Cafe Europa

by Ed Ifkovic

  “Well, that’s hardly your fault.”

  “She fought me. ‘Help me escape to America.’ Preposterous, I told her. A father’s wishes. A mother’s wishes. She cried, ‘You and me. The night train to Trieste, over the Croatian mountains. We will hide in America.’” He chuckled. “‘Montana’ she tells me. ‘No one goes to Montana. We’ll live in a cabin in the mountains. They will never find us.’”

  “Tell me, Mr. Molnár, she was unhappy. But I’m bothered that she was frightened the last day.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “That bothers me, too. She must have learned that she was in danger. That’s why she turned to you in Gerbeaud’s. But—what? And she was turning to me—at midnight.” He pounded his fist on the table. “But they killed her first.”

  “Who?” I pleaded. “Who?”

  Winifred spoke in a soft voice. “You must have given this some thought, Mr. Molnár. Who would do such a horrific thing?”

  He ran his finger around the rim of his goblet. His voice became a whisper. “I believe it was an order from Vienna. From Franz Josef’s court.”

  “The countess?”

  “Lord no. She is a woman who values title but she covets money more. American money makes her dizzy with delight.”

  “But…”

  Endre’s face got red as he slammed his fist down on the table. “There are forces in Vienna that frowned publicly on the union.” An unhappy smile. “Your Mr. Gibbon thinks along the same lines, you know. He blames Vienna for everything, including the bad weather.” A long pause. “And some behind closed doors, I’m sure. I think…maybe…some insider, like the evil madman Count Conrad of Hotzendorf who calls for war with Serbia every day…maybe he sent someone to assassinate. Him—or another insider. I’m convinced Vienna is somehow behind this.

  “Count Conrad despises Archduke Franz Ferdinand—not only because the archduke balks at war but because he married below his station. Unforgivable. Killing Cassandra was another way to avoid scandal in the future. The Habsburgs are not so generous with their titles as the British are. The English run to America, hands open, coats of arms offered as gifts.” Endre glanced at Winifred, momentarily unsure of his words, but she nodded at him, agreeing. “What could the royal court do with such a marriage?”

  “But you have no proof.”

  “Of course not,” he whispered. “And spies are probably listening to me right now as I talk to you.” His eyes swept the room. A sly smile. “Even such an obvious one like István Nagy.” Then he stopped. “But now the matter is over. A convenient marriage, truly, but frowned upon.”

  Raised voices came from the lobby. A quick burst of drunken laughter, a girlish laugh. As we watched, Zsuzsa Kós poked her head into the café, then stumbled in. Harold Gibbon was with her, his gentlemanly hand tucked protectively under her elbow. His eyes got wide when he spotted the three of us, but he never stopped moving, leading a tottering Zsuzsa to a table by the kitchen. Endre’s look alarmed me—utter dislike, a seething anger. Winifred was nodding toward Harold and said under her breath, “Astonishing, that hack. There is nothing that sap will not do for a story.”

  Harold’s speech was slurred, bubbly. They’d been drinking, which explained their raucous chatter as they walked in. He babbled stupidly at the woman, waiting for her to say something, then gushing his response. An embarrassing display, I considered, and dangerous. He was playing some questionable game. I was certain of it. The fact that he consciously ignored the three of us in the nearly empty café, turned away from us as he ordered wine, underscored his deadly cat-and-mouse play. What was the man up to?

  Zsuzsa laughed at something Harold whispered to her and looked in our direction, a coquette’s look, her hands fluttering in the air. Catching my judgmental eye, she laughed harder. Her hand stroked Harold’s forearm, lingered there. Harold leaned into her, sputtered some inanity into her neck.

  Their conversation was a curious mix of English and German. What fragments I gleaned stunned me: Harold was drilling her about Cassandra’s last days. Despite his blatant flirtation, he managed to lace his words with pointed questions.

  “Tell me what she said. What do you think of Mrs. Pelham?” Zsuzsa mouthed her dislike. “How did Mrs. Blaine first approach you? Or did the countess request your…your introduction?” Harold, pouring wine from the bottle a waiter served, raised his voice and finally glanced at us. A conspiratorial wink. See me at my craft? Watch and learn, dear ladies. “What did you think of the countess? Of the count? What did they say to you?”

