When The Day Comes
2020年毕业前夕的作业，虚构，权当存档
19 October, 2007
Friday, 9:00 am
Thick cloud had pressed down on Warsaw all night, and now it was lingering into what passed for the morning. “What a day!” Horvath Ferenc, Junior inspector of the Department of Political Investigation, climbed out of his car and tilted his face to the rain. As an inspector who worked for the Ministry of Interior for 14 years, his nose could recognize over sixty kinds of odors. “Something caught fire probably.” Hungary was arguably one of the important manufacturers and industrial producers in the Soviet Bloc. More and more agricultural lands were held in state-owned enterprises. Safety accidents continuously happened in the country in recent years.
“Hi bro, how are you?” Ferenc’s colleague Peter Bela asked.
“Busy as usual.”
“So am I. As you know, the President of the United States Albert Gore is going to meet the No.1 next week. All my fellows are busy examining potential safety leaks, and we had called for reinforcement from other counties.”
“Good for you.”
Ferenc had been working for Division VI, one of the largest divisions in the department, which was responsible for monitoring the Internet (local area network, more precisely) in Hungary. They had over 300 servers in the basement to filter sensational information the officials disliked. In addition, they had applied the “Red Shield” system which could monitor every mobile terminal. Once a guy sent a so-called “harmful information,” the division would target the terminal and get all the personal information because all Hungarians had to apply for the network with their ID. Recently, they had to pay more attention to the internet because 23 October was the day of 1956 uprising. October was the most tensional days throughout the year for the leaders in Hungary because it was a political taboo. Young generations commemorated the people who died for Hungary’s freedom in various ways even the officials blocked relative words as many as possible.
Ferenc was told that a chemical plant in Baranya County exploded last night, and at least twenty-nine people were killed in the building destroyed by the blast. The number of those who injured was supposed to be one hundred plus. The Danube River was polluted with exceeding levels of methanol and chloroform. The air nearby was also polluted by toxic materials. “Damn!” Ferenc scolded. Although this was a serious accident, the officials decided to hush it up because the President of the United States would come to meet the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. The officials did not want to reveal the accident before the Americans leave Budapest. It would be a vital meeting for the Soviet Union because it was more difficult to remain a totalitarian empire. Soviets desperately needed money from the West.
12 November 1982, the leader of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev died and left a stagnant empire to his successor. Yuri Andropov, the head of KGB, became the new leader of the USSR. He knew that the Soviet Union had to change if communists wanted to hold the power as long as they can. According to the information the KGB received from China, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party had abandoned the mindless ideological struggles and applied the “economy first” policy in 1978 after two years of Mao’s death. China was rehabilitating from the endless chaos and predicting a promising future by introducing capitalist markets. “Unbelievable, flexible,” Andropov thought, “perhaps we should have a try as well.” He also knew that his health problems did not allow him to put his ideas into practice. So he called up his trusted fellows secretly to prepare for taking place the old guys in Politburo. On 8 November 1983, when Soviet people were celebrating the October Revolution Day on the previous day, Andropov suddenly announced his resignation and his trusted fellows controlled the Politburo and ministries, and the radio no doubt. After all, they were well-trained KGB officers.
In the beginning, when these young technocrats took the power, they launched a series of programs to improve living standards in the Soviet Bloc. Introducing foreign investments, partly opening the market to western Europe and the US, privatizing some state-owned industries, and above all, withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan where the Soviet armies had involved in for years but got nothing. From the spring of 1984, people in Soviet Bloc could felt and saw the obvious changes in their daily life. Long queues at stores were disappeared. All the selves had filled with products from Netherland, Belgium, West Germany, Britain, and the US. That was the first time that Ferenc’s mother bought him a box of Belgian chocolate which made him happy throughout the whole week. She was also liberated from ceaseless housework when she was able to buy a washing machine. Four years later, in 1988, the Horvath family moved from the old, shabby collective dormitory to a new apartment, and Ferenc eventually had his private room when he began to date with his first girlfriend.
