Triptych (12 page)

***

Budapest, 28 October 1956

Évike awakened, blinked. A church bell? Sunday? She was not sure. Her mind was dull, tamped down by a thick fog. She waited, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light in the tiny windowless space. The door was not completely shut. She heard her mother speaking with someone. A man. Josef Csoki. Csoki had been at Parliament Square on Thursday. She and her mother had fled here, to the Technological University, the day after. The main building on the campus had been converted into command headquarters for the Student's Revolutionary Council. The cloakroom where she was resting adjoined one of the classrooms on the building's ground floor.

Beneath her, the cot was stiff, hard. The room had no heat and a thin blanket had been tucked tightly around her. The binding was comforting.

She thought again of all that had happened in the last two days—the massacre at Parliament Square; Dóra hysterical as Évike's mother examined Dórika's bloodied head, found a wound where she had been grazed by a bullet; the frantic rush on foot to the hospital; the hordes of injured; Dórika so quiet, so still; the long wait; the doctor's harried expression, solemn voice:
Head trauma. Coma. Next few days critical
; pacing with Dóra in a crammed ward…the moaning, sobbing, muffled screams all around; leaving, going home, trying to sleep; waking to shells thudding much too close.

A sudden fine veil of sweat coated Évike's face, yet she lay still. She felt pinned to the cot, prisoner to the continual whirring visions—

In the morning, her mother helping her dress, pulling her by the arm. “We must find your father, our friends.” Dragging her outside into cold air, thick with choking smoke and the reek of high explosives. Her heart pounding, hurrying along streets strewn with skeletons of burned cars and armored vehicles, flag-covered corpses, torn-up tram lines, overhead electric cables hanging like garlands, and huge upright portraits of Lenin and Rakosi amid piles of debris being used as barricades.

Crossing Liberty Bridge, held by Hungarian Army soldiers, they'd at last arrived here, at the university. She felt weak from running and an icy chill gripped her insides, passing along corridors teeming with a student army clad in Hungarian uniforms with the hated red star torn off or wearing street clothes, distinguished by tricolor armbands…all carrying submachine guns, their pockets bulging with ammunition.

Many of her parents' friends were here. But her father? No one had seen him. Dórika? Was she still in the hospital? No word.

Her eyes welled up and she pressed her fingernails into her palms to stop the tears. Next door, someone turned on the radio. Imre Nagy reading an official statement:

“It is conceded that the movement is aimed at national independence and the democratization of political life. Warranted demands will be granted. The ÁVO is to be disbanded and a new security force established, into which rebel troops will be incorporated. Concurrent with establishment of the new force, the government is ordering an immediate ceasefire….”

The radio clicked off. “He wants to show that he can restore order,” Josef was saying. “It's the only way Nagy and his policies can win Kremlin support, or at least tolerance.”

“Yes, tit for tat,” her mother replied. “Offset the concessions the Party leadership is making by persuading his rebellious country to lay aside the two instruments of power with which it has succeeded—arms and the strike.”

The general strike: it had been called following the march on Wednesday when the students had announced the 16 Points. Évike recalled Radio Budapest airing a special appeal to workers to return to the factories. “Not a chance,” her mother had snarled at the radio. “It's not just students who are fed up. Backbreaking work, long hours, no voice in what happens in our own country, no money to buy necessities! Workers won't lift their tools again until we see change.”

Évike had been puzzled. “But without money they will have less.”

“We will help one another to survive. We are banded together now.”

Her mother went on to relate what Josef—now editor of
Truth
, one of several rebel newspapers being published around the city, and keyed into breaking news—had told her about a slaughter of unarmed students, women, and children on Friday. They had been conducting a peaceful demonstration in the small agricultural village of Magyarovar, near Gyor. They were singing when AVO machine-guns opened fire, and AVO men emerged from trenches, hurling hand grenades. Fifty-two massacred and more than two hundred badly injured. Her mother had not spared her any details in retelling the tragedy—mounds of severed limbs, bodies laid out in rows in the crypt.

The news from Magyarovar, following on the day after the massacre in Parliament Square, stirred rage everywhere. In Budapest, AVO were being hunted like animals. Pay slips found in their pockets fueled the flames. “AVO officers are earning 9000 forints a month!” exclaimed her mother. “Ten times the wage of any Hungarian worker.”

As for the strike, she had been right. It had continued for five days.

Her mother spoke again in the next room. “Why should we back down at a time of victory?”