  I signaled to Winifred. “Let’s leave.”

  But Winifred was fascinated by Harold’s cruel interrogation.

  Zsuzsa, flattered by the attention from the young man, fluttered. “They all blame me,” her voice breaking at the edges.

  “But why?” Harold probed.

  “Them. All of them. I talked to people in Vienna. A few letters posted—old friends at court who still talked to me. Mrs. Blaine talked to me.”

  “Did they pay you?” Abrupt, in her face.

  A long pause. “Of course,” in English. Then, through clenched teeth, a barrage of teary German. “How else can I live on in this fleabag hotel? The pittance of old men who remember me. Exiled from Vienna, a career shattered by gossip and innuendo. A wild girl from a Gypsy camp—that’s what they said about me. Mocked, laughed at.” Her voice cracked.

  Harold patted her hand. “Who would do that?”

  She eyed him suspiciously, tilting her head. A maddened woman’s brief flicker of sanity. She looked scared. Am I being made fun of?

  “You take advantage of a foolish woman, Mr. Gibbon.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You are a reporter.”

  “But I’m an honest man, Zsuzsa dear.”

  “No men are honest unless they are forced to be.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know the way I’ve been treated.”

  “No, no,” he said. “Your voice tells stories. When you sing…”

  Then, to my astonishment, she stood, wobbled, gripped the edge of the table, and croaked out a fragmented song in broken English. What I heard was:

  The Gypsy girl has eyes so black

  Her hair is dark as night

  She dances on the river bank

  Until the morning light.

  At the end, falling back into her seat, she waited.

  Harold wore the sheepish look of someone not understanding what has just happened.

  “Well?” she cried.

  “I don’t…”

  She clapped for herself, feebly, and then she sobbed. Confused, Harold grabbed her hand and held it tightly. Looking into his face, she whimpered like a forlorn child. “Take me out of here.”

  “Zsuzsa, I wanted to ask you…something you said earlier…reminded me…so…”

  He got no further. “You know, I never wanted to do it! I hated that girl. That Cassandra. She made fun of me. ‘You tired old carnival act.’ That’s what she said. ‘You old hag in a ripped gown.’ I hated her.”

  Endre, bristling, stood up, but I put a hand on his arm. He sank back into his chair.

  Nervous now, Harold mumbled something about leaving. “It’s just that I was wondering…”

  I shook my head. The dreadful journalist, unrelenting. A nose for trouble, that one. But I wondered about Zsuzsa’s story. What part had she played in this sad tale?

  What was Harold hinting at?

  At that moment Bertalan Pór and Lajos Tihanyi walked in, paused at the threshold, eyes riveted on Zsuzsa, who was rocking back and forth at her table, hands flailing. Alarmed at the loud weeping in the empty café, Bertalan Pór nudged his friend. Lajos, the gesture communicated, let’s leave now. Catching Pór’s eye, I waved them to our table, though they hesitated, Lajos Tihanyi stepped back toward the lobby and pulled on
his friend’s sleeve.

  Spotting the artists, Zsuzsa screamed at them. “Those two. They stare at me—at us—spies eating into our souls. You think I don’t see their childish cartoons. They draw us as circus freaks. Ghouls, vampires. Their sketches make the world look like the bottom of hell.”

  Harold tried to quiet her but she shrugged him off.

  Frozen in the doorway, the two artists watched as she came toward them. Staggering, she brushed against a nervous Tihanyi. Harold trailed after her and avoided looking at us.

  Winifred spoke in a whisper. “That man has sold his soul to the devil.”

  “Yes, and at the moment it seems Satan has dyed straw hair and a face blotchy with soggy pancake cream.”

  Zsuzsa looked into Bertalan Pór’s face. “Vultures,” she mumbled. Her fingers tapped Pór in the chest. “Maggots on the carcass of the empire.”

  His face animated, Tihanyi was looking at us, so he missed her bitter words, but Pór flicked his head back, puzzled, and opened his mouth to say something. Nothing came out. Then Zsuzsa and Harold disappeared into the lobby, though Harold’s persistent voice drifted back to us. “Dear Zsuzsa, I wanted to ask you…You said…”

  Silence.