Not only were people able to enjoy a better life, but also they could access books and magazines that they never could since the “Khrushchev Thaw” was interrupted by Brezhnev. Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, Sakharov, and other dissenters’ work were publicly on sale in bookstores. Soviet litterateurs and those who could read in foreign languages began to translate books written by foreign writers. Soviet scholars began to discuss differences between anarchism and liberalism and some of them conclude that these theories might be worth learning from somehow. Ferenc’s dad, who was the son of the holder of a small factory, could again publish articles in journals.
Unfortunately, the happy days did not last as long as people expected. The young technocrats deteriorated within a few years. In the name of privatization, the officials sold state-owned industries to capitalists at giveaway prices and filled their pockets. Vladimir Putin, who had been the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1997, owned three luxury villas in Moscow and the Black Sea. The influx of foreign investment and products severely damaged home industries that led the inflation rates to increase rapidly. Furthermore, the price of economic growth was environmental degradation. Haze was no longer news and the Danube River was no longer clear. As Hungary’s neighbour, Austria had suffered for years and they protested many times. Compare with the old Soviet system, the new system was able to monitor the society much more effectively by applying technological methods. Although the Berlin Wall did not exist anymore since 1985, an invisible wall had built up. The officials expected people to forget the past as long as kept providing bread. But humans are not animals. They could pretend to forget when they could maintain their life. However, the financial crisis of 2007 broke people’s dream and reminded their suppressed memories.
19 October, 2007,
Friday, 10:30 am
Cocooned in his thin quilt, 25-years-old journalist Toth Katalin reached out to her cell phone. She scrolled on the screen but failed to connect to the Internet. In recent weeks, the “Red Shield” intensified its tireless siege against all foreign VPN applications. As a state-sanctioned media journalist for the Party, viewing news from abroad was in theory part of her job, but who the heck knew what exactly the rules were?
Twenty minutes later, she woke up and opened her computer. She eventually connected to the Internet after tried many times. Suddenly, the title “Austria tested exceedingly levels of chemical pollutions” came to her eyes. According to the Austrian environmental protection bureau, the chemical pollutions came from upstream side which supposed to be Hungary. “What happened?” She asked herself. A few moments later, she found a video of the explosion recorded by a resident who lived in the nearby county. By the nature of journalism, she immediately downloaded the video to her hard drive and then backed up in USB and Google Drive. In the video, a frightened man was saying that a chemical plant exploded and some people were still working in the workshop during that time.
Katalin sent a message to her boss, chief editor Simon Lajos, to propose a headline. Unsurprisingly, her proposal was almost immediately rejected by Lajos who was told that it was not allowed.
“Forget it, Katalin, the top did not want to see something like this, especially in these days. Please find some good news if we have.” Lajos said.
“But it’s serious. Not only will it damage us, but neighouring countries will investigate the accident. It matters! We can’t cover it up anyways.”
“Oh please, I have my wife and two children to think of. Ignorance is strength, who said this?”
“Yeah sure. Think of your children and toxic pollutions.”
“They will go to Australia for a Master’s degree as soon as they graduate.”
Katalin did not say anything. She hanged up the phone. She did not give up.
19 October, 2007
12:00 pm
After lunch, Ferenc went out of his office to pick up his son Andras from school. He and Anna had divorced. According to the agreement, Andras would live with mother and Ferenc was allowed to have the kid on weekends. Anna could not bear him as a workaholic. They had less and less sex after they married. Soon after they divorced, Anna married a wealthy businessman.
“Papa, we are going to the zoo?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And the amusement park?”
“Yes.”
“And a big dinner?”
“Absolutely.”
“Brilliant! Love you, dad!”
Andras was only eighth grade but he had looked like a little adult as long as in a Hungarian Youth League’s uniform. Every junior high school student had to join the Hungarian Youth League since 1957 when Kadar Janos took over power from Nagy Imre whose name had been becoming a taboo in this country. He could remember the day when he joined the league in 1971. He was one of the first members of his class. His teacher granted him a large certificate and a badge.
