[2017] The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  Rodki watched—incredulous—as the pilot strode off the bus and back to General Pushkin’s plane. He taxied briefly on the runway before picking up speed and taking off to the north, the way they’d come.

  It was nearly midnight when Rodki Semyonov arrived at the gates of the Shah’s palace in Tehran. The bus jerked and heaved as Rodki shifted gears inelegantly. The open roads of the countryside had been relatively easy to handle—even for a first-time driver like himself. But once Rodki hit the city, with its starts and stops and indecipherable traffic rules—even for a man with his deductive and inductive skills—it all went to hell. He’d run over a man on a bicycle, gnarled the front end of the bus with two significant collisions, and scraped deep gashes into the sides of the vehicle on a turn he made going, perhaps, a bit too fast. Doesn’t matter, Rodki thought. He parked the bus in the middle of the street a few yards away from the palace and abandoned it. He much preferred public transportation, and it seemed to be aplenty in Tehran.

  “Good evening.” A manservant bowed to Rodki before showing him the way into the palace. “Your bag is being delivered to the Faberge suite, where General Pushkin stayed the last time he visited.”

  “I’m sure he felt right at home,” the Great Detective remarked. He was drenched in sweat and embarrassed by his own pungency. In Moscow, his body odor would have blended in, more or less, but here, in this cool, marble corridor smelling of Persian buttercups, he stunk like an animal.

  “Is that lamb cooking?” Rodki asked.

  “Yes, of course, sir,” the servant replied. “Dinner is waiting for you.”

  The Great Detective explained there was no need for a full dinner. Some meat would be good, as he was hungry after his journey, but nothing fancy for him, please. It was late, after all.

  “But you’re not the only guest who arrived late, you see,” the servant explained. “It’s common for guests to come late to the palace. And the Shah insists that a guest must eat.”

  The servant and the Great Detective entered the glittering dining room, its walls studded with thousands of gold and platinum mosaic tiles. A gold and crystal chandelier the size of a small bedroom dangled from the ceiling, hovering above an antique French dining table that seated twenty. Seven of the chairs were occupied: one by the Shah, another by his wife—as bejeweled herself as the chandelier—another by the American ambassador—a man named Chandler—and two more by his aides. The Shah’s secretary sat next to the ambassador, and next to him was another man—one the Great Detective had definitely met before. He was dressed in a bespoke featherweight suit of pearl gray raw silk and looked up at Rodki, continuing to stare as the servant guided the Great Detective to the empty chair next to him.

  Rodki nodded.

  The Shah stood, guiding his wife up from her chair, as the rest of the visitors followed suit. The Great Detective bowed deeply to the Iranian monarch, thanking him for his hospitality, and was subtly ignored. The Shah’s wife smiled warmly at Rodki, however, and continued to smile as the Shah welcomed his guests, reciting “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. His Highness then illuminated the midnight diners about the seventeen-course meal they were about to share—its origins, the names of the dishes in both Farsi and English (though not Russian), and the studies and travels of his personal chef. As this was a casual occasion, there was little pomp and circumstance, he explained. Apart from the usual standing, sitting and compulsory obsequiousness, Rodki thought to himself. In this way, how little difference there was between a Shah’s palace and the Politburo.

  “Brother,” Rodki said to the man in silk. “I’ve only come from a long drive, but I feel like I’ve gone six rounds with a brute double my size.” The Great Detective took a deep gulp of water from the delicate crystal glass set in front of him. “Having never traveled before,” he continued, “I’m afraid I had no imagination for the way this kind of heat would feel under a wool suit. Of course, it’s my only suit apart from my bathing suit, and I hardly could’ve come here in that.” The Great Detective laughed, but the man in the silk suit did not. “And I had no idea the Shah himself would be here. I thought he was on a diplomatic mission! Tell me, you seem to be quite comfortable around these good people, does His Excellency talk much?”

  “You like to talk, Mr. Semyonov, but you never really say anything, do you?