Triptych (8 page)

“My parents,” Vaclav explained, then nodding to the small plaque with the caption: ‘WORLDS APART…
Like the rivers, we forever are separated
.'

Seeing the page from Vaclav's Communist secret police dossier had reminded me of Tibi, the freedom fighter who'd visited the parsonage when I was a child. Broken teeth, pried off fingernails. “A time of no freedom, no trust, everyone had their secrets,” he'd said. Including my Aunt Rózsa in Budapest. In 1956, the AVO's grip on her had been so firm that more than a year passed before she had let my mother know that their sister, Kati, had gone missing.

I was thinking these things as I viewed Vaclav's homage to his parents, and surprising myself, said, “I've been longing to visit my parents' homeland, Hungary.”

I asked Vaclav if he would be allowed back in Prague, more importantly, would he be free to leave again.

Friends had done it, and he thought it was possible. “But…” he had added, gesturing to the homage with a devilish grin, “I have problem with the flow of my rivers, also with the flow of my cash.”

I laughed. “I'm in the same boat.”

Vaclav looked over, eyes twinkling. He was flirting with me.

A door off the kitchen swung open, spilling cigarette smoke and animated voices into the corridor. Vaclav's eyes had not left mine. “Perhaps you like drink something?” I did. Taking me by the elbow, he shoved the door open and led me into the faintly lit kitchen.

My eye traveled immediately to his wife, Manka. At nearly six feet tall with shoulder-length raven-black hair, she was a commanding figure amid the cluster of men and women near the sink. She tossed her head, flipping a long strand off her face. Everyone in the small group held either a tall glass of beer or a stemmed glass of wine, smoldering Gauloises propped between their fingers. They seemed to all be talking at once, the brown sticks of tobacco punching the air for emphasis. It was a warm summer evening. The window over the sink was open, but smoke hung in a mushroom cloud.

Manka did not immediately notice us. A woman almost as tall as Manka stood next to her. Reed-thin, with sharp features and a short, spiky hairdo, she smiled, showing wide-spaced teeth. Her free arm was draped around Manka's shoulders. A man across from them, waved his cigarette, made a comment. The spiky blonde laughed and turned to kiss Manka's cheek.

Specks of color appeared on Manka's sculpted cheekbones. She leaned into the blonde and laughed. Deep lines formed around her eyes and mouth, scoring her sunken cheeks, and underscoring her age. Manka had left her country via the underground, arriving in the States with her husband and one suitcase. I was surprised the lines were not more harshly etched.

Were Manka and the woman lovers? I wondered. How could that be? She had Vaclav. Handsome, talented Vaclav. Perhaps they were just friends; the affectionate gestures a European thing. Possibly the pair had simply had too much to drink.

I continued to stare until I felt the weight of Vaclav's hand on my shoulder. I flinched. “Is okay,” he whispered.

I turned to look at him. My forehead felt tight.

Vaclav rubbed a finger along a frown line as if to erase it.

We were still in the doorway. Manka looked over. She smiled and her dark eyes softened. She really was lovely. Especially for that millisecond when her eyes met Vaclav's, and it was as if a shield dropped.

Vaclav retrieved two bottles of beer from a cooler. “Come,” he said.

We retreated the way we'd entered, but not before I gave in to a backwards glance.

“Is okay,” he repeated once we were in the corridor again.

“What are you saying? Manka is your wife,” I said, treading cautiously. “Maybe I read it all wrong, but she and that woman appear to be more than just friends. You're saying it's okay…” I faltered. “It's okay that your wife is with that woman?” My voice sounded squeaky, uncertain.

Vaclav rested his arms on my shoulders, a bottle suspended in each hand, waiting until our eyes met.

“You cannot easy understand, this I am sure. You live in America. Always free. We come from oppression. For so long, live in fear. Hardly can breathe without worry of what bad thing will happen next. Now everything different. Manka, she can teach—really teach—not just parrot doctrine. Here, she…we free to express self. Experiment. Know free will. That is what means being American, yes?”

