“He has silenced you. Sit down: you’ve been bested.” Istvan waved him away. “Well, go on,” he said to Kondratiuk.
“We were going along in a snowstorm. Near Stalingrad. Battered tanks streaked with soot, painted with crosses: steel coffins. The dead lying under a dusting of ice crystals, with faces that seemed to be cast in iron. Ammunition boxes and gasoline barrels with bullet holes that the wind whistled through until chills ran down the spine.”
“You’re right, we should pour some whiskey. Maurice, shame on you; are you out?” Bradley broke in, peering toward the sideboard under the head of the rhinoceros.
“It was a blizzard. We saw a dark line of soldiers walking in rows of four in front of us. They were surely not our men. Different uniforms. Prisoners — they had no weapons. I caught up to them in a jeep; they were Hungarians. An officer approached me, saluted, and asked, ‘Are we going in the right direction?’ ‘And where do you mean to go?’ ‘To Siberia. When they captured us, they said we were going to Siberia.’ I confess that I was dumbfounded; no, it was not funny at all. They impressed me. They were marching in line, listening to their officers. They looked better than the Germans. I pointed out the way to the crossing, for at the Volga there was a checkpoint where prisoners were sorted out.”
“Was no one in charge of them?” Bradley was amazed. “Didn’t they try to escape?”
“Where to?” Kondratiuk laughed. “The front had moved a hundred and fifty kilometers west. There was no escaping from where they were. Going in a group, they would have been turned back by the first patrol; going one by one, they would have been killed by villagers. Where could they flee without knowing the language, in cold that froze the eyelids together and nipped like pincers? They had lost; they had to go as captives to where they were sentenced. A fine army. Such a shame that they were with Hitler.”
“The Soviet army was better when it beat the Germans,” Li Chuan remarked.
“They went in en masse,” Istvan said dejectedly, “with no consideration for losses.”
“We were in a hurry, not only to win, but to return to our country, where we went the day the war ended, because we knew that you”—he turned to Bradley—“would play your game. You would want to establish yourselves in Europe.” Leaning on his elbow, Kondratiuk ran his hand through his hair until it bristled. “But when I think of the war, often it seems to me that the women won it — our mothers, wives, and sisters. They carried on the fight, without praise, through years together. And there is no worthy monument for them.”
“A woman’s mission is to give birth,” Li Chuan said serenely. “It is a great happiness to sacrifice one’s life for one’s fatherland. If there is victory for the people, communism attaches no significance to the losses.”
“If one has little, there is little for him to lose.” Bradley frowned. “It’s easy to die then. Our people are not so eager for death. They only risk their lives if they are repaid a hundred times over. Like racing drivers or acrobats — those, for example, who walk tightropes over Niagara. If they succeed, there is money and fame. Even if not, the family will get so much that papa will be remembered as Santa Claus.”
“But you pushed into Korea and Siam, and you have made South Vietnam your buffer zone.” The Frenchman in Nagar was aroused. “You were everywhere.”
“We are a true democracy. If you cannot attend to everything yourself, give it to someone who has the desire, and sufficient strength; true, Misha?” Bradley still lay stretched out on the sofa. “It is not people who decide these things, but technology: atoms, rockets…”
“People will always be the most valuable,” said the Chinese journalist. “It is they who make the bombs and the rockets.”
“I didn’t like Germans, though they have many fine qualities,” Trojanowski recalled.
“And who likes you?” Nagar asked sarcastically. “Arrogant, obstreperous, not inclined to keep promises. Messy…”
“Women like Polish men,” Misha said. “They know how to get around the ladies — puffed up like turkeys. A Pole gazes into the eyes, he sings his own praises, he bends over the little hands and before the girl can look around she has him under the covers. To learn that from them — to learn—”
“It’s an insane world,” Terey said gloomily. “You’re all good fellows; each of you experienced the war in his own way. Each took his losses. Nagar’s family were all cremated at Auschwitz. Jimmy’s brother was shot at Dunkirk, where he walked into the sea. Li Chuan fought against the Japanese and was wounded twice, then was sent as a volunteer in a new war between the Americans and Korea. There is no need even to talk about the Russians; Kondratiuk was squeezed into a trench near Lake Balaton when his division was trying to stop the Panzer Armies. The Germans were marching to the relief of Budapest. The Russians kept them back, but at what a price. Today tanks are plowing desert sand again, people are dying, and the stench of it is in the air. And it’s made light of, because that’s the style of the crafty old guard of journalism, which cannot be astonished or terrified by anything.”
When they scattered to their cars after emptying another bottle of Nagar’s whiskey, Trojanowski, a little the worse for the evening’s drinking, stopped Terey and pressed his hand, whispering, “There are ordinary-looking boxes on the streets of Warsaw, and passersby are throwing in money for medicine and food for Budapest. People cannot be sure exactly what it is about, but they feel intuitively that it is a great issue, a matter of life and death.”
“Thank you.” Terey patted him hard. “I think all the world understands.”
“Not all. Not all.” The Pole shook his head. “There are divergent interests.”
The other cars moved away. They stood in darkness illuminated by a row of lamps half-screened by leafy trees.
“Do you think we will come out intact?”
“And do you think they will crush you as an example, a warning to others? Not in these times, my dear friend!” Trojanowski’s hand cut the air. “Khrushchev’s dealings with Poland confirmed that it is possible to reach an agreement on anything.”
“We have only ourselves to rely on.”
“You have, after all, enlightened people as your leaders. Scholars, writers.”
“It is those who never saw the world beyond Stalin who cry loudest for freedom today. Already they are pushing to the head of the parade.”
“You do not believe that people change?”
“I believe it, I believe it,” he said bitterly, “especially those who want to maintain their positions. You know that when all is said and done, there cannot be a neutral Hungary. To jump from the socialist alliance is to fall at once under the protection of America, which will make Hungary a beachhead. It is important to see that clearly.”
“Many think as you do. They will hold the crazy ones in check. You will see; everything will arrange itself. You are not alone,” Trojanowski said reassuringly. “In Warsaw the workers are donating blood for your wounded. If anyone would take mine here, I would as well—” he pushed out his left hand and made a fist.
Istvan felt a cool breeze on his face: his jaw set. This Pole was not speaking of brotherhood, but he was offering blood. Blood counted.
The warm Indian night was singing with a whisper of wings, with the rustle of moths lured by the blazing headlights of the Austin. Istvan Terey wandered in that night, an atom of Hungary lost on the Asian continent.
The excited voice on the radio the next morning announced that the English air force had bombarded Cairo, Port Said, and Alexandria. A French warship had sunk an Egyptian frigate, and cannon fire over the water had shattered the boats with the rescued sailors. Smoke hung over the bombed cities; there was extensive damage, and the attacks had claimed many victims, chiefly among the poorest populations. Fleeing crowds had been shot by aircraft strafing the area. The international situation had undergone a sudden change for the worse — the speaker’s voice was dark with foreboding — and the peace of the world was hanging in the balance. It was as if Budapest had been forgotten. There are no new developments in Hungary, Istvan thought with relief.