Ádám Bodor

The Smell of Prison

Responses to Zsófia Balla

(Extracts)

Part 1

As for borderlands, it is of course no accident that in many of my stories the action is laid in just such regions. The frontier and its immediate environs are always more exciting than the interior of a country. The frontier zone is a strange, magical place, the mysterious centre of risk and adventure, where the landscape itself, and every movement in it, is full of tension. In the eastern end of Europe this generally meant a region sealed off with barriers and barbed wire, with menacing watchtowers looming over water-filled ditches, where even a high-flying bird was seen as a privileged insider. There was no free passage across these borders; ordinary mortals couldn't even go near them. And residents close by were people whose very thoughts were defined to an absurd extent by an awareness of where they lived. For here it often happens that arbitrarily redrawn borders divide settlements so that one can peer into another country from morning to night. At times, a relatively narrow river constitutes the border, like the Tisza in Máramaros (Maramures¸), and members of the same family living on opposite banks are able to holler across the river-and they would, too, if they weren't afraid they'd be shot at.
Although these borders separate people-relatives, friends-and cut across historically unified areas, they are also places of subtle emanations and osmosis, where two cultures and mentalities rub against, and also penetrate, each other. To repeat, then: it is surely no accident that the setting of my stories is often an imagined border region, and that I think mostly in terms of living conditions in these areas. A few decades ago, in my youth, Transylvania itself was in a sense a borderland. And this is where I had the good fortune to grow up and spend a large part of my life; it was the scene of all my formative experiences.

Exactly what sort of borderland was the Transylvania of your youth?

The three dominant cultures of Transylvania-Hungarian, Romanian and German-have always existed apart from one another. Different in dress, in the foods they ate and the homes they built, the people belonging to these three cultures were set apart by even deeper, more sensitive divisions. Three completely unrelated nations lived side by side in the same general area, to say nothing of smaller nationalities and denominations, all of which made this land unusually colourful and multifaceted. If you set out from Kolozsvár (Cluj) in almost any direction, you became aware of this variety, were struck by the differences. You had Armenian Szamosújvár (Gherla), Hungarian Kalotaszeg, and the densely Romanian Mot, region. Though geographically and historically not a part of Transylvania, even Nagyvárad (Oradea), the most attractively urban of the Hungarian settlements, could be considered a Transylvanian city. A little farther away, in the Banat, there was open and cosmopolitan Temesvár (Timis¸oara), a window to the West; and on the way back, in the crescent of the southern Carpathians, Nagyszeben (Sibiu-Hermannstadt) and Brassó (Bras¸ov-Kronstadt), with their well-ordered, patrician world, brought a great European culture right to our doorstep. In the north, Nagybánya (Baia Mare) still had the air of an old German mining town, while Máramarossziget (Sighet) with its Galician connections and mysterious lights evoked an almost Chagallian world. And in the centre of Transylvania, like a huge enclave, stood the Sziget Mountains, the fairyland-like Mot, region. Whether the different nationalities lived in one solid block or right next to one another, intermingled, the tensions hidden under the surface could hardly be felt in daily life. They coexisted, but as I said, the three major nationalities did not have much to do with one another. All of Transylvania was crisscrossed by walls or invisible demarcation lines. When viewed optimistically, and discounting the imposed communist institutions, the historical reality several decades ago still had something positive to offer. It may seem like mere illusion today, but at the time we thought that this may yet become a land of relative peace and tolerance; that the post-war world may bring some sort of balance and stability to the region. And even if the status quo would not change, our chances for remaining in place would not diminish.
In the nineteen-sixties the young people of Kolozsvár filled the promenade. The four sides of King Matthias Square were frequented by different social groups, and the western and southern sides, along Deák Ferenc Street all the way to the Romanian Opera, belonged to the students. Here you could hear Hungarian, Romanian as well as German being spoken. The same was true of the marketplace, the shops, and the lobbies of concert halls. Depending on their origins, young people spoke a different language, dressed differently, the colour of their hair, even their smell was different. This admixture, aside from being terribly exciting and enriching, was seen as the most natural thing in the world-it didn't seem to bother anyone. It stemmed from the basic character of the place, we thought then; it was part of our identity.
In Transylvania, situated as it is on the fringes of Europe, something else could be felt. At times, the icy winds of the eastern steppes blew through the Carpathian mountain passes, and not infrequently we felt the numbing cold of the realm beyond the Arctic Circle. Each region of the land had its own complexion, and there were places where the dreariest aspects of Eastern Europe, its defencelessness, seediness, and grinding poverty, became ominously visible. They signaled the beginnings of deteriorating conditions which, in a more advanced stage of decline, make a place ripe for dictatorship.
For me, birthplace conjures up the image of a culturally multifarious, physically quite beautiful yet melancholy land. This image dominates my thinking and memory to this day; it remains a model from which I can never break away. I cannot imagine a setting for a story that is not a place inhabited by people of different origins, where Hungarians are not in the majority. There are those who take this ill of me, saying that I populate Transylvania with every race under the sun. But all I really want to do is get away from an idyllic picture that has precious little to do with what the term native land means to my generation. I feel that even the geographical coordinates are unfavourable here to wisdom and good cheer. Even the configurations of the terrain determine to some extent the in-habitants' temperament and moral bearing. They may sing its praises, but frankly, I think there is something not quite right with this whole Carpathian basin, at least with the flatter stretches of land. The scattered farmsteads dotting the landscape may exude a cozy warmth, but the piercing winds rising from time to time in the plains bring with them a bleakness, an apathy.