Free will had limits, even in America. He was wrong about my being unable to understand life under an overbearing force. Maybe there hadn't been a government looming over me, but I was always with the memory of that last morning with my mother. Could I ever make it up to her? Free myself?

We would continue the discussion of what it meant to be American, and I would unburden my secret shame in time, but just then the sudden energetic strains of polka music cut in. Vaclav, setting down the bottle and grabbing my hand, tugged me in the direction of the living room.

The furniture had been shoved against the walls, and the area rug rolled up to reveal a hardwood floor. At the room's center couples skipped-stepped in a circle, now and then the men twirling the women under their arms. Vaclav dragged me out to join the throng. Soon, I felt my inhibitions slip away. I danced as if no one was watching. They weren't. By the time everyone joined hands to form a circle, the music was part of me; I felt more at ease—free—than I could remember. We step-kicked sideways faster and faster until it was as if my feet no longer touched the floor.

***

When I returned home after Vaclav's party, I'd paused before the bookcase that my friends referred to as my Parents' Shrine. Arranged on a shelf, the formal black-and-white wedding photograph, my mother's photo taken with her family in 1940, just before she left for China, and splayed across the daisy piece, the locket. The shrine had stood unchanged for eighteen years. Standing before it, remembering my mother's suppressed suffering, called up Palach's tribute, NO MORE SECRETS. Immediately, the unknowns surrounding my mother's twin Kati's disappearance surfaced again. Was she dead? Alive…a traitor hiding somewhere? And my mother's death. It was also shrouded in mystery. Was that why I had impulsively expressed to Vaclav a longing to visit Budapest? Once I'd said it, I would have to go there. Get answers.

***

The next day, it only took a few calls to friends to find a position for Vaclav. He began teaching evening classes, first at the community center, then at the high school. These days, he still gardens by day in summer, but his passions remain art and teaching.

In the library hallway, I watch Vaclav position the
Lolita
piece, thankfully in a discreet section near the bottom of the cabinet.

“I just gave the ‘bring an article of clothing from your home country' assignment to my new conversation group,” I say. “The women's response was so positive I'm wondering if maybe other English conversation group leaders might benefit from the model. There's a state library convention coming up. I don't know…maybe I could write something? Present it?”

Vaclav adjusts the
Lolita
piece a final time, testing to be sure it is secured, and turns to look at me. For a moment, the blue of his eyes no longer reminds me of the alluring deep Mediterranean but of the pale, ice-glazed shores of Lake Michigan in winter. “So you think helping more refugee women to be success in America will somehow fill hole left from not helping your mother?”

It's the closest Vaclav has come to being mean to me. But when I look at his face, I see that he didn't intend to hurt me. Vaclav believes in speaking his mind. “Is good in long run,
”
he always likes to say.

Complete honesty. I agree, in concept. It's why when we're alone I can relax, be open with my thoughts, my deepest regret. No worries about a hidden message; something one or the other of us should have picked up on, but didn't. Yes, with Vaclav, I always know where I stand, and at the moment I feel wobbly.

He must see the pain in my eyes because, placing a hand gently on my shoulder, he leans close, whispers, “Maybe you are right. The women of your groups have blessing because of you. You understand them. You are their America. My America.”

The words, maybe his breath in my ear, send a shiver through me. A pleasant shiver. How can I resist then when he asks, “I see you tonight?”

I did resist at first. I told him as his quasi-mentor, it was inappropriate—not to mention he was married. No. It was impossible! Between his job, his art, and his home life, Vaclav never has much time for me, and oftentimes when we are together we are “exploring.” At an antique shop or used bookstore, we hunt pieces. Afterwards, we go to my place and make love. Sometimes, like tonight—nine months after my resistance had given way—there will be no outing—simply greedy lovemaking.

There is a slight groan from the library door opening. Vaclav's hand is still on my shoulder. My body tenses.

“What you do with this shawl, marvelous,” Vaclav exclaims, his hand slipping to an edge of cloth near my elbow, lifting it as if admiring my handiwork.

“I'll be happy to show you more of my needlework later, Mr. Nemecek,” I say brightly, pulling the shawl close.

