Goodbye to Budapest Read online

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Part 1 - October 1952 - December 1953

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part 2 - October 1956

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part 3 - November 1956

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thank you for reading

  Select Bibliography

  Goodbye to Budapest

  A Novel of the Hungarian Uprising

  Margarita Morris

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Margarita Morris has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  http://margaritamorris.com

  Cover design by www.bookscovered.co.uk

  Published by Landmark Media, a division of Landmark Internet Ltd.

  Copyright © 2019 Margarita Morris

  Part 1 - October 1952 - December 1953

  Chapter One

  The ringing of the doorbell invades her dreams.

  Katalin wakes at once, alert and listening, but all she hears is the thudding of her own pulse in her temples. It’s the dead hour of the night, long past midnight but hours before the grey light of dawn. She remembers going to bed early, tired after a long day of teaching, leaving her father in his favourite armchair reading a well-thumbed copy of Thomas Mann. A faint glow from the streetlights penetrates the curtains, bathing the room in dull sepia shades. Outside, the street is quiet.

  Could she have dreamt the doorbell? There’s always so much talk – whispered confidences, knowing looks – you can’t help having these things on your mind.

  ‘Did you hear about old Beke?’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘They came for him in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Dear God! How do you know this?’

  ‘I saw his wife in the bread queue.’

  ‘Shh! Here comes Piroska.’

  You live in hope it will never happen to you. People talk of bell fright. The fear of the midnight bell. The terror induced by the ringing that wakes you in the hours of darkness, like a wolf in the forest. Katalin pulls the blanket up to her chin and listens, her jaw tense, alert with every fibre of her being.

  The ringing of the bell splits the silence a second time, and this time it doesn’t stop. This is no dream. Katalin sits up, shivering with cold or fright, she isn’t sure which. Maybe it’s not what she thinks it is. Maybe it’s a neighbour come to ask for help. It could be old Maria from across the landing. Maria’s husband, Milan, is a sick man. What if something has happened to him? But then why not wake József the caretaker? Katalin knows she is clutching at straws as she pulls on her dressing gown.

  She opens her bedroom door and peers into the hallway of the apartment. Her father is already on his way to the front door, his tread slow and deliberate. Even in his threadbare gown he cuts a distinguished figure: tall and angular, neatly groomed grey hair, high forehead and intelligent professor’s eyes. The bell is still ringing, its sound jarring. They’ll wake the whole building if they carry on, but they don’t care about such things.

  ‘Papa?’ She runs to his side, her eyes searching his face.

  ‘Katalin, dear.’ He lifts a hand to stroke her hair. The look of resignation in his eyes scares her more than the bell. With a sigh he turns the key in the lock and opens the door. The ringing stops abruptly.

  Six men in uniform stand on the landing. It isn’t Maria come to ask for help. It’s the AVO. The feared and hated Secret Police. A new wave of terror passes through her. She puts a hand on the wall to steady herself. She feels exposed, standing there in her dressing gown and nightdress, barefoot. At the front of the group is a short, stocky man who resembles a bulldog with sagging jowls and a pudgy nose.

  The door of the apartment opposite opens a crack. It’s Maria come to see what all the commotion is about. The door closes in a hurry when she realises what is happening.

  ‘Márton Bakos?’ The bulldog addresses her father.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have a warrant for your arrest. Stand aside.’

  The bulldog stomps into the apartment, thrusting her father to one side. The reinforcements follow: a small army of five black-booted younger men, all of them taller than their boss and wearing fixed expressions. Behind them on the landing, hovers the scrawny figure of József the caretaker, stooped and unshaven. In his bony hands he clutches a set of keys, like a jailer doing the bidding of his masters. He smacks his lips together, taking in the sight of Katalin and her father, standing there in nothing but their nightclothes, blinking like frightened rabbits. Katalin scowls at him. He’s the one who let the Secret Police into the building and brought them to their apartment. She notes that he isn’t in his nightclothes, despite the lateness of the hour, but is wearing his usual brown trousers, grey shirt and old cardigan with the patched elbows. Did he know they were coming tonight?

  The last AVO officer to enter the apartment looks familiar and Katalin realises with a jolt that she knows him. Tamás Kún. She hasn’t seen him for years now, but they were in the same class at school. She remembers an awkward boy who didn’t make friends easily. Tamás’ blue uniform looks newer than the others’; the buttons shinier; the black boots not yet scuffed. She didn’t know what had become of him, but now she does. A new recruit to the ranks of the Secret Police. She wonders what made him join. Tamás stares fixedly at the floor, refusing to catch her eye.

  The two tallest officers, both broad-shouldered and strong, step forward and grip her father by the upper arms. He seems to shrink in size beside these two bullies. Fury rises up in her and she cries out, ‘Let him go. He’s innocent. He hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  The bulldog is surprisingly quick on his feet for a squat man carrying so much weight around his middle. Suddenly he’s standing directly in front of her, his nose inches from hers. His breath smells of onions and cigarettes. ‘I advise you to keep out of our way. Unless you also want to be arrested.’

