Leaving Bakay's office, we heard commands being yelled in Russian on Bartók Street. The Russians were close, but they could not see us because the street corner was blocking their view. Now I heard a round of submachine-gun fire, followed by the wails of a male voice. It quickly subsided into a death rattle. We were frozen like four statues in the gateway of the doctor's office on Orlay Street. It was Gyuszi who first regained his composure.
"Let's leave our weapons in these bushes," he said. "Thanks to our white smocks, if we are unarmed, they might not fire, and we might stand a chance." He put down his submachine gun. We did the same and started inching slowly toward the Bartók Street corner. This was the first time in my life that I was glad I had had to endure seven years of compulsory Russian. "Nye stryelyatyes!" "Don't shoot!" I yelled from behind the protection of the corner. We kept yelling for a good five minutes. We also tried to holler more complicated sentences indicating that we were stretcher bearers, or medical orderlies, that we were unarmed, and that they should hold their fire before we emerged from behind the corner.
There was no reply, no response of any kind, so we started shouting again. We stopped periodically, waited for a reply, and when we received none, started again. We heard nothing, received no answer, heard no movement, yet we felt, we knew, that they were right there, just a few yards from us, on the other side of the corner. They were watching and waiting. The windows of the corner store were broken, but the goods were untouched; nothing had been stolen. At other times, that sight would have filled me with pride—pride in my people, pride in the honor of our Revolution—but now I could not have cared less; now my mind was concentrated on survival and nothing else.
Finally, Gyuszi gave a hand signal, and we started slowly forward, with arms lifted high into the air. We walked to the middle of the street. I had already reached the tram rails, and the street was still quiet. The darkness of the night was beginning to lift, and in the first blush of dawn I could see a long row of dark figures on both sides of the street. They were lying on the sidewalks next to the walls of the buildings. I heard an inarticulate command and the steps of a dozen feet running toward us, and then I felt a sharp pain in my back.
I lunged forward and almost fell from the blow. Lacika was next to me. A Russian soldier was pushing him forward with the muzzle of a submachine gun in his back. My heart was in my throat, my eyes were glued to the index finger of Laci's capturer. That finger stayed right on the trigger while he thrust and heaved Laci forward.
The soldier behind me was engulfed in a cloud of rank sweat and vodka fumes. As he shoved me forward I could see his boots and his extra-long overcoat, which had no hemming. It dragged on the pavement. Every time he shoved me forward, he said either "Fascist!" or "Imperialist!" He must have thought I was an Israeli medic and that we were at the Suez Canal. He probably thought the Danube was the Red Sea.
They marched us down Csáky Street and stopped in front of gate four of the university. We waited there. Finally, a Russian officer came. I could hear his swearing from a hundred yards away and could see the drawn pistol in his vehemently gesticulating hand. He kept screaming while he clattered toward us and continued to do so after he arrived. I did not understand what he was saying, but in his long-winded question I did recognize the names of our prime minister, Imre Nagy, and the Communist puppet who preceded him, Mátyás Rákosi. I finally realized that the officer wanted to know whose side we were on.
The soldier behind me periodically stabbed the sharp muzzle of his gun into my back. The pain was becoming unbearable. My stomach was in my throat and my mouth was dry as I finally stammered out that unspeakably ugly word: "Rákosi." After that, as if to prove that on the road of betrayal, only the first step is difficult, I pulled out my red athlete's certificate, using its color to prove that I was one of them. As I did this, in the depths of my soul I already knew that I would forever be ashamed of this action, and that in my dreams I would keep reliving and correcting that terrible act as long as I lived.
The Russian officer could not have cared less about the color of my athlete's certificate. He wanted to know about the defense of the university and about the resistance he could expect from the buildings on the other side of the gate. When we told him that there would be no resistance at all, that the university had been evacuated, he studied our faces and then decided to enter. He told us to walk slowly in front of them, keeping our hands in the air, while they followed us from the cover of the bushes. We did just that. We walked very slowly. It was daybreak by the time we reached the library. There stood the tanks and the anti-aircraft guns that we had been unable to move. In this semidarkness the guns looked even larger and more menacing than I had remembered.
The officer told us to yell that we were Hungarians and that "they" should not fire. We obeyed, knowing that there was nobody to hear us except for the few people who had stayed in the medical emergency room. As we entered the dark and empty main building, the corridors were full of the guns, blankets, and other belongings of the cadets who had decided to go home instead of fighting. Our hands were still in the air as we marched through those corridors and eventually reached the main aula. All was dark and quiet.