For this, before I had a chance to complete my secondary education, I was barred from every high school in the country. Thus, it didn't take great political acumen on my part, or an inner crisis and disillusionment, to develop subversive views. The fact is I had no opportunity to break out of the situation I was in. So I accepted my condition as one dealt by fate, and I also accepted the reasons for the raw deal. For I did indeed consider myself a "class enemy" and an enemy of the new social order. The political verdict spared me for a liftetime from having to playact. I didn't have to feign loyalty, because my political stand was out in the open. As a result, I felt tremendously liberated. Even the Securitate henchmen, I felt, showed me a bit of respect. I found that these people had utter contempt for anyone who was in cahoots with them. At least I never had to make a secret of where I belonged.

How exactly did you plan to overthrow the regime and seize power?

We suspected from the beginning that we wouldn't be able to carry this out peacefully. At the start, our arsenal consisted of a razor-sharp bayonet and a small-caliber revolver with six slugs. This seemed alarmingly little, but we thought that sooner or later we'd become stronger, even financially, and then somehow-nothing seemed impossible to us-we would add to our stock of weapons. We couldn't seriously count on the Romanian People's Army, or some crack unit in the armed forces, to join our side, though this would have made things considerably easier. The means of the takeover needed further looking into. One thing was fairly clear: although our organisation was not anti-Romanian per se, we, being Hungarian, did envisage the future of the region in terms of an independent Transylvania with sound, democratic institutions-under our leadership, of course. As for actual positions in the new government, I had my heart set on the post of foreign minister. Even as a novice in these things, I sort of knew that if you are in the foreign service, you get to travel a lot. There'd be exciting, colourful, new places, receptions, romantic adventures... And, of course, the fate of the country to worry about. Since our organization faced an oppressive, despotic regime, we borrowed that regime's strategy in some things, and at first expected to achieve our ultimate goals-such is the nature of revolutions-through dictatorial means. No question about it: the introduction of a long-awaited democratic system would have relied, even in our scenario, on a certain amount of violence. If I remember correctly, when it came to the question of Transylvanian autonomy, it didn't even occur to us to hold a referendum on the issue. So there were, especially in the beginning, a number of unanswered questions, ill-contrived plans-problems, in short, that still needed to be worked out on the practical as well as theoretical end. But before we had a chance to map out our strategy, we were arrested. So later on, on the autonomy question at least, we didn't get into trouble with the majority, Romanian-speaking population.

According to the largest Hungarian encyclopćdia, the majority population of Transylvania, already in 1911, was ethnic Romanian.

