Triptych

by Margit Liesche

  Loose spirals of pasta mingle with orange carrot splinters, tiny shamrock colored peas, shreds of white tuna, and flecks of dill weed atop a bed of curled, leafy greens. The blend is delicious.

  “More compliments to the chef.” I raise my glass.

  I try to imagine growing up always on guard about how to present yourself in this scenario or that, constantly checking what you say. To live in constant fear, to witness your friends, your family, suffer, die, at the hands of such a system. I wonder about the damage such an existence must do to a man’s character, to his soul.

  The last line of “The Winner Takes It All” fades. Magic.

  “To create this,” I say, pointing with my fork to the entrée, then arching the tines through the air in a broad gesture encompassing our surroundings. “To have a successful career, and now, to be enjoying artistic expression in a form that not only gives you deep satisfaction, but is also a gift to others.” I hesitate. “Has all this helped? Or is the horror still with you? You say don’t dwell on the past, but you have mementos. How does this work? What do you do? Compartmentalize?”

  Too late I see the hurt in his eyes. “I’m sorry. These are things I struggle with. Try to unravel.”

  Gustav’s words, as he begins, are measured. “The past it can consume you, rob you of your happiness. I have seen others become bitter or, worse, go nuts. I cannot—will not—let this happen. And lucky I am. My photography, it gives me an escape. Now as it did when I was young.”

  “Akarsz jonni? Would you like to go with me?” The echo of my mother’s last words…

  I want to reach across the table, touch his hand. Beg him to take me down the rabbit hole with him, help me to close the door to my own past.

  My hands remain folded in my lap.

  “Ildikó,” he says coming around to my side of the table. “What is it?”

  At first I don’t grasp his concern. Then I feel the tear rolling down my cheek, and another. A handkerchief appears in Gustav’s hand. He dabs away the dampness.

  “We’ve been talking all about me. What are you running from?”

  I shake my head. “Not now.”

  A gap follows. ABBA intercedes. “I Have a Dream.”

  “Dance?” Gustav holds out his hand. I take it and we walk to the center of the room. His arm circles me, presses me close. Our hands meet, fingers entwine.

  Across the room, the threads of Gustav’s abstract textile piece cast gentle shadows like a spider’s web in the softly lit room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tibor’s smile is hesitant, capped teeth vivid against his haggard expression. He is wearing the usual short-sleeve white shirt, but in all the time I’ve known Tibor, I’ve never seen him in anything but a pristine shirt. Today’s is marred with straw-colored splotches.

  He reaches the counter. “And how is Mariska?” he asks.

  “She’s fine,” I say brightly. “Just back from a doctor’s appointment.” I give a thumbs up. “Clean bill of health. Another day or two of rest, and she’ll be here, behind the counter, manning the ship again—on a reduced schedule for a while, of course.”

  Tiny beads of perspiration have formed at Tibor’s temple. He wipes them with a finger. “Good. This is good.” His eyes shift. He seems nervous. “And Zsófi? Is she with Mariska?”

  “Zsófi took Mariska to the doctor. They’re upstairs, having lunch.” I check the wall clock. “Should be down any minute. Would you like to wait?”

  He nods politely.

  I remember that he, too, has connections to Kati. In 1957, Tibor brought my mother the disturbing news about her twin’s unknown fate. In succeeding years, on our shopping trips into the city, my mother and I would sometimes see him here at Duna Utca. He had developed a drinking problem. He was the kind of drunk who got merry, and I dreamed up a jolly nickname, Tipsy Tibor. His friendships did not seem to suffer although he never married and did lose his job. After this, we did not see him for a long while. And when he reappeared, he had quit drinking altogether, joined AA. These days, in addition to his janitorial responsibilities, he reaches out to alcoholics and others down on their luck.

  At the moment, Tibor does not know what to do next. His gnarled fingers drum the counter’s surface and his shoulders shift up and down. He is clearly agitated.

  “Tibor, is something wrong?” Subtly, I bend forward, inhale, fearful I’ll detect the smell of alcohol.

  He sighs. Liverwurst.

  “I have something I must tell her. Something you must also know.”

  Zsófi emerges from the stairwell. Her dark eyes light up. “Tibor!”