“I agree,” Josef said. “What about our two main points: multi-party elections and full Soviet withdrawal? Otherwise there is no guarantee that the Communist regime will not be restored.” He sighed loudly. “But Nagy is insisting on cease-fire. Without cease-fire, the Soviets will not leave.”

The mother's voice firm, determined. “Josef, I need to go out. See for myself what is going on in the streets.”

“But Franciska, your daughter…”

“Don't worry. She's doing fine. She can stay here.”

Évike's heart raced. Left on her own? Her father was…
who knew
? Captured? Her heart skipped, then pounded faster.
Dead?
Yes, he might be dead. And Dóra, Dórika?

Her mother was all she had left to cling to. She would be her shadow.

Évike stirred from her bed, began to dress. There was knocking next door. Someone entered—the boy from the print room delivering an early edition of the latest
Truth
. A brief conversation and he was gone.

“Ah, I've got it,” said Josef. “Have you ever wallpapered a room?”

“I-I once papered the dining room in our flat.”

“Fine, I've got a job for you. We can't print enough papers to go around so I've got boys pasting copies on every notice board, every inch of wall they can find. I need more runners. Someone to get up to Móricz Zsigmond körtér. But—”

“Can I see?” her mother asked. Paper rattled. “This isn't about the negotiations—”

“We're working up a piece on that now. But this issue, well, we want to keep up morale. The count is in the thousands now. Boys, women, girls too, killed or wounded. We need to make certain eyes remain open to what we're fighting for.”

Her mother read aloud. “Politburo High Life. How our illustrious leaders live while we struggle to earn our daily bread.” A pause. “Josef, a brilliant exposé. Shocking!”

Évike concentrated on securing the buttons of her sweater. At the door, she hesitated.

“Exactly. And now we need to get the papers up to Móricz Zsigmond körtér,” Josef was saying. “But there's heavy fighting—”

Évike entered the classroom. Her mother was propped on the edge of the large desk at the front of the room. She slipped off.

“Ah, there you are darling,” she said, starting toward her daughter. “I'm going out. My coat—”

Évike blocked the door to the cloakroom. “Take me.”

Her mother glanced down, hesitated. A small smile. “Why of course. You've been cooped up like me. Worse—” She looked over Évike's head, into the small dark space. “A little fresh air will do you good. You can help me.”

“But Franciska, that's crazy, the danger…” Josef began as she swept past Évike, going into the cloak room.

Before he could say more, the door to the classroom opened. A man entered wearing a belted wool trench coat, a boxy camera slung over one shoulder. Perspiration glistened on his face; the coat was grease-stained and blotted with dust.

“I'm here from Corvin Passage. Their radio is out. They need help.”

“What's going on?” her mother asked, reentering the room. “Something about Miklós?”

Évike heard panic in her voice, looked up. Her mother, a scarf circling her neck over her coat, stood in the doorway of the cloakroom. Évike turned to the men.

“No, not about Miklós,” Josef said quietly. “News from Corvin.” He gestured to Évike.

“What?” she said, looking over questioningly at her daughter. “It's okay. She's not a baby. She's all grown up.” She eyed the men again. “Does she have another option?” Évike's jacket was slung in the crook of the mother's arm. Walking to her daughter, she held the jacket while Évike slipped into it. “Tell me the news from Corvin, please, before we go. I deserve to know.”

With a final hesitant glance at Évike, Josef said, “We're losing time. Let's go.” He grasped the man by the shoulder, preparing to lead him out of the room. “Finish what you were saying along the way.”

“At dawn this morning, Russian tanks, two of them, arrived,” the man said, adjusting the strap of his camera and walking with Josef toward the door to the main corridor, Évike and her mother following. “I happened by. Rebels were lobbing petrol bombs from the theater. Snipers on rooftops shot any Russian who showed his head. But that's all they've got. Rifles, petrol bombs. More tanks came…”

Josef opened the door. The group exited, the man—
a photojournalist,
her mother whispered to Évike—continuing his account as they navigated the outside corridor.

“…saw where our men were shooting from. Trained their main guns, brought down a three-story section of building. An elderly couple was trapped in the rubble. A boy ran to help. Tank gunner took him out.” The man threw an apologetic look in Évike's direction. “Shelling was still going on when I left. The men inside Corvin tried to radio but their equipment was shot up. They need weapons. Men.”

“But they have nearly a thousand fighters,” her mother said faintly.

