When I was seventeen

I was seventeen years, three months and two days old on 23rd October 1956, the day that I fell in love. I suppose I should count myself lucky really. But perhaps you should decide.

That year, I was living with my parents in Budapest. They were away on some important business in Paris at the time, leaving me alone in the house. It happened on the third day they were away: I heard rumours of police stations and libraries being taken over, not by soldiers but by ordinary people, students and people my age. And rumours were all I thought they were at first. But one story turned into many, and before long, everyone was talking about revolution. Crowds were parading through the streets, carrying flags and cheering. I needed to join in. I was taken along by one of the many groups streaming through the lanes of Buda and eventually deposited in Trinity Square by the town hall where there was a large gathering.

I made my way into the building and was pressed into service making hot drinks and preparing food for the many groups that had made their way into the city from the surrounding countryside. It was an exciting time. We had freed our country from communism.

And so it was, towards the end of that long and happy day passing out food, smiling and talking to anyone, that I saw him through the crowd. As I turned to him, he smiled and looked away. I carried on working and he surprised me, asking for something to eat, for something to drink and then for someone to kiss. He was confident. He told me of his part in the revolution: he made me laugh; and he made me cry. And he made me happy. He walked me home and then he kissed me. I must have dreamed of him that night because when I awoke I felt everything was going to be fine.

But everything was not fine. There were more rumours, this time of the Russians returning with tanks. My parents had not managed to contact me. I met him at the town hall and we walked. He told me of his life, his large family, where he lived, how he loved the way I brushed my hair across my eyes, how I skipped when I wanted to catch up with him, and how he loved me. And over that couple of days, I fell in love with him.

Then he wasn’t there. He left a message for me at the town hall. He had gone back to his village. He needed to see his family, to understand what was happening there. I waited. At the start of November, my family returned. They said we had to leave, that the Russians were coming. I went to his village and found his family. He had left, they said. To fight the Russians. They had tanks and he knew how to make Molotov cocktails. He was brave, they said. It was pointless, I thought.  And I was sad. I left them my address in Paris. They told me they would give it to him when he returned. And I knew then that he would not.

So here in Paris, I look at my husband: a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. We have five children, and twelve grandchildren. And I suppose that I could count myself lucky. You can tell me.

“You are lucky,” he says, looking sideways at me. I smile. And I know. I am lucky. I am lucky they told him he was too young to throw a Molotov cocktail. That he must count tanks instead and then go home. And I am lucky that his family gave him my address and told him to escape the country.