  The two artists walked toward us and stood by our table.

  Endre was fidgeting in his chair, his face crimson and his shoulders hunched up. It frightened me. He ignored the two artists who were looking at each other, Tihanyi mouthing some inarticulate syllables that suggested he was confused by what had just happened.

  “Mr. Molnár,” I began, “don’t let that woman…” But I got no further.

  Smoldering, he stood up, towering over our table. “That woman, that—Because of her meddling…She was the one who started all this…this tragedy…for a gold coin and a bottle of whiskey…A king’s slave…” Seething, he caught my eye, bending his body so that his face stared into mine, his voice now a lethal whisper. “You know, I hated the count. That pompous ass, smug…There were times I wanted to kill him.” He banged the table. “He should be dead, that man. Not Cassandra. There were nights I imagined a knife in his throat.” He stopped abruptly, his words soft, swallowed. “The wrong person died.” He heaved a sigh. “When Cassandra said yes to that monster, she asked for her own death.”

  He fled the room.

  Shocked, we sat there silently, shaken, no one looking up.

  Tihanyi pulled his satchel onto his lap. His friend gently touched him on the shoulder, a calming gesture I’d seen before. His eyes glancing toward the disappeared Endre, Tihanyi reached into his bag and withdrew a drawing. His fingers caressed it lovingly, protectively. Then, a whistling sound coming from the back of his throat, he slid it across the table until it rested before me. He tapped it—Look, look. It was a sketch of Cassandra, the look on her face captured at her most troubled. The facial features were contorted, exaggerated, ugly. No longer the pretty American girl, winsome and golden. Rather, here was a pettish girl, mean, hard. I’d seen that moment in her, and I didn’t like it. Of course, I’d also seen the look that pleaded help me. But this drawing was haunting, twisted.

  Then, taking it back quickly, Tihanyi slid another drawing across the table. This one was of Harold Gibbon. I hadn’t expected that. Here was the reporter depicted at his most deadly, the ferret eyes, his beaked nose, the quivering moustache, the jutting chin. Unattractive, but largely true to the hungry man on the prowl, the reporter who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I yelped, a foolish sound, so graphic was the stark depiction. My face tightened. Tihanyi made a guttural sound, unpleasant, and when I looked at him he looked angry, as though I’d insulted him. He drew his lips into a straight line, disapproving, and his hands shook. In German, facing Tihanyi so he could read my lips, I said slowly, “You have captured the soul of the man, sir. The face you draw somehow looks like his hail-on-a-tin-roof voice.” Bertalan Pór laughed. Tihanyi‘s eyes flashed.

  Tihanyi jotted something down on his pad and slipped it to Pór, who contemplated the Hungarian sentence. Finally he looked into my face.

  “What?” I asked.

  He quoted Tihanyi. “‘I see what you hear.’”

  Chapter Eleven

  Seven a.m., still groggy from a restless night, I planned to gather Winifred, a woman who insisted she was up for battle at four a.m., and the two of us would have breakfast and then head to Margaret Island to wander the blue-velvet lawns in the rose garden, perhaps a mud bath at a hot springs spa, a luncheon of fresh-baked rye bread slathered with thick sour cream. A paprika salad with mocha coffee. A long day planned, away from murder and Harold Gibbon slinking around our lives.

  Stepping off the landing onto Winifred’s floor, I stopped, backed into the door, and hoped I’d become invisible. That voice. Harold’s foggy voice compelled me to step back. Harold was standing in a doorway leaning into the doorjamb, whispering, laughing lightly. A very disheveled Harold, his vest unbuttoned, hair sticking out so he looked like a rowdy Katzenjammer Kid.

  I stood there, frozen, feeling intrusive, my tiny body hopefully lost in shadows.

  Then a woman’s lazy morning voice, dragging and low, but peculiarly sensual—a vamp’s practiced intonation, somehow not real but delivered with the assumption that men expected such tantalizing timbre after an amorous night. Harold’s sweet departure, but an impatient one—out the door, get away from the moment, rush, rush. The woman’s hand reached out and gripped his arm, but he backed away. Again the goodbye, louder now. He stepped into the hallway.

  “Wait,” Zsuzsa Kós implored, in German. “Please wait.”