Actually, this was true as early as 1700. When, later in life, I worked as an archivist, I often came across official figures from that period, according to which the ratio of Romanian inhabitants within the overall population of Transylvania (excluding the Banat and the so-called Partium) surpassed that of the Hungarian and German populations combined. Over the course of time, it might have been a good idea to reflect on this-after all, we are talking about the 1700s; the Treaty of Trianon was still two hundred years away.
In any case, there may have been some friction with the Romanian elite over the actual running of the government and the distribution of posts. Nevertheless, we were of the opinion then that a genuine partnership was no illusion; in the interest of common goals, we would not have been ungenerous, and would have been perfectly willing to accept ministerial posts and other high offices in proportion to our numbers.
I should add that we also had more attainable, immediate objectives. For example, we wanted to blow up the electric power lines running through the Bükk Forest. Come to think of it, this was no mere fantasy. Had we succeeded, you and I would probably never have met, and my unmarked grave could never be located. As it happened, we got only as far as producing incendiary leaflets-if we disregard minor operations and exercises. One of these occurred one dark night when, in preparation for the plot I mentioned to blow up power lines, we broke into the chemistry lab of our beloved school, the erstwhile Calvinist Kollégium. We needed a small amount of nitroglycerin, which we were going to mix with silicon. But unfortunately, we didn't find a drop of the indispensable fluid. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, we borrowed some sulphuric acid and poured it on the statue of Lenin that stood near the main entrance. We didn't get much sleep that night; early next morning we had to be back in school, in time for class.

The police didn't find out?

The security police appeared on the scene that very day, and began a feverish investigation. I must say there was a great flurry of activity. But we weren't all that worried, since we had carried out the break-in very carefully. In accordance with the rules of a clandestine operation, we left no fingerprints-we had been careful enough to wear gloves. There were no footprints either, because old man David, the school janitor, woke up very early, as always, and cleaned the floor with sawdust soaked in kerosene. The police dogs had to slink away with downcast eyes and tails between their legs. So, though we found no nitroglycerin, we could proudly consider the operation a successful trial run.
Getting even with certain individuals was part of our ambitious plans. From the inception of our conspiracy, we kept a blacklist, which got longer and longer. It would be useful, we decided, to get rid of a few potential enemies and other unsavoury characters. We had a particularly low opinion of activists in the Communist youth organisation; we wanted to eliminate a certain Comrade Nagy and a Comrade Barkas even before seizing the reins of power. With snake poison, no less. I don't know if a refined literary type like yourself is familiar with the name of Edgar Wallace; if you have ever read any of his crime stories. He is an excellent writer; we got the idea from him. If I remember correctly, Four Just Men is the title of the Wallace novel that served as the inspiration. Not long ago, I was on a train travelling from Brussels to Cologne, and an attractive young lady sat across the aisle in the compartment. I was quite pleased-my heart gave a leap, in fact-when I noticed that she was reading this excellent work. Apparently, in that part of the world, Wallace has not gone out of fashion. Anyhow, the procedure was as follows: the venom was frozen into a tiny rod, inserted into a cigarette holder with a spring inside, and released toward the victim at the right moment. It had to be aimed at a body part where the skin was the thinnest: the neck area, the eyelids, the open mouth, et cetera. The murder weapon itself dissolved and vanished, leaving only two tiny, unnoticeable pinpricks on the skin. Assembling such a weapon no doubt took a certain amount of technical sophistication. For one thing, household freezers were not yet in use in those days-in Kolozsvár, icemen still made their rounds. But we had faith in our resourcefulness, and figured that with a little diligence and perhaps an engineer's help, the lethal weapon could be produced. One bright, sunny day, I proposed that we take a hike to Saint John's Well and have a good look around. I had the boys believe that the place was swarming with vipers.

We used to have our Sunday afternoon outings there.

Then you must know that the Valley of Saint John's Well is a picturesque, subalpine spot, with beautiful, purple-blue woodland and a bare hillside at the narrow valley entrance. We learned in natural science class that vipers love these dry, rocky, loose-soiled, sun-drenched slopes. And sure enough, we found numerous little holes, which could very well have been vipers' nests, but unfortunately, we didn't come upon a single viper. Although we kept stumbling around on that slope till sunset, holding forked branches in our hands, the kind used to catch snakes, which you did by pinning their heads to the ground. But this didn't happen. Comrade Barkas could count his blessings.

