“A tragedy averted.”
“Dani, now you are teasing me.” She smiles. “Have you been here before?” She knows I haven’t.
“No. It’s small.”
A man bumps my chair on his way to the next table, set not quite a foot away from ours.
“Part of the charm, you will see.”
“I’m sure I will.” I have to shout over the whirr of a blender.
“You are always so serious.” She leans in closer. “So,” she says, “the section I emailed?”
“Mmm. Interesting.”
“Interesting?” she repeats. “You see, finally, some of Báthory’s diaries and that is all you have to say?”
“It’s the beginning of a good story,” I say. “Maybe that’s all it was.” I keep my eyes on her face for any reaction. All she does is smile again, a carbon copy of the one she gave me thirty seconds earlier.
“Well, it is true, perhaps she did embellish things. Perhaps she fabricated the entire document. We cannot know for certain. But it is her writings, her words. Is that not what you wanted to see?”
“Her words?” I fold my hands together, place them on the plywood tabletop. “Do you have any documentation, any proof of your supposed discovery?”
“I see.” Another smile. “You doubt me.”
“I do.” I feel satisfied saying this to her. She’s quiet for a moment.
“Dani,” she finally says, “you know my interest in Báthory, it is genuine. To forge these documents, what benefit would it be to me?”
She has a point. It would be a huge risk for her career if she faked recovering the diary. But I wouldn’t put it past her to give me a highly stylized version of the truth.
“Well, then, as a professional archivist and curator, I am sure you have the necessary evidence to authenticate your discovery. So, to start, you can tell me how you found the originals,” I say.
“Dani, you are so impatient. Yes, I will tell you the whole story.”
“You mentioned something about Szeged?” I know this is a city in the south of Hungary, but while we were collaborating Maria had never described it as important to the search.
“Number eighty-seven! Eighty-seven!” yells a deep voice from behind the counter.
“Oh, now, that is us,” says Maria. She digs in her purse, pulls out a piece of paper and pushes it across the rough wooden tabletop towards me. She stands up and taps the paper a couple of times. “Look at this.”
“EIGHTY-SEVEN,” the voice hollers again, louder.
“Oh, I am coming. So impatient,” she says, striding off.
I look at the paper. It’s a handbill, purple with a thick white border and a logo for an art gallery in the top right corner. It reads Honey, Torture. A film and performance installation by Erszébet Báthory. The opening reception is in two weeks, and I realize part of the Fantasy and Disaster festival that Henry and a few other people from his residency have been preparing for too.
“I am so sorry. Can you excuse me?” Over my shoulder I hear Maria making her way through the crowd.
“There.” She leans around, one arm on either side of me, and sets down our tray. “Their salads are divine. And this will be the best moussaka you have had.” She wiggles back into her seat.
“We’ll see,” I say, setting down the flyer and picking up my cutlery.
She pulls her smoothie and her salad bowl towards her, and I shift my plate in front of me. “So, you will come,” she says, nodding to the paper.
“Is this by the Dutch artist, like the show in Budapest?”
“The one who has changed her name to Báthory, yes. But this one, you will like. It is her solo show.”
I’m curious, but the last time Maria and I went to a performance the evening ended badly. “So, you’re going?”
“Of course. Edward, he is reviewing several of the openings that night.”
I’m quiet for a moment, then say, “Henry is showing that night.”
“Your artist? In the festival?” Maria says in a singsong voice. “Which gallery? What is the name of the show? Is he working with anyone?” She rat-a-tats me with questions and immediately I regret mentioning it at all.
“I can’t remember.”
“Well, you must look it up,” she says. “Really, such luck. And also come with me, and Edward, to the Báthory show.” She takes a delicate sip from her smoothie. “Besides, for your work, it would be good. Seeing that man all of the time. Báthory was his muse, yes?”
I blow on a forkful of my moussaka. “I think they overheated this.”
“For the case with Foster.” She sips again, ladylike, her big eyes locked on me for a reaction.
The moussaka’s still steaming, but I try a bite anyway, then have to take a drink of ice water to cool the burn in my mouth. Maria keeps looking at me expectantly. Part of me wants to confide in her, to share the rush of my first interview with him. I also want to keep Foster to myself, like she’s kept the diaries. In the end, though, it matters very little what I want; as his clinician there’s not a lot I can divulge, not without getting into some messy moral and legal issues.
“There are rules about confidentiality,” I finally say. “You know that.”
“I suppose. But you have mentioned him before.”
“Not while I was his clinician.”
She smiles and I realize I’ve admitted to her that I have contact with him.
“The diaries,” I say. “You were going to explain to me how you found them.”
“Yes, that. But I am telling you very much, Danica.” She shuffles her plate over, puts her elbow on the table and rests her chin on her upturned palm. “I would like to hear about your work as well.”
“How polite of you.” I give her a close-lipped smile. “But really, I insist. So, the archives?”
“Yes, fine.” Maria takes her elbow off the table, leans back in her chair. “A few months after you left, the Báthory boxes came to the archives. I searched. It took many days.” She spears a tomato with her fork, takes a bite.
