1956: the Soviet Carrarmati invaded Budapest and the water polo national team prepared for the Melbourne Olympics. Where they arrived in the final against the USSR and won the game of the century, thanks also to a hero who claimed that “you cannot be the player of the century with a muzzle in the mouth”
Ervin Zador’s children understood it for themselves who he was. Slowly, reconstructing the clues, listening to half words, putting the tests together. At home he never talked about his past, he never said he was a hero, and even that scar, a small crescent above the right eye, he had always been there, there was no reason to ask as if he had done it. Erik and Christine had a trick: when he took them to the races they pretended to sleep on the back seat of the car, but they really didn’t sleep. “We felt it telling stories, things that we probably shouldn’t have heard.”