”

I didn’t want to press the point, because Ferenc was already frustrated being put in his place by his son-in-law. He poked a fork around his plate. “You think it’s true what they said in that paper?” “What did they say?”

“That the Americans have recognized the Galicia Committee?” I nodded. “Gisele Sully believed it. I trusted her.” “Even if it’s a lie,” said Magda, “it makes no difference.” Ferenc glared at her. “Of course it makes a difference!” She smiled at her husband. “You know better than that. If they announce to a whole country that President Bush is behind them, then President Bush would look like a coward if he said he never made the phone call. Particularly after the lie encouraged France and England to follow suit.” She shook her head. “No, the Americans aren’t going to be the last ones to congratulate the revolution they’ve been pushing us to make the last forty years.”

“The Soviets still haven’t recognized the committee,” said Agota, grinning close to Sanja’s face.

“Of course they haven’t,” said Ferenc. “They’re trembling in their boots.”

“They’re not,” I said, then told them about the secret telegram I’d found in Romek’s house. “Pankov thought they were behind the revolution. They said they weren’t, but they also refused to help put it down.”

That earned a collective moment of silence, as each person readjusted his position in regard to Moscow.

After dinner, Agota took me to the guest bedroom and showed me endless black-and-white photographs she’d taken of the revolution in Sarospatak: candlelight vigils in 25 August Square; dark faces lit from below; men climbing on statues; lone fists in the air; young people on tanks and facing lines of soldiers; abandoned Kalash-nikovs on a sidewalk; blurry shots of panic during the massacre; women crying with bloodstained hands; a dead man surrounded by furious demonstrators; an empty 25 August Square, littered with lost hats, shirts, a shoe, and splashed with blood.

Going through them was like reading a story I hadn’t been around to witness. Frozen instants from events that were defined by their very motion. They didn’t seem to do the revolution justice, but what could?

“Here,” she said and passed over a series of large color photographs of an old, bald man in an Italian suit, sitting with one leg crossed over a knee, looking sternly, then smiling, at the camera. It was Tomiak Pankov. Those final portraits of the man are now famous and have been seen in so many newspapers that they’ve lost their effect. But that evening, seeing them for the first time, I was in shock. Unlike the kinetic shots of the revolution, these were immobile, stolid. Pankov was a statue that no amount of wind or rain could damage. He was eternal.

I lost my breath just looking at them and had to turn the photographs facedown against the pillows. I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my face. Agota settled beside me and rubbed my back, then held on to me. She could tell I needed it.