“And you found the diary in those boxes? Just like that, when no one else had before?”
She takes another bite of the tomato, then another drink of her smoothie. “No, I did not find them there. It was more complicated.”
I am so frustrated by the pace of her storytelling that I want to dump the rest of her smoothie in her lap. “Then where did you find them?”
“Dani, you are impatient. Is it your new job? You are very stressed? It is not good for you.”
“The diaries?”
“Yes, yes. I did not find them in the boxes at the archives. There is much material attached to the Báthory family. They were large, their dynasty—is that the word?—their titles and land were passed down for many years. But you know this. So, many letters, many documents, about estates, about inheritances. But not many personal papers, correspondences. I sent the boxes back. I spoke with the archival staff, with some of my other colleagues, I considered the research I had conducted already on Báthory. And then I had an idea!” Maria joyously clasps her hands together.
“Which was?”
“Čachtice, you know, it is not located in modern Hungary. The boundaries, they are much different now. Even where Báthory was born in Transylvania, that is part of Romania now. She had the house in Vienna, the castle at Sárvár in Hungary. She was in what is now many countries. Her papers, I thought, they could be anywhere. The National Archives is not the only possibility. So I began to look at university archives. I asked in Budapest, but nothing. Then I had a little contract with the House of Terror, the new museum about the dictatorial regimes in Hungary. I suggested, I think, that you visit it—did you go there?”
“No. So, you had the contract, and?”
“There was a reception. I met Professor Orbán.” She twirls her wrist in the air, a ta-da kind of flourish. “She is based at the university in Szeged. It is said it is the best university in Hungary. More known for the medical school, but—”<
br />
I cut her off. “And how did this help you find the diaries?”
“Ah, you cannot wait for the whole story! Fine, the shorter version. I went to visit her at Szeged. She is a young professor—she reminded me of you, Dani, really, very pretty, very smart—and so she introduced me to some of her colleagues, I met the librarian in charge of the rare books and manuscripts, we discussed some things. They had holdings about the Báthory family, many things.”
“And the diaries were in the collections? Just sitting there? Nobody else had bothered to check, to report them before?”
“Ah, no, it was not so easy, Danica! The diaries, they were not in the catalogued collections. After some time, the librarian, he began to appreciate my devotion to my subject, my respect for Báthory. He allowed me to search the uncatalogued manuscripts, the material they have not filed or identified, the ones they do not allow the students, the public to view. And,” Maria twirls her wrist in the air again, “she was there.”
“That was lucky for you.” Maria’s story seemed plausible. But she hadn’t told me much that I could fact-check or verify. “And what does this manuscript look like? Where is it now?”
“The librarian, Polanyi, we have made an arrangement. He agreed, he will hold the manuscript, will not catalogue or tell any other researchers it is there, until I have made secure my deal with a publisher. He will be mentioned in the book, of course.” She says this last sentence in a hushed, serious tone, her doll eyes wide. The offer of acknowledgement seems like a very small token of thanks, but I’ve noticed that Maria often gets away with arrangements like this. She could make you feel like your short end of the stick was a bejewelled scepter. “And I have a few photos. I can show you, but you must promise me, you will keep it confidential.”
“Photos?”
“It is not the usual practice for the university to allow photographs of the uncatalogued material. But Polanyi, he said for me, a small exception. He allowed me to take a few, and I will return to take more when I have finished the translations.”
“How far along are you?”
“You have not told me—how did you like the section I sent you?”
“It was...compelling. If it is true, as you say.”
“More compelling than Foster?”
I let the question linger. If she is telling the truth, she’s sharing the diaries, even offering to show me the confidential proof. She’s trusting me. I consider giving her some harmless piece of information, maybe something that could be found on public record. Like the length of his sentence, a detail from the trial. Anyone could check into that, it wouldn’t be confidential.
But before I think of something, she says, “Edward tells me Foster is getting a new lawyer.”
What? “Where did he hear that?” It had to be another empty rumour.
“Oh, it is the talk, a story the newspaper is working on, for next week. Foster, he is a celebrity. Everything connected to him, they write about.”
“Well, I haven’t heard anything about it.” I say this in a way that implies Edward and his supposed sources are speculative hacks. “What else...I mean, are they planning any other articles?”
“It is possible. Foster, he is popular, there is much talk about him. I will keep a watch for you.”
I nod and almost feel for some reason that I should thank her, though I’m unsure why.
“Dani, I wonder if you could do me a favour. For the book.”
She’s going to ask me back on the project. We started looking for the diaries together, and she wants to ask me back, to work together.
“I speak to you as a colleague,” she says. “We have common interests.”
“Yes. I have always valued that connection.” After a month of reports and papers at Stowmoor I’m very ready for her to ask me back in. I want to be involved in something glossy, something more glamorous, more public, than shuffling through the gates of Stowmoor every day.
She smiles, sets down her cutlery, leans back and pushes a few stray tendrils of blonde behind her ears. “I would like a visitor pass. To interview Foster.”
