Triptych

by Margit Liesche

  The detective gave the reopened investigation a few more weeks before traveling all the way from the city to meet with my father. It was a hot July afternoon. My father invited him into his study, and I hid in the juniper bushes outside the open windows and listened. The new leads had taken him nowhere, the detective told my father. He had brought the rose gold heart-shaped locket that was clutched in her hand when she died. No one could say who it belonged to—it wasn’t my mother’s; she wore jade or amber exclusively—and the photo of the unknown little girl inside had deepened the mystery.

  “It’s yours now,” the detective told my father. His unit had done all they could. The case was officially closed.

  Chapter Four

  Chicago, 1966

  The day after the inspector’s visit, I hopped the El into Chicago. Mariska Turoczy, or Auntie Mariska, as she insisted I call her, was owner of a bookstore called Duna Utca, Danube Street, and my mother’s best friend.

  I shoved open the front door. Tiny brass bells on the interior knob jingled. Inside, the main part of the store, defined by dark, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, was cramped and musty. Books…holy vessels for words and ideas painstakingly transcribed to the page by writers and scholars, articulating an endless universe of experiences and dreams. I felt immediately safe among them. Welcome. Smart. As if by merely being in the midst of such abundance, I was infused with wisdom.

  Duna Utca was hallowed ground for another reason. In back, the central part of the store opened into a wide, bowed space used as a reading room and casual café. My mother and I had spent hours and hours there, she and Mariska sipping black coffee while I, depending on the season, slurped either hot chocolate or a chocolate coke. They spoke in Hungarian. I couldn’t speak the language, but could understand it, which was fine. Mostly what they were talking about didn’t interest me. One of the regulars—tipsy Tibor or zany Zoltan or zazzling Zsófi Ittzés, Mariska’s longtime business partner—was usually nearby, ready for a competitive round of Chinese checkers. Duna Utca carried foreign newspapers, books, and magazines. There were English translations, but not many. Often I simply curled up in a corner, burrowing into one of the Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys adventures Auntie Mariska kept hidden away, just for me.

  I had always felt more at peace sprawled on the floor reading among the stacks at Duna Utca than I did sitting on the hard, unforgiving pews at a service in my father’s church. But on this particular visit I was not expecting to find peace. I expected to find answers. The day before, after the detective left our house, I’d discreetly followed my father and saw him put the locket in his top dresser drawer. This morning, it was in my jeans pocket. Its smooth round surface, pressing against my thigh, felt suddenly hot, like molten metal. If it was true that my mother was shoved in front of the speeding train, the person who did it had a reason. Who would have wanted to kill my mother? Why?

  Before my mother left home that fateful morning, she had said to me, “I must go see Mariska.” She was my only clue.

  Auntie Mariska, a full-figured, sturdy woman with short, wavy white hair, stood near the cash register, her elbows propped on the counter, absorbed in a newspaper spread open before her. My stomach fluttered. I had not seen Mariska during the year since my mother’s funeral. She’d tried to visit—asked me to visit—but I’d put her off. Initially, the sting of grief paralyzed me. I had no desire to do anything, see anyone. Later, I did not think I could bear the memories that would be stirred up in being with my mother’s dearest friend. But now, seeing her, I was reminded of the tenderness Mariska had shown me over the years, and I realized how much I had missed her. While I was afraid of what might come up, I needed to know. What terrified me might also free me.

  Mariska looked up as I approached the scarred wooden counter. Her hands flew to her cheeks. “Ildikó!” she cried, tearing around to my side, crushing me in her arms.

  She pushed back, holding me at arm’s length, looking me over. Mariska was my mother’s age, the age she would be if she were alive, fifty-six, but had always seemed older to me, maybe because of the house dresses. A bit of white slip lace protruded from the neckline of today’s paisley print.

  Her face was pleasantly round and at the moment her skin was flushed, the rosy color setting off sapphire eyes, alive with pure joy. The liveliness faded. “I have not seen you since the funeral. You are looking better.” Vigorously, she rubbed my arm, up and down. “Thin, but better. Nagyon jo. This is good.”

