Lilla’s daughter, Marta, she adds, did not want to meet me, a Westerner, and she had begged her mother to stay away as well. Twenty odd years earlier her father, Pastor Danhauser, had been banned to a village in the Bakony Mountains, forbidden to return to Buda. If he did, Lilla would be dismissed from her high school teaching job, Marta forbidden to continue her studies at university. In this way, Communism kept its thumb on the practice of religion. The separation of the Danhausers had two exceptions—Lilla and Marta could visit the Pastor at Christmas and Easter. The power of the regime’s threats was so great that when the Pastor was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer, he did not let his wife or daughter know.
“Pastor Danhauser died shortly before your anya’s visit. Your mother, when she met with Lilla, comforted her at a very difficult time. It is why Lilla insisted on coming today. She is sorry. We are all sorry. You have come all this way, and we cannot help.”
Lilla looks up. Our eyes meet. It is only for a second, but clearly she knows more than she is admitting.
It is disappointing, but I think about what Lilla—all of them—have been through. I understand her reluctance to confide in me.
I say, “My mother always thought of you. WWII, then ’56. All the devastation, suffering…what you were going through, so far away. She felt helpless. It broke her heart.” My voice is shaky with emotion but I continue. “She didn’t have to say it, deep inside me I’ve always known, you had to be so brave, strong, smart to survive.” My eyes are watery. I fight back the tears. “You’re…you’re my heroes.”
I had understood from the beginning that the purpose of the loud music blaring in the apartment was a precaution against clandestine ears that might be listening. Now, more sensitized by Lilla’s heart-wrenching story, I search the walls and ceiling for signs of concealed wiring before I speak again. “After all the years, after what you’ve been through, it is terrible you must still live like this,” I say in a hushed tone. “Why don’t you leave?”
“Leave?” Gyöngyi scoffs. “Impossible. If I should like to go to, say, Switzerland, I could take only a small amount of money. And should I not come back, hardship would be imposed on my loved ones.”
“Hardship?”
“Yes. Nothing so obvious, but they would not be permitted to leave the country so long as I am gone. Or perhaps Sándor would lose his job, or…” Gyöngyi halts abruptly. “We have a nice flat. I am fortunate to live here, to have a job.”
I give the room an appreciative once over. “Yes, it is very nice.” My gaze lands on the baby grand piano. It must have cost a pretty forint, and it looks brand new.
Gyöngyi sees where I am staring. “Medical doctors they are doing fairly well even in these difficult times. There is custom. Patients are often very—” She hesitates. “—very generous, especially to talented surgeons, like Oszkár. Which makes it possible to have a few luxuries.”
Oszkár goes to the radio, turns the music up another notch. Seated again, speaking with animated gestures, his voice low, he explains that while he is able to work advantageously within the system—to afford his family a few extra possessions—this does not mean he has turned a blind eye to the well-being of his fellow countrymen, and he—the country—has deeper concerns than material goods. Hungarians in all walks of life are fed up with the dictates and demands handed down to them by higher ups. There is a growing discontent with the narrow ideological and political viewpoints spoonfed to the masses over the past forty years.
While Oszkár is expounding on the political change he believes is just around the corner, Sándor shifts restlessly.
Oszkár bangs the arm of his chair with his fist. “Hungarians want to decide for themselves, choose freely, have a voice in their future once again,” he says.
Sándor gets up and crosses the room. Gyöngyi’s forehead puckers with concern.
She presses a finger to her lips, shushing Oszkár while watching Sándor step out on to the balcony. “Do you smoke?” she asks me.
“No, but I’d love to see the view. Do we have time?”
Ica has not yet emerged from the kitchen. Lilla leaves to help her. I notice Oszkár eyeing his brother outdoors. He shrugs, as if to dismiss the unspoken tension between them, and excuses himself, explaining he is in charge of drinks.
Gyöngyi and I go out on the terrace, enclosed by a waist-high curved stucco wall. Sándor, his back to us, holds a lit cigarette pinched between his thumb and fingertip. He is looking off into the distance, but hearing us, turns and acknowledges us with a nod.