When they walked on the street, Ferenc was not as happy as usual. The explosion haunted him for the rest of the day. The toxic materials the explosion leaked would damage our health. Yes, local authorities had taken actions but it would impact the rest of the country sooner or later. Unlike the Soviet Union, Hungary was a smaller country and Hungarians could not forget how the Chernobyl disaster damaged the Soviet Union’s economy and environment. He looked around. Workers were busy decorating the buildings and streets. The Powerful propaganda machine drove by the party kept boasting without interruption. Governmental officials prepared for off duty to meet their wives or mistresses. “How can I get my kid out of this black hole?” He asked himself.
“Inspector Horvath, come back to the office immediately.” An emergent message interrupted his happiness.
19 October, 2007,
Friday, 2:00 pm
“What the hell is this?” The head of the department Farkas Marton shouted to Ferenc. Ferenc saw a screenshot of cell phone texts which shows someone told the accident to some friends. Her name was Toth Katalin. Two hours ago, she decided to tell the story to her friends in Baranya County to remind them. Inevitably, her text was got by the secret police. Her boss called her to his office and reprimanded her for lack of “political consciousness.” However, it was too late to retreat the information. Her text had already gone viral, with her name and occupation undeleted. At 1:30 pm, she was summoned to the police station. There she was accused of spreading rumours and subverting the social order. She then had to give written answers to two questions: in future, could he stop his illegal activities? “I can,” she wrote. Did she understand that if she went on, she would be punished under the law? “I understand,” she wrote again and signed her full name at the bottom of the paper.
When Katalin walked out of the police station, she felt relaxed even she was shortly arrested. She insisted on her principles as a journalist who even worked for the party (again, who did not?). She had been doing the right since she graduated from the department of journalism of the university. Anyhow, Hungary was no longer giant prison under the dictatorship of Rakosi. At least she had not been tortured or beaten, and her license to practice had not been revoked. She had not even been fined. So much for that. Yet why should she have been? She had been right to raise the alarm while the officials were still busy covering up.
Friday afternoon was always busy. People could not wait for home. When Katalin was on the way back to her office, she scrolled on the screen and saw the news that the police station announced the apprehension of her in the name of spreading rumours. “Damn! Don’t expect this month’s price money.” She did not notice that a car was approaching her, and suddenly, she was hit by a car and down to the ground. She was bleeding. The ambulance arrived a little bit late because of the terrible traffic. She was sent to hospital.
19 October, 2007
Friday, 6:00 pm
Chief editor Simon Lajos was stunned when he received the grievous news from hospital. Katalin died. The traffic delayed the treatment. Doctors did their best to save her life but changed nothing. Lajos felt sad because she was not merely a competent, righteous journalist, but also was a daughter who lived with a single mother. Katalin was her whole world. He could not imagine how would she live without Katalin. He decided to go to hospital to express his condolences.
The traffic looked more terrible than in the afternoon. The taxi just moved thirty feet within an hour. From the radio in the taxi, they knew that mass protests had been reported in many districts in Budapest, and the police were trying to stop them. Lajos decided to go on foot. Small groups of protests gathered together at Andrássy Boulevard, the main avenue of Budapest, to express their dissatisfactions. Some protestors were holding Katalin’s pictures and saying “murderer, murderer.” Those who looked like age of fifties were calling for 1956 and Nagy Imre. The memories of two generations superposed and created a formidable strength that would break up the totalitarian chains.
Katalin’s death lit the fire of anger which had been depressed in people’s minds for many years. The more pressures the officials impose to the memory of the past, the past became more significant, because the pressures were creating new victims. 1956 was not merely the synonym of the victims who were killed by Soviet armies, but also the synonym of those who wanted to know and speak out. When it comes to an event, the people of a nation were not supposed to know, not supposed to know why it supposed to know, and they had to pretend it never happened because the officials even did not tell people what is not supposed to know. Political taboos like this were insults of human’s dignity and wisdom. The 1956 uprising became a knot in Hungarians’ minds.
When Lajos arrived at the hospital, the floor had been full of flowers and cards. Katalin became a heroine of Hungary, even though she was just doing her job. Who was not? Ferenc, Lajos, Bela, the taxi driver, everyone was doing their job, and the day came. Encouraged by Hungarians, people in Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, even East Asia began to express their rights and call for change. In the election of 2008, Albert Gore lost and the Republicans were in government. The right-wing was growing and the world was changing. What are we expecting? No one knows.
