Read Online Under Budapest by Ailsa Kay - Free Book Online Page B

. You see, I tell you their names because—”
    â€œZsofi Teglas?” Agnes shouldered someone aside, grabbed the woman’s wrist. “Did you say Zsofi Teglas?”
    There were crumbs on the woman’s black dress, a half-eaten egg sandwich in her left hand, a half-smile on her face.
    â€œI’m Agnes Teglas. Zsofi was my sister.”
    â€œZsofi’s sister? No.”
    â€œShe was with you in prison? In 1956?”
    â€œShe was,” the woman declared. “And in Vienna, spring of 1957.”
    â€œVienna?”
    â€œThat’s right. Zsofi and I escaped together. Through the tunnels.”
    â€œMom. We’re not going to find it this way. Look, there’s the street. I’m going to see if I can call us a cab.”
    But hold on. There’s the angel. There, the honoured workers. And there, where two paths meet, the white mausoleum.
    â€œPersze, Tibor. You’re probably right.” Agnes places herself squarely in the archway of the mausoleum’s door. Shelter, she points. “I’ll just wait here for you.”
    He gives her a patient smile, meant to show her how nobly he endures, and jogs off, shoes squelching.
    The woman’s story was preposterous: she and Zsofi, digging, then a friendly prison guard, directing them into a hidden passageway. An entirely unbelievable story, yet here, exactly where she’d said it would be, exactly as the map specified, here was the exit of the tunnel through which Zsofi and this woman, Dorottya, had escaped.
    Agnes pushes at the door. Pushes with everything she’s got. Then sees the chain and the massive padlock securing it. It’s futile, she knows, but she yanks at the padlock. It leaves rust all over her new grey gloves, but it doesn’t give. She nearly cries with frustration—to come all this way, to be so close, and still so far from the truth. Then she realizes: why would anyone lock up the dead? If there is nothing in here but bones, there is no reason for security.
    So, she doesn’t have evidence of a tunnel, exactly, but then again, she doesn’t see the absence of tunnel either. It isn’t proof, nor is it proof to the contrary.
    The existence of the tunnels and underground prisons has never been proven. Searchers just didn’t know where to look, Dorottya insisted. “I don’t know how many tunnels there were. Endless tunnels. Miles of them. We lived in darkness. We saw light twice a day, at mealtimes. The guards carried lanterns. We all turned into moles. The light hurt our eyes. I stopped believing in my own hand; I couldn’t see it. There’s no darkness like it, the darkness of the earth. We talked to stay sane, but some people lost their minds, thought they were buried alive, in their graves. I still can’t stand the dark. But then, I don’t know what happened, some of us were conscripted to dig. The digging was awful, painful and hard, but at least we had light. At least we knew we were alive.”
    A guard helped them escape, escorting them through an underground maze to this exit. Here. Here, Dorottya and Zsofi emerged, close to the southern train station and close also to Koztarsasag Ter, Communist Party Headquarters, where the tunnels were believed to begin. The moonlight seemed like day to their eyes. They scrubbed their faces with snow. They melted snow in their cupped palms and drank it. Then they caught a train to Sopron, jumping off before the station to run through the fields and the forest to the border.
    Agnes hears the car pulling up behind her and shoves stained gloves into her pockets.
    â€œI’m sorry we didn’t find the grave, Mom,” Tibor says. He’s being tender, and she feels sorry this brief and uncharacteristic moment of empathy has been evoked by a lie.
    â€œDo you see the communist martyrs’ circle?” she says. “Martyrs,” she scoffs. It’s a clumsy change of subject, but it does the job.