The Encirclement

What Teleki noticed next was that Sándor’s entourage seemed to be growing, as if the people who helped him were no longer dropping him off at the lectures and going on their way, but sticking around, as if something in Sándor’s words, the depth of his conviction, had brought them into contact with a higher cause, a belief system. Great, thought Teleki. Just what I need: Sándor becoming a guru.

In addition, it seemed as though Sándor was now doing more of the talking than Teleki was – bellowing on, jabbing the cane in Teleki’s direction, the group of people immediately around him more vociferous in their approval than the rest. By the end of the night, Teleki noted that he’d spoken only three minutes more than Sándor.

But it was not just this that made Teleki decide, then and there, after twelve fingers of Scotch on the balcony of his hotel room, to pack it in, but also what Sándor had said. For the first time since the beginning of their conflict he was seriously doubting whether he knew more about the siege than the blind man, or whether, in fact, his very first guess had been right after all and that Sándor, far from being a disabled person, was some spirit of vengeance, one of those mythic figures who were blind not because they couldn’t see, but because they were distracted from the material world by a deeper insight, by being able to peer into secret places. Of course, remembering how he’d seen Sándor walk into pillars or trip over seats, Teleki laughed and dismissed the thought, though it always came back, forcing him up from sleep, the extent of Sándor’s information, the way he could retrieve things from the abyss of the past.

For when Teleki had described the last few days in the castle, how Veresváry ordered them to draw up surveillance maps using telescopes taken from the National Archives, plotting the streets in the direction of western Buda, Sándor had nodded in his seat. When Teleki said that rumours of a breakout had been swirling for days, Sándor rose up, but said nothing. Nervously, Teleki had continued, saying the German soldiers, during the Second World War, never surrendered, preferring the death of fighting on, of retreat, rather than captivity, for they’d been told of the horrors and torments of Siberia, as if it was possible to imagine a place where death was salvation.

Teleki was sent to Pfeffer-Wildenbruch with the map they’d drawn up. At this point in the story, Sándor began rubbing his hands together, waiting for Teleki to repeat what Pfeffer-Wildenbruch had said that day as he took the documents from Teleki’s hand, staring right through him as if he wasn’t in the room, as if there was only the Obergruppenführer himself, alone with the choices he couldn’t make.

‘If I give the order for a breakout,’ he mumbled, ‘everyone will die.’

It was here that Sándor finally chimed in, mimicking the reply Teleki was supposed to have given: ‘S-s-s-surely not everyone.’

Teleki reached for the volume adjustment on his microphone, continuing with what Pfeffer-Wildenbruch had said to him: ‘You’ll probably be one of the first to die.’

‘I-i-it’s a fitting thing, sir,’ Sándor interrupted him again.

‘I did not say that!’ shouted Teleki, turning the volume all the way up.

Someone handed Sándor the bullhorn again. ‘To face the enemy directly is a fitting thing, Obergruppenführer, sir. Without flinching.’

Suddenly Sándor began to play both roles, turning this way and that to indicate when Pfeffer-Wildenbruch and when Teleki was speaking, the crowd watching raptly, oblivious to the ‘No, no, no!’ Teleki was shouting into the microphone.

‘Meanwhile,’ said Sándor, now in the role of Teleki, ‘while the men are proving their bravery, we could do our duty and escape using the sewers under the castle.’

‘Our duty?’ Sándor carried off Pfeffer-Wildenbruch’s fatigue perfectly.

‘I-i-i-it would not be cowardice,’ Sándor stuttered, again playing Teleki. ‘Such words belong to narcissists, those who worry for their reputations, for how history will regard them. No’ – Sándor shook his head as Teleki might have – ‘we must look beyond our egos, our timid wish for glory. The war effort needs us…needs you…to survive this. You must sacrifice your pride for the greater good.’ Then, in a flourish, Sándor removed his glasses, shifting his eyes from side to side, as Teleki had done so many times behind the lectern. ‘Obergruppenführer, sir, I’ve heard the men speaking of a plot on Lieutenant-Colonel Veresváry’s life. In the sewers, you will need men you can trust… To prove my devotion I will give you the names of the conspirators.’

‘And so,’ Sándor now said, returning to himself (what Teleki increasingly considered the role of himself), ‘while men died by the thousands in the breakout, our friend here’ – he indicated Teleki –‘was splashing through the sewers.’