Then behind the bar Marina, the gypsy, set the coffee urn to spitting. She looked over at him and winked, and he knew what she was thinking, that at last something exciting was happening in the espresso, and she would soon bring the coffee and cognac, and find out all about it. By threes and fours the heads dropped at the other tables, and the hum and buzz of talk resumed, louder than before. The government clerks, musicians, money brokers, shopkeepers, and printers who frequented the Molnar had something new to talk about. With their own eyes they had seen something astonishing and without precedent. They were in attendance at a miracle.
“You look fine,” Jeff said. “You don’t look any older. Maybe it’s that crew haircut, Kiev style.”
Leonides put his elbows on the table, and his fists alongside his mouth so that only Jeff could see his lips, and when he spoke he spoke very softly, and his lips hardly moved. “I am older,” he said. “And you are older, also. We are both so old that we will die very soon.”
“Cut the drama,” Jeff said. “Who’s going to kill us?”
“Quietly. Quietly. What I have to say is only for you, not for the Pest rumor factory. You’re going to kill me, and I’m going to kill you.”
Jeff knew exactly what Leonides meant, and he had hoped they would not speak of this immediately. He had hoped they could bat the breeze about Bari, and perhaps get a little drunk, drunk enough to forget for a time this wall that stood between them. “What did you do after you left Bari?” he said. “You were going back to Moscow and burn your uniform. You were going to fly transport planes on the Moscow-New York run. You were going to marry that girl—what was her name?”
“Vilma. I didn’t. She was dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeff said, and raced on from this unpleasantness. “What are you doing in Budapest now, Leonides?”
“Can’t you guess?”
Jeff wished he had asked something else. This ordinary question was now as embarrassing and personal as inquiring about a man’s religion, or his relations with his wife. “No, I can’t guess.”
“In this day, what would you do with a Russian who speaks English not badly, who for two years went to Cambridge, and who for another two years was a liaison officer with the Americans?”
“Propaganda?” Jeff ventured.
“Try once more. Remember that no other Russian in Budapest, not even the Marshal, would dare be seen in public with an American.”
“In a place like Budapest,” Jeff said, “you put him to watching the Americans and British.”
“You win the sixty-four dollars,” said Leonides. “See, I remember my slang. Yes, my job is to watch the Americans. Not the actual spying, mind you. That is the province of the foreign branch of MVD. I receive all their reports. That is how I knew you were here on the day you came. That is how I know, for instance, that last week you twice visited Zukats, the cinema exhibitor, and that you are more often in the Keller flat than in the Legation. Also I talk to those who know the Americans—the Hungarians, the Rumanians, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Austrians and Germans who are here. I examine all that you have done, and try to analyze why you have done what you have done, and predict what you will do. And once a week, or twice a week, I write a report for the Marshal of what is in the soul of the scheming Americans.”
Jeff started to rise. “I don’t like to have my soul examined. I’m sorry, Leonides.”
The Russian put his hand on Jeff’s arm. “Wait, dope. Wait for what I have to say. When your enemy watches you there is little to fear. When your own countrymen spy on you, then you are lost. That has been the curse of my country. Okhrana, Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, and now MVD—they are all alike. They suck the milk from my Russia, and fill her breasts with poison!”
Jeff sat very still. He knew now why Leonides had hunted him out, and the urgency of the summons. He knew even why he himself was here. “When I got your note tonight,” he said, “I thought you needed help. I thought you’d become one of the unbekannte Menschen and needed clothes or money to run the border.”
“I am one of the unknown men,” Leonides whispered—for his quick eye had noted the girl coming with Jeff’s cognac and coffee—“except that I am still in my uniform. There are many of us—many more than you think. There is even one close to Him. But we will talk of all this later.”
Marina set the drinks down, and said, “Okay? Okay. See, I learn English.”
“Who’s the lucky teacher?” Jeff said. Her arms were bare and smooth and brown, and her vitality reminded him of Susan, and he wondered how long it would be before he had another woman, and what this would mean between him and Susan. She would understand, Susan would, that he could not be a monk for three years. She would ask him nothing, and he would tell her nothing, and his human and inevitable need would not stand between them.
The girl didn’t answer him, but undammed a stream of Rumanian at Leonides, and the Russian rocked his head back and laughed with his mouth wide, so that everybody at the other tables looked. “I speak all the wrong languages,” Jeff complained.
“She says,” said Leonides, “that ordinarily she does not like Russians, because gypsies are individualists and Russians are sheep. She says she likes me better than any Russian she has ever seen, because obviously I too am an individualist. She also says for us to enjoy ourselves, because we will both be exiled in the morning, me to Siberia, and you to Alcatraz.”
“Alcatraz? What’s she know about Alcatraz?”
“They think it’s the American political prison. There was an article about it in today’s Szabad Nep.”
Marina had been listening, but not understanding. “I learn English more. Okay,” she said. Leonides patted her round bottom, and she whirled away, observant still over her shoulder, sure that Leonides still watched her.
6
“What was it we used to say at the Oriente?” said Leonides. “Stacked. Yes, really stacked. With such beautiful creatures in the world, why is it we must think of war?”
