Under the Frog

The hospitality was unleashed straight away. Gyuri hadn’t seen so much food, so much good food since the point when the war had got noticeably war-like, and it was quite possible that he had never seen that much food in an enclosed space ever before. The depressing thing was that he wouldn’t be able to make up for five years’ going hungry in one evening, however hard he tried. Even the expansive Neuma

Ladányi was also offered some refreshment and a selection of food but noticeably halfheartedly. No one wanted to wear out his alimentary muscles. He was principally occupied in giving his hand to be kissed by the queue of people that had formed to pay its respects. Ladányi was far from pleased about this, Gyuri could tell, but the villagers’ veneration was reasonable enough, bearing in mind that there were university professors who were terrified of Ladányi, who would duck into doorways to avoid a searching question from Ladányi, a question that would home in on their ignorance. The story Gyuri had heard was that when Ladányi collected his law degree the faculty offered to throw in a doctorate to save everyone’s time.

The concurred time for the blow-out had been five o’clock, but Faragó and his sidekicks didn’t show up till half past. Ladányi’s request to Gyuri for him to come to Hálás to manage any violence hadn’t been made out of concern for his own safety. ‘The villagers would protect me, and that’s exactly what I don’t want. If things turn nasty, I’d like someone from outside, who won’t have to stay there.’ However Gyuri’s apprehension about roughhousing was completely subsumed in his amazement at Faragó’s appearance.

‘No one’s going to believe us,’ Neuma

The hatred that rose when Faragó entered was so solid, so sinewed, Gyuri was surprised that Faragó was able to walk in. He realised he was going to be treated to something special that evening.

It was hate at first sight for Gyuri which made him reflect that Faragó must have taken the villagers on an almost endless argosy to undreamed-of lands of human anger. This was the absolute zero of human turpitude. He deserved to be exhibited, but it was probably for the best that he was shackled to Hálás. ‘I thought we had it tough,’ observed Neuma

‘So the black beetle has come to be crushed by the people’s power?’ roared Faragó, missing the chair he had been aiming to sit on and vanishing from sight. Installed in the chair with the assistance of his seconds, he continued his welcome address. ‘As first Secretary of the Hungarian Communist… the… er… the Hungarian Working People’s Party of the Hálás-Mezómegyer-Murony community and as mayor and as Chairman of the ‘Dizzy with Success’ collective farm, in the words of Comrade Stalin, reporting on the work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the CPSU(B).’ Here Faragó petered out ideologically, paused and having run out of things to say, reached for his pistol to illustrate a point and shot himself in the leg. To general disappointment, it was the wooden leg.

‘And,’ Faragó resumed, ‘and in a scientific ma

Ladányi said grace and Faragó retaliated by clenching his fist and growling the communists’ salutation: ‘Freedom!’. It was obvious who the crowd was backing on this occasion, Gyuri thought, as the two contestants started to shovel in the bean soup but it wasn’t always easy to sort out who to back in the Rome vs. Moscow conflict. The Church in Hungary was heading for a kicking indisputably. Mindszenty, the Cardinal, was stuck in a nick somewhere in Budapest, while they adjusted the charges to get a good fit (Gábor Pétér, the head of the AVO, had been a tailor): spying for the Americans, plotting to bring back the Habsburg monarchy, breeding Colorado beetles, sneering at socialist realist novels. And they must have had the survivors from the scriptwriting teams from Hungary ’s prewar film industry on contract to concoct the evidence, because no policeman could invent as fantastically as that.

It was hard to sympathise with the Cardinal, Gyuri reflected, because Mindszenty was a buffoon, however wronged. The Catholic Church in Hungary wasn’t topheavy with brilliance. It would be so nice to have a real choice, fumed Gyuri. It was like Hungary being between Germany and the Soviet Union. What sort of choice was that? Which language would you like your firing squad to speak? In these circumstances, of course, a brilliant Cardinal might not be any more useful. Being clever and far-sighted wasn’t always of use. Does it help being the clever pig on the way to the abattoir?