I am curious about Sándor’s moody detachment.
He stubs out his cigarette in the sand-filled can near his feet and joins us, flanking Gyöngyi on the other side. He speaks to her in an undertone.
“Sándor would like Oszkár not to talk so openly,” Gyöngyi says. “Sándor—like his wife, Kati—is more, how do you say it, by the book. He is fearful of the KGB. Worried for you, for us.”
She adds that in ’56, when the Russians returned, the order was “conquer or exterminate.” Thousands of heavily armed soldiers invaded the city, supported by rocket launchers on Gellert Hill and combat jets raining bombs. Hundreds of modern tanks rolled through the streets, firing indiscriminately to strike fear into the population. Few buildings on the main boulevards escaped being torn open. Sándor himself witnessed the savagery. He was on the street near a queue of people hoping to buy bread when two Soviet tanks appeared. Everyone ran, trying to hide. Sándor slipped into a deep doorway. When he ventured out, destruction and bodies scarred the street.
“This has stayed with him,” Gyöngyi says.
Emerging through the open doorway, Lilla informs us that dinner is served. In broken Hungarian, I thank Sándor for his concern.
Sándor and Gyöngyi return indoors while I take a final fleeting glance at Váci Utca, below. Dusk is upon us and lights begin flickering up and down the charming street. Under a lamp directly across the way, stands a small man in a dark suit, the brim of his hat tilted downward, hiding his face. My personal KGB agent? Someone else’s?
Once inside, observing the heaping platters of sausage, cold cuts, cheeses, peppers, pickled cabbage, and sliced breads, decoratively arranged on the coffee table, and then being handed a glass of full-bodied Egri Bikaver, I resist stirring up the pot of smoldering KGB paranoia.
We hold our glasses in the air and toast. “Egészégedre!”
As the evening progresses and I am feeling mellow from the wine, I reiterate my wish for any help my cousins and Lilla might be able to lend regarding Anikó. While Gyöngyi translates, a random thought pierces my brain. What if Attila Kocsis had been lying? Before she can finish, I say more to myself than anyone, “Has anybody explored the possibility that Kati could still be alive?”
Chapter Twenty-six
Sándor insists on escorting me back to the hotel. There are enough people on the streets that I would have felt comfortable making the trip alone. He walks slightly behind me, head down, his hands in his pockets, signs of his unease strolling with an American.
We reach the hotel’s perimeter. “Would you like to come inside for coffee? A drink?” I ask.
Shaking his head, Sándor looks at me with a doleful expression, mutters, “No Kati.” Then, “Viszontlátásra, goodbye,” and is on his way.
The door to my hotel room has a double lock. I secure the chain, consumed by a momentary sadness. My cousins and Gyöngyi, while having created a lovely family nest, continue to live with a pervasive fear. I sigh, flip on the light, pausing to kick my shoes into the hall closet.
The room feels stuffy. I switch on the bedside lamp before going out on the balcony. At the railing, I gaze out over the Danube. On the Buda side, the palace is awash in soft golden light. A paddle steamer slides by on the river, brightly illuminated with green, red and yellow lights. People are dancing on the deck and the strains of music waltz acros
s the water as the boat continues in the direction of the Chain Bridge. The bridge’s towers and arches are also lit up, reminding me of the bejeweled passage leading to another palace, the Twilight Kingdom of my childhood storybook.
My mother’s vision of it had been different. In her triptych, the fortress was a dark foreboding block. I had never given it much thought before, but the palace was part of the wicked spell that held the princesses captive. Because my mother had digressed from the fantasy formula, I had assumed she wanted to simplify the image, had perhaps run out of time. If I was to believe Gustav, my mother understood evil only too well and chose to represent it more realistically, going so far as to insert a symbol with deep personal meaning, AVO Headquarters. Perhaps where Kati had been held? The knotted thread in the water?
I shiver and turn from the water view. Gustav. Had he arrived in Budapest by now? Would I see him while here? I shiver again, but this time the sensation is one of pleasure.
