file wasn’t here. I went through my stack twice, then took Lena’s. In the front of the box, I found the order form I’d sent over, listing cases to be retrieved. Each had been checked by the archives clerk, except the one labeled “10-3282-48— MICHALEC, J,” which was marked NH —
ne har.
The file was missing.
The phone rang, and Lena went to get it. Central Archives was notoriously inefficient, but of all the files to be misplaced, I was surprised it would be this one.
“Cher
comrade?” Lena was waving the receiver from its cord. “Comrade Kolyeszar requests your presence.”
While I talked, Lena went through the cabinets, finding a glass and making me a scotch and soda. She’d picked up the ten-year-old malt on a trip earlier that year to England. Unlike in the old days, she didn’t make one for herself.
Ferenc said, “Sorry to call at home.” He sounded strange, distant, and spoke with an unsettling calm.
“What is it?”
“They’re dead.”
“Who’s dead?”
Lena handed me the drink. Ferenc said, “I don’t know. They … they
shot,
Emil.”
“Who?”
A voice—Magda, I think—said something to Ferenc. Then Agota took the phone. “For fuck’s sake, Emil, he’s telling you the Ministry bastards shot into the crowd! We don’t know how many people they killed—but there are dead people. Lots. You have to spread the word. Understand?
The Spark
will say something different, but you have to tell them. You have to make sure they
know ?
Agota spoke to me with a voice I’d hear more and more over the next days. It was more than Ferenc’s abstracts—it was the voice of the astonished and self-righteous.
I don’t mean to say people weren’t justified feeling this way ; almost always, they were. I just mean that it was a voice I hadn’t yet accustomed myself to. My heart palpitated and my hand sweated. I gulped down the scotch and soda and handed the empty glass back to Lena, who was staring wildly. I said, “Just tell me what to do, Agi.”
What she wanted me to do frightened me, but I couldn’t do it until the next day, so for the rest of the night I was impotent. Predictably, there was no mention of the Patak massacre on the two state television stations that evening.
I wanted to distract myself with my old files, because there was some comfort in cases that had been solved and closed, but in light of what was going on, they were like stories out of a piece of fiction. Lena, on the other hand, was empowered by the news. “Finally, this godforsaken country is going to see the light.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, dear, that Pankov has crossed the line. He can starve us and cut off our energy, but once he starts shooting people in the streets it’s over. Only a desperate man resorts to this.”
I didn’t share Lena’s optimism. We’d both lived through the arrival of socialism, and both of us welcomed the idea of watching it leave again, but I worried—perhaps too much—about my friends. We weren’t like the Czechs or Poles. We’d never been the kind of people to vent our frustration through the ballot box.
My problem, of course, was that I had no faith in people to make my country better. After forty years in the People’s Militia, it’s hard to maintain such faith.
Around ten thirty, Bernard called and swore angrily that if anyone touched Agota or Sanja, he was going to blow something up. I suggested he not say this over the phone, but there was no stopping him. He finally made it around to what I knew, when I first heard his voice, he was going to ask: “Do you really need me here?”
“Go,” I said, hoping his Militia ID would get him through the roadblocks. “A dead Ministry officer, one way or the other, makes no difference.” I said that because I was foolish enough to believe it.
The foolishness stayed with me all night, even as I sat in bed watching Lena clean makeup from her hollowed cheeks in the vanity mirror. She’d listened in on my
ne har.
The file was missing.
The phone rang, and Lena went to get it. Central Archives was notoriously inefficient, but of all the files to be misplaced, I was surprised it would be this one.
“Cher
comrade?” Lena was waving the receiver from its cord. “Comrade Kolyeszar requests your presence.”
While I talked, Lena went through the cabinets, finding a glass and making me a scotch and soda. She’d picked up the ten-year-old malt on a trip earlier that year to England. Unlike in the old days, she didn’t make one for herself.
Ferenc said, “Sorry to call at home.” He sounded strange, distant, and spoke with an unsettling calm.
“What is it?”
“They’re dead.”
“Who’s dead?”
Lena handed me the drink. Ferenc said, “I don’t know. They … they
shot,
Emil.”
“Who?”
A voice—Magda, I think—said something to Ferenc. Then Agota took the phone. “For fuck’s sake, Emil, he’s telling you the Ministry bastards shot into the crowd! We don’t know how many people they killed—but there are dead people. Lots. You have to spread the word. Understand?
The Spark
will say something different, but you have to tell them. You have to make sure they
know ?
Agota spoke to me with a voice I’d hear more and more over the next days. It was more than Ferenc’s abstracts—it was the voice of the astonished and self-righteous.
I don’t mean to say people weren’t justified feeling this way ; almost always, they were. I just mean that it was a voice I hadn’t yet accustomed myself to. My heart palpitated and my hand sweated. I gulped down the scotch and soda and handed the empty glass back to Lena, who was staring wildly. I said, “Just tell me what to do, Agi.”
What she wanted me to do frightened me, but I couldn’t do it until the next day, so for the rest of the night I was impotent. Predictably, there was no mention of the Patak massacre on the two state television stations that evening.
I wanted to distract myself with my old files, because there was some comfort in cases that had been solved and closed, but in light of what was going on, they were like stories out of a piece of fiction. Lena, on the other hand, was empowered by the news. “Finally, this godforsaken country is going to see the light.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, dear, that Pankov has crossed the line. He can starve us and cut off our energy, but once he starts shooting people in the streets it’s over. Only a desperate man resorts to this.”
I didn’t share Lena’s optimism. We’d both lived through the arrival of socialism, and both of us welcomed the idea of watching it leave again, but I worried—perhaps too much—about my friends. We weren’t like the Czechs or Poles. We’d never been the kind of people to vent our frustration through the ballot box.
My problem, of course, was that I had no faith in people to make my country better. After forty years in the People’s Militia, it’s hard to maintain such faith.
Around ten thirty, Bernard called and swore angrily that if anyone touched Agota or Sanja, he was going to blow something up. I suggested he not say this over the phone, but there was no stopping him. He finally made it around to what I knew, when I first heard his voice, he was going to ask: “Do you really need me here?”
“Go,” I said, hoping his Militia ID would get him through the roadblocks. “A dead Ministry officer, one way or the other, makes no difference.” I said that because I was foolish enough to believe it.
The foolishness stayed with me all night, even as I sat in bed watching Lena clean makeup from her hollowed cheeks in the vanity mirror. She’d listened in on my
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