  “I’m happy to see you again too,” I said smiling. “Happy to be here—”

  My gaze swept the room. Opaque school lamps strung along the ceiling were nearly always turned on to give the deep, narrow space a cozy ambience. Today was no exception though it was early, just ten a.m. Across the room, an arched doorway led to an annex lined with more books. In the aisle near the arch, Zsófi was straightening a shelf. Zsófi was younger than Mariska, around thirty, and it was her thick cascade of wiry auburn hair I noticed first. Not so obvious was her figure, which was concealed in flowing slacks and a Gypsy blouse, its high collar buttoned above an embroidered vest. She slipped a book into place on the shelf below, her thin gold bracelets clattering with the movement.

  The sound drew my eye to a series of faded round indentations above the wrist of Zsófi’s cupped right hand. Mariska and Zsófi left Hungary together in 1956. The circular scars were the result of torture—lighted cigarettes—Mariska had once confided when I’d pressed her about what happened. Zsófi’s misshapen hand? Blows from a rubber baton. Mariska would say no more. As it was, she’d revealed what she revealed reluctantly, asking me to promise not to bring it up with Zsófi. “The hurt is too deep.”

  “Zsófi!” I called.

  Zsófi turned and her brown eyes, chocolate discs, tender like a puppy’s, widened. The book she’d been holding dropped. We ignored it and exchanged a warm hug.

  Like Mariska, Zsófi commented on my improved appearance. “And your papa? How is he getting along? Better also?”

  Too late she realized her mistake. My father was not doing well. My expression, my shoulders, caved and Zsófi’s face filled with concern.

  When my mother died, something in my father died with her. He was little more than a robot, moving through his duties. The image of his gaunt figure kneeling in devotion in this or that corner of the parsonage at all hours of the day and night, haunted me. He found peace in prayer, he assured everyone, including my four siblings, none of whom lived near us any longer. They’d come for the funeral, of course, and my sister, Helen, had stayed on for a week afterward, but then they’d all returned to their busy careers and lives.

  We were not forgotten, though. After the funeral, Helen orchestrated a schedule and they still took turns checking in with us regularly by phone. “Don’t worry,” they assured me, “it’ll take time. He’s strong. Has God on his side. He’ll be fine.”

  I was not so sure.

  The injuries to my mother were so extensive that the casket had been closed. A year ago, the palm of my hand pressed against its solid brushed-metal surface, I had stroked and stroked, willing the friction I created to penetrate, carrying with it my thoughts.

  “I promised I’d be here for you always. Now I’m here…you’re not. It’s my fault. I should have gone. I would have seen what happened. No…it wouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry, I miss you so much, I want you to come back. To the parsonage, to your American home, to me.”

  But the chill remained on the walk out of the church, on the drive to the cemetery, during the hushed graveside prayers offered by a colleague of my father’s. My father’s grief was so great he was incapable of even speaking. When the casket was lowered into the freshly dug grave, he leaned down, took a handful of earth, dropped it on the casket. A whispered, “Viszontlàtàsra”—goodbye—then he dabbed his cheeks with a handkerchief and turned to leave. My siblings, a few church members and friends, all of them sobbing, followed. Bu
t I didn’t cry. In the mix of the flower arrangements at the church were calla lilies, the flowers my mother had carried so long ago, so far away, at her wedding. Before leaving the church, I’d taken one of the white trumpet flowers from a spray. She would like to take one with her, I’d reasoned, intending to place it on the casket before it was lowered into the earth. But I found comfort in the bloom. I could not let it go.

  The lily was still in my hand when we got back to the house. There was a Hungarian vase in the china cabinet. I took it to my room, set it on a bureau, centering the lily between my parents’ wedding photograph and a favorite picture of Mother and me. The photo had been snapped before one of our shopping excursions into the city. In it, we stood side by side in coats and hats, the long strap of a shoulder purse slung across my chest, my mother’s handbag locked in the crook of her arm.