I fall into step behind the patron who had come through the door, but inside my heart is singing again.

***

Budapest, 25 October 1956

Évike sat at the kitchen table mid-morning, warmed by the oven, savoring the yeasty smell in the air and observing her mother who would normally, after her bakery shift, still be sleeping, but these were not normal times. Évike and her mother had not left the apartment for the past thirty-six hours, since their return home from the demonstration in Kossuth tér.

On the narrow counter across from Évike, two fresh loaves rested beside the radio that had been streaming Hungarian Workers Party HWP bulletins nearly nonstop for the last thirty-six hours, when her mother had first turned it on. Following the occupation of the radio building by rebels, the “official” broadcasts had begun originating from the Parliament building—

“In the interest of restoring order, all public assemblies and gatherings are forbidden until further notice. A curfew is in effect between 18.00 and 06.00 hours. Schools and universities closed.”

No school again! Évike's relief had been enormous. She'd feared her next encounter with her classmates, her teacher. Three days had passed since her face off with Gombóc. The possibility existed, didn't it, that by the time school resumed, Gombóc would be banished back to Russia, everything would be back to normal, all…
even her betrayal
…would be forgotten?

Her mother's reaction to the curfew was the opposite. “What?” she had ranted. “Are we animals? They snap their whip, and we retreat, lock ourselves in our cages?”

Now, as Évike watched her mother hunched over the open oven door, lifting a fresh loaf from the rack, a new bulletin rang out.

“People of Budapest, Comrades! The counter-revolutionary gangs have mostly been liquidated. Transport is running again
…
”

Her mother froze, holding the bread pan mid-air.

Évike's stomach tightened. She could predict what would happen next. Her mother's foot flying to kick the door closed. It was the sort of thing she had witnessed over and over in recent days. Drawer slamming, door banging, foot-stomping, cursing, but now the unexpected. Her mother pivoted deliberately, set the loaf on the counter.

Évike's stomach relaxed, then growled with hunger. What a good thing, she thought, a crashing oven door might have made the bread fall. There was never enough food.

The slow shuffling sound of her mother's slippers against linoleum raised a different concern. Sometime yesterday, after Nagy's speech, her mother's usual fiery will had left her. They had been listening to radio communiqués.

“Attention! Attention! Last night, counter-revolutionary, reactionary elements launched attacks against public buildings, and attacked security forces.

“The Soviet Military has been invited into Budapest to take part in the re-establishment of order and will remain until the complete defeat of the counter-revolutionary reactionary elements who stubbornly continue their murderous, and at the same time completely hopeless, fight against the order of our working people.”

Her mother had yelled at the radio, yanking her hair with both hands. “Liar! What shit propaganda will you come up with next?”

More broadcasts had followed, the constant feed of misinformation pummeling her mother's spirit until it had completely deflated.

Then, last night, Évike had been awakened by weeping.

The previous morning, after she'd overheard her father in the next room reporting on the rebel fighting going on throughout Budapest, they'd had breakfast together. Afterward, her father had left at the usual time to go to his job at the medical laboratory equipment manufacturer. He'd quickly returned home again, staying just long enough to change clothes and inform his wife and daughter of the situation in the streets.

“I took the bus along Route 5. We got to Roosevelt tér. I could hear gunfire everywhere. The bus driver refused to drive further so I continued on foot. Near Üllõi ut, I saw overturned, shot-up trams. Rebels are using them as barricades. Armed young men asked where I was heading. ‘You'll never get there, they told me.'”

Her mother asked what he was going to do. He replied, “They need help. I have to go.”

Évike felt sick with dread.

She and her mother had waited up until midnight. This morning, her father still had not returned. Her mother's eyes were glazed, her hair uncombed.

“Mother, the bread smells divine,” Évike said brightly.

No reply. Instead, her mother closed the oven door, returned the hot pad to the hook on the gray-white wall, and studied the painted plate mounted next to it. The dish and its flowery design in the traditional Hungarian motif had been a fixture for ages but she continued to stare.