Finally, a meek-looking, sad-faced officer, Lieutenant Jusca, who had been silent until now, stepped up to me and asked me to follow him. He'll be conducting my interrogation, he said. Once we were in his office, he invited me to sit down. It was clear that he felt funny about going through with this; he couldn't act the part of the stern interrogator. What made him most uncomfortable, I thought, was that he had to communicate just how formidable the power he represented was. He wasn't rattled when in answer to his question, did I know why I was here, I said I hadn't the foggiest, and added that for days I'd been searching for an answer to this question myself. Instead of literally turning the table on me at this point, which I might have expected him to do, he repeated, rather sadly, what I had already been told by the others: that I was accused of being part of an anti-state conspiracy, and it was time to tell him more about the activities of the organisation known as the Illegal Anti-Communist League, IACL for short.
It was the first time I heard an outsider use the acronym. I was crushed and just stared blankly ahead. Seeing my helplessness, he asked: could he help perhaps? Oh, yes, I said eagerly, as I didn't think I could express what was on my mind in proper Romanian. Now he opened his desk drawer, pulled out a sheaf of documents, put it down before me, and told me to study it carefully. Afterward we could talk about it. What lay before me were papers that contained a detailed account of the history of our secret organization, from its inception through the leaflet campaign to its inglorious end-our arrest. Nothing seemed to be missing; still, leafing through it brought me no relief. The only time I perked up was when I came across my name, which was rather often. At the end of the report, which reflected the state of affairs at the time of its composition, it was noted that I was a fugitive, hiding somewhere in the Radna Mountains. In the line below, the exact location of my hiding place was given, as well as orders that a special unit find me and deliver me to the police. Well, that had already been done. All in all, it was a thorough, well-put-together piece of work, and everything in it was absolutely true. By the time I got to the end of the narrative, I had begun to understand Romanian.

But how, from whom, could they extract such a detailed confession?

What happened was that one of our friends, who had at his disposal every piece of evidence connected to the work of our organisation and complete knowledge of every facet of its operation, made a full, sweeping confession a few hours after his capture, revealing everything, but everything he knew. Like a man suffering from a dangerous distension, he relieved himself, just let it all out. After that, the questioning of the others was a mere formality, a confirmation of the detailed confession already in hand. Now we may ponder how this kind of full disclosure can be reconciled with the image of the ideal hero, the courageous resistance fighter; and we may also reflect on the ethical ramifications of such a compliant self-revelation. But the fact is that the boy not only made the investigators' job much easier, but he also helped his friends in a way. It's true that anyone among us who longed to be tortured, to have bones broken, so that he could fulfil the fate of the heroic resister, may have been terribly annoyed, if only because his plans were thwarted, the drama was scrapped. But keeping in mind our physical and mental condition, I hate to think what would have happened if any of us had resisted. In any event, a stubborn denial of facts, of what were after all punishable offenses, would have made no sense at all. Without prior consultation, we couldn't possibly have counted on all eighteen of us to reveal, or keep silent about, the same details. Still and all, I believe the confession was a little more detailed than necessary.

Do you now know who this talkative fellow was?

Sure; that became obvious soon enough. We couldn't very well respect him for it, and in the beginning, it caused tension between us, but then we eased up on him. It was a touchy moment when we did, dramatic even, not without tragic overtones. On the one hand, we knew that basically he did the right thing; thanks to his confession, we got off without a serious beating. For this reason alone, we didn't make him feel the brunt of our anger. But we no longer considered him our friend. Let's face it: his conduct, from a moral standpoint, was seriously flawed. For one thing, he divulged details about events and incidents for which no physical evidence existed, and which therefore were not present in our collective memory. They were things only he and one or two others knew about, and he could have counted on them to remain silent. But because he blabbed so volubly, a few people who were completely innocent also ended up in prison, including our beloved literature teacher.
Once, on a school outing, we were collecting acorns in the woods. Our teacher led the expedition. During a lull in the activities, he sat down to rest under a tree. After a brief deliberation, two of us approached him and tried to engage him in conversation. "The situation is critical," we said, "something must be done. We've already started an organisation. Could you give us a few words of advice?" Without hesitation but sounding quite concerned, he told us to get the idea of forming a secret organisation out of our heads and the sooner the better. We wouldn't get anywhere with it, and would only cause pain and suffering to ourselves and our families. At the moment, this was not the way to demonstrate courage. For his wise counsel, our teacher was sentenced to a year and a half in prison.

