by Anna Porter
She had calculated that it would take a car fifteen minutes to get here from the Pest police station. She would hear the siren. She had to be fast.
She examined the windows for separate alarms and found none. She wedged open the door to his office and surveyed the tidy desk, the letter opener, the orderly bookcases, the round tray still there on the round side table, his crystal tumbler with a trace of his evening drink. His study opened onto a hallway lined with sepia photographs of men and women in formal dress, the women wearing gloves and cradling bouquets. There was a framed portrait of the man in a dark suit, hat sitting low on his head, the rim shading his forehead, dark glasses, hands folded in front, still the long, thin neck and long fingers. There were a few small paintings: an early Poussin, a Raphael with angels and a blue Madonna, something that looked like an Arshile Gorky — a sad-eyed women with scarf — a large, early Monet of boats in shimmering water, and an early Picasso drawing. A dark Velázquez of two over-dressed, expressionless children in a chocolate-coloured frame hung above the bar in the dining room. On either side of the door, there were four small paintings by Lajos Kassák that she recognized only because she had seen a collection of his forgettable abstracts at a recent Museum of Modern Art exhibition of Hungarian artists banned during the Communist years.
The painting Géza Márton had described was in the living room, hanging over a long, florid sofa. It was six feet long and four feet high. She felt its presence even before her flashlight found Christ’s face. It was the sheer size of the gilded frame and the figures blending into the dark resin background. The small grey donkey in the centre left seemed to have been outlined with a brush handle or a sharp palette knife. There were dabs of white and yellow on the faces of the figures looking up at the man on the donkey. The paint was laid on thick and heavy, the artist having used both a palette knife and his fingers where the figures blended into the sombre background. It was a very physical painting, with its big figures, his style freed from his times’ constraint of mirroring every detail. Palma il Giovane had talked of Titian’s vigorous underpainting, the reds, blacks, and yellows, and of his predilection for using a palette knife.
Thin shafts of blue and white emanating from a magenta cloud lit up the back of Christ’s head. His face was just a suggestion of browns and ochres and his eyes were deep holes. His muddy, sandalled feet were scraping the ground. There were splashes of red on his neck and ankles, as if to prefigure the Crucifixion. In contrast to Christ’s purple robe, the ones worn by the men following him were dirty white. Some were holding their arms aloft, their faces shiny with sweat and anticipation. Two women were laying palm fronds on the uneven path in front of the donkey. Mary Magdalene, walking ahead in her signature green gown, looked out of the painting. Her bright eyes and pink-and-white face made her seem at once beatific and accusatory. Another upturned face and a dash of blue by the donkey’s flank depicted the Virgin Mary. Incongruously, two small spaniels in the bottom right-hand corner gazed upward, as if expecting treats. The artist had taken great care in detailing their fur.
It could be a late work, perhaps as late as 1570, when Titian was well into his eighties. There was a hurried, sketchy quality to some of the figures. It was reminiscent of The Death of Actaeon, but the stormy sky may have been finished by one of his workshop students, perhaps Polidoro da Lanciano, although she doubted Polidoro would have completed any of the late works. Titian hadn’t finished putting on the varnish, but in his final years he often left the varnish off parts of his paintings.
Alternatively, it could be a study for an early work, a mere sketch, something intended for Philip II, who liked both religious paintings and detailed nudes posing as naiads or some other mythological women who cavort about naked.
There was no signature.
Without the right equipment, it was hard for her to tell whether it was a Titian or a good forgery. She had used chromatography and a spectrometer to analyze the paint of a Rubens in St. Petersburg and had determined that it was a late copy. Another time, she had established that a beautifully executed Raphael at the Borghese was an exquisite reinterpretation by the Dutch master-forger, Han van Meegeren. That man could redefine genius. He could imitate the style of any artist, and it would take years of technical examination to identify which paintings were his. She had studied Titian and read all extant documents about his work. There was no mention of this particular painting.
She took photos from all angles, then close-ups of details, shining her flashlight on each part of the painting.
When she was done, she knocked over the bottle of whisky and the glasses on the sideboard, tucked the silver cigar box under her arm, broke the window by the front door, pulled the hood over her face, and left.
It had taken her eleven minutes.
No serious police officer would be convinced by her efforts to stage a break-in, but the smashed window and missing box would offer an easy diagnosis, and experience told her that one should never overestimate the police.
She walked back to the little park, dropped the cigar box in the garbage bin next to a man sleeping on a bench, listened to the sirens of police cars climbing the hill from the river, did a few stretches against the other bench, then loped back to the hotel.
3
ATTILA WAVED CASUALLY at the overdressed doorman, entered the Gellért Hotel by the revolving door, and walked across the marble lobby with the purposeful steps of a guest. No one even looked at him. The stairway led up to the third floor. A “Do Not Disturb” sign hung from the brass handle of the door to Helena Marsh’s room. It took him a full minute to open the electronic lock; less time than an old-fashioned keyed lock would have taken. She hadn’t used the chain. It was dark inside the room. The few lights flickering outside the window illuminated her long blond hair spread out on the pillow. Obviously, she had decided to have a nap. Whatever she was up to, it couldn’t have been much — or she had astonishing sang-froid. Why hadn’t she put the chain across the door?