“Young kids. Fifteen, sixteen. They need trained soldiers. I offered to come here. The Hungarian Army major on Liberty Bridge said he'd send some men to haul back any weapons you can spare.”

“We've just gotten a shipment from Csepel.”

“Good. The soldiers may be outside already,” the man said. “Corvin needs medical assistance too.”

Her mother seemed unable—or unwilling—to accept what she was hearing. “But they have doctors, an operating theater…”

“Five hundred wounded on the floor. Not including forty or fifty dead. Mostly boys.”

The group passed the room in which the student army had set up a radio with transmitter to keep in contact with Maléter's command on the Pest side. In room seven, the preceding week, students had gathered for lessons in organic chemistry. Now it was the gun distribution room. Évike trailed the others inside. A door to the outdoors was open. Évike gawked as a small platoon of about forty boys and several young professors, moving with the precision of a human conveyor belt, unloaded rifles, machine guns and boxes of ammunition from a Csepel factory truck.

Her mother took her hand. She shook her head, saying as they left, “And all this happening at Corvin while Nagy was writing his cease-fire speech.”

Chapter Eight

Chicago, 1986

Mariska is home after spending two days in the hospital, undergoing a battery of tests. She was released this morning and after much fuss over welcoming her back and settling her in, Zsófi and I left her upstairs, resting. Downstairs, the morning has passed in a finger-snap as we nudged books into proper alignment, tidied the greeting card rack, and stocked the magazine display, customers drifting in and out as we worked. I am finally alone at the cash register behind the scarred wooden counter. The foot traffic has ceased for the moment and Zsófi has gone down the block to the Bankuti's grocery store to purchase sandwiches for our lunch.

It is a typically warm, humid day in July. Above me, a ceiling fan churns the muggy air. The store has air conditioning, but Zsófi resists turning it on.

“Freon? What is that?” I like to grumble, part of the daily ritual begun upon my arrival, three days earlier.

“A mystery,” Zsófi echoes, shaking her head. “Not natural. Cannot be good for the lungs.”

In truth, things are tight in the book business and Zsófi is conscious of the cost of electricity. The spotty turnover of Hungarian language books adds to the burden.

Mariska and Zsófi were hired as employees of the store when they arrived following the Hungarian Revolution. Many Hungarians had settled in Lake View then, also Germans and some Poles. The late sixties brought a new wave of Puerto Rican and Latino immigrants and the neighborhood changed dramatically, both ethnically and physically.
Duna Utca
foundered under the shift. I spent my college summers working at
Duna Utca
and it was heartbreaking to watch the business slide further, year after year. But there was a silver lining. Real estate values fell as well, and Mariska and Zsófi found a way to buy the business and the building. They adapted the store's inventory to the new ethnic mix while continuing to cater to a scaled-back but established Magyar clientele. My conversational Spanish was nearing “adequate” when, several years ago, the Lake View population shifted again, this time to lawyers and stockbrokers willing to pay high rents. Suddenly the neighborhood was the new hot address for Chicago yuppies and Mariska and Zsófi adjusted inventory once again. Between the resulting bump in book sales and rental income from a travel business in the adjoining storefront space,
Duna Utca
had managed to hang on.

Telling Vaclav I had booked a trip to Budapest was triggered by my shock at hearing his baby news. I've only made a reservation, still have not paid the fare. If things are tight for the store, they are as tight or tighter for me. The two week leave of absence I've taken to be with Mariska while she recovers—and opportunely to also flee Vaclav—is unpaid and I am unsure whether I can afford the extravagance, but time is on my side. The booking is not until early September. Meanwhile, my reservation, together with Mariska's ticket, is being held by the agency next door.

The heat has inspired me to break out my vacation clothes. I am wearing a scoop neck t-shirt with peephole short sleeves. A damp strand of hair clings to my bare neckline. Reaching up, I twist it around my finger, remove one of the bobby pins securing my French twist and, bending my neck, tuck the strand into the elongated seam of hair.

Overhead, the fan churns. I feel a gentle sweep of clammy air along the skin of my exposed shoulders, and hope Zsófi remembers my iced tea.

Long ago, Auntie Mariska hung the
Two Dancing Princesses
tapestry, embroidered by my mother, in a place of honor behind the counter. She'd tucked the unfinished panel in a way that while eccentric, added interest, then had it framed and covered in glass to help preserve it. Each summer when I returned from college she would wave an arm in the tapestry's direction. “See, you are home.”

