The day before yesterday the party at the ambassador’s residence had fallen flat. Bajcsy had unexpectedly arranged for the showing of a film about the experimental cultivation of rice in the floodplain of the Danube. This was a stratagem to preserve appearances. Such information from their country had a calming overtone, so he wanted to draw in members of the corps and a few guests and pretend that all was well, since they were devoting their attention to agrarian matters. He would take the occasion to listen to opinions, to scent out what the Western diplomatic missions were expecting from Nagy’s new government. “The gathering took place in a pleasant atmosphere”; that ought to be the tenor of the report for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Damn that party! Istvan winced. A thin line appeared at each end of his lips: the traces of a malicious smile. The ambassador, bickering with his wife, had shifted from one foot to the other; they had waited on the stairs; and no guests had arrived. On the tables stood bottles of Coca-Cola and mineral water, glasses filled with plum vodka and wine, and trays of hors d’oeuvres. The park was illuminated with strings of colored bulbs. There were long rows of empty garden chairs; a white stream of light beat on the screen, which looked like a partly opened shroud. The six people who had cared to come chatted in whispers as if they were in a funeral home.
A terrible day! The showing seemed a mockery. The guests trailed about like specters. From six in the morning cannon had been rumbling around Budapest. Istvan saw red fragments from distant firings swaying in clouds of November fog. Time and again the artillery boomed. The shattering of windowpanes on the sidewalk made a noise like high-pitched sobbing. Wet rust-colored leaves lay scattered in the park. There was an appeal from writers and a call from the Hungarian Red Cross to save the capital.
“If you would take a glass of fruit brandy, sir,” Ferenc urged, tilting his head. “It is a cool evening…” and a few timid guests took what he held out to them with his obliging air. Trojanowski was there, and the cultural attaché. The Poles did not disappoint them. The Yugoslavians came. So did the president of the Hungarian-Indian Friendship Society, a tall, wrinkled man with a brown cashmere shawl thrown over his head and arms in the manner of poor village women, and a representative of the ministry — a petty official, a person of no importance.
The French and English did not come. They were preoccupied with the Suez and had no interest in parties. The struggles for the canal continued. The Americans were boycotting the embassy because Kádár had called in the Russians. Beginning this morning, TASS’s bulletins had referred to the developments in Budapest as counterrevolution. If the Hungarian ambassador arranged the showing of a trivial film, it amounted to an endorsement of the Soviet intervention. The Russians and the Chinese did not come, for they did not know if the showing were a cover for something — a demonstration, perhaps. In a few days it would be known who the staff at the embassy were and which side they were on; better to wait, Istvan thought, smiling bitterly. How many times during the last week had the ambassador called the caretaker in and asked insistently if invitations to a reception at the Russian embassy had arrived? But the large envelopes with gold engraving were not to be seen. “Perhaps they have forgotten,” Ferenc said consolingly, though they both knew that such a lapse of memory would be a pretext.
Counterrevolution. The steep, narrow streets of Buda overrun with thundering tanks. They didn’t want to see us, he nodded to himself. They didn’t want our mournful faces marring the holiday. As yet they have no instructions as to how to conduct themselves toward us. Without guidelines from the ministry, even friendship is temporarily suspended.
Nagy had gone mad. He had renounced the Warsaw Pact and declared neutrality. The Russians know very well what that neutrality means. All the Western publications are triumphantly flaunting pictures of murdered communists. Cardinal Mindszenty openly called on the nation to fight. Neutrality…neutrality in relation to what? To socialism? To capitalism? With force of arms, with this revolution, to win — neutrality? A sword in the hand of a madman. The unstable “military balance” at this moment does not favor either side. The Russians are saying clearly: Whoever is not with us is against us. The power has slipped from Nagy’s hands. The wave has carried him away; the street has decided. And on the street the blind force of an armed crowd has exploded with festering hate and time-hardened resentment. That confounded Major Stowne, when I met him, tucked his riding whip under his arm and gripped my hand. “Congratulations!” he said. “At last you have decided to break out of the Red bag that was thrown over your heads.”
If that is what he thinks, and he has little to do with politics, what must be the Russians’ view? Why should they trust us? Why did Kádár disappear with four ministers on the eve of the attack? The West was saying, “Broken in prison, the man lost his nerve, dropped out of the game.” He absconded from Budapest. He is beyond the encircling Soviet armies now, in Szolnok. He is leveling accusations at Nagy. He is devising a new government. No doubt he is just beginning to fight — for the highest stake, for Hungary? Or for himself? To which side is he loyal? Time will tell.
In spite of himself he walked faster. Beyond him was an arch of heavy stone — the Arch of Triumph, a symbol of liberation, of the freedom for which his people, too, were striving. Angular knees rose high in parade step, gleaming from under plaid kilts. The last division of Scots marched away to the screech of bagpipes. His glance rapidly swept the wide vista of the avenue leading to the distant parliament building, its dark mass yellowed by the afterglow from the blue vault of the sky. Sacred cattle, their humps red with cinnabar, grazed on lawns; their brass bells started up their familiar rattle when the animals moved.
A wide peace, a drowsiness like that of a sleeping village, emanated from the most imposing artery of the city. Far away, like low stars, the lights of speeding automobiles were winking. Their glare sparkled on a vitreous piece of coral stuck on a cow’s horn by a devout hand. Istvan thought with a shudder: I am walking here, while my boys…At once, as if he had been carried home by magic, he saw eight-year-old Geza, saw the child push his head out above the sill of a broken window and watch with delight as innumerable orange and green beads cut through the sky over the park; they were firing machine guns with luminous ammunition.
“Move away,” he said in an undertone, as if his son could hear him. Dazed, he looked around the sky as it darkened above the enormous trees, looked at the long rows of glowing street lights. He could have sworn that a moment before he had been in Budapest. His head was still reeling. He paused, breathless, like one who has been pushed from a great height and still hears a ringing in his ears.
Two women with children bundled up passed by. He heard the jingle of bracelets and anklets and the soft singsong voices. They came out of the dusk, their red saris gleaming, and dissolved into the darkness under the trees.
He raised his head toward the sky, which was very remote. Only a few stars blinked unsteadily there. From the depths of his heart he pleaded, “Spare them for me. Hide them. Shield them. I so rarely beg You for anything.” The stars trembled lightly and blurred as a tear dimmed his vision.
He wanted, after all, to be free. His conscience seemed to remind him of a half-formed wish: if it were not for Ilona, you could…You said, I also have a right to be happy. It came to him with a shock: not at such a price.
Desperately he sought the proofs that he was not the worst of men, worthy only to be condemned and trampled underfoot. Like change in his pocket he carried a handful of merits, of constructive actions, but already he felt the enormity of his guilt. You had no time for me, a voice accused him. You demand that I concern Myself with you…