Returning indoors, I notice a crumpled wad of linen at the base of the dresser. My mother’s daisy piece? I freeze. Was someone in my room? Before I’d left, I had tucked the embroidery in among the folded clothing in the drawer. I feel a prickly sensation at the back of my neck. How had it escaped?
My heart jackhammers madly as I cross to the entry hall. The mirrored closet doors remain open from when I’d deposited my shoes inside. Directly across from the closet is the bathroom. My hand feels for the wall switch. The shower curtain is open and all appears in order. I venture a look behind the bathroom door. A towel hanging from the hook, sways. I recoil. Then nervously giggle.
I retrieve the linen swatch, relieved to see it has not been damaged. Upon her return from Hungary the first time, my mother had complained that her suitcase had been rifled through, everything left topsy-turvy. In letting her know they could access her belongings anytime, anywhere, the secret police had delivered a message. The drawer where the embroidery had been stashed slides open with ease. The interior looks untouched. An indicator there was no surreptitious visit or…evidence that the KGB’s methods have simply evolved?
Back to the closet. My two dresses and assorted tops on hangers are neatly aligned. Below, the line-up of shoes atop Irina’s empty suitcase is precise as well. I tried, but had been unable to store the oversized luggage upright. So I had laid it flat, arranging the shoes on top. I had been conscious of positioning Irina’s initials, I.M., embossed in gold, so they were readable. Now no initials are evident. Someone has been in the room. The case has been flipped.
Assuring myself the intruder was merely a nosy maid—surely if a KGB agent was still in the room he would have made himself known by now—I edge toward the one hiding place I had neglected to check, the bed. Heart pounding, I snap back the spread, warily crouching to take a look underneath the bed, thin carpet thick with dust.
An overwhelming sense of hopelessness overtakes me, forcing me to flop backwards onto the mattress and stare numbly at the ceiling. The faces of Gyöngyi, my cousins, and Lilla, earlier, when I had wondered out loud whether Kati might still be alive, flash before me. If it hadn’t been for the furtive looks I’d seen pass among the group—followed by the abrupt, “Not possible,” from Gyöngyi—I would not have known they had even heard what I had said. Oszkár had poured me another generous glass of Bull’s Blood and, with no further comment, the subject was closed. If they can’t—won’t—help, I may as well catch the next flight home tomorrow.
Tears I had held back earlier in the evening, stream down my cheeks. What next?
I have been clutching the daisy embroidery. Placing it on the bedspread, I smooth the linen. IF Gustav is right, IF my mother had embroidered AVO headquarters into a gift she had been creating for me, IF she had also embroidered a floating head into a body of water that was not a fantasy lake but the Danube, what did it all mean?
I am startled from a deep sleep by the short quick signals of the telephone ringing on the bedside table. My eyelids are swollen from crying and sticky with sleep. Startled at seeing the stream of sunlight seeping through the crack at the center of the pulled drapes, I pick up the receiver.
“It is me, Gyöngyi with good news. I have arranged to take the afternoon off. I regret short notice, but will you kindly meet me in an hour? We will lunch on the Danube steps in front of the Inner City Main Parish Church. I will bring sandwiches, okay?”
I turn to the clock beside me. 11 a.m.! The prior vexing evening, the travel, the time change—it had all apparently caught up to me.
“Is okay?” Gyöngyi repeats. Her voice is not the usual monotone. She sounds anxious, almost aggressive.
I am wide awake now. “Of course.”
We hang up and I hurriedly shower. The church where we will meet is near the Roman ruins, the ancient guardpost erected at the Danube’s most crossable point. Was I about to cross over? Be entrusted with a family secret?
***
Downstairs, I am crossing in front of the reception desk in the lobby when a clerk calls out. “Miss Palmay?”
I stop, turn in her direction.
“A message…” Her words falter. Her mouth broadens into a wide grin.
“I would recognize that shawl anywhere,” a deep male voice says behind me.
“Gustav!” I exclaim, whirling about, the fringe of Mariska’s shawl whipping the air behind me.