The officer strode into our MEFESZ office, which—it seemed ages ago, but in fact had been only two weeks before—had served as the Communist Party's main office at the university. When he disappeared, the guards lined us up before the door, in single file, and finally allowed us to lower our aching arms. On our left were the offices and on our right stood a row of the busts of the past rectors of the university. I was standing next to the bronze bust of Rector Stocek. By now, there must have been a dozen of us in the line. The Russians found the people in the medical emergency room, and now they, too, stood in the line with us.
We stood in that line for two or three hours on that Tuesday morning, November 6. Finally, at about eight o'clock, a Russian colonel arrived with two assistants. They did not even look at us, but just marched into the MEFESZ office. A few minutes later, I saw that the guards searched the young man at the front of the line and, after that, took him into the office. When I saw that, I reflexively smoothed over my pockets, and as I touched the right side pocket of my corduroy jacket, I felt something hard. It was the little lady's pistol from Czechoslovakia that the police chief Sándor Kopácsi had given me.
Now I was really scared. I had to get rid of it, but how? There was nothing within my reach except Stocek's bronze bust, which was sitting on the marble stand to my right. The guards were already searching the second person in the line, so I did not have much time. I grabbed the pistol in my right hand. It was so small that it practically disappeared in my palm. I waited until the guards started searching the third person, and at that instant I attempted to lift the bust with my left hand.
I leaned against the bust and strained with all my might to lift that chunk of metal. After a second or two, which seemed like an eternity, a small crack appeared at the bottom, and the bust started to tilt slowly backward. Then I pushed even harder, and with superhuman effort I managed to increase the crack a bit more. Suddenly, something let go, and the bust started to tip backward while the crack opened very quickly. I let go with my left hand and slipped the pistol under the bust with my right. Rector Stocek hesitated for a split second and then fell back into his original position. We would have heard a thud if at that instant Laci had not started coughing like a maniac, drowning out the sound made as the bust fell back into place.
As the bust ingested my pistol, I made a solemn promise that in exchange for his assistance, at the first opportunity I would get, I would look up the accomplishments of Rector Stocek and then miss no opportunity to spread the word of his greatness.1
It must have been about nine o'clock when it was my turn to be searched. After that they took me into the MEFESZ office, where the Russian colonel sat on Kati Sz_ke's desk. He was looking through Kati's papers, the various forms, including the national guard membership cards. He was tall, graying, well informed, and he spoke fluent Hungarian. He knew where he was. He did not talk about the Suez Canal or fascists. The colonel seemed to be shaken by what he had seen on Móricz Square. He kept asking about the defenders: "Were there school girls among them? Did I see that right?" he asked twice, and each time I nodded yes. His eyes were sad; he seemed embarrassed for having fought and killed children.
"We were carrying the wounded," I said, pointing at the blood on my white smock. He did not seem to care about what I had done. He seemed to be thinking about something, staring into the air. So I tried to change the subject. "Why is your pistol-case made of wood?" I asked in a conversational tone. As if I had woken him up, he gave me a surprised look, then took off his belt and showed me. The wooden case could be attached to the butt of the pistol to create a weapon that could be held against the shoulder. "When you are aiming at a target at some distance, this contraption steadies your aim," he told me.
Throughout the "interrogation," the colonel appeared to be absent minded, apologetic, while his two aides (neither of whom spoke any Hungarian) seemed suspicious. They seemed suspicious not of me, but of him. It was obvious that they were fresh troops, while he had been stationed in Hungary for some time.
After the questioning, we were all taken to the KA-51 lecture hall, which they had converted into a temporary prison. That hall had served many functions during the past two weeks. It was there, exactly two weeks ago, that Professor Mutnyánszky, whom we called Mutyi Bácsi, had told us that we had more important things to do than to listen to his lecture on mechanics. It was in this hall that we had kept our ÁVH prisoners, and it was here that we had deposited the gifts of the Hungarian villagers and later those of the Austrians. Here we were again, except this time we were the prisoners.
Laci was sitting on my left. On my right were Ili Tóth and her sister, the two medical students who had stayed in our medical emergency room. The guards were down in the front of the hall near the blackboards. In this lecture hall, with each row of chairs higher than the one in front, we looked down at the guards. They ordered us to sit on the turn-out writing tables that were attached to each chair. That way they could see our hands. There must have been about twenty of us, but our numbers were still increasing as the guards brought in other unarmed people who had been captured on the streets.
At first we were not allowed to speak at all. Later, we noticed that the guards periodically disappeared, and when they returned their mood was happier than when they had left. They must have found a liquor cabinet. The atmosphere was calmer now; we felt relieved. The guards did not look like people who were about to shoot us. Summing up the situation, Laci commented, "Jail or Siberia, yes! Firing squad, no!"