  ‘It’s all right, Katalin,’ says Papa. ‘I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding and will be sorted out quickly.’ She stares at him in dismay. How can he take this all so calmly? But that’s the sort of man he is: even-tempered and sanguine. Katalin’s instinct is to fight back, but in this situation, fighting would be useless and could do more harm than good.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ says Papa, ‘do you mind if I dress myself before you take me away?’

  The bulldog looks at his watch, as if time is pressing. ‘Be quick!’ The guards march her father to his bedroom.

  Then the bulldog turns to the three remaining officers, including Tamás. ‘You know what you have to do.’ He indicates the apartment with a wave of his hand. ‘Get on with it then!’

  Like hounds let off a leash, they head into the living room and begin to search the apartment. Katalin watches them from the doorway, impotent fury burning inside her.

  A blond youth who walks with a swagger like he owns the place, pulls books off the bookcase with complete disregard for their literary or sentimental value. Precious leather-bound volumes of European literature. Although a physicist by profession, her fathe
r speaks English and German and enjoys reading books in those languages. Charles Dickens and Thomas Mann are particular favourites. The volumes of Dickens he acquired at Oxford, England, before the war. The blond officer frowns at the unfamiliar titles. He holds each book open by its covers and then shakes it to see if anything falls out from between the pages. Nothing does, of course. Why would it? They aren’t criminals or spies. The Hungarian titles he tosses unceremoniously onto the floor. The English and German ones, which he obviously can’t read and no doubt suspects of being subversive, he places in a pile, presumably for further examination at AVO headquarters.

  Tamás and a dark-haired officer pull the cushions off the couch and poke their fingers down behind the back of the frame. They roll back the rug to examine the floorboards, and shake out the folds of the heavy velvet curtains. What on earth are they searching for? It doesn’t look as if they know either. They move to the piano. Katalin lets out an involuntary cry as the lid crashes open.

  The piano belonged to her mother Eva. It’s an old Bösendorfer upright from Vienna with an ornamental inlay on the front panel. It has a delicate tone and although Katalin doesn’t play it half as well as Mama did, she likes to finger her way through some of Bach’s easier pieces. When she hears Bach’s complex harmonies, it’s as if her mother is still there, beside her. It’s a miracle the piano survived the war, when Mama didn’t. But it might not survive this AVO search, they are being so brutal with it. They remove the lid and delve inside, causing the hammers to crash against the strings.

  ‘Please be careful,’ she says, wincing. They ignore her.

  Tamás picks up the piano stool and tips it upside down. The lid flies open and Eva’s much-loved copies of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms skitter across the floor. Tamás stoops down and shuffles through the pages, an uncomprehending look on his face, as if the staves of crotchets, quavers and semi-breves hold the clue to a secret language of espionage.

  The blond officer has finished examining the books. He pushes past her on his way to the kitchen. There’ll be nothing to find in the cupboards except pickled fruit ready for the winter, honey, salami, onions, bread and a large jar of paprika. She hears him pulling open the cutlery drawer and taking the lids off pans. A plate crashes to the floor.

  In the living room, Tamás and his comrade have abandoned the piano. The dark-haired officer starts to lift paintings and photographs off the wall: scenes of Lake Balaton where they took family holidays before the war; a watercolour of the Mátra Mountains in north-eastern Hungary. He looks to see if there is anything stuck to the back of the frames.

  Tamás turns his attention to a writing bureau, rifling through Papa’s lecture notes, private letters and bills. He picks up a photograph album, the photographs held in place by adhesive corners which have dried with age. As he flicks the pages, photographs slip out and fly to the floor. Katalin sees one of her parents on their honeymoon in England and resists the urge to rush forward and retrieve it. She has precious few photographs of her mother. This one is of Márton and Eva in Oxford, standing in some cloisters in dappled sunlight. They are young newly-weds, arms around each other and very much in love. Tamás doesn’t seem to have noticed it. But if she picks it up his suspicions will be aroused and he will probably take it off her.

  The door to her father’s bedroom opens and Papa reappears wearing a suit, shirt and tie, the way he always dresses for work when he’s lecturing at the university or attending a committee meeting. The two AVO thugs still have hold of his upper arms.

  ‘About time,’ growls the bulldog. He has been pacing the hallway, like an animal deprived of exercise. ‘Take him away!’

  ‘Wait,’ cries Katalin.

  It’s all happening so fast, she can’t take it in. She runs to her father, throwing her arms around him, inhaling the familiar smell of his soap. She’s too choked up to speak.

  ‘Take care,’ he whispers into her ear.

  ‘Enough!’ shouts the bulldog. ‘We don’t have time for sentimental nonsense.’ He puts a firm hand on her shoulder and pulls her away. His touch revolts her and she wrenches herself free of his grasp.

  The two men assigned to her father walk him to the door. József the caretaker, who has been standing outside like a sentinel all this time, moves aside to let them pass. She doesn’t have words to describe how she feels about him right now. He regards her with rheumy eyes and pursed lips.

