“Rókus chapel,” he says as we come up beside a small stucco church, painted yellow with white trim. “An extension of the hospital. Both built in the eighteenth century and dedicated to Saint Rókus, protector of the sick.”
We continue on Rákóczi út then pause again to admire from a distance the chapel’s yellow-painted façade ornamented with white Baroque figures of saints and a pair of arched wooden doors. To the right of the chapel, in the far corner of a recessed wing is another door embellished with Baroque plaster trim. Near it, a large stone cross. Someone has placed fresh-cut flowers at its base.
“Lovely,” I say.
Handfuls of people mill about in the open space before the chapel. My eyes stray to the woman in the print scarf and dark shift, now with her back to us, studying the cornerstone. I nod in her direction. “Think I should go up and introduce myself, ask if she’d like to join us?”
Gustav laughs as we resume our stroll up Rákóczi út. But I turn back, puzzled to see my follower walking briskly to the side door near the cross. A draft catches her scarf and it slides backwards off her face.
Before the cross, the woman hesitates, head bowed as if in prayer. A quick sideways glance in the direction of the chapel and plaza, then she’s off again, this time going for the door, pulling it open just enough to squeeze inside.
“Gustav, would you mind?” I ask. “I’d like to pop in, say a prayer for Kati, my mother, your uncle.”
“Nice idea. I’ll go with you.”
“No. Please, I need to do this alone. You understand?”
He hesitates but immediately recovers. “Of course. I’ll wait over there.” He gestures to a bench off to one side, in the open space before the chapel.
At the cross, following the woman’s example, I bow my head. A look over at Gustav, walking toward the bench, and then I duck inside.
I am in an unadorned hallway with only one way to turn. Left, toward the chapel. At the entrance to the nave is a sign on the corridor wall written in Hungarian. I know the words Szombat, Saturday, and Vasárnap, Sunday, and there are worship service times underneath. There is also a line in bold large print I cannot interpret. Perhaps the chapel is closed?
The door is unlocked. I slip into the small nave. The light seeping in from the windows to my left allows only a shadowy impression of the room. Wooden pews. A simple altar framed by a soaring arched opening. On one side of the arch, a muted painting of Christ laying his hand on a kneeling supplicant; on the other, a replica of Saint Anne with Madonna as a child, the work of art familiar from St. Elizabeth’s in Chicago.
The place is utterly quiet and completely still.
I concentrate on the cave-like space surrounding the altar, trying to sense what might be behind the sections enclosed by the walls of the arch.
“Anyone there?” I call toward the altar.
Silence. Where has she gone?
I venture deeper inside, my ears tuned to the eerie quiet., my skin tight with fear.To my right is a carved wooden nook. Inside, a robed figure on a pedestal holds a child in his arms, Saint Rókus.
At the statue’s base is another container of fresh-cut flowers. Calla lilies—my mother’s wedding bouquet. I stare. A piece of jewelry has been left beside the vase. The blood freezes in my veins. I walk over and lift the swirly oxidized-wire heart, its long chain trailing from the pedestal. Behind me, a hushed voice whispers, “Ildikó.”
The piece slips from my fingers, hits the stone floor with a sharp crack.
“Eva—”
Eva, in the dark shift, the boldly colored scarf now encircling her neck, stands several feet from me beside a Baptismal font. Her thick bangs are going every which way as if her fingers had clawed, torn, pulled at them. Her eyes are wide and agitated, replicating the disheveled, wild look of an Eva I had seen once before. Lincoln Park. 1968.
I find my voice. “You’ve been following me. Why? And why is this here?” With my gaze glued to her, I bend down to retrieve the necklace. “Yours, right?” Standing, I take a step toward her, hand extended, offering the ornamental piece.
A glint of metal. Something slices the air. Too late I yell, “Eva…no!”
A sculpting tool, like a fine ice pick, scores the back of my wrist. A burning sensation. A line of blood. The necklace tumbles from my hand.
“Not what I want.” Keeping the sculpting tool in front of her so that I can see it, Eva adds, “Why have I been tailing you? Don’t you know? You’re determined to pay a visit to the farmer’s son. Just like your mother. I wanted to stop you. But now you’ve brought a witness. Him—” Eva waves the instrument menacingly in the direction of the nave door.