Now I eye the three vertical panels. Predictably, a lump forms in my throat.

The opaque school lamps strung along the ceiling have not been turned on—another stab at conservation—and it is dim. But there is no mistaking my mother's ability and invention. The design and bold colors are unusual—and, yes, jarring—but it is an incredible display of fine, detailed handwork.

“She put so much of herself into this gift for you,” Mariska reminds me at every opportunity “Her love for you was immense.”

I cannot deny that my mother had put countless hours into the project. This was the mother who had never displayed affection, could not tolerate being touched…and whose touch I longed for, yet this mother had driven a needle over and over through a blank piece of taupe linen for me?

I am intrigued by the thinking that created the unique composition—rooted in the traditional
Twelve Dancing Princesses
story but condensed and revised to reflect my mother's Two Princesses tale—a personal, puzzling gift to me. In the days that I've been helping Zsófi, I've been pondering my mother's choices.

Once again, I turn to the first panel, the princesses' secret passageway. Her Hungarian duo stands poised at the top of a divided staircase, ready to step into their futures. They will go separate ways but it's hard to tell, observing their embroidered Mona Lisa-like smiles, if they are happy or sad or apprehensive about this.

Overall, the faces of the princesses are simple, almost childlike. The real work appears in what they are wearing—red boots, boldly patterned black skirts and vests, and white blouses. I observe their faces closely now. My breath catches.
How had I not noticed it before?
The black-haired girl on the right has brown dot eyes, the golden-haired girl, green dot eyes.

Now my nose is almost touching the protective glass covering. Nearly invisible, but yes! Dark dots at the corner of the left eyes of each princess. Kati? My mother?

I focus on the panel's lower right corner. A flare of skirt trimmed in muted red and green flaps as it whisks behind the curtained exit. Below, a ruby red boot is visible. A third princess? Rózsa?

The doorway through which she is escaping opens to an enchanted forest leading to the twilight kingdom where charmed princesses dance in the arms of handsome princes until their shoes/boots wear out, but the princesses are not charmed. They are bewitched, held captive by an evil spell that takes away free choice. Staring at the tapestry, I see how my mother darkened the color scheme as the eye moves right and down across the panel. Deliberate?

My mother's idea of escape had been a return to Hungary, and both times she went, a shadow of unhappiness returned with her. I sense this in the shading of the panel—her world darkening.

Moving on to panel two, the scene with the lone princess in the boat at last begins to make sense. In the first panel, the dark-haired princess—if my interpretation is right, Kati—stands poised to take the stairs leading off to the right to follow Rózsa through the doorway. Possible, since the sisters both remained together in Budapest while my mother went off into the unknowns of China and then America. But then why, if Kati stayed with Rózsa, isn't she in the boat? Instead, my mother has put herself—the golden-haired girl—in the vessel. I'd seen enough photographs of Budapest to know the city has a grand palace. Is this meant to be her going home?

The day before my mother died, she had just returned from her second visit to Hungary. We had our last conversation.

“Ildikó, I have this time made important discovery. I go to countryside. There, I see place where many Hungarians—Mariska and Zsófi too—flee to Austria, to safety, during revolution.

“The country, it is like here. Flat, open.” She began describing the crops in the distance, the marshland, a bridge, and I tuned out. I was sixteen. She was right. It was like hearing about “here.” Why should I listen? I wasn't the least bit interested, even when she talked about meeting a farmer's handsome son.

“Mother, I'm going to the prom tomorrow night with Steve. You remember, don't you? Steve, the quarterback of the football team? Real football, not football like they play in Hungary, or maybe you're jet-lagged. Maybe just
getful.
” It was my cruel period.

I know so little about my mother beyond the stories I coaxed from her as a child. Stories about China, about how she came to marry my father, about her love for “home.” What did I know about that home? The world she grew up in, the world she fretted over in the parsonage in America, the world which, when she finally returned to it, had made her sad?

I stare at the tapestry, wanting more than anything to know what she had seen that day in the Hungarian countryside. Why hadn't I listened?

Like the unfinished portion of the third panel, I want to know what's missing.

The brass bells on the entrance door jingle. I turn, expecting to see Zsófi. It's a man in his mid- to late forties with disheveled salt and pepper hair and a noble Roman nose in a strong, chiseled face.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
, I think immediately. He's wearing an olive green t-shirt, jeans, and beat-up tennis shoes. When he turns to shut the door I notice his build—fit, broad shoulders—also very Baryshnikov.
Not
Baryshnikov is the Tupperware-covered cake plate he is carrying.