  I had left the cemetery without saying goodbye to my mother. Now I began holding nightly rituals to bring her back. “Make her come back,” I would bargain with God, “and I’ll never mock the way she speaks again. I’ll help her in the kitchen, go with her to the city, go to church every Sunday, visit the old people’s home, do every good thing You dream up. Promise.” God didn’t answer. Then, in a small miracle, inside a drawer, I found the embroidery piece I’d designed so long ago. I held the soft fabric, admiring the horizontal line of pastel daisies. Something about the spontaneity of the design and my mother’s meticulous needlework brought a lump to my throat. I pressed the cloth to my cheek.

  Then finally the tears.

  I began picking up where I left off.

  At first, I naively believed I was done crying but fresh outbursts would overcome me at unexpected times. In the classroom, at a caring glance from a friend’s mother, a whiff of perfume, the whistle of a train.

  But if the anguish I carry with me felt sometimes overwhelming, my father’s grief was even greater. The sadness and guilt I sensed in his presence so gnawed at me, I learned to keep my distance. It was this anguish which Zsófi, standing silently beside me in Duna Utca, must have seen reflected in my expression.

  Mariska spoke. “But tell us, darling Ildikó, why you have come to visit today.”

  My hand slipped into my pocket. I clutched the locket. “I’ve come to talk about my mother. Something I need to ask…”

  There was a jingling of bells. Mariska turned to see who had entered the store. Her mouth stretched into a smile.

  Zsófi returned to shelving and I trailed Mariska, walking with her arms outstretched, back to the counter. There, a young woman, smiling broadly, awaited her embrace.

  Mariska released her visitor. She was trim like me, but slightly taller and a few years older, about twenty. She wore casual clothing, bell-bottom pants and a gauzy denim-blue shirt.

  “Ildikó, please greet Eva Fekete. Eva lives around the corner, above the market, with the Bankutis.” Unable to contain her exuberance, Aunt Mariska made a clucking sound. “Eva, you have heard me speak of Ildikó Palmay. This is she.”

  The Bankutis were proprietors of the neighborhood grocery store, M&G Market. Many whispered discussions between my mother and Mariska had been dedicated to the misfortune of the couple’s inability to conceive children. “It is cruel,” they had repeatedly concluded. “Magda would be nagyon jò anya, a very good mother.”

  I wondered where Eva fit in at the Bankutis household—from Mariska’s effusive greeting, I presumed she’d been there for a while—but other matters were more pressing.

  “Like you, Eva loves books,” Mariska was saying.

  We smiled at one another. Eva’s last name matched the color of her curly cap of hair. Fekete is the Hungarian word for black. Her eyes were so dark, they looked nearly black too.

  “Eva is artist,” Mariska continued, her enthusiasm uncontainable. “Studying at famous Chicago Art Institute. Sculpting, yes, Eva?”

  Eva nodded. She seemed uncomfortable with all the attention, but Mariska plowed on. “You will soon be apprentice in Italy—”

  “My year abroad, yes. I’m lucky…and excited.” With a reserved smile, Eva tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I just popped over for my copy of Magyarorszag. Nice to meet you.”

  Eva’s choice of reading material suggested she was Hungarian, but unlike Auntie Mariska’s and Zsófi’s heavy accents, Eva’s was very slight, barely detectable.

  “The delivery only just arrived.” Auntie Mariska waved her hand vaguely toward a spot behind the counter. A stack of Magyarorszags, still bundled, was there. “Zsófi,” she called over her shoulder, “will you kindly come to help Eva?”

  Mariska’s hand intertwined with mine. “Come.” She led me to the nook at the rear of the shop.

  At the threshold, I sighed. “Just like I remember,” I said.

  Several small tables circled with chairs were scattered about the room; one long table in the center. I smiled at the sight of the familiar needlepoint cushions, each in a different pattern, on the seats. Directly opposite us, double-hung windows let in natural light and afforded a view of the grassy backyard hemmed with blooming rose bushes. It was a typically warm mid-July morning and the windows were wide open.