“Who? Gustav? A witness? To what?” I take a breath. “This is between us, Eva. He’s not involved. Why don’t we sit down—”
Eva’s tone is venomous. “Not involved? He started it!”
“Started what? What are you talking about?”
Eva’s eyes narrow into slits. “He took their picture. The AVO saw it. Arrested them. Executed them.”
My palm compresses the stinging wound on my opposite hand. Warm liquid spreads against my skin. I grip harder.
“Eva, I know about your parents,” I say gently. “Mariska…Mrs. Bankuti…told me they were freedom fighters. That you have a newspaper article with a photograph of them. You broke into Gustav’s apartment, didn’t you? Found a similar shot hidden in a memento box. How did you know it was there?”
Her lips twist crookedly. “You and Tibor. Your chat with Attila in the church basement. I overheard everything. Including traitor Szigeti’s name.” Her mouth purses, and I think she will spit. Instead, she snarls, “You took off, then Tibor too. Now my turn with the scum AVO man.”
My breath catches. “You gave Attila absinthe? Forced him to drink?”
“No need to force him. I only had to offer up the means.”
“B-but…” I can’t get my words. “But he was an alcoholic. Weak. You bruised his mouth.”
“He was AVO. Death could not come too soon for him.” Her voice is raw with ferocity. “Your new boyfriend. He’s evil, just like him. Sold out his own countrymen—”
“Eva, Gustav did not take the photo you have from Szabad Nep. Someone else took it. If you don’t believe me, check the caption. There’ll be a photo credit.”
“There’s no caption,” she snaps. “The paper’s old, yellowed. The ink smudged, faded. What does it matter anyway? It’s over. Like with Attila.”
Eva glances down at the pointed chisel in her hand, rubbing the narrow blade between her thumb and fingers, almost lovingly.
“You took that photograph from Gustav’s flat,” I say, desperate now to distract her. “It’s a memento of your parents. You’re proud. But why come to Budapest? You said my mother visited the farmer’s son. Are you planning to see him?”
“No. I already know what he would say. Your mother told me everything.”
I feel suddenly lightheaded. “Eva, please, tell me now.”
“You want to know—” Eva brings the sharp tip of the chisel to the base of her throat, presses it into the soft indentation, absently scraping the skin as she stares at me. Red irritation marks grow brighter along her neck until I can’t stand it anymore.
“Eva, tell me. No more secrets,” I say forcefully. “The little girl, at the border, alone. She was…is you. That’s right isn’t it?”
The sharpened tool scrapes, harder now.
The pick pauses. She stares at me, eyes blank. “Tell you? Why not? It’s nearly over. In ’65, when your mother went to Kopháza, the farmer had been executed, the mother had died, but she found the son. He remembered the girl. She wore the note: Look after our child. We stay to fight to the last.”
Silence. The metal tip begins twitching again, a metronome, back and forth.
“But you’re the little girl, Eva, aren’t yo
u? At the restaurant, you called her Dórika. This happened to you.” My heart sinks. Eva lied to the AVO about Kati. Eva was behind Kati’s terrible death. “And my mother…when she came back home, she came to see you?”
“Yes. The son had the Szabad Nep article. Back in ’56 his mother recognized a resemblance between the freedom fighter in the photograph and the photo inside the girl’s locket.”
“Your mother.” The final puzzle pieces are at last falling into place.
“The locket was from her childhood. She gave it to me in the last moments we had together. Said it would keep me strong. We hid in the barn. I lost it in the hay. The son found it. Mine. All I had—” The pick finds the base of her throat again, continues its mindless raking. “—until your mother’s visit.”
“The son knew your last name, Benedek,” I hurriedly fill in. “My mother realized the locket was yours, offered to deliver it and the article.”
Eva looks away. “Your mother was not nice that day, Ildikó.”
Of course, she was angry. Her sister had been falsely accused. Had tortured, suffered terribly, died miserably.