  She strides to the counter, ruby drop earrings swaying, and wraps her arms around him. The collection of thin bracelets at her wrist rattles.

  “Tibor has news,” I say.

  Tibor wastes no time. His open palm glides over the thinning swath of graying hair. “Zsófi, it is too incredible,” he says, speaking Hungarian. “Horrible, perhaps. A man, thin, unshaven, limping, completely worn out—like he has walked here from Siberia—arrived at the church this morning. ‘I want confess,’ he tells me. He is speaking Magyar. Has come to our church because he heard we have a Hungarian priest. I explain this is not possible. The priest is away for two weeks on a family emergency, and we are doing a big restoration now also. ‘See,’ I tell him. Workers all around us are painting and scraping, but the man does not seem to notice or care. It is like I said, he has traveled a terrible distance and is completely numb, cannot move his feet to take another step.

  “I take him to the wash room, help him to clean up, give him my spare clothes. I ask if he would like to go to the hospital. I will take him, I say. He refuses. ‘Absolutely not,’ he says. He asks to have sanctuary for just a day or so, until he is strong again. What can I do? I take him to basement room where I have a mattress. It is where I rest or sometimes sleep at night during festivals. I have brought lunch, liverwurst sandwiches. I share it with the poor man. It is like he has not eaten for days.

  “I ask him his name. ‘Marko, Arpad.’ ‘Where do you come from, Arpad?’ I ask.

  “‘Budapest,’ he replies. This surprises me. ‘Today?’ I ask. He looks at me like I am drunk. It is he who has been drinking. I smell it. Also I think maybe his mind has gone muddled with aging. I ask how old he is. Sixty-six. Another surprise. He looks much older.

  “He is carrying a small prayer book. Did not put it down even while washing up. We go to my small room. I have an idea. ‘You have been through a rough time,’ I say. ‘’56? Is that when you come here?’

  “He ignores my questions. All at once, something about him seems familiar. I have another bad feeling. I say, ‘Since the priest is not here, maybe you would like me to hear your confession?’ The man is far gone, but not so far as to fall for this. He is weak He looks at me, his eyes roll back, he passes out.

  “I watch him sleeping for awhile. What is it that is familiar, I ask myself? Then, I cannot resist. The prayer book is in his hand, but his grip is loose. I slip it gently free. Inside is a name. Kocsis, Attila.”

  Zsófi’s breath catches. My gaze whips to her. She is ashen.

  “Who is Attila Kocsis?”

  Tibor waves my question away. “Inside the prayer book, there is also a photo—faded. It is of a woman, sickly, wasted, but there can be no mistake. I know this woman. It is Kati.”

  Zsófi grabs the counter, takes a deep breath.

  “Who is Attila Kocsis?” I repeat. “I heard a rumor. Kati was a collaborator. Is it true?”

  Zsófi looks at me. “Nem. Never.”

  Tibor’s bushy brows knit. He switches to broken English. “You remember when your mother goes home to Hungary in 1961?” I nod. “The truth of what happen to Kati it was revealed to her then.

  “She learned that on the eve of the uprising your grandparents, your Aunt Rózsa and her husband, Oszkár,
they are home, in the flat. They hear terrible groan of the elevator coming. This, it is what they fear most, this sound at night. The clanking noise gets louder, until finally it stop at their floor. There is knock on the door. You can imagine no one want to answer it. The knocking does not stop. It is the AVO. They come inside, take Kati while Rózsa, your grandparents, guns on them, stand by helpless. As they leave, the soldiers warn, ‘Do not talk about this or you will never see her again.’ Well, they not talk for a long, long time. Still, Kati they never see again.”

  I watch Tibor, thinking this was one of the scenarios he and my mother had considered back in ’57. Yet when she returned from that first trip to Hungary, in ‘61, it was like a cloud of despair enveloped her. Why her lingering anguish? Had the family revealed something else? Something to do with the rumors? Perhaps they knew them to be true? Yes, the AVO took her, but that did not necessarily prove she wasn’t collaborating. What if Kati was AVO? What if they decided they needed to plant her somewhere more useful than in a classroom? “Taking her” was part of maintaining her cover.