Gustav is nearly unrecognizable. In a lightweight sport coat, pressed shirt and dress slacks, his normally disheveled salt and pepper hair slicked down, he looks more the European businessman than artist.
I hadn’t been one hundred percent sure how I would feel once he arrived. Would I feel my independence threatened? My voyage of discovery watered down by a white knight believing I was in need of rescuing?
No, in spite of my apprehensions, I am glad to see him.
“You made it. Have you seen your uncle? How is he?”
“I was about to summon a taxi to go the hospital and visit.”
I become more keenly aware of the slight slump of his broad shoulders and his weary expression as he tells me that he got in late last night.
“I hoped I would see you before I go there, and here you are,” he adds.
We are still standing near the reception desk. Guests are arriving and departing, and we are obstructing their path. We move to a quiet corner near the glass doors leading outside.
My heart pounds madly. “Yes, well, but I’m meeting someone.” His disappointment is obvious. I smile. “My cousin’s daughter. She speaks English, which has been a great help.”
“Ah, good. So she, your other relatives, they are able to assist in steering you to this person you must find?”
I hesitate. “I’m working on it.” I check my watch. “I need to run. You must be leaving, too, you said.” We take a few steps toward the door. I stop, place a hand on his arm, ask, “You’re staying here? At this hotel?”
Gustav grins. “Yes. Mrs. Karinthy got me a deal. She mentioned you would be staying here also and, of course, I consider this a bonus.”
He reaches over and smoothes a fold of my shawl, exposing the modern abstract design in the section of shawl I had reworked. “Do your relatives know what they’re up against?” he asks. “Are they ready to relinquish the past, bring it into the present?”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Mariska’s shawl wrapped snug around my shoulders, I leave Gustav at the hotel entrance. The shawl is made of the thinnest of silks, but the sun at its zenith beats down on the black fabric and bakes my skin.
I wrap the triangular cloth around my hips, tying the ends on one side. No sooner is the knot secured than I have the sensation of eyes boring into the back of my neck. Were I some heroine in a Hollywood spy thriller, I might release the knot, pull the shawl over my head, and duck into an alleyway, giving my tail the slip, but this was no Tinseltown movie.
Stepping off the pedestrian path,
I look casually around as if awaiting the arrival of a friend. I observe a number of men in suits, many wearing hats, strolling or otherwise idly passing the time. Bingo. There he is. My personal KGB detail, leaning against a tree, reading a folded newspaper, the brim of his hat casting his face in shadow. He has changed his suit, today’s is gray, but his slight height and build are familiar.
I am unaware of the tour guide, umbrella aloft, walking backwards aiming straight for me. She is oblivious as well, until the collision.
“Oh my dear, so sorry,” she gushes in a refined British accent, spinning to face me. “Leading my ducklings. Wasn’t looking.”
She is referring to the nearby small knot of elderly ladies and gents properly clad in khaki and white attire. They patiently wait, hints of pale-skin and white hair peering out from under an array of floppy hats.
“No damages, no worries,” I say.
Her attention has shifted to a couple lagging behind. They stand sideways to us, facing the river. The man, skinny and knob-kneed in Bermudas and high black socks, holds a long-lensed camera poised to take a shot. The head and shoulders of his companion, a woman in a loose linen shift and Oxford walking shoes, are concealed by a frilly white umbrella, sheltering her from the sun.
The guide beckons to the strays, and I glance back at my mark beneath the tree. Still absorbed in his newspaper.
Gyöngyi is waiting on the Danube steps. She is dressed in work clothes, a mint green skirt and matching short sleeve jacket worn over a white shell. Next to her, a string bag holds paper wrapped parcels. From behind her aviator sunglasses, she watches a passing boat. A warm gentle breeze off the river catches wisps of frizzed blonde tendrils.
“Ildikó, hi,” she says, smiling and transferring the bag across her lap to the opposite side. She pats the now empty space beside her. “Come, sit.”
I slip my hands beneath Mariska’s shawl, flouncing it out behind me as I drop down. Sunlight winks off a crystal bead on my tank top.
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