“You’re joking.”
“Dani, I am not. You can get me a pass.”
“Maria,” I say loudly. The man at the next table swivels his head in our direction. “Maria,” I say again, almost in a whisper, “you can’t magically get a pass to someplace like Stowmoor.”
“Dani, I do not mean to offend. I know, it is a difficult thing.” She touches my knee under the table. “That is why I ask for your help.”
“Why do you want to see him?” I think about pushing her hand off my knee. I don’t move.
“It is for an interview, for the book. He can speak to me for research if he agrees, yes?”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Much more complicated. Aside from the legalities of such an interview, I cringe to think of the lecture I would get if I even brought up the idea with Sloane.
“Yes, his visitor list, I imagine it would be restricted. But you could arrange something, for me?”
I move my leg away from her hand. “I can’t help you get a pass. Even if you somehow got one, I’m not sure you could publish any part of a conversation.”
“Dani, not everything has to be official. Besides, I would like to meet him for my personal interest. Is that so odd?”
“So this is all about satisfying curiosity?” I try to sound authoritative, but I come off as sarcastic.
“Isn’t everything?” She shrugs her shoulders, as if we’d been talking about trying a new nail colour.
She’s potentially found the diaries and now she wants me to risk my job to satisfy her whim of getting an interview with
Foster. No invitation to work with her, to be involved on the project we’d originally thought of together. But she insists: We’re colleagues. I don’t think so.
I stand, bump the lopsided table, jostle my glass. Water slops onto the plywood, soaks the Honey, Torture flyer Maria had pushed towards me earlier. “Sorry, Maria, I have to go.” I give a few curt excuses and stomp up the rickety steps to the congested street.
“Dani,” she calls after me, “I’ll be in touch.”
Her suggestion that I help get her a visitor’s pass is ridiculous. Though I can’t say part of me wouldn’t love to see those two in a room together. She thinks she can just flit into a forensic hospital, charm Foster, and he’ll be her docile pet, tell her everything, and she can write it down in a perfect little story.
She’s delusional. I’ve never assessed Maria, clinically. But it’s possible she could be diagnosed with some disordered tendencies, histrionic, narcissistic. She needs to be constantly at the centre of attention, to create drama. Everything is a game to her, entertainment, even the idea of hearing about a murder right from the killer. But she would be in over her head with Foster. I would love to see her flounder.
Chapter Eight
He pulled the silver Audi sedan into the dockside parking lot. “They’re unloading already,” he said, and pointed to a large freighter at the end of the wharf. Workers ferreted among the orange and black cargo containers. Some held clipboards and Styrofoam cups of coffee. A forklift driver scooped three stacked boxes, taxied them to the other side of the dock, went back for more. Lifted, carried, set, lifted.
For a moment they sat and watched. His passenger opened her red alligator clutch, pulled out a brush and ran it through her long, dark hair. She turned the rear-view mirror towards herself and dabbed on some lip gloss. “Shall we?”
He turned the mirror back to its original position and checked his dark hair before he stepped out of the car. He pulled his brown leather gloves over his manicured hands and surveyed the wharf. “There.” He pointed at a man with beige coveralls and a brown hat. Steel grey beard, late forties. They started towards him. She buttoned her long dress coat and effortlessly dodged rubble, though she wore heels. He put his sleeve over his nose and tried not to breathe in the docklands stink, to remain untainted by the grime. They
stood at the bow of the boat.
Finally the worker saw them and asked, “You two here for that delivery? You don’t waste time. Just came in an hour ago.”
They didn’t say hello. The younger man drew his sleeve away from his face, reached in his coat pocket and handed the older man a plain white envelope. ‘‘Where is it?” he asked.
“This the entire payment?” The worker riffled through the bills in the envelope.
“It’s all there. Where is it?”
The worker looked at the man, then the woman. She was beautiful. Young, not even twenty-five, he thought. She was taller than both the men and kicked impatiently at the ground with one of her high-heeled feet.
He tucked the envelope inside his coveralls. “Must be quite important, then?”
Neither of them even smiled. They stared at him until he said, “All right, no small talk.” He adjusted his hat. “This way.”
They walked to a small office shack. The walls were corrugated steel, the floor plywood. The small windows were fogged with grease and condensation. Mouse droppings lined the window ledge.
“And how long has it been in here?” the woman said. “It shouldn’t be in humidity like this.”
“I told you,” said the worker, “it just got in an hour ago.”
The flat rectangular parcel leaned against the wall, underneath the ledge with the droppings. The young man put a hand on his companion’s arm. “I know,” he whispered to her. “Conditions of transport are variable.” He plucked the package from the mess.
“Right, if you need to use my services again, just give me a bell.” The older man patted the envelope in his pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
They drove towards her flat in the East End and unloaded the parcel from the car.
“We can’t keep moving it, not with conditions like that,” she said as she opened her door. “It’s four hundred years old. You can’t have it tossed in a dirty old shed.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s becoming dangerous. But it’s tradition. Ritual.”
Quiver Page 6