  They really are taking her father away. She follows them onto the landing and watches as they march him down the stairs.

  József mutters something which Katalin doesn’t catch, then follows the men down. At the turn of the stairs her father glances back up one last time, his face a mask, and then he is gone. Their footsteps echo in the stairwell, growing fainter as they reach the ground floor. She hears the creak and squeak of the heavy door. József never gets round to oiling the hinges. They’ll be outside in a moment. She rushes back inside the apartment where the remaining officers are continuing with the search. Ignoring the bulldog standing in the hallway, she runs into the living room, stumbling over the chaos on the floor, and presses her palms and forehead against the cold glass of the window.

  The men lead her father across the dimly-lit street towards two parked cars, black Russian Pobedas with long, curving bonnets. The driver of the first car jumps out, opens the rear door and the guards shove her father onto the back seat. The men climb in, one on either side to make sure he can’t escape. The driver resumes his seat and the car swings away from the kerb, belching out a cloud of black exhaust. She slams her hand against the glass in frustration.

  ‘Finished in here?’ The bulldog strides into the living room. ‘Go and search the bedrooms. And get a move on, can’t you?’

  Katalin spins round. It’s not that she has anything to hide, but this search feels like a physical assault on her person. She follows them into the hallway, wishing she could tell them to stop. But it would be dangerous to provoke them. She remembers her father’s last words to her. Take care.

  The dark-haired officer joins the blond one in her father’s room and Tamás makes his way down the hallway to her own room. The bulldog is instructing the men in her father’s room, telling them to be extra thorough. Katalin takes the opportunity to slip past him and follow Tamás. She stands just inside the doorway and watches as he peers under her bed, slides his hand under the mattress, pulls her clothes from the wardrobe and then moves to the antique chest of drawers that used to belong to her grandmother.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  He ignores her question and pulls open the top drawer, the one that holds her underwear. As soon as he sees what the drawer contains he slams it shut, his face as red as a beetroot. He’s still as awkward as he was as a teenager.

  After that, he doesn’t bother with the other drawers but turns instead to the window seat where her violin lies in its case. Her heart skips a beat when she sees him walking towards her most precious possession. She fears he’ll take his anger at his own awkwardness out on the violin. Should she risk reminding him that they were at school together? Whilst never friends, surely a shared past will mean something to him?

  He has his fingers on the clasp of the violin case. Katalin peers into the hallway. The bulldog is in the bathroom. She hears the toilet flushing. She steps back into the room and closes the bedroom door.

  ‘Tamás.’

  He swings round at the sound of his name. ‘Don’t talk to me! I’m here to do a job.’

  ‘Please don’t touch my violin.’ She holds his gaze with hers, staring hard into his frosty blue eyes. It’s a battle of wills to see who will blink first.

  She wins.

  The bulldog is back, stomping up and down the hallway shouting at his men to get a move on if they know what’s good for them. At the sound of his voice Tamás jumps.

  ‘I think you’d better say this room is finished, don’t you? You don’t want to get into trouble with your boss.’ She’s playing with fire, but can’t help hersel
f.

  Tamás pushes past her and out of the room. Her pulse is hammering hard in her ears and for a moment or two she feels dizzy. She sits down heavily on the bed and tries to calm her breathing which is coming in short bursts.

  In the hallway the bulldog is shouting orders; they are preparing to leave. She creeps back to the hallway and watches as the men box up items to take away for examination, mostly papers and books.

  Finally they leave, carrying the boxes out of the apartment to the waiting car.

  Within seconds Katalin is shaking all over, her brief moment of victory over Tamás forgotten. It’s the shock of what has just happened. She wishes her friend Róza were here now. With her medical training, Róza would know what to do for the best. Katalin collapses on the sofa amid the wreckage of the living room and curls herself into a ball.

  You live in hope it will never happen to you. And then it does.

  Chapter Two

  You officious, jumped-up little toad, thinks Zoltán. He bites his tongue to stop himself from saying the words out loud.

  Csaba Elek, the Party Secretary at the factory, is reading aloud from the Party newspaper Szabad Nép, A Free People. His voice is a sanctimonious drawl that makes Zoltán want to roll the paper up and stuff it down his scrawny neck.

  The triumph of socialism over the evils of capitalism…Soaring productivity levels…The rewards of communism…

  Zoltán has heard it all before a thousand times. Repetition doesn’t make any of it true.

  He’s standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his co-workers half an hour before the working day is due to start. Everyone is expected to come in early for the compulsory morning reading of the Party line of the day. It’s a form of brainwashing before people have had a chance to properly wake up.

  Gazing down at them from the wall behind Csaba Elek is a portrait of Our Wise Leader Rákosi. Fat and bald, the bloated face of Stalin’s best pupil appears to sit directly on his shoulders, with no neck in between. The eyes under the thick eyebrows are cold, the half-smile on the lips artificial.