coat.
âFranciska,â her father said, projecting his voice so he could be heard over the chaos all around them. âItâs getting late. Cold. Maybe Ãvike should be taken home.â
Ãvikeâs head snapped up, coarse wool chafing her cheek.
Breath smoked out of her fatherâs mouth in a long thin trail. Her mother playfully tugged his fur hat, pulling it down lower on his forehead. A stray lock of dark hair escaped. âItâs your night, Miklós. You take her.â The excitement of the day, the sense that change was in the air, had buoyed her mother such that her playful mood continued. She pinched the tip of Ãvikeâs nose. âYouâre a big girl now, right, édesem ? What do you wish to do? Would you like to stay with us while Prime Minister Nagy announces the concession to our demands, or go back to the apartment?â
Ãvikeâs demand, that she be allowed to stay, was overridden by loud cries from the crowd. Imre Nagy had appeared on the parliament building balcony.
âHe looks as if he has a gun to his back,â Ãvikeâs mother said under her breath.
Ãvike stared expectantly. It was her first glimpse of Nagy and she agreed, he looked stiff, uncomfortable. Then she noticed a slight paunch, obvious even under his well-cut suitâand with his bespectacled round face, receding hairline, and dark walrus mustache, to Ãvike, he looked more bourgeois peasant than premier.
He adjusted his glasses andâcould it be?âhis hand shook.
âComrades,â Nagy began, using the traditional Soviet greeting. The incensed crowd booed and whistled. âWe are not comrades!â they roared. âFellow Hungarians,â he corrected himself.
And then Nagy spoke. He talked of resolving matters within the ruling Party, of returning to the popular, but short-lived, more lenient reform program of 1953. That was it, just two minutesâand he had not addressed directly any of the sixteen Points.
Ãvike had been holding her parentsâ hands during the address. An awkward silence followed, and she could almost feel their stunned disappointment coursing through her mittens and up through her arms.
Then Nagy invited the crowd to join him in singing the national anthem. Her parents hesitated, but then their voices united with the others. Moved by the stirring melody and patriotic words, Ãvike felt a tear trickling down her cheek.
Nagy then asked the demonstrators to go home. With few exceptions, they did not.
***
Budapest, 24 October 1956
The morning after the demonstration, school was officially called off, and Ãvike lingered in bed. Her father had gone out early. Hearing him call out, âIâm back,â she bolted upright, straining to hear what was being said on the other side of the paper-thin wall that divided her bedroom from the living room on the other side.
Her parents spoke in low excited voices.
âWhat is happening?â her mother asked.
Her father unleashed the news from the street.
Last night, at Kossuth tér, as Nagyâs disappointing speech was ending, on the other side of town at the Radio building, the group agitating for an on-air reading of the 16 Points had run out of patience. A van reversed against the wooden entrance gates like a battering ram; insurgents began hurling bricks from a nearby building site through the windows. AVO men stationed inside the building volleyed back with tear gas and water jets from fire hoses. Then shots were fired. Some students were cut down. Incited compatriots using primitive weapons, mostly petrol bombs, sought revenge and, by early morning, they had managed to take over the building.
The conversation grew more hushed. Ãvike crept from her bed and stood against the wall to hear better.
After Nagyâs speech, her father was saying, an immense crowd had also assembled near Heroesâ Square at the most hated symbol of the Stalinist era, the giant
âFranciska,â her father said, projecting his voice so he could be heard over the chaos all around them. âItâs getting late. Cold. Maybe Ãvike should be taken home.â
Ãvikeâs head snapped up, coarse wool chafing her cheek.
Breath smoked out of her fatherâs mouth in a long thin trail. Her mother playfully tugged his fur hat, pulling it down lower on his forehead. A stray lock of dark hair escaped. âItâs your night, Miklós. You take her.â The excitement of the day, the sense that change was in the air, had buoyed her mother such that her playful mood continued. She pinched the tip of Ãvikeâs nose. âYouâre a big girl now, right, édesem ? What do you wish to do? Would you like to stay with us while Prime Minister Nagy announces the concession to our demands, or go back to the apartment?â
Ãvikeâs demand, that she be allowed to stay, was overridden by loud cries from the crowd. Imre Nagy had appeared on the parliament building balcony.
âHe looks as if he has a gun to his back,â Ãvikeâs mother said under her breath.
Ãvike stared expectantly. It was her first glimpse of Nagy and she agreed, he looked stiff, uncomfortable. Then she noticed a slight paunch, obvious even under his well-cut suitâand with his bespectacled round face, receding hairline, and dark walrus mustache, to Ãvike, he looked more bourgeois peasant than premier.
He adjusted his glasses andâcould it be?âhis hand shook.
âComrades,â Nagy began, using the traditional Soviet greeting. The incensed crowd booed and whistled. âWe are not comrades!â they roared. âFellow Hungarians,â he corrected himself.
And then Nagy spoke. He talked of resolving matters within the ruling Party, of returning to the popular, but short-lived, more lenient reform program of 1953. That was it, just two minutesâand he had not addressed directly any of the sixteen Points.
Ãvike had been holding her parentsâ hands during the address. An awkward silence followed, and she could almost feel their stunned disappointment coursing through her mittens and up through her arms.
Then Nagy invited the crowd to join him in singing the national anthem. Her parents hesitated, but then their voices united with the others. Moved by the stirring melody and patriotic words, Ãvike felt a tear trickling down her cheek.
Nagy then asked the demonstrators to go home. With few exceptions, they did not.
***
Budapest, 24 October 1956
The morning after the demonstration, school was officially called off, and Ãvike lingered in bed. Her father had gone out early. Hearing him call out, âIâm back,â she bolted upright, straining to hear what was being said on the other side of the paper-thin wall that divided her bedroom from the living room on the other side.
Her parents spoke in low excited voices.
âWhat is happening?â her mother asked.
Her father unleashed the news from the street.
Last night, at Kossuth tér, as Nagyâs disappointing speech was ending, on the other side of town at the Radio building, the group agitating for an on-air reading of the 16 Points had run out of patience. A van reversed against the wooden entrance gates like a battering ram; insurgents began hurling bricks from a nearby building site through the windows. AVO men stationed inside the building volleyed back with tear gas and water jets from fire hoses. Then shots were fired. Some students were cut down. Incited compatriots using primitive weapons, mostly petrol bombs, sought revenge and, by early morning, they had managed to take over the building.
The conversation grew more hushed. Ãvike crept from her bed and stood against the wall to hear better.
After Nagyâs speech, her father was saying, an immense crowd had also assembled near Heroesâ Square at the most hated symbol of the Stalinist era, the giant
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