On the wall behind Eva hovers the shadowy image of Saint Anne with the child Madonna. Mother and daughter. What about the daughter ripped from her mother’s arms by a revolution?
I breathe. Fight for calm. No more secrets.
“Your mother showed me the article,” Eva continues, “told me to keep it. She knew I’d been trying to protect my parents, and she was sorry for me. ‘But I cannot leave it at this,’ she told me. ‘You must atone. For the family’s sake, for your sake.’”
Eva adopts a sing-songy tone as she mimics my mother. “‘Tell the truth. Be responsible. Clear your conscience.’”
She shrugs, then smoothes the wooden lid of the Baptismal font. “Here we atone, wash away sins. Who will atone for my parents? What they did.”
“They were heroes,” I counter, moving closer. “They died for the cause. Not because of some photo. Gustav’s uncle said they were arrested in a raid on a resistance hideout. They were working there.”
Eva’s face is a mask of menace. She darts the crimson-tipped pick at me. I jerk back.
“Why wasn’t I their cause? My mother’s cause,” she pleads. Her words tug at a place deep in my own heart. The tool sweeps to her throat again, her voice raw. “I did everything she wanted. Stayed out of her way, let her do her important work. What did I get? Attention? Affection? Never. Her shadow. That’s what I was. Not a person. Not her daughter. I was nothing.”
A crimson stain is washing across the vivid print of the scarf circling Eva’s neck. Her eyes flick to the statue in the side altar. More blood.
Atone? Suicide?
I risk another step forward. “I understand, Eva. Put the tool down. Let’s sit in this place of absolution, really talk. We share guilt over my mother’s death. Our parents felt a calling, neglected us…”
The nervous pick pauses again. Eva shakes her head, sighs. “She showed me the locket. My locket. ‘You can have this’ she said, ‘only when you write to Rózsa, confess, remove the stain from Kati’s reputation. Let them know she was a martyr, not a traitor.’”
Eva’s eyes flash. “The shame—I told her I couldn’t. She said she’d stared down a cobra, outsmarted Japanese soldiers, that she could outwait me. With that, she left.”
My heart jackhammers. “With the locket?”
For the first time since our encounter began, Eva’s eyes soften. “Ildikó, to get the locket, I would have had to force it from your mother. I could not, would never, do this.”
I feel a bolt of heat, the sensation of blood rushing to my face.
“Don’t lie, Eva. We’re in the House of God.” I sweep my arm in an encompassing wave. “You followed her to the El, demanded the locket. She resisted. You grabbed her and tried to tear it away from her. She fell…”
Behind glazed eyes, something clicks. “That’s what you think?” Eva’s voice is suddenly loud again. The question reverberates through the small space. “That is wrong. It was Attila. He followed her. Didn’t he tell you? Your mother went to see him that morning after she left me. She wanted her prayer book back. Also, Kati’s picture.”
“The jail photo?” The haunting picture in my purse that I can’t wait to destroy? I shake my head disbelievingly. “He never mentioned she’d returned to his store.”
A lift and fall of shoulders. “Amazing what a little absinthe will do to loosen the tongue. She took the photo, put it in the prayer book, slipped it into her coat pocket and left. He followed her. At the El track, he came up behind her, started to pick her pocket. She turned, lost her balance. Fell.”
“Th-then Attila…” My hushed words trail off.
A crooked smile. The sly shift in her eyes.
My heart stops. It was her. I stare. At her clutched hair, her twisted expression, the fresh pearl of blood melding into the crimson stream along her neck.
“My mother! You did it! You killed my mother!”
Fists flailing, I throw myself at her. Blind with rage, it is a miracle that I see dull light flicking from the slim steel rod, whisking free of Eva’s neck. Forcefully, I twist aside, crashing to my knees. I glance up. Metal slashes the empty space between us. A thread of warm blood fleeing the pick slaps my forehead. Another slash, so close wind whisks my cheek. My gaze locks on the frenzied pick. I reach blindly for Eva’s necklace, somewhere on the floor between us. As if tooled for this moment, it finds my grasp. I lurch to my feet.