How would you describe the atmosphere of that first long interrogation?

Well, it wasn't exactly a cozy tea party, but I didn't feel I was in the hands of a ferocious examiner, who turned hours of relentless questioning into a bitter experience just for the hell of it, simply because he detested his victim. In fact, there were moments when I felt warm currents of pity, compassion, even understanding coming my way from the other side of the desk. To put it more succinctly, my interrogation took place under completely civilized conditions.
My well-meaning interrogator, Lieutenant Jusca, selected from the available material before him the sections relating to me, and he prepared a record of the hearing. Carefully enunciating his words, he read what he wrote down, and when necessary, offered brief explanations, referring to relevant clauses of the criminal code and trying to describe in simple terms the legal expressions he thought I wouldn't grasp. It was an act of almost unimaginable politeness by a state security insider toward an enemy of the people. While he was talking, I, like a good student, kept nodding in agreement.
Now and then, he leaned back in his chair and out of simple curiosity lingered over a detail, quizzing me informally as though trying to penetrate the world of childish conspiracies. But he made sure not to include these asides in the text of my confession. At one point, he asked me to describe a typical secret meeting. I tried to make him understand in my best Romanian that he'd better ask somebody else, because I hated all meetings with a passion. If he really wanted to know, I dozed off during an important consultation. This happened to be true. To this day, I am overcome with irresistible glumness and torpor at any sort of meeting or assembly. My eyes get droopy, I feel I am about to faint, my end is near. During one of our executive sessions, I did actually doze off, and was severely reprimanded by the executive council, a body, I should note, of which I was a voting member. However, my knowledge of Romanian at the time did not make it possible to express myself subtly enough, so I stuck to the simplest synonym of doze. "You really fell asleep?" asked Lieutenant Jusca, suddenly looking up. "I'll put that down." I wasn't going to interfere with the unusual way he was conducting the hearing, but I was a bit surprised when he included the following: "He did not demonstrate much interest in the work of the organisation. On one occasion he fell asleep during an executive meeting."
Unfortunately, the remark, in that precise form, was included in my case file as well, and therefore made available to my court-appointed attorney, a silly old man, who quoted it verbatim at the trial. "Honoured Members of the Court," he began grandly, "nothing proves more conclusively that children stand before this high court, who still needed a good night's sleep. This poor child-here he pointed at me-fell asleep during a meeting he himself organised." Fell asleep my ass, I muttered; I only dozed off. I was so angry, I almost broke into tears. That old fuddy-duddy spoiled everything. For once, I could appear as a heroic freedom fighter before a real Romanian tribunal, and it turns out that not only was I asleep while decisions were made about the fate of the nation; I also tried to find excuses for my conduct like a coward. The old fart came to see me spit on myself. But I felt like spitting on him, too. For a long time afterward, it seemed that this was the moment when my life hit rock bottom. My loyal friends tried to console me as we returned to the station house. To our great joy, we were all put in a common cell; with the trial behind us, we could freely communicate with one another. The first thing we did was to go over the details of
the proceedings. Outdoing one another in our performances, we reenacted the highlights, imitating the main players in the courtroom drama. We also held a quick trial of our own. Our court rendered summary justice: the prosecutor, the presiding judge, and the two lay judges were sentenced to fifteen years each. I moved to have my lawyer debarred and his license revoked forever.
As for Lieutenant Jusca, he carried out his assignment with patience and understanding. At the end of the hearing, he had me read and sign the official record he prepared. "How many years do you think I will get?" I asked him modestly. "Five," he said firmly. "But you might get away with three." That's just what happened. First I was sentenced to five years, on appeal it was reduced to three, of which I served a little over two-honourably and in good health.

Translated by Ivan Sanders