“Hello,” I call.

He returns the greeting, smiling as he crosses the store, his posture straight, long gait easy, almost graceful, plastic container secure in his hands.

I like his smile, it's friendly, but it is his eyes that captivate.

Hazel. They are hazel eyes.

“For Mariska,” he says, gingerly setting the plastic housing on the countertop. “How is she?”

My tone is upbeat, “Doing well. Her doctor is highly optimistic. A mild heart attack. Damage to the heart muscle was minimal,” he said. “She's responding well to medications, but he wants her to take it easy for a week or so. She was released this morning. She's upstairs in the flat, catching up on all the missed zzzs…”

It isn't like me to carry on like this, but something about the man unnerves me. His quiet composure? The absolute sense of calm? So opposite the emotional rife in Vaclav's DNA.

But Vaclav is part of my past now. I breathe in, adopting the man's quiet reserve. “Zsófi and I have been taking turns checking on her.”

“And Zsófi? Is she with Mariska now?”

I detect a slight accent.

“She's next door, grabbing our lunch.” I chuckle. “No, I'll bet
she's
been grabbed by Mrs. Bankuti. You know how she likes to gab.” I laugh nervously. “I'm sorry. I caught your accent, assumed you live in the neighborhood, know the Bankutis. I haven't even introduced myself. Ildikó Palmay, Mariska's niece.” We shake hands. I am aware of the rough texture of his skin, the unexpected warmth of his palm.

“Szigeti, Gustav.” He laughs. “That obvious?”

“Well, you did come bearing the national colors.” I nod to the sealed translucent container. It did not hold a cake as I'd expected, but a heart-shaped Jell-O mold layered top to bottom, red, white, green. “Did you make this?”

Gustav shrugs. “An experiment. I like to cook.”

Bold orange, yellow, and red nasturtium blossoms festoon the top of the heart. “And garden?”

“Another hobby. Thought bright color will bring some cheer. Hopefully, the taste is refreshing too.”

“It's glorious. Auntie Mariska will be tickled. But this heat…” I jiggle the plate, checking to see how the molded heart is holding up. Better than mine. It wiggles jauntily. “No puddling yet. But I should get it to the fridge.” I check my watch. “Gabfest and all, Zsófi ought to be here soon. I'll take it upstairs, then.” I smile apologetically. “Sorry, no visitors.”

Gustav's attention is pinned to a spot on the wall behind me and I doubt that he's even heard me. I clear my throat. He nods to the triptych. “Your mother's, yes?”

“Yes, how did…”

A finger presses the corner near his eye socket. “The eyes.”

“You…you knew my mother?”

“I have been away recently, but mostly I work in the neighborhood. I come here often. Back then…when your mother was alive, too.” A melancholy smile. “It was she, your mother, who arranged my first official assignment.”

“
My
mother?”

He nods. “1964. I was starting my business. She heard—maybe from your father, maybe Mariska—St. Elizabeth's wants to commission a church directory with members' photos. Your mother, she insisted they use me.”

“Insist? My mother would never insist on anything.” I gesture sideways with my head. “She embroidered.”

Another melancholy smile, a lift of the eyebrows.

“I remember her working on this.” He nods at her handiwork. His brow furrows and he looks suddenly troubled.

I track his gaze to the center of the second panel. “It's a palace. Primitive, I know, but I think she meant it to be symbolic of the enchanted kingdom. Not a good place like you'd assume, but a dark place.”

The furrows in Gustav's forehead deepen. “That is no palace. That is AVO headquarters.”

“Wha—What?” I say numbly. “AVO headquarters on a lake?”

“The Danube. See there, in the lower right? A bridge support tower.”

He is gesturing across the counter to a tallish gray rectangle in the corner of the stretch of blue that I'd always assumed was a mistake. She'd run out of blue thread. Used what was on hand to fill in.

Gustav circles the counter to join me near the tapestry, bringing with him the limey scent of aftershave. “This…” he says, his fingertip tapping the glass over a speck of brown in the water. “This, I suspect is a head.”

I had suspected another rogue stitch. “A head? You mean a person? Swimming?”

I feel as if icy river water is rushing through my veins, remembering the story Tibor (Tibi my mother had called him then) had told long ago, in 1957, about a tunnel under AVO headquarters spilling into the Danube which was used for the convenient disposal of bodies.