If all this had happened a year earlier, or had the restricted zone really been significantly different from its surrounding area, if they had led us into a marble hall instead of a conventionally furnished living room, if the cocoa were not lukewarm and the disgusting skin on its surface hadn't reminded me of the milk we got in the school lunchroom, if the cream had been whipped properly and wasn't limp and slightly sour, or if I hadn't suddenly had the impression that the reason the much-feared and respected couple seemed in low spirits had nothing to do with lack of sleep but most likely with a simple domestic quarrel they had to suspend because of our arrival, if, in other words, the visit hadn't turned out the way it did, it would never even have occurred to me that the small gap I was offered could accommodate all of me. The system's forbidding sternness seemed to leave no room for the contingencies of human life. No wonder, then, that seeing so much ordinary action and mundane behavior in the restricted zone would make me all the bolder. In exchange for new and exciting opportunities, I was ready to give up my childish fantasy of someday becoming an officer in some army. I was in, inside the gap, I could feel its proportions and believed I could make decisions according to its rules. But all my calculations proved false. They rapped my knuckles very quickly.
The same day I submitted my application to the military academy, signed reluctantly by my mother, I was called into the principal's office. All the windows were open, though a fire was burning. When I walked in, the principal was rubbing his back against the tile stove. For a long time he didn't say anything, just kept shaking his head in disapproval.
Then he pushed himself away from the stove, walked across the room to his desk. He must have had some back problem; he bent over a little, favoring one side, sidling rather than walking, and it seemed that only by pressing his back to the warm stove could he straighten up properly. As he pulled out my application from a pile of papers and handed it to me, he quipped, Miracles don't happen twice. If you know what I mean.
Obligingly, I took the application from him. He was quite pleased with himself. Then he motioned for me to go. But I got stubborn and wouldn't budge. And that irritated him.
Anything else? he asked.
I stammered that I didn't understand.
That would disappoint him, he said, because I was not only the best pupil in his school but also a young man who was as clever as he was cunning. So why try to outsmart him? If he were to forward my application, he would get into trouble. His advice to me was to apply to a school where my background did not present a problem. Considering my scholastic record, he wasn't telling me to go to a vocational school, but a specialized technical high school was out of the question. And he wasn't recommending a parochial school either. The only thing he could do for me was to help me get into the science program of a regular public high school. I should just go home now. He was giving me permission to leave early. And I should fill out a new application.
My eyes filled with tears. I saw that he noticed. I knew this wouldn't move him, though it might have some effect. I felt he misunderstood: he thought these were tears of sadness and desperation, when in truth they were tears of anger. His long desk was between us. Nice and slow, I let the application drop on the desk. It wasn't real impudence, just a bit of cheek. As if to say: you can wipe your ass with it. No way was I going to take that application with me. Mumbling the usual parting words, I started backing out toward the door. Even in normal circumstances the required phrase was hard to utter with a straight face. According to the rules we were supposed to say, "Forward, Comrade Principal." The idea of calling a man who just wrecked my future a comrade! Saying forward while backing out of his office! Pointing to the form on the desk, he told me to pick it up and leave. But I left, pretending to be too confused to have heard his last words.
Getting out of school before noon, without your schoolbag, is in itself one of those semidelirious experiences. You are free. But your schoolbag, which you stuffed nervously in your desk drawer, still ties you to the scene of eternal bondage. You feel like a plaything of fickle fate. It seems to you that this early-afternoon life around you, proceeding at its own normal pace, could be yours as easily as anybody else's. The sense of liberation, so short-lived, was fading fast. I was in a daze, and also fuming. And then, at the Városkuti Road station of the old cable car, just as I was counting out change for the fare, I realized where I was heading. It would have made no sense to go home. I wasn't about to create new anxiety for my mother, who in those days worked as a typist for a foreign trade company. By the time my plan could have scared me, I was on the train.
I went to see my father's onetime friend and comrade Colonel Elemér Jámbor, at the Ministry of Defense. When I got downtown, I had no money left for a streetcar, so I rode without a ticket. We had been to his place only once, and he never visited us. Yet Mother was convinced that the allowance that arrived each month came from him. At Christmas, Easter, and on my birthday, he sent me presents, accompanied by a brief letter, which I had to acknowledge with an equally brief thank-you note. The navy-blue gold-buttoned overcoat my friend describes in such loving detail was also one of his gifts. Mother believed that it was his quiet intervention that had saved us from being deported from the capital. Owing to the awful turn of events, we were able later on to repay his family some of his concern and kindness for us. He was arrested in late November 1956 and executed the following spring. His widow lost her job, and she had to raise two daughters, both of them about my age, on her own.
The guard at the gate said that the comrade colonel could not be reached at the moment. For about an hour and a half I roamed the neighborhood. In Miksa Falk Street there was a pet shop with cages and a fish tank in the window. I stared at the fish as they kept returning to the glass wall of the tank and with their mouths agape nipped at something invisible. A little farther on in the same street, I saw a girl with close-cropped hair charge out of a house, crying. She ran like crazy, as if being chased, but then stopped in her tracks and spun around. Her eyes fell on my curious glance, and that much sympathy was enough for her to burst into tearful sobs. I half expected her to throw herself into my arms. But she ran back and disappeared into the doorway. I waited for a while, thinking she might reappear. Later, I walked to the Parliament. The huge square was deserted. From a proper distance I watched the comings and goings at the side entrance on the right. Now and then a barge-like black limousine pulled up, a gate opened, someone got into the car. The glossy blackness, the gleaming chrome receded majestically in the midday sun. People were leaving but no one was going in. I figured enough time had passed, I'd try again. The guard was annoyed but agreed to ring the office. Cupping his hand over the receiver, he not only gave my name but added with a chuckle, It's a kid, and pretty pushy, too. I could tell he was talking to a woman. And I was let into the lobby, where I could sit in a comfortable chair. While waiting, I was troubled by a single unpleasant thought: What's going to happen to my schoolbag if I don't make it back to school in time.
It must have been four in the afternoon when I finally got to see my father's friend. The guard took me up to the fifth floor, and in the bright, spotless corridor I saw the colonel coming toward me. He put his large, heavy hand on my shoulder, as if to make sure it wasn't some tragedy that brought me here. He led me into a room where a military operation might have been discussed before. Rolled-up maps seemed to imply this, as well as heavy cigarette smoke hanging in the air, empty coffee cups and glasses and ashtrays still filled with cigarette butts on the glass-topped conference table. He offered me a seat, walked around the table, and on the other side made himself comfortable, too. He lit a cigarette. So far he hadn't said a word and I'd offered no explanation. He was a husky man, bald, with blond hairs on his powerful hands. I could see it wasn't just the cigarette smoke that made him blink and smile. He was sizing me up and was responding favorably to my appearance. He addressed me in the pleasantly solicitous and jocular tone of voice many adults used with me. He asked what mischief I was up to this time.