“So you’re sure there’ll be a war?”
Leonides traced squares in the moisture on the table. He frowned as he talked. “Yes. We are like two ships on a collision course with blind men stiff in fear at the wheel. Not only will there be a war, but I think I can tell you how it will start, and the course it will run, and how it will end.
“You will attack us. Your memory of Pearl Harbor will always be fresh and raw and you will not again risk surprise. You will attack us at that moment when your President believes we have the atomic weapon, and are ready to attack you. Your President will make this awful decision alone, without the customary reference to your Congress, because it will be a military necessity that he do so.
“He will have no choice. The pressures will be too great. Your Central Intelligence Agency will know when we have a stockpile of atomic bombs. Already he must have been informed of our progress in bacteriological warfare, in which we are perhaps farther advanced than you. Your reconnaissance will unmask our airfields. Your FBI will have penetrated our plots within your own homeland. Our actions in Germany and Austria and Manchuria and Korea and Greece will become intolerable to your Army. Our overt acts in the Mideast will frighten your Navy, which might starve without the Mideast oil, and the admirals too will clamor for war. And in that moment when he is certain your country faces another Pearl Harbor, then he will order the attack. He must.”
Jeff drank his cognac in a gulp. “Go on,” he said.
“In the first day your Air Force will destroy all our important centers. You will turn into radioactive powder Voroshilovgrad, Magnitogorsk, Gorki, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, of course Moscow, and the new uranium cities beyond the Urals. How many millions you will kill I cannot estimate, nor will the number you kill affect the course of the war.”
Jeff interrupted. “No, because by then you will have your armies in the cities of Western Europe, and you will drive the Western armies into the sea.”
“Only in the beginning,” Leonides said. “Lat
er you will land on the Continent, and your armies will defeat the Soviet armies just as they did the Germans, and for the same reason. You will have overwhelming production and fire power and air power. Most of the Soviet armies will be destroyed, and what remains will retreat inside Russia.”
“Then the war will be over,” Jeff said.
“Oh, no,” said Leonides. “That will be only the second phase. The third phase will come when you occupy most of Russia, and all of Europe. I should think it will take ten or twelve million men. Any general will tell you that victory is only achieved after you have occupied and pacified the enemy country. It will be extremely difficult and perhaps impossible. There will be interminable guerrilla warfare.”
“And then we will have won the war,” Jeff said.
“No, you will not have won. You will simply have performed a Russian tragedy. You will, out of fear for your own life, have committed murder and then suicide.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Naturally, you will be under a military dictatorship. With so many ideological traitors, and Soviet agents, in your country you could not successfully conduct a war without such a dictatorship. Your jails will be bursting, and all your freedoms vanished. You will drain your natural resources to win this victory, and the drain will never end, for always there will be your millions of soldiers outside your borders, straining to maintain the victory and restore order. All of Europe and some of Asia will be in such ruins and chaos that it would be better to let it again join the jungle. But you will not be able to do this, because people will still live there, and they will all hate you. And eventually you will crack and break up, and your suicide will be complete.”
Jeff signaled Marina to bring him another drink. “All of what you say may be true, Leonides,” he said, “but there is one thing worse than winning a war, and that is losing it.”
“That is true,” said Leonides, “but there is not much difference in the end. The truth is, nobody ever again will win a war.”
Marina came with Jeff’s drink, and he swallowed it quickly, as he had the other, and it did not sting or warm him, but seemed innocuous as water. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” he said.
“It is truly silly, but there it is, each day closer.”
“And you have no hope?”
“I do have hope. If I had no hope I would leave here this minute and throw myself into the Danube.” Leonides looked at Marina, and smiled at her, and she saw from his smile that what he had to say was serious and private and not her concern. She touched his shoulder and went back behind the bar.
“There is a saying here in Budapest,” he went on, “that like many other Budapest sayings is funny and yet true. It is, ‘The Dictator made two mistakes. He showed the Red Army to Europe, and he showed Europe to the Red Army.’”
Jeff laughed aloud, throwing his head back as the Russian had, and the others at the tables around smiled in understanding. Surely the Russian and the American were now telling each other bawdy jokes. Their friends would not believe it, when they had told what they had seen.
“As I say, it is true,” Leonides continued. “It is the reason for all our desertions. Our soldiers have seen with their own eyes, and they know He has lied to them. What has been seen cannot be driven out of the mind or changed, like that which has been read, or only heard. They know that even in this beaten and cringing country the people live better than in Russia. They have more opportunity, more freedom. They have more things, like bathtubs and toilets and electric stoves. They are happier. Some can laugh. Do you know what it means not to be able to laugh, for fear that the MVD may see you laughing, and suspect you laugh at Him? In Moscow one smiles only for the camera.”
“Go ahead,” Jeff urged.
“Most important, in many places, such as Berlin and Vienna, the Red Army has been in contact with the American Army, and they have seen what the American Army has—what material and what privileges—and it is not believable. For my part, the happiest days of my life I spent in Bari. I think I know America, and Americans, and I like them and will do, am doing, my best not to war on them. There are many others like me, who know the West. There is even one high in our government, who is our leader.
