Radio Underground Read online

  Praise for Radio Underground

  “Radio Underground tells a thrilling story of family and loyalty in the face of oppression. Its richly evoked historical setting took me back to the Cold War era, while its warm-blooded characters stole my heart. A propulsive read and a timely reminder that maintaining our humanity requires courage as much as love.”

  Kim van Alkemade, New York Times best-selling author of Orphan #8 and Bachelor Girl

  “When I discovered Alison Littman’s Radio Underground I was stunned by its ambition and scope. What an undertaking! But could Littman pull off setting such a tumultuous scene vividly and accurately, plus share an emotional family drama? The answer is a resounding yes! Littman’s debut novel is a delectable blend of history and heartstrings, sure to please the palates of literature lovers everywhere.”

  Selene Castrovilla, award-winning author of Melt and Luna Rising

  “Set during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and its heartbreaking aftermath, this vivid and compelling novel is a story of courage, family and the importance of ‘breaking the silence.’”

  Susan Breen, author of The Fiction Class

  “Alison Littman writes with unusual clarity...The author thrusts readers right into the inner worlds of the characters — tense, tumultuous, and reeling with varying emotions…Radio Underground reads like a movie; it is a story with powerful historical references, a strong plot, and characters that force readers to follow them. A revolutionary tale written with style.”

  Readers’ Favorite

  Last Syllable Books

  Last Syllable Books Edition, November 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Alison Littman

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address 4251 New York Avenue, Island Park, NY 11558.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-9964306-3-0

  Book design by Damonza

  www.lastsyllablebooks.com

  Printed in the United States

  For my grandma

  Contents

  Eszter Turján: Budapest, Hungary—October 23, 1956—Midnight

  Dora Turján: Budapest, Hungary—January 16, 1965

  Mike a Korvinközből: Budapest, Hungary—January 14, 1965

  Eszter Turján: October 23, 1956—Morning

  Dora Turján: January 17, 1965

  Mike a : January 22, 1965

  Eszter Turján: October 23, 1956—Afternoon

  Dora Turján: January 22, 1965

  Eszter Turján: October 23, 1956—Late Afternoon

  Eszter Turján: October 23, 1956—Evening

  Mike a Korvinközből: January 24, 1965

  Dora Turján: January 24, 1965

  Eszter Turján: January 25, 1965

  Dora Turján: January 25, 1965

  Mike a Korvinközből: February 9, 1965

  Dora Turján: February 11, 1965

  Mike a Korvinközből: February 15, 1965

  Dora Turján: February 18, 1965

  Eszter Turján: February 18, 1965

  Mike a Korvinközből: February 20, 1965

  Dora Turján: February 24, 1965

  Mike a Korvinközből: February 25, 1965

  Eszter Turján: February 26, 1965

  Mike a Korvinközből: February 27, 1965

  Dora Turján: February 27, 1965

  Eszter Turján: February 28, 1965—Midnight

  Dora Turján: February 28, 1965—Midnight

  Epilogue: Three Months Later

  Dora Turján

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Eszter Turján

  Budapest, Hungary—October 23, 1956—Midnight

  The cuts in my hand opened wide. The blood dispersed in thin, chaotic lines across my palm. I held my breath as the pain peaked and relented in nauseating pulses. Plucking all the tiny flecks of glass from my hand would take hours, and I didn’t have hours. Burying the broken wine glass in the trash, I tried to hide the evidence of my recklessness. I ran my hand beneath the faucet, hoping that would dislodge the stubborn shards.

  I leaned closer to the radio as Radio Free Europe began its midnight broadcast. It always came on at the right time, when I could barely endure living without myself anymore. I had been who the government, who my family, wanted me to be all day. Now, I could finally reconvene with my real self.

  According to reports, thousands of students had compiled a list of demands, mandating Soviet troops leave the country and that we elect a new leader in free elections. The reporter, a Hungarian émigré, commended the students for their courage. But I knew better. These kids, too young to know failure, didn’t understand their passion was no match for a government trained in killing hope. And those harboring it. The part of me that knew what I had to do to protect these students felt numb and ready to click into autopilot. The other part of me—the part that clung to the same hope they did—was just as terrified as they probably were in the brief moments they caught their mothers looking at them with concern. They too would break, like the wine glass hidden in my kitchen garbage.

  This Radio Free Europe broadcast missed too many key points. The information I spent my day secretly gathering would not appear on its airwaves for hours, at best. Would it be too late? Regardless, I would do my job. And it was time.

  I could hear my husband and teenage daughter snoring in their rooms, reassuring me of the isolation I sought, and needed. I wrapped my hand in gauze and tiptoed toward the door. Yielding in tiny whines, the floorboards lamented their years of abuse, of children’s toys crashing, of parents stomping off livid. With every step, I verified my family continued on in their perfect oblivion. Step. Snore. Step. Snore. Until, with shaky hands, I found the doorknob. A turn, and I slid into the night.