“Sna-a-ake,” I howl, flinging the metal pendant and chain straight at Eva’s face. The strategy is better than my aim. The flying coil brushes her temple and drops onto her shoulder. It is enough. The deadly instrument stabilizes mid-air.
Adrenaline rockets me forward. I chop her hand then slap her face with primordial force. “That’s for my mother, snake-bitch!” I grab her wrists. Chisel hits stone. “You killed my mother! She was trying to help!” I scream, shriek, as if my words will bowl her over.
Eva’s voice is eerily calm. “She lost her balance. I was…am…sorry. More than…”
“Sorry?” I ignore the throbbing pain at my wrist, the blood running down the back of my hand, like Eva’s lies coming undone. “Not enough, Eva.” My voice is strong, sure. I jerk her wrists hard enough to shake her body, to drive home each word. “You lie. You killed my mother. Your childhood was hideous. But other people have gone through hell, too. And they didn’t kill because of it. Confess!”
Eva’s eyes flick to the side. Instinctively, my gaze follows. My turn to be duped. She kicks my shin. I loosen my grip. Eva heaves her arms free. With syncopated precision, she ducks to the floor, whisks up the chisel, positions it at her throat, and turns to the statue in the side altar.
“Saint Rókus, protector of the sick, here I am. I’m guilty,” she whispers. “Pl-please…forgive me.”
I cry out. “No, Eva—”
A determined thrust.
Eva folds to the cold tile. Her chest heaves and swells as, propping her head in my arm, I dig my mother’s princess flower embroidery from my pocket. The locket tumbles out.
I plug the punctured flesh beneath her larynx with linen, my blood smearing into hers. Her eyes are shut, her skin deathly pale. “Eva, stay,” I urge. “The locket. You want the locket? Here. Take it.”
A single tear rolls down her white cheek.
Chapter Thirty-three
Oscar Wilde famously wrote: “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
Outside the airplane window, the sky is pitch-black. My overhead lamp throws a weak puddle of light over the pad of paper on the tray table serving as my easel while I sketch. My pencil pauses. The lamp casts me in shadowy light as well and I smile, catching my reflection in the window. For the journey home, I chose to wear the embroidered peasant blo
use I had purchased on the quay along the Danube. The brightly colored detail pops vividly against the inky backdrop. Inspiration strikes.
I turn to a fresh page, ignoring the pinch of the stitches beneath the gauze dressing covering the top of my wrist. Hurriedly, I fill in a rudimentary outline of the gardener boy holding a bouquet that I have just decided is not a bouquet at all. Lead etches the page in an interlocked pattern while I consider all that has been unstitched and then restitched in the seven days I spent in my mother’s homeland.
Moments after Eva’s attempted suicide, Gustav charged into the chapel. The blood-smeared wound looked serious but she was alert, though dazed. With some effort, she’d raised herself to a sitting position and insisted on holding the daisy piece, now one with the Pucci scarf, against her wound. Her weapon had missed an artery and the blood flow had all but stopped.
Eva needed immediate psychiatric help. Step one was to quietly reach my family. I hoped Oszkár would apply his medical skills but it was also important to avoid attention from the local authorities. My childhood fears of Communism had not been extinguished.
Cousin Oszkár’s medical practice, it turned out, was located next door at Rókus hospital, a fortunate happenstance Gustav discovered when he called Gyöngyi from a phone booth outside Rókus chapel. We took Eva to Oszkár’s private office. After treating the wound on her neck, he also sutured the gash on the back of my hand. Afterward, following an extended, probing conversation with Eva, he’d pronounced her fit enough to keep to her scheduled flight back to the States.
Later that evening, I went to the family apartment. Oszkár had insisted Eva stay with him and his wife, Ica. They, together with Sándor, would keep vigil with her overnight. After I arrived, Eva unburdened her terrible secret to Oszkár, Sándor and Gyöngyi—members of our family with the most intimate connections to Kati. She stood before us, wounded and broken, the obsessive bitterness that just hours earlier had driven her to the brink of no return, gone. Following her confession, I folded the locket into Eva’s hand, a ceremonial gesture to acknowledge that she had fulfilled my mother’s wish.
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