Irena Szen stared at the ceiling, eyes wide. The heat flush was fading, and she was colder than before. 'No,' she said.
‘I
have not seen Kirstie
. I do not wish to see her, any
more. She has kept her promise not to tell anyone you are here. That is all I wish from her, now.' 'But you were lovers.'
'It is hard for a whore to love a man, other than her pimp. I have never had a p
imp, and one cannot love Madam C
sank. So I loved Kirstie instead. It just happened. We were separated, back in 'forty-five, and I went to Madam Csank's. And then one day in 'forty-seven I met her on the street. I did not know what she was doing in Buda. I know now. She has done it all over Eastern Europe; she is still busily fighting the war. But she had nowhere to stay, and so I brought her back here, and we made love. It was something we both wanted to do, I think, because of what we had experienced when your soldiers took Buda. But now I only wish to love you. And to be loved by you. Do you love me, Sandor?'
'Senselessly. Stupidly. I wish I knew why.' He rested his head on her belly, listened to the soft rumbles of air.
'I have explained it to you.'
'It is a horrible thought. I saw Mother die. You did not. Or you would not speak this way.'
'Nevertheless, it is true. Would you like to thrust a bayonet through my navel, Sandor?'
He kissed her navel instead, lay across her. But he was in no hurry. His pleasure was in providing her with pleasure. To dissipate his own sexual urge, even if only for an hour, was wasteful. 'I want to tell you that these twelve days have been the only happy days I have known since I was a small boy.'
'For me, too. I do not know what I am going to do when you go back to your comrades. No, that is
a lie. I will go back to Madam C
sank's. But I will never climax again. I am sure of this.'
'And that would be so great a tragedy for you?'
'For me, yes. I have always enjoyed being a whore, because I have always enjoyed climaxing. If I stop enjoying that, I shall stop enjoying being a whore, and then I shall no longer be a good whore, because I will find love-making unattractive. It is as simple as that.'
'I am not the only nutcase, darling.'
'Because I am honest? Everyone thinks I have to be
a
nut because I am honest. So what is wrong with being honest. I enjoyed being raped. Oh, I was afraid of being shot, like Fraulein Hipp. And I didn't want to be beaten up, like Kirstie. But I liked being raped. Especially by you. I like having men, or women, make love to me. It is the most pleasurable experience in the world. If I were married, I'd want it at least three times a day, and I would grow tired of my husband. So I am in the best possible profession. Why should I lie about it?'
'Then you must have grown tired of me.'
She laughed, and stroked his hair, longer now than she had ever known it, just beginning to curl. At last he looked like a deserter, for all that he shaved every day with her razor. 'Not of you, Sandor. Not of you. I was afraid I might, but, you see, I feel for you exactly as you feel for me. If my son had lived, and grown up, I would wish him to make love to me, too.'
He thrust himself away from her, went to the window, watched the glare of burning Buda. Twice in a dozen years. 'When you talk like that I wish to hurt you.'
'Because you are afraid of the truth. I think maybe all Russians, all communists, are afraid of the truth because they are never allowed to find out for themselves what
is
truth. I think maybe that is the only truly bad thing about communism, that it distorts truth, and truth is the only good thing left in the world.'
'And when you talk like that I wish to kneel in front of you and worship you. Irena! Listen to me. I am a coward.'
'Oh, yes,' she agreed. 'In the Soviet army they give all their cowards the Order of Glory.'
'You shamed me into attacking that tank. I wanted only to die. I am a coward. I am not cut out to be a soldier.'
She opened her mouth to make fun of that suggestion also, and then changed her mind. She had never seen him so serious.
'I stayed with the army because I knew nothing else, and because, after that tank, I thought that perhaps, after all, I could make a good soldier. I am a good soldier, in peacetime. I am afraid of war, and violence. On that Tuesday night I was terrified by those people, and they did not mean to harm me. I cannot go back.'
She sat up. 'It will be difficult, but not impossible. I will have to earn our living. You will not be jealous?'
'It will be impossible. You have forgotten 'forty-five. There is going to be a turn-out of this city like nothing you have ever seen.'
'Do you have any idea how many Nazis escaped in 'forty-five, Sandor? Right here in Buda? You Russians are children compared with the Gestapo and the Avo. When the Nazis put in Szalasi, in 'forty-four, there was a turn-out then. People were shot by the hundred, or sent away to concentration camps. But hundreds more escaped. Even then.'
"No one is going to escape this time.' He sat beside her on the bed, held her hands. 'Listen. We have had twelve days, while the whole world collapsed, we have had our twelve days, in this bed, together. We left the world twelve days ago, Irena. We have not the right to return now.'
Her frown was just visible in the first light seeping through the window. 'I do not want to die, Sandor. Not even if it is you who kills me.'
'Everyone dies.'
'One day. I do not want you to die, either.'
'But we are going to be separated. Forever, Irena. They will never let me come back to Buda.'
'That does not matter, Sandor. Can't you see? Being alive is all that matters. So we can remember each other, these twelve days. So that no matter what happens to us in the future, we'll always have this memory to look back upon, to make ourselves happy.' She pulled his head down to her breast. 'Now come back to bed.'
Kirsten Moeller sat in a gutter. It was a chill November morning, and it was drizzling. The small drops settled lightly on Kirsten's pale hair, damped the shoulders of her raincoat, accumulated on the cold stone to inch their way up her legs and through her dress. Kirsten shivered.