  My hand throbbed, reminding me to be careful, even though I needed to hurry. I only had twenty minutes to reach Antal. I was bringing him information that would change this restless city entirely. We had been quiet for far too long. We taught ourselves how to make plans in whispers. We knew how to hide in routine. We turned down Radio Free Europe or the BBC so our neighbors couldn’t hear us listening to the banned Western broadcasts and report us to the secret police. The information I carried with me would break the silence—if I could just reach Antal in time.

  Passing the music academy and a row of darkened offices, I crept onto Lenin Avenue and began making my way north. A bitter breeze blew past me, as if exhaled by the dank, rat-filled alleys in my wake. Flickering lamps hung on wires suspended over the streets. I stuck close to the buildings, where the light could hardly reach, and prayed no one could see me.

  A black Zis-110 idled ahead of me, the car’s curtains drawn on its passenger windows. I shivered at the sight of the secret police’s hallmark car, thinking of all the friends who had disappeared for no reason, taken away by henchmen in the middle of the night, never to return. It was no coincidence the Zis looked just like a hearse. I scurried onto a side street, dodging the car and the poor captives I assumed sat, trembling, inside of it.

  I tiptoed past the Ministry of Interior, where red geraniums lined the building’s windows. In the secret prisons below, police tortured people with whips, limb crushers, nail presses, and scalding and freezing baths. Or else they just executed them. But the geraniums were always fresh.

  I slid my fingers across the building�
��s dusty exteriors, imagining I could somehow transfer my nerves onto the cold, unfeeling brick. I had snuck through the streets after curfew for years, but tonight was different. I could feel the regime sensing our newfound courage, like a dog pushing its nose high into the air, catching the subtle perfume of a rabbit nearby.

  After walking several blocks, I spied smoke unfurling in the path before me, like a languid snake expanding as it digests a fresh kill. Following it, I found Antal, his eyes closed, relishing in a cigarette.

  “Antal, it’s me,” I said, coughing on the smoke now choking me.

  Antal smiled and opened his eyes, his cataracts reflecting the glow of the street lamps. “Eszter, it’s good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you too.” I kissed Antal on both cheeks, feeling his dry skin against mine and wondering how long he’d been outside waiting for me in the cold.

  “Tell me, what information do you have for me today?”

  “It will happen tomorrow,” I said. “Today, technically.”

  It was already past midnight.

  “So it’s here, isn’t it?” Antal said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I went to their meeting. The students decided they’re going to march. I heard them talking about gathering arms.”

  “How many people are participating in this … this march?” Antal asked as he stamped his cigarette into the ground and lit another one.

  “Hundreds, thousands, maybe. I can’t be certain.”

  “It doesn’t take a genius to predict how Gerő will react.”

  “Gerő will slaughter them,” I said, feeling dizzy as I said aloud what we both knew. Hungary’s leader, Erno Gerő, was a Soviet puppet with an arsenal at the ready. “Without enough people hearing about it and organizing, it will just be a bloodbath.”

  Antal fell back against the brick wall, suddenly losing his breath. He was always so levelheaded, so much so it often drove me to even greater heights of anxiety as I tried to compensate for his indifference. His fingers, still clutching the cigarette, quivered as his eyes searched the space behind me.

  “The state radio will probably ignore this and just keep spewing out its propaganda,” he said.

  “Exactly. We’re going to print with this too. But Realitás won’t reach enough people in time. An announcement on Radio Free Europe is the students’ only hope.” I held on to Antal’s shoulders to steady him. “It has to happen first thing in the morning, so people will have time to plan.”

  The closest Radio Free Europe outpost was in Vienna. If Antal left now, he would get there by four in the morning.

  “I already have meetings scheduled in Vienna for today,” he said. “I’ll visit our Radio Free Europe contacts as soon as I get there and cancel my other meetings to get back in time for the march. Gerő will think I cut short a routine visit to be by his side.”

  Our lives by day were lies—Antal’s more than most. He served as the regime’s Deputy Interior Minister. After being forced to coordinate the executions of his friends—communists who threatened the power structure when they became too popular—he resolved to undermine the regime in any way possible. He began relaying intelligence to the American-run Radio Free Europe. With the freedom to travel at will and deep knowledge of the government’s inner workings, he also became an asset to Realitás, the underground newspaper I ran.

  “It’s already one in the morning,” I said. “What will you do when they ask you why you’re crossing the border so late?”

  “This is normal for me. I go to Vienna at all times of the day and night, just to keep them guessing. Just in case I run into a situation like this.”

  “Smart. Well, you better leave now before Gerő tries to get in touch.”

  We both knew Antal’s phone could have been ringing right then. I wondered what it would cost him—or his children and grandchildren—if he wasn’t there to answer it.

  “I’ll be back,” Antal said, coughing into his hands, still shaking from what I knew was the fear we all shared.

  “Wait.” I pulled out a tattered piece of paper, wincing as the cuts in my hand protested the sudden movement. “Take this with you. A student gave it to me yesterday. It’s a coded list of meeting points and times for the march. You have to get this on air too.”

