Kelenfold Railroad Station near Budapest Tuesday, July 10, 1956 1700 Hour

The huge clock appeared slightly angled to the right on the wall of the waiting lobby at Kelenfold's railroad station. The face of the clock must've been white, ages or rather many trains ago. Now it was yellowish-gray. It had black roman numerals; the arms were also black. It showed exactly five o'clock: the train was supposed to have arrived already. Apparently, it was running late.

Not a good sign! I thought.

George and I were the only people waiting for the arrival of the train. The decision to meet Robert at this railroad station, at the southern outskirt of Budapest, was made by George.

"A lot less conspicuous, trust me", he told me when we decided to go together to meet Robert. There was not a lot of argument, George was right. On one hand, I had no idea what Robert looked like and true; Kelenfold was a lot less conspicuous, less attended than the next and final stop of the train: Budapest Eastern Station.

Here we were, waiting for the train bringing Robert and his duffel bag full of "tools". The tools, as we called them, were actually handguns, ostensibly Hungarian Air Force officers' sidearm editions: 9mm Mausers, with plenty of ammunition.

These "tools" were absolutely necessary to carry out our plan, which was supposed to be going down in the annals of aviation as a "first" — the diverting of a commercial airliner on its domestic route, an escape from one of the darkest tyrannies in the history of the twentieth century — from Hungary to the Free World, the West.

Guns were pivotal in carrying out our escape plan.

It was ten minutes past five when the train rolled in on the third track, six passenger cars dragged by a WWII steam engine, huffing and puffing to a stop. Four doors opened. At two of them a couple of conductors appeared; the third door let out an older man holding the hand of a young boy; out of the remaining fourth open door came three middle age women with tote bags in hand.

Where's Robert?

A couple of minutes later the engine was hissing out steam on the front side of the two large horizontal cylinders, the way a black steel dragon would do, if there were dragons. The connecting arms between the axels began to slide forth and back, turning the wheels. The train began to roll out of the station.

I stood there dumbfounded — waiting for a miracle to happen. Maybe the train would stop and track back: Oops! We forgot to drop off Robert. The station was now empty; the last image of the train was the tail end of the last car, vanishing into the hazy infinite distance. Vanishing, just like our plan. A well designed plan for sure, just died. The odds of seven of us dying along have just exponentially increased. Bile bitterness flooded over me.

"So there's no Robert, is there?" Anger was pouring out of me. My voice was hollow, seethed with bitterness. The words seemed to come from a faraway place, echoing like pebbles falling on a cobblestone street in the silence of a night.

George did not answer, but it no longer mattered. We were three days away from an event that was destined to become history. As it looked now, it was to become nothing but a sad history of an aborted dream.

Arany Bika (The Golden Bull) Beer Bar Budapest, Hungary Tuesday, July 10, 1956 2100 Hour

The night was already dark; the few light bulbs dangling from twisted electrical wire spanning from one building to another hardly made the night any brighter. Six of us were sitting around a long wooden table, covered with a polka-dot tablecloth, which must've seen better days. The garden beerhouse was on the Buda side of the metropolis, Budapest, capital of empires for centuries.

Why is this city so dark? I wondered time and again.

Maybe it was the state of mind. Those opulent, distorting lenses — the eyes of the mind, the prisms of the soul — capable of changing the world, adding colors, or taking them off, creating darkness. All depends on their settings. It's the mind that sets those lenses, and mine was not in very good shape. Neither the lenses, nor the mind, that was now slowly drifting in and out of the conversation humming around the table.

We were waiting for George and hopefully, Robert. I already knew the sad news about Robert but I was not about to tell. Those present had no idea that I went along with George to meet Robert, who held our fate in his hand, rather in his probably non-existing duffel bag. Let George tell them. In addition, he may have been able to make a connection with Robert after all, if there has ever been a Robert, and he'll be walking in with him and the seven handguns in his duffel bag.

George came ten minutes later, alone. He sat down without a word between my wife Anais and Charlie.

George was a strange character. He spoke softly in short, sometimes unfinished, sentences but I seldom heard anyone so forceful with words. Just like giving orders without the appearance of giving orders. There was finality to his words, leaving no room for doubts, let alone for arguments. He was medium built, about five ten, powerful shoulders. He kept his head slightly tilted to the right, had a beak-like nose, and a nickname to go with it: Csoros, the "beak-nosed one".

Smalltalk ceased. An ominous silence hovered over the table.

"There are no guns," George said as a matter of fact then added: "and there won't be any!"

Bolla was the largest member in the group, sitting across from me. His head was balding on the front, his short neck descended into wide shoulders. One could mistake him for a professional wrestler, although he was not. He waved at the waiter who slouched against the wall of the building near the kitchen, as if trying to decide whether it was worth making a move, and if so, which direction.

"Bring us a round," Bolla said, then added with visible irritation, "and try to bring it tonight!"

The waiter turned around and maybe out of respect for Bolla's wide shoulders, or maybe because we were the only customers in sight, he returned within a reasonable time with seven mugs of beer. The silence was still with us for quite a while. The beers were just sitting there, untouched, nobody seemed to care. Their white, foamy caps sank and settled, slowly disintegrating into the amber colored liquid below.

"Not a lot left is there?" asked Bolla.

Whether he was referring to the collapsing foam of the beer or to our collapsing hopes, I could not tell. It took some time for the gravity of the news to sink in, but when it did, the sign of devastation actually showed as if was carved on everyone's face. Bolla's words were still reverberating when Charlie spoke.

"Now what?"

The answer came from George:

"Well, we're going back to the original plan!" No apologies, no explanation, no excuse, just new orders.

Back to the original plan. Coming from him it sounded so simple. Like, Can I have a cup of tea instead of coffee this time?

The original plan, sure.

George and I...