  A cart with a coffee maker, an electric kettle, and an assortment of mugs, stood against the wall to our left. A miniature Amana refrigerator flanked the cart. Inside were milk, sodas and, in the days when I had practically lived on the stuff, a teddy bear-shaped squeeze bottle of Bosco chocolate sauce.

  Mariska opened the refrigerator and removed a bottle of Coca-Cola.

  “Auntie Mariska,” I said laughing as a container of Bosco emerged next. She squeezed the bear’s belly and a stream of chocolate trickled down the pillar of ice cubes she’d popped from a tray and stacked in a tall glass. Cola fizzled gushing down over the ice. She poured coffee into a mug and carried our drinks to the table I’d selected near one of the windows.

  She folded into the chair opposite me. “Now talk. Tell me why you are here.”

  My stomach fluttered once again. My palm over the heart in my pocket, pressing into it, I began. “Early that morning…the day my mother di-di—” The memory was still raw. Like a needle on a badly scratched phonograph record, my words skipped, refusing to catch. At a sudden whiff of 4711, I no longer bothered to try. I pulled air deep into my nostrils. Was Mariska wearing the cologne?

  The scent was gone. Mariska was staring. I jumped forward a little, tried again. “S-she came into my room. I was half-awake, dreaming, but I heard what she said. She told me she was coming to see you.”

  I did not add that my mother had invited me to join her. Surely the accident—the killing—would never have happened if I had gone along. I wanted to tell Auntie Mariska how sorry I was that I didn’t, but I did not think I could live with the reproachful look I would see in her eyes—in other peoples’ eyes—once the truth was out. It was bad enough having to look in the mirror.

  Mariska rotated her mug between the palms of her hands. She seemed disturbed with what she saw, or didn’t see, inside the cup.

  “What was so important that she had to come into the city the day after she returned from her trip to Hungary?” I asked more forcefully than I intended.

  She sighed. “Your mother did not come here that day. I am sorry. The policeman who visit me right after—the same one who stopped in again the other day—also thought I could help. But I cannot. You remember it was a Saturday morning? Zsófi and I were invited to a wedding. In Milwaukee.” She looked in the direction of the main part of the store, toward Zsófi. “I close the shop.”

  “If she didn’t come here, then where did my mother go?”

  I removed the heart locket, its etched rose gold surface worn nearly smooth with time.

  Mariska was familiar with it. “The detective, he show this to me when he visits.” With her fingernail, she pried it open and stared at the portrait inside. A sepia-toned image of a girl, ab
out eight years old, with dark hair cut in a Dutch-boy bob. It was tiny and Mariska squinted then shook her head. “That strong chin, determined gaze…a child of unusual character, I am thinking. But again, just like I tell to him, I am very sorry.” Taking my hand, opening my palm, she folded the locket inside. “I do not know this little girl.

  “There is something I must give you.” She stood, smiling down at me. “It is as if meant to be. Just last night, the detective’s latest visit it stirred up a dream. I remember a box of things we pack up when we shift the store around, soon after your mother’s passing. Today I was going to telephone. But like I say, perfect coincidence. You are here.”

  Disappearing into the main part of the store, she was back again within moments. At the long table, she ceremoniously unfurled a large rectangle of taupe-colored linen, smoothing it on the table’s surface. “Your mother she was making this specially for you. A surprise. She worked on it here in the months before her death.”

  While I was too busy with friends.

  I gaped at the piece, tears welling up. A collage of three scenes from the Twelve Dancing Princesses. She knew me. At least she knew me when I was a little girl.

  I blinked, realizing that I’d seen only what I wanted to see. The embroidered work played off a general sense of the story, but this was a completely unique rendering. The illustrations in my childhood storybook resembled lush pastel Rembrandt paintings. My mother’s triptych interpretation was bold, more primitive Gauguin. The standout difference was in the number of princesses. My mother’s rendering showcased just two.

  Even without the other ten sisters, the triptych represented a great deal of work, and I admired her creativity. She’d taken the bones of the traditional story, simplified it into three acts and whittled down the cast. But why these scenes?