“And we have talked with each other, and we are moving. Not quickly, for it would be swiftly fatal. We are the Second Russian Revolution.” He reached out his wrestler-strong hand and gripped Jeff’s arm. “Did you hear that, Jeff—the Second Russian Revolution!”
“I heard,” Jeff said. The limitless possibilities opened before his mind. “I didn’t think it was possible, but now I see I was foolish. We didn’t think there was opposition against Hitler, either. But there was, and they very nearly killed Hitler.”
“We will most certainly kill Him,” Leonides said. “We will kill Him, and the other sour and crazy ones, and in Russia we will have a new government and a new country and there will be peace.”
“Christ, I hope so,” Jeff said. He must be composed. He must listen carefully.
“I pray so,” said Leonides. “I pray so. We can do it alone, but with your help it will be quicker. Perhaps without your help it would not be quick enough. It is difficult for us to approach you. We tried before. Yassovsky, who was Naval Attaché, sent a present of caviar to your Minister-Admiral. He knew him well in Washington. What happened? The Minister-Admiral sent Yassovsky cigarettes, but no word. I don’t understand it. It was a direct invitation. Or perhaps, as you fellows would tell me when we played poker, I have an Oriental mind.”
“I understand, I’m afraid,” Jeff said. “Yassovsky has gone?”
“He was recalled to Moscow. I don’t know why. It worries me, and the others of us. Now there is no possible link between us, and you, except you, Jeff.”
Jeff hesitated for the part of a second, the beat of a heart. “What do you want me to do?” When the question was out he knew he had turned his future into a path he had never expected nor intended. Once before he had made such a decision. It was like the day he had found the height commanding Futa Pass lightly held. He had moved his platoon up the height, without flanks, orders, communication, supplies, or the support of artillery. Up to this moment, it had been the most momentous, and really the only decision of his life.
“At this time,” said Leonides, “you do nothing. We have many plans. We will need much help. There is, for instance, the matter of the radio station. It is progressing well, but we may need help. We will have a newspaper. Where can it be published? Pamphlets and leaflets. What press will print them? Money we will need, of course, and eventually perhaps air transport, explosives, arms.”
Jeff choked back the questions he wanted to ask. Who was the leader? How many were they? How soon would they act? In time, he was sure, Leonides would tell him what he needed to know. “Leonides,” he said, “you know my position. You know that I am only a Third Secretary, without influence or power or the right to make decisions or commit my government. Whatever you want, I will have to take to somebody higher up. You know this?”
“Of course. All I want now is the assurance that at the proper time you will transmit the news of what we are, and what we intend, and what we need.”
7
“Sure,” Jeff agreed. He balanced his chair back on two legs, and then let them bang to the floor. Quincy Todd had come through the door of the Café Molnar. It had been Jeff’s understanding that Todd came to the espresso only during the daylight hours. But here he was, four steps away, pulling off his overcoat, peering through the tobacco smoke and uncertain light, seeking someone. “Hey, Quincy,” Jeff yelled. The best defense was always an attack.
Todd turned, smiling automatically, moved towards their table, and then froze like a man in the woods who had almost stepped on a snake. He had seen the Russian.
“Come on over,” Jeff urged.
“Just poked my head in to look,” Todd said. “I have to leave right away. Thanks all the same.” He glanced back towards the door, as if in fear his retreat would be cu
t off.
“Sure you won’t have a drink?” Jeff asked. “Come on, pull up a chair.”
“Sorry. Have to go,” Todd said, and fled, his coat under his arm.
As he went out of the door from behind the bar Marina called, “Quin-see.” But he was gone.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jeff said.
“This will get you into trouble?” Leonides suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Jeff said. “He’s a good guy. I honestly don’t see why it should get me into trouble. I’ll just explain that I met you in Italy, and bumped into you here. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”
“Yes, you’ll be all right,” Leonides decided. “You’ll be able to—what do you say—swing it. I know you Americans. You are different.”
They talked of how they should meet in the future. Jeff could always send a note to the house on Lovag Utca. “The apartment,” Leonides explained, “is what is known as a letterbox. It is occupied by a Hungarian named János Donat. Whatever is left with him will reach me. But you should not go there yourself, except in exceptional emergency, for if an American were seen entering the apartment Donat might be compromised. On my part, I can always leave a message at your apartment.”
“The Hungarian superintendent,” Jeff warned, “is a Rajk spy.”
“I know,” said Leonides, “but so is the Hungarian who carries our messages.”
“There is one more thing,” Jeff said. “Can I communicate what you have told me to someone else, in case anything should happen to me—a transfer or anything?”
“I have placed my life in your hands,” Leonides said simply, but in a tone that was almost a rebuke. “Not only my life, but many others’.”
“I’m aware of it.”
“It is true that it would be better if one other besides yourself should know what I have told you, and yet I am hesitant to give my sanction that it pass beyond you.” Leonides looked down at the table, and Jeff knew that he was looking into the days to come, and estimating the possibilities. “If you have a friend in your government whose insides you know, who perhaps you have known all your life, whose lips cannot be opened by any means, then I agree. I say yes.”