He went back down and sat in the bar, which gave him a clear view of both the elevators and the marble stairway. He ordered a Vilmos brandy with a beer chaser.
He hadn’t intended to wait till nearly 11, but the barman had been telling him a long, episodic story fitted between serving other guests, and Attila’s drinks after the first two had been free. The barman had once been a junior lawyer in the justice department, mostly petty crime but there had been one case of a journalist who had written for a Western paper and was caught, prosecuted, and jailed. He was lucky even to have had a trial. Now, after the advent of democracy, the journalist was a member of parliament and the lawyer was serving Attila Czech beer.
At 10:45 p.m. he took the tram home to Rákóczi Avenue. The street had been spared some of the 1990s’ construction boom, and, while many old apartment blocks had been destroyed and replaced by condominiums, Attila’s hundred-year-old building, with its small wrought-iron elevator that rarely moved, had remained in its pre-war state. It featured peeling paint, crumbling brick, and uneven floors and was just the way he liked it. His apartment’s tall windows, high ceilings, and balcony made up for the street noise. Most of the year, except in the depth of winter, he could leave the balcony door open for Gustav, about the only thing his ex had allowed him to keep from their marriage. A miniature long-haired dachshund mix, Gustav had an uneven temperament but a keen nose for quality food, and, unlike the ex, he was always pleased to see Attila.
After a short walk around the block, they shared a couple of salami sandwiches and settled in to watch the latest episode of an American series about a teacher who turns into a drug dealer. Another advantage of democracy was the plethora of utterly mindless television options. This was better than most. There were times he felt nostalgic for the heavy-handed Soviet propaganda films of the 1970s and the occasional cheap Hungarian tragedies of that time, with their disguised messages of protest or exasperation with the system.
The phone rang at around 1 a.m.
“Wha
t the fuck happened to you?”
“Huh?”
“Remember you had a job? You didn’t do it. Fell asleep at the bar? Went to a movie? What the hell?” The voice was rough, spittingly breathy, as if he was holding the phone too close to his mouth.
“István?”
“Captain dammit, Detective Tóth to you, never mind the István, and where the hell were you?”
“Waiting,” Attila said. “She never came out of her room.”
“Bloody funny, that,” Tóth shouted. “She was in a house on Fekete Sas Street at eight thirty, walking about like she owned the place. She knew the real owners would be out all evening. She knew the opera schedule. No hurry at all. Took her time. The client is not happy.”
“Impossible. I checked her room and she was lying in bed. Sleeping. I watched the elevators and the staircase till 11 p.m. She never came down.”
“So, it must have been her ghost.” Tóth harrumphed into his cell phone.
“Were there no alarms?”
“She cut the wires.”
“How do you know it was her?”
Tóth laughed too loudly. “It was a woman in a black hoodie. About her height and shape.”
“It could have been another woman.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Cameras?”
“One, hidden, by a big painting in the living room. She didn’t try to steal the painting, but that may be because it would be hard to hustle a thing that’s about two metres long with a thick gilt frame out of a house in a residential area.”
“Did the camera pick up her face?”
“No. Like I said, she was wearing a hoodie.”
“Do they have anything else worth stealing?”
“He may have a couple of other paintings. And he has a safe, but it was not disturbed. He’s retired and thought they had nothing to worry about. Or didn’t. Till now.”
“Oh.” Even if the guy had nothing to hide, why not install some outside security cameras, just in case a couple of neighbour-hood kids decided to relieve him of a few household items? There were more cameras throughout this city than parking meters.
“No valuables?” Attila asked, nonplussed. Everyone had valuables, even if it was only bits of rock from a holiday. Anyone living on Rózsadomb would have valuables; it was an elite part of the city. Their address defined them. That so many former Communists and their fellow travellers had held onto their homes here was, he thought, an indication of capitalism’s victory over memory.
“Anything missing?” he asked.
“Only a cigar box. Silver. And they do have security,” Tóth said. “Us.”
“Last night?”
“You were on the job, last night,” Tóth yelled. “Your job was to check if she went anywhere. You were hired to follow her.” He must have lighted a cigarette, Attila heard the match scrape the phone, then Tóth let out a long breath, as if exhaling smoke. “Tomorrow morning at eight,” he said and disconnected.
“Son of a bitch,” Attila murmured after he put the phone down. Eight a.m. was just four hours away, and his mouth felt like a pigsty. What did those Czechs put in their beer? It used to taste better in the 1980s, but that might be his age.
The dog lay on his back at the end of the bed, paws in the air, farting. Salami might not be the best thing to eat just before going to sleep. Too much red pepper.
If the woman had left the hotel, it must have been through the baths’ exit. He couldn’t see it from the bar, but he had stood on the tram island till after 9 p.m. and had not seen her. What about her blond head lying on the pillow? Was it a set-up? How the hell could she have been on Fekete Sas Street at 8:30?