She listened to the explosions surrounding her, closing on her. She had heard nothing else for two days. For two days she had not changed her clothing. For twenty-four hours she had not eaten. And for fourteen hours she had sat in this gutter.
She squeezed the trigger of her pistol, and again. Even the clicks were lost in the drumming of her ears. She dropped the pistol into the
gutter, picked it up again, and
hurled it away from her. It struck the wet street, skidded out of sight. She panted. She could feel them, already. She could hear their laughter. She could feel their boots, thudding into her kidneys. And this time she was the woman, and there would be other girls. When they were finished with her they would shoot her in the stomach.
She heard voices, threw herself fiat in the gutter, stared up at the sky, at the billowing black smoke which hurried across the morning, mingling with the low cloud. Oh, the Russians were back, all right.
But these were not Russians. They were Hungarians,
a
handful of men in civilian clothes, carrying tommy guns and boxes of ammunition, dirty, tattered, cold, hungry, and afraid. Kirsten sat up. 'Stop!' she shouted. 'Laszlo! Wait for me.'
The men checked, looked in the direction of her voice. 'It is the Swabian,' said the one she had recognised.
'Bloody fascist bitch,' said another man. 'Your kind got us into this.' He brought up his tommy gun, and a single shot hit the wall above Kirsten's head. She collapsed,-enormous tears racking her body. She drummed her toes on the wet concrete, a small girl having a tantrum. She had come to Buda to help these people, and this was her reward. To be abandoned to the jeering Russians, and mangled by them, and then shot. Or hanged.
She was on her knees. Her stockings hung in shreds, and her shoes had come off.
She crawled along the gutter,
to the end, and there she stood up. The explosions had not yet reached this street, although they were very close, and she could feel the hot breath of war dissipating the cold of the morning. But now she knew where she was. Where she could find a friend. Surely.
She opened the street door, very s
oftl
y, very carefully, listened. There was not
a
sound in the whole house. Then the bombardment began again, and
a
shell landed in the next street. The house shook, and (glass flew out of the wind
ows, and the ceiling cracked to
bring down clouds of plaster and dust. Kirsten dropped to her knees in the hallway, lay on her face, trembling, biting her lips, pushing the door shut with her toes.
She reached the foot of the steps, still crawling, gazed up them, up and up, at the skylight and the roof. The skylight was gone, and the November rain dripped in, so far away that none of it reached her. She was just as afraid of climbing these stairs as she was of returning to the street, If the house were hit, and caved in, she would fall, down, down . . . what do you think about during those last two seconds before hitting the pavement? What do you think about when they are putting the noose around your neck? What do you think about when a man is kicking you to death? If you are
lucky, you are too angry to thi
nk. But this time she would not be angry.
She held on to the banisters, dragged herself upwards, reached her feet, and ran, scampering, the wood of the steps soft o
n her bare soles after the brittl
e stone. At the first landing she checked, listening to a fresh sound breaking through the rumble of the gunfire. This was the rattle of small arms, not close, but near enough to be heard, and advancing. The Ivans were across the Danube.
She stumbled up the stairs, her breath pouring out of her body and returning in long wheezes. She twisted the handle of the door, sobbed, threw her shoulder against it, pounded the wood with her fists. 'Irena!' she shouted. 'Irena, open up, for God's sake. It is Kirsten.'
There was movement inside the room, and the key turned. Irena, wearing a dressing gown, peered at her, eyes wide.
Kirsten pushed her aside, ran into the room. Her legs gave way and she dropped to her hands and knees, in the centre of the floor, remained there, panting, shaking her head from side to side.
She saw the Russian gazing at her. He was frowning, and looked neither amused nor afraid. She sucked in her lower lip, pushed herself backwards, squatted. She gazed at herself in Irena's full-length mirror, straightened her dress and then her hair, attempted to wipe some of the dirt from her face, and made it worse. But she was still beautiful. She was Kirsten Moeller. 'I would like to wash my face.' Her voice was a whisper.
Irena stood behind her. 'There is no water. Would you like a drink of vodka?'
Kirsten inhaled. The room smelt like a lair. A hu
man lair. She gazed at Irena. ‘Y
ou have stayed in here, for twelve days, with him?'
Irena smiled. ‘
We have honeymooned.'
Kirsten reached her feet. 'While your countrymen died?'
'What do you want here?' Irena asked.
Kirsten remembered that she could not afford to offend anyone at this moment. Least of all Irena. She licked her lips. 'Vodka?'
Galitsin rolled off the bed, went to the table, filled
a
glass. He was naked. He was a muscular, attractive man, except for the eight inches of scar tissue reaching upwards from his left buttock.
'They will shoot
you,'
she said.
‘
Yes,' he agreed.
Kirsten drank vodka, noisily; it was sad that so pretty
a
woman should make a noise when she drank. She looked from the man to Irena. 'And you are just going to sit here and wait for them to come?'
Irena smiled. 'Sandor thinks we should anticipate them. We could ^io it together, the three of us. That would give them something to think about.'
Kirsten stared at her. 'You are serious?'
Galitsin returned to the bed, lay down. 'She does not. want to die.'
Kirsten pulled hair from her face. The vodka had given her back some of her confidence. 'And you want to die?' She stood above the bed, looking down at him. She wondered if he found her attractive. He gave no sign. Perhaps he was too tired, too dispirited. But she was far more lovely than Irena, who could not even be described as pretty.
'I do not think I any longer have the means of living,' Galitsin explained seriously, 'except in a prison camp.'