  Antal nodded as I slid the paper into his coat pocket, making sure to secure the meticulously crafted plans of the brave, hopeful students. They probably didn’t even realize that at this moment, Soviet troops were almost certainly readying their tanks at a base nearby.

  Dora Turján

  Budapest, Hungary—January 16, 1965

  Eszter.

  Her mom’s name stared at Dora in dizzying multitudes, splayed across the walls of the alley hundreds of times. It dripped over knots of curse words and lewd sketches. It zigzagged across faded propaganda that told Freedom Fighters they’d better tremble in their sleep. It bore down on Dora with a crushing might as she tried to walk faster, frustrated she took this shortcut in the first place. She reminded herself there was no way these names referred to her mom. Some kid named Eszter—or maybe the girl’s boyfriend—had defaced the alley.

  Ever since her mom was taken away nine years ago, Dora had trained her mind to think about anything but Eszter. Anytime someone called out her mom’s name, Dora plodded on, refusing to look up. At work, when she spotted Eszter on a letter, she read all the words around it before filing the paper away. At home, her dad, Ivan, wouldn’t dare mention his wife’s name.

  As she walked through the alley though, the sheer number of Eszters laid siege to Dora’s defenses. Lifting her head just a little, she saw a version of her mom’s name that looked familiar. It had the same style as how she’d drawn as a kid, the “E” capped with big dots, the “z” larger than its neighboring letters. Dora was always so proud of those drawings. When she brought one home from school, she’d clutch it high over her waist and study the ground, intent on avoiding any puddles. When she presented it to her mom, Eszter would act surprised and say thank you in the voice she typically reserved for babies. Later, Dora would find the drawing in her mom’s bathroom, spotted with eyeshadow and powder, its edges curling up from the water Eszter had just used to wash her face.

  Dora stepped closer to the graffiti. She slipped off her gloves one finger at a time, reluctant to expose her skin to the biting cold but unable to stop the predetermined trajectory of her hand. She traced the gritty edges of her mom’s name, her fingers lingering on the “z” as she savored its dramatic angles.

  Dora knew she shouldn’t indulge in memories of Eszter. She shouldn’t think about that one time Ivan was held up at work, and Eszter found a bar of chocolate as big as Dora’s head in one of their kitchen cabinets, too awkwardly shaped to hold anything but things meant to be forgotten. After Dora and Eszter ate the whole chocolate bar, they got into their pajamas and jumped on Eszter’s bed. Dora remembered feeling so delighted that she asked her mom if they could do it again next weekend. Eszter just got that far-off look in her eyes, the one where she seemed to slip into some alternate reality where she wasn’t Dora’s mom.

  For a long time, Dora remembered her childhood as marked by a persistent melancholy. She realized as an adult, though, it wasn’t sadness that characterized her past, but a constant sense of waiting. Dora thought the day would come when Eszter would want to spend time with her. Dora just had to grow up more. She would be patient. Except, sometimes she would go out looking for Eszter, who would leave unannounced for hours on end. Dora pretended she was just playing hide-and-seek, searching in neighborhood parks, abandoned factories, and train stations for Eszter. Dora never once found Eszter, who would usually come back long after Dora had given up and fallen asleep. If Dora convinced herself she had only lost another round of the game, she could get up and live another day to try again.

  Dora heard children playing on the far side of the alley, rousing her from her stupor. Her fingers began to ache, a sign they would soon go numb in winter’s grip. There was no ne
ed to stay there, or ever come back. An alley full of graffiti would never give her the mom she had always wanted. Dora burrowed her chin into her coat and walked to the restaurant.

  *

  “You made it,” Ivan said, wiping his clammy forehead with his napkin. Her dad sweated constantly, a relic of his formerly plump self. He had lost more than eighty pounds since the revolution.

  “Sorry, I got caught up in something.” Dora smoothed out her hair, its thin brown strands succumbing to the static of her winter cap.

  The restaurant, its tablecloths as white as her dad’s pale forehead, boasted a clientele of middle-aged bureaucrats who, hunched over their plates in near-silence, seemed resigned to the bland sauces and overcooked chicken before them.

  “Are you okay?” Ivan scanned Dora’s face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can tell you look … shook up.”

  “Oh, it’s just the cold. The walk was longer than I expected.” Dora tried not to give herself away. Sometimes her expressions lagged far behind, loitering in the past. She was frustrated she paid any attention to Eszter this afternoon, a small relapse that would linger for days, maybe weeks.

  “Look, I know it’s easy to get … well, distracted, by things.” Ivan alluded to what they would never discuss. “Just remember that you’re doing great.”

  “Thank you.” Dora shifted the conversation to something they could easily talk about. “Work is going well.”

  “How many letters did you get through today?”

  “One hundred already.”

  At twenty-six, Dora had a secure job with the government, monitoring and censoring people’s mail.