He made himself an espresso. The machine had been a gift from a grateful store owner on Váci Street after Attila had ended a two-year protection racket that had each of the high-end stores paying into a “beautify the city” fund that existed only in the imagination of the Albanian gang that had failed to pay its own dues to the local police. The gang had learned its lesson and was now happily beautifying Vienna.
He lay down on the sofa — not nearly as comfortable as the squishy corduroy one that had exited with the wife — and tried to read an old Jack Reacher novel, waiting for the machine to heat up. The ex had decided to leave his collection of detective fiction but took most of the quality stuff, along with the bookcases. His remaining books were still in cardboard boxes piled high next to the kitchen. He was too tired to read. Too tired to make coffee, but he persevered till 7 a.m., when Gustav insisted on his morning crap. It was barely daylight, and there was just enough rain to dissuade the dog from going outside. He hunkered down in the long passageway between the elevator and the entrance. Attila kicked the tidy cigarillo of dog turd into the darkest part of the passageway and led the disconsolate Gustav back to the apartment.
At 8 a.m., Attila was at the Police Palace (which is what everyone called the police headquarters after the government added the tall tower), showing his ID to the fat woman who had been on security long enough to know him even in the dark. As usual, she made a big production of examining his photo, looking at him, examining the photo again. Then she waved him through the X-ray machine, minus his holster and wallet. The building had become even more of a mindless fortress since he left.
Naturally, Tóth was not yet in his office, and the young uniform who guarded the second floor didn’t know enough to let Attila wait in one of the empty interrogation rooms, so he sat on the bench for petty criminals awaiting questioning. A couple of young offenders wearing American pants with crotches at their knees made room for him. They were discussing why they had been picked up and, coming up empty, focused on a girl they had both tried to take home the night before. He could have told them the reason they had been hauled in was their pants, but decided it was pointless. Most of the policemen (and sole policewoman) looked like they were at the end of a night shift, rather than starting the day. They were slow-moving, damp, bleary-eyed, and smelly.
Tóth arrived close to 9 a.m. He was eating some kind of sugary pastry that left white powder on his thin mustache — the only thin part of the man — and down his ample front. His shirt barely fit across his belly. One button had already popped, and the day had barely begun. On the other hand, his dung-coloured jacket was just-out-of-the-box new. But why, Attila wondered, had he chosen that shade of brown?
Tóth grunted when he saw Attila and motioned with his chin toward his corner office. Since Attila’s last visit, the small fringed rug and the colour photo of the smiling woman at the edge of the desk — the same desk Attila had used when this had been his office — had both disappeared. Tóth finished the pastry before he looked at his former boss and, even then, he seemed reluctant to start the conversation.
“So,” he said, at last. He sat with knees wide apart, hands clasped. “She has been on the phone all morning. We have a man with binoculars on the path up Gellért Hill and he has a perfect view of her room. She is using her own phone, not the hotel’s. We can’t get a fix on the number. She must have one of those cheap disposables you can pick up anywhere. She has a rental car, due back in Vienna in three days. The Ukrainians want her gone before then.”
Attila shook his head. “The Ukrainians? What do they have to do with her?”
“Don’t know. But they are anxious to have her out of the country. As is Mr. Krestin, the guy whose house she broke into, and he has some influence with the government. The government runs the police, in case you’ve forgotten.” He rubbed his palms together, looked at them, wiped them on his knees. “Your job is to not lose sight of her again.”
Attila sighed.
“Is that simple enough?” Tóth asked.
“Krestin?” Attila refused to be baited.
“János Krestin.”
“Guy who used to own a studio making utterly dreadful movies?”
“Him.”
“And he owned the Lipótváros football team?”
“His house is not in Lipótváros, and
it’s his house that she couldn’t have been in because she was asleep in her bed.”
“If he owned Lipótváros, he has some valuables. Did you say nothing was missing?” Attila didn’t know a whole lot about János Krestin, but he did know that the man had accumulated a fortune, and some of it might have come from the bribes he collected before 1989. Rumour had it that if you were accused of petty crimes against the state, Krestin could get the state to forget about them. Or he could ensure fewer years in jail.
Most former functionaries had fitted seamlessly into the new system. Many of them had the advantages of knowing other languages, and most had done well since 1989. Back then, ordinary people were still too busy trying to repair their lives to pay much attention to the successes of others. That didn’t last.
“I said nothing was stolen except the cigar case.”
“So, what was she doing there?”
Tóth shrugged.
“Perhaps she was looking for something but didn’t find it?”
Tóth shrugged again.
“And she cut the security system. So, she is a professional?”
“Not exactly,” Tóth said, chewing on his thumbnail.
“Do you have some information about her that you are not sharing?” Attila asked. “Something that explains her connection to Krestin? You told me this Helena Marsh hasn’t been here for seven years, and, even then, no one knew what she was looking for until after she left. You remember the Bauers and their Rembrandts?”
“Vaguely. Two pictures their neighbours had appropriated during the war. She had nothing to do with that.”
“In the end, the Bauers got their Rembrandts back, and the Szilágyis decided not to prefer charges, although they told me at first that their paintings had been stolen.”
Tóth shook his head. “Irrelevant.”