Laci was blond and handsome, my age. We were classmates in the Eötvös High School, and we both were majoring in ship design. Actually, I had picked that major because Laci had selected it, and I wanted to be with him. In high school some called Laci a homosexual because he was always horsing around with his friend Elekes. Those who spread that rumor simply misunderstood his playful love of life and the immense happiness he radiated. To him, life was a big joke, and he did his best to live it lightheartedly.
"Why don't you take off that bloody smock?" Laci asked. He had already taken his off and was sitting in his neat, tailor-made, broad-shouldered sports jacket. The other indispensable component of his teddy-boy uniform was his drainpipe trousers, which were so tight that he had to open zippers to take them off. Laci always paid attention to his appearance. I could not possibly have competed with him. My officer's boots were scuffed now, and my purple corduroy jacket had gotten so dirty that I could stand it up on the floor.
"Why were you crying in the morning?" he asked. At first I did not understand, then I realized that he was talking about yesterday morning, when he had found me on the floor next to the radio.
"I didn't realize I was crying!"
"Yes, you were. You were as white as the wall. Your tears were flowing, and you kept repeating something like, `Don't let it happen!'"
"Yeah! I remember. After Imre Nagy's speech I lost control; life lost its purpose. But I didn't know I was crying."
"Well you were. It took me some time to cheer you up. You'd better be grateful!"
"OK, I'm grateful. Still, the fact remains that almost everybody ran away when they should have fought. And another fact is that Marika is dying, and we are about to be deported to a cooler climate. In other words, I did have a point."
Laci was trying to reach down to pick up one of those good-smelling oranges that had been left in the hall—the kind individually wrapped in tissue paper—but the screaming of the Russian guard stopped him. When a couple minutes later the guard left, he picked up the orange anyway, started peeling it, and asked, "Have you seen the collection boxes of the Writers' Union? All that paper money! That was some sight!"
"Sure I did. I left one hundred twenty of my one hundred forty forints scholarship in one of them. The remaining twenty forints are still here. I haven't spent a penny during the last two weeks. Nobody would take my money. Not for food, not for anything."
The orange was peeled now. He offered me a grayish, soot-covered slice while shrugging his shoulders to indicate that he had had no opportunity to wash his hands. The orange had an unusual taste. The juices of the fruit waged a futile struggle to overcome the taste of gunpowder, charcoal, and dirt.
"Did you hear the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe on Móricz Square?" Laci asked.
"Well, same as you. A few sentences between the cannon bursts. I did hear about Eisenhower's policy of liberation and the American veterans' vote to help us. That sounds important. I guess they represent all the veterans of the United States. That is something. Do you think they will help?"
Laci was quiet for a moment, his face serious, then he answered, "All I know is that one day they too will need the help of their friends, and God had better make sure that they get no more than the help they are giving us right now. I pray to God for that. I hope that one day they, too, will experience what I feel now, that they will get what they deserve."
At that moment four new soldiers entered the lecture room. They spoke to an elderly fireman among us prisoners; they were looking at his uniform, asking him questions. The old man did not understand a word of what they were saying. I overheard the word fascist, and as I did, I also noticed some similarities in the fireman's uniform and that of the German SS. Laci whispered to me, "Hitler wasn't born yet when the fireman of this university were already wearing that uniform. I hope this Mongolian soldier knows that."
Now a Russian officer joined the four soldiers. They said nothing to anyone, but grabbed the fireman and marched him out. There was petrified silence in the lecture room. We held our breath with bad premonition for a few minutes. "Oh, I guess they just moved him to some other jail," said Laci, but immediately after that we heard the burst of machine-gun fire.
"Those goddamned animals, those devils!" growled Laci. I was so shocked that I could not speak for minutes. After our shock and silence melted, I asked him, "If you believe in the devil, do you also believe in God?"
"I don't know. What I do believe, though, is that this little planet is more special than we think. Now that we have conquered nature, now that we are directing our own evolution, now the survival of life is up to us. We probably can't destroy life or nature, but we certainly can destroy ourselves."
Our discussion went on for a long time. We talked about the devil and God. We agreed that the devil is hate, and the best way to fight it is by emphasizing the good in everything and everybody. The morning turned into afternoon, then evening. I was getting very hungry. Sitting on that hard, turn-out table was painful, but the discomfort was not the worst. The worst was my hopeless mood. My soul resembled the burnt-out houses of Móricz Square.
I felt completely exhausted on that Monday night. Sunday night, I had stayed up carrying the wounded; Saturday night we had all stayed up listening to Imre Nagy's last words; Friday night, I was in the Óvár jail; and the night before that, I was up preparing Jancsi Danner's bier. So as midnight approached, I found it harder and harder to keep my eyes open.

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