It was Zoltán’s decoration as a “war hero” by the Soviets that finally brought him to Tíbor Kálmán’s villa late in 1945, to the place where it seemed all his misfortune and redemption were concentrated, where he might be absolved of guilt for having made it through the siege instead of someone better—anyone at all—someone worthy of survival, like that legless girl in the makeshift infirmary, for he had done what she asked that day, scrounging among the soldiers crammed wounded or dying or dead into that corridor, found a revolver, and embraced her with one arm while with the other he pressed the barrel to her temple. If only he’d gotten to the villa in time, he told himself. If only he’d chosen the one other option he had: death. He knew now that death was preferable to what he’d done to save himself, though it was too late by then, betrayal had become Zoltán’s vocation, and the woman who met him that November day in the doorway of the villa sensed it, with the tired look of someone who has outlasted her interest in life and can’t understand why she’s being provoked by those who insist on living. She introduced herself as Tíbor’s daughter-in-law, Karola, wary enough of Zoltán and his uniform to give only the answer he wanted and not a drop more, keeping her voice to a perfect monotone, without a single nuance he might have fastened onto had he been seeking something other than forgiveness.
“I wish I could help you,” she said. “But Tíbor is dead.”
Zoltán stood there with his military decorations and wondered why he’d come, given that the war was over, and with it his reason for seeking out Tíbor. “He’s dead,” Karola said again. “He was dead when we returned here from Budapest.” She pointed at the hole left by the bomb in the roof above the dining room, covered with a number of tarps inexpertly sewn together. She told him the story in a manner so offhand it was clear she was still in shock: Tíbor Kálmán had lost both hands when a Russian shell landed on the villa. He’d raised his arms to protect his wife, Ildikó, from the collapse of the ceiling, and a beautiful chandelier of Murano glass sheared off both hands at the wrist, though it hardly mattered to Tíbor by then because both he and Ildikó were dead, crushed by the weight of plaster, bricks, and several tons of antique furniture they’d stored in the attic overhead. Karola stood for a moment, as if waiting for Zoltán to respond, and when he didn’t she said, “Anyhow,” and he could see the effort it was costing her to repress a sneer as she scanned the medals on his chest, “you don’t seem to be doing too badly.”
There was something else, something other than scorn, in the way she said this, a quiet acknowledgement of what he’d come for, and at the same time a dismissal of the explanation he wanted so badly to make. “Vannay sent out radio messages to the Soviets,” he whispered, and immediately regretted it, as if even now, in attempting to make amends, he was still looking out for himself. “They weren’t taking any prisoners. I had to make them a sign of good faith,” he said. “I was only eighteen!”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, and he noticed that even while talking to him she was gazing elsewhere—at the orchard, the flight of birds, a fence fallen to its side—unable to keep her eyes on anything for long.
“I killed two boys,” he said. “I wanted to show that I had switched sides . . .”
“I don’t know anything about what you’re saying.”
“You do!” he shouted. “I was supposed to have come here. Tíbor was waiting for me, for boys like me. But I couldn’t get across the Russian lines!”
She shrugged. “We couldn’t make it either. We were trapped inside Budapest. There were many people who suffered.”
“I was part of Vannay’s battalion. It was during the breakout. When I saw the Russians coming I killed two of the boys I was fighting with.” He was shaking. He no longer had any control over what he was saying.
“Then you are not welcome in my house,” said Karola, and for the first time since she’d opened the door, Zoltán felt her gaze rest on him, and he realized, too, that she’d been looking away not because she was disinterested in him, but because her eyes had seen too much, absorbed too much, images impossible for her to contain, which made her look elsewhere for fear of passing them on. He felt ashamed then for not being able to do as she did, keep it to himself, or expend it by shifting his gaze to where it would do no harm—the birds, the fields, the sky.
“Then you do not deserve to come in here,” she hissed, and slammed the door in his face.
And so began Zoltán’s persecution of Tíbor Kálmán’s family, using every opportunity his status in the Party gave him—making false claims, denying them meaningful jobs, padding the files on Karola, her husband Boldizsár, their children István, Adél, Anikó, Jenő and László, citing their attendance at mass, their political support for the Smallholders Party in the elections of 1945, their open criticism of the Soviet occupation and its control of the police, factories, transit system, everything. But at the time there were so many people like this the Soviets couldn’t make them disappear fast enough. It wasn’t until he saw what was happening to the members of the resistance, old trade union leaders, those who’d been outspoken communists prior to the arrival of the Red Army—who had paved the way for it, but made the mistake of expecting Marxism in its wake—only when all of them were being arrested, sentenced in show trials and murdered, did Zoltán realize that the most dangerous thing of all, the most grievous of crimes, next to being a Nazi, was to have actively fought against Hitler in the name of communism. These men and women had had the courage to oppose the state, been brave enough to think for themselves, even at the cost of their lives, and it was because of this, exactly this, that the Soviets got rid of them. They were not the kind of citizens the Kremlin wanted, any more than Hitler had wanted them. Picking off the most loyal had the added benefit of amplifying the fear, of making everyone feel equally vulnerable, because if loyalties didn’t matter, if the liquidation of men and women appeared random, then survival had nothing to do with you and everything to do with grace, which arrived from the state, as mysterious and medieval as the favour of God.
Zoltán filed report after report to the Allied Control Commission, which was controlled by the Soviets, about the activities of Tíbor Kálmán and his family during the war: how they’d sheltered political refugees from Germany, how they’d helped young men escape being drafted by a government they despised, how they’d drawn up false papers for all of these. “Conscientious objectors,” he called them, and it was this, finally, that elevated the Kálmáns above the common stream of citizens complaining about the occupation. It wore the family down—visits by police, seizure of property, arrests and brief imprisonments that were hints, preludes, to the sentences yet to come—and then, in a final blow, Zoltán managed to get them evicted from the villa, and to have himself, the war hero, the decorated veteran, the loyal subject of the Party, installed in their place.
That was late in 1946, the letter from the state informing the Kálmáns that their villa was being “reallocated” to “a more suitable candidate.” In return, they would be given a cowshed in Csepel. The shed had held three cows and could easily fit six people, which meant that only one member of the family would have to sleep outside. So the family finally left, driven beyond exasperation, beyond fear, beyond even the love of their country. Rumour was they escaped to the west, following their eldest son, who’d left the country six months earlier. In many ways, Zoltán was happy to have been part of their forced removal, and he was delighted to think of what it was like for them out there, wherever they’d gone—not speaking the language, not making any money, not having their degrees and expertise recognized. At night, when he couldn’t sleep, it was helpful to know that in some way they were suffering at least a fraction of what he’d suffered during the siege, at a time when he should have been with them, in Tíbor’s care, being given a new identity and a new life.
But in the end, he had to admit, it was not the Kálmáns he’d been after, not really. It was the villa, the freedom to walk inside, to feel its mass around him.
He never forgot his first time crossing the threshold. There was the falling plaster, the bullet holes still in the walls,