  “Why did the AVO take Kati?” I ask.

  Tibor and Zsófi do not respond, but I read the dull look in their eyes. The AVO did not need a reason.

  “What happen to Kati,” Tibor says softly, “is not known.”

  My frustration grows. Like them, I want to believe in my aunt’s innocence. Wasn’t it possible that the AVO took Kati, actually threw her in prison, but then she escaped? Was set free by rebels, like Tibor? What if, then, she decided not to go home again? Maybe went to, say, Argentina.

  Either way, the rumors about Kati—or the reality, if her family knew them to be true—would have been devastating for the entire Katona family. Kati as a traitor reflected on everyone, and my mother had come back upset because she’d seen how they’d been living under a black cloud of shame. Was that it?

  I feel a hot surge of anger. “But you know this Attila Kocsis. What is he doing with a photograph of Kati?” Kati? Really? After thirty years? Could Tibor we mistaken?

  “Tibor…” Zsófi says. “Please.”

  Muscles near the corners of Tibor’s jaw flex. Flex again.

  “When she is stronger, you must ask her direct, but what we know about Attila Kocsis, we hear from Mariska,” he says. “Mariska, long ago, before revolution, work for Attila’s mother who managed small, Budapest restaurant. Attila work there, too, for a time, in the kitchen, before he take new job.” Tibor spits the last two words.

  He starts again and tells me that from 1961 until my mother returned to Hungary again in 1965, Mariska, Zsófi, and Tibor had had many conversations with her about Kati, and Attila’s connection to Kati.

  Kati and Attila were both sixteen when they first met in 1936. Attila was underweight, gawky, with thin brown hair, and a bad complexion. Times were very rough for everyone. Compounding things for Attila’s family, his father had lost a leg in the Great War. Physically and mentally, he never fully recovered. Mrs. Kocsis washed dishes in a restaurant, and the family barely scraped by. In school, Attila was bullied by the other boys. They beat him, called him Froggie, mocking his bulging eyes.

  Tibor’s voice softens as the focus turns to Kati. Her gift was in relating to animals. Children too, of course, but she once told Edit she felt more comfortable with cats, dogs, even birds, than she did with most people.

  Attila and Kati attended the same school, but they had never actually spoken until one day when Kati arrived at the park to feed squirrels. Attila was on a bench, playing an old mandolin. She sat and listened. She knew Attila was not accepted at school. She felt sorry for him and the normally shy Kati opened up and they talked. A friendship developed and continued into their university years, although the pair saw little of one another after Attila joined the Hungarian army in WWII.

  According to Mariska, by the time the war had ended, Kati was not seeing Attila at all. Now in his mid-twenties, he had become friendly with a Russian soldier, a fellow musician, and had joined the Communist Party.

  Food appeared regularly on the Kocsis’ table. Recently widowed Mrs. Kocsis was promoted from dishwasher to restaurant manager. Attila assisted the restaurant’s chef, occasionally entertaining the mainly Communist clientele with his music. In early ’56, when Mariska was still a waitress there, Mrs. Kocsis often bent her ear.

  Tibor says, “One evening after patrons they have left and Mrs. Kocsis she has consumed an unfinished bottle of wine, she tell Mariska—her voice full with glee—that Attila speaks often with the local party leader. Two months before, in one of the official talks, he had mentioned an acquaintance, one of the boys who used to bully him. Then, after this, nobody sees the acquaintance for long time. But Attila, he had met the former schoolmate again just that day on the street. With a sly smile Mrs. Kocsis she adds, ‘The boy, he is much subdued.’

  “Es ott van, and there it is,” Tibor finishes. “The meek Frog is now transformed into Communist Prince of Darkness. He provide the party police with several more such ‘tips.’ Some prove accurate. His standing in the party it go up.”

  Tibor’s posture is rigid, his arms tight at his sides.

  “Attila is such good Communist,” Zsófi interjects softly, “that it was not long before he is approached to be special policeman with National Defense. A border guard, under the AVO.”