  For a moment she was framed in the doorway, the overhead hallway light illuminating her stark face. Drawn, pale, her blond hair uncombed and wiry. A Japanese robe with hummingbirds and bamboo reeds was wrapped around her, but it sagged, dragged on the floor.

  “Wait, my Harold.”

  Well, her Harold was not waiting. His night was over. A flick of his wrist in farewell, as though bidding adieu to an old college friend, a cavalier gesture that smacked of the new breezy American manhood—flippant Morse code, rat-a-tat farewells. The rendezvous forgotten within seconds.

  Perhaps.

  Peeved, a confused look on her face, Zsuzsa executed a feeble wave, bittersweet, and closed the door.

  Stepping lively down the hallway, an enigmatic smile on his lips, Harold Gibbon ran smack dab into me, the schoolmarm eyeing him suspiciously. All I lacked was a hickory stick and a dunce cap.

  He let out a melodramatic bark. “Waaah!” A lovely sound, barnyard and earthy.

  “Good morning, Mr. Gibbon.” My sweetest voice.

  Mouth agape, he waited, something he’d refused to do when implored by the abandoned Zsuzsa. Wait, please.

  He stammered, “Miss Ferber, what are you doing here?”

  An untoward question, I considered, given his presence in the aging songbird’s rooms.

  “Mr. Gibbon.” I walked toward him.

  “Miss Ferber.” He was nodding like a caged bird.

  “Working so early in the morning?”

  A thin, raffish smile. He looked over my shoulder toward the landing. “Well,” he said, “I am always the consummate journalist.”

  “A credit to your profession,” I remarked, striding past him, then turning to watch.

  He skedaddled down the hallway. I swear I heard him laugh out loud as he bounded down the staircase.

  Of course, within the hour, as Winifred and I sat in the café having coffee and poppy seed rolls, Harold rushed in, promptly insinuated himself at our table without an invitation and, ignoring me, addressed Winifred. “Don’t believe a thing Miss Ferber has told you.”

  Winifred eyed him sternly. “Edna does not lie.”

  “She may not fully understand…”

  I smiled. “You are such a man of the world, sir.”

  Winifred we
nt on. “The news of the day suggests there is no bottom you will not search for, Mr. Gibbon.”

  He reached for a roll in the basket on the table, crumbled it between his fingers and chewed on a piece, swallowing loudly. “Let me explain. Nothing is ever as it looks.”

  “Of course it is,” I insisted. “That’s the pleasure of discovering a two-bit Casanova in the middle of an indiscretion.”

  He bit his lip. “It wasn’t the middle, I’m afraid. But the unfortunate conclusion.”

  I held up my hand. “Mr. Gibbon, a little restraint, please.” I smiled. “I’d rather not know of your nighttime roaming, sir.”

  He leaned in. “It’s like this…You see…”

  “Nothing will stop him,” Winifred said to me, throwing up her hands, a twinkle in her eye. “Social decorum easily dismissed, and two proper Victorian ladies are treated to one man’s idea of titillation.”

  He raised his voice, ignoring her. “It’s like this. Listen. You gotta hear me out. Hearst wants a series of articles on the Cassandra Blaine murder, especially with the Habsburg angle. Everything else has been put on hold. My Decline and Fall has to wait.”

  “Which necessitated you sharing room with an aging cabaret singer?”

  He wore a hurt look. “Zsuzsa, it turns out, talks too much when she’s a little tipsy. And she’s…well, a bit of madness is seeping in these days. Well, you’ve seen her in here in that woeful state—her boisterous singing, yelling, conversation A real charmer.”

  “You obviously find her so,” I said wryly.

  “She can give me secret information. Great stuff. It turns out she knows all sorts of clandestine Habsburg scandal and nasty gossip and…and international rumor. She’s a goldmine. Pure gold.”

  “I realized that when I first saw her shrill yellow hair.”

  He waited a bit, eyes unblinking. “Now you’re being cruel. I expected a little more decency from you, Miss Ferber. She’s a lonely, sad woman, abandoned. Do you realize that János Szabó, an old admirer who’s a retired Hungarian vintner, himself without much, pays her hotel bill? Such an act of kindness. You’ve seen him in here. But she has little else—no money really. He hands her crowns.”