Breakfast in the Ruins

15 Big Bang in Budapest: 1956: Leaving Home

— Is your only pleasure making me feel pleasure? Karl asks.

— Of course not.

— Well, you don't seem to be getting any fun out of this. Not physical, anyway.

— Cerebral pleasures can be just as nice. It depends what turns you on, surely?

Karl turns over.—There's something pretty repressed about you, he says.—Something almost dead.

— You know how to be offensive don't you? A short time ago you were just an ordinary London lad. Now you're behaving like the bitchiest little pansy I ever saw.

— Maybe I like the role.

Karl is twenty. He scents escape at last. He has survived through the War, through the Communist take-over. Now there is a way out. He prays that nothing will happen to frustrate his plans this time...

— And maybe I don't. When I said you could have anything you wanted I didn't mean a bra and suspender belt. The black man turns away in disgust.

— You said anything was worth trying, didn't you? I think I'd look rather nifty. A few hormone jabs, a pump or two of silicone in my chest. I'd be a luscious, tropical beauty. Wouldn't you love me more?

Karl is twenty. His brain is sharp. He tears up his party membership card. Time for a change.

— Stop that! — orders Karl's friend.—Or I won't bother. You can leave now.

— Who's being narrow minded, then!

KARL is TWENTY. Both his mother and his father had been killed in the pre-war pogroms. He had survived in Budapest by changing his name and keeping undercover until the war was over. When the new government was installed, he became a member of the Communist party, but he didn't tell his friends. That would have been pointless, since part of his work involved making discreet enquiries for the Russian controlled security department on the Westbahnhof.

Now he was working out his best route to the Austrian border. He had joined with his fellow students in the least aggressive of the demonstrations against the Russians and had established himself as a patriot. When the Russians won—as they must win—he would be in Vienna on his way to America. Other Hungarians would vouch for him—a victim, like themselves, of Russian imperialism.

Earlier that day he had contacted the hotel where the tourists were staying. They told him that there were some cars due to leave for Austria in the afternoon by the big suspension bridge near the hotel. He had described himself as a "known patriot" whom the secret police were even now hunting down. They had been sympathetic and assured him of their help.

Lenin Street was comparatively quiet after the fighting which, yesterday, had blasted it, into ruins. He picked his way through the rubble, ducking behind a fallen tree as a Russian tank appeared, its treads squeaking protest as they struck obstacle after obstacle.

Karl reached the riverside. A few people came running up the boulevard but there didn't seem to be anyone behind them. Karl decided it was safe to continue. He could see the bridge from here. Not far to go.

There came the sudden slamming cacophony of automatic cannon a few blocks to the east; a howl from a hundred throats at least; the decisive rattle of machine guns; the sound of running feet. From out of a street opposite him Karl saw about fifty freedom fighters, most of them armed with rifles and a few with tommy-guns, dash like flushed rats onto the boulevard, glance around and then run towards the bridge. He cursed them. Why couldn't they have fled in the other direction?

But he decided to follow them, at a distance.

On the suspension bridge he saw some tanks. He hoped they had been immobilized. Bodies were being thrown over the side into the Danube. He hoped they were Russian bodies. He began to look for the cars. A new Citroen, green, one of the tourists had told him, and a Volkswagen. He peered through the gaps in the ranks of the running men. He began to run himself.

And then the automatic cannon started once more. This time it was directly ahead and it was joined by the guns of the tanks. The freedom fighters fell down. Some got up and crawled into doorways, firing back. Karl fell flat, rolling to the railings and looking to see if there was a way down to the river. He might be able to swim the rest of the distance. He looked across the Danube. He could still make it. He would survive.

Tanks came towards him, he made a vain attempt to get through the railings and then lay still, hoping they would think him dead.

More rifle and tommy-gun fire. More Russian gunfire. A shout. A strangled scream.

Karl opened his eyes. One of the tanks was on fire, its camouflaged sides scorched, its red star smeared with blood.

The tank's driver had tried to get out of his turret and had been shot to pieces. The other tanks rumbled on. The fighting became more distant. Karl glanced at his watch. No more than five minutes before the cars left.

He got cautiously to his feet.

A Russian's head appeared in the turret behind the corpse of the driver. The man's flat features were tormented. He was doubtless badly wounded. He saw Karl. Karl put up his hands to show that he was unarmed. He smiled an ingratiating smile. The Russian aimed a pistol at him. Karl tried to think what to do.

He felt the impact as the bullet struck his skull. He went back against the railings and collapsed without seeing the Danube again.

— You seem to think I'm trying to corrupt your morals or something. You've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I was simply talking about expanding your range of choices. I don't know what to make of you Karl.

— Then we're even.

-I might have to change my mind about you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. If I'm to adopt you, it will be on very strict terms. I don't want you to embarrass me.

— That goes for me, too.

— Now don't be insolent, Karl.

You live in a poor country, though you yourself are comparatively rich.

There is a famine in the country and many of the people are starving. You want to help them. You can afford to give the local people in the village about fifty pounds. But the number of people in the village is at least two hundred. If each receives part of the money you have, it will buy them enough to live on for perhaps another four days.

Would you give them the money on condition it was spent on the people most in need? Or on condition that it was spent on the children? Or would you select a handful of people you thought deserved the money most? Or would you hand it over to them and ask them to divide as they saw fit?