With a firm step he walked to the cryptographer’s office and knocked at the armor-plated door. Inside stood a radio set, a bulky safe, and a narrow table with a draftsman’s lamp — in every particular like a telegrapher’s cabin on a ship, not omitting a narrow wooden foldaway bunk fastened to the wall.
Kereny turned a pale, puffy face toward him. Hungarian voices came from the radio speaker; the cryptographer almost involuntarily stifled them.
“Are you picking up Budapest?”
“Sometimes late at night there are clear signals. One can catch them randomly,” he explained, tracing a line in the air with his finger.
Istvan inquired no further. It was clear that the cryptographer was listening to Radio Free Europe. “What news?” he asked.
“Shepilov has said that the Soviet armies will be leaving Hungary any minute. It would be enough for Kádár to demand it. There is no question of arguing with him.”
“And he will not demand it.” Terey shook his head.
“Because he would be gone tomorrow.” Kereny looked at him sleepily, almost indifferently.
“They have just said”—both knew who, though they did not name the station—“that the uranium mine sustained serious damage. They were satisfied that it could not be reactivated in less than six months.”
“So Hungarians have been duped.” Istvan beat a fist on the table. “The ruse started a wave of emigration. They urged them on to destroy the factories, for what does Hungary matter to them? All the hired dogs bark as they are told to, and our people blindly believe everything.”
“Radio Free Europe gets information so quickly that it is astonishing,” the cryptographer said reflectively. “They must have connections in high places.”
“That’s not difficult at the moment. For two weeks they had open borders. They went in and out. And the people themselves don’t know who wants the best for Hungary, or who is right: Nagy, who bolted to the Yugoslavians; Mindszenty, who decamped to the Americans; or Kádár, who yesterday came out of Rakosi’s prison and today brings in tanks. Everyone is in a daze. It’s lunacy! I came to you for the declaration because I know from talking with our colleagues that each one read it differently. They all looked for what they wanted to find.”
“They issued two pages. I have produced a written copy.” He pulled a briefcase with carbon copies out of the drawer. “But I am not permitted to let it out of my sight. Read it here, sir.”
Istvan walked over to the grated window, turned his back, and quickly perused the communiqué. Kádár explained that his decision had been influenced by acts of unbridled terrorism, lynchings, which did not bring the lawless to justice but took as targets communists who, like himself, had just been freed from Rakosi’s and Gerő’s prisons. A mob had murdered the secretary of the Budapest Committee, Imre Mező; the director of the military museum in Csepel, Sandor Siklay; and comrade Karamara, who was devoted to the cause of Hungary. Power had slipped through Nagy’s fingers; his government was impotent. The incursion of the Russians had been a historical necessity if Hungary were not to become another Korea. But the secret police were disbanded and the old Stalinist measures would not be reinstituted; the guilty would be called to account.
Terey nodded. It must have been this that had disturbed Ferenc, for the services that had opened the door to diplomacy for him might be seen as offenses, depending on who would be evaluating his previous career. Istvan raised his head and met the dogged, watchful glance of the cryptographer.
“Well, and what do you make of it, sir?”
The counselor shrugged.
“The devil only knows what’s behind a statement like this.” Kereny bent over a drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He offered Terey Kossuths, lighted one for him, and remarked casually, “And a quarter million have gone into exile, or so they say. Not only rebellious students but our whole team, world champions in soccer. Gone.”
He spoke so bitterly that the counselor had to smile. “We will get over that,” he said.
“There you had boys worth their weight in gold. Anyone will take them and pay what they ask. They will not be playing in our colors. It is worse than defeat! Do you know what an impression that will make on the world? Millions of fans are watching. The Hungarians — finished!” He blew out a wisp of smoke indignantly. “I don’t care if whole embassies cut and run. The workers can be replaced with anyone at all. But goalkeepers or wings! Where will we find such talent?”
Terey did not share the man’s disappointment, but he understood his agitation. “Radio Free Europe spoke of people defecting from our missions?”
“Yes. They counted those from New York, Paris, London. They attacked the embassy in Vienna, where our people barricaded themselves and would not allow emigres in. That is a vital point, it is on the route. A long list. I wonder, has anyone left here? But who would want to stay in India?”
“They would not have to stay here. They could go where they liked. For such people, Kádár is not a Hungarian, and they see the country as lost. Fine feelings — for rats. I’m curious: how many of those who fled the country waving the Hungarian flag sat high behind their desks for a long time as censors, in the courts, in the security apparatus? An occasion arose and they sailed away, avoiding the court, having the forethought to smear their faces with the blood of the fallen. They made themselves into great revolutionaries. Tomorrow we will hear them on the radio accusing the party, broadcasting the details of dark doings, and well they know them, for they themselves—”
“If I did not know you, comrade”—the cryptographer turned his cigarette in his fingers deliberately—“I would think this was a smokescreen. Have you been talking with the caretaker?”
Istvan nodded.
“He has been doing a bit of drinking and has begun putting our people under the microscope. There’s not a one that doesn’t have some reason to say goodbye if the right moment comes. Even the boss, for he can go no higher, and what he put aside he transferred to Switzerland. Kádár will not take that away from him.”
“And you?” The counselor did not spare the man. “You have a wife and child here, and a good profession—” he pointed to the metal-clad safe. “You could parlay it into something else. The Counter Intelligence Corps would take you with open arms.”
“Certainly…but I would have to want that, and I am in no hurry. I have no quarrel with socialism.”
“And what do all of you say about me?”
The cryptographer hesitated, but snuffed out his cigarette and spoke his piece.
“You have a wife and child in our country, but that is an uncertain anchor. How many lately have been happy enough to tear themselves away from their families? You will stay, but you may yet be burnt, comrade. I speak frankly, for you go for the jugular sometimes. You do not watch—”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I have traveled abroad for a good few years and I tell you, counselor, there has been a change. We would never have chatted this way before. One of us would have been afraid of the other. It’s good that a man can open his mouth — though one must still know to whom. And with us there are plenty of people who are schooled to have no scruples about pushing others around so the authorities will prefer them, will exaggerate their merits. But I know what a person is. They may say yes, they will do something; they may say no just as sweetly. But they cannot pull the wool over my eyes anymore. Once they did, and it was enough.”
“And what convinced you that I could be trusted?”
“Comrade counselor”—Istvan understood that this form of address had a special meaning for the cryptographer—“you saved my child.”
“I?”
“Mihaly told us everything. It was even in the newspapers: ‘mad elephant.’”