  Tibor nods. “Guards like Attila go to posts on the frontier. Their assignment? Prevent enemies from entering Hungary—set mines, string barbed wire fencing, build watchtowers with searchlights, machine guns. Then, what do they discover?” Tibor laughs but the laughter is hollow. “No one is trying to come in. The problem it is with those trying to leave. The guard’s job? Shoot. Kill. Apply barbaric methods to those captured—wrench fingernails, smash rifle butts into wounds or insteps—whatever it takes to get them to betray others.”

  My gaze flicks to his hand. I think of what he’d suffered, and also of Gustav and what happened to his friends during their botched escape, and feel an icy chill.

  “Animals,” Zsófi says forcefully. “A woman’s cries they excite the beasts more.” Her voice quavers but she continues. “Attila, he comes back to Budapest. Tries contacting Kati. She is now a respected teacher. No longer a teen. Mature, in her thirties. She will not see him. She is good-hearted, kind. No true Hungarian would meet with soldier assigned now to the AVO.” A ragged sigh. “Attila. Can it be? He betrayed our Kati?”

  Tibor puts an arm around Zsófi’s shoulder, pulls her close, strokes her hair. It is only for a moment, but it is a gesture of such tenderness I can only stare in wonder. Certainly Vaclav could show emotion like this, but Tibor? He and Zsófi have never been lovers, I am sure of this.

  Releasing Zsófi, Tibor plants his hands on her shoulders, gazing directly into her eyes. “Attila, he is not long for this world. You must come with me to the church today. Now. I have had many dealings with men like him. Used up. Defeated. We must shock him, confront him with a face from his past. He will make a clean breast of what he knows about Kati.”

  Zsófi shakes her head. The loose strands of hair around her face dance wildly. “No. I cannot do this. Besides, he does not know me. It is Mariska he knows.”

  Vaclav’s long ago proclamation: “In my country, in my family, we never would allow murderer of loved one to go unpunished.”

  “I’ll go,” I say. “I want to see this man. Find out if he knows what happened to Kati. She was my aunt. It’s time to…to clear the Katona name.”

  “Of course,” Tibor say. “The justice your mother was after, it will be yours.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Outside, the heat and humidity are oppressive, but Tibor and I hit the pavement at a determined pace. My short skirt and bare-shouldered blouse are perfect for a fast-paced walk in the heat, but not for church.

  I’m not going there to worship. I’m going to get answers.

  Unlike Zsófi I have
no qualms. My mother had wanted justice. I would not fail her a second time.

  We enter the vestibule at the back of the church. The doors to the nave are propped open, the smells and sounds of the renovation permeate. I peer inside, looking for Eva. The diPietro crew is well represented, but no sight of her.

  I follow Tibor down a flight of stairs. At the bottom, we arrive in a hallway, a door at the end. We enter a small musty room. Muted light filters in from a glazed window near the ceiling.

  Tibor flips a switch beside the door. On the floor, a mattress has been shoved into the corner. The outline of a human figure, curled in fetal position, is covered by a rumpled olive-green woolen blanket.

  Tibor shakes the sleeping man by the shoulder. “Attila,” he whispers forcefully. “Wake up. Someone is here to see you.” Tibor is speaking Hungarian, but he has told me Attila also speaks English.

  The lump beneath the blanket stirs.

  My palms feel clammy. I wipe them on my skirt. “Attila Kocsis, I’ve come to talk with you about Kati Katona.”

  A large eye peers out from the edge of the blanket. “Ki vagy? Mit akarsz?” The words are Hungarian, the voice is raspy. Who is it? What do you want?

  I spot a small black book on the blanket. Gold embossed lettering on the cover, across the bottom. Edit Katona—

  “My mother’s!” I cry, reaching down to grab it.

  A hand shoots out from under the covers, beats me to it.

  I squat as the man struggles upright. He has moved the covering with him, clasping it under his chin with both hands, the book in the blanket’s folds.

  His face is pale and gaunt. Watery eyes, wide with fear, protrude from dark sunken sockets. He is unshaven, his stubbly salt-and-pepper beard nearly the same length as his crew cut hair.

  “Mine.” He’s remembered his English.

  “No. It belonged to Edit Katona. I’m her daughter.” I swallow. “Please, give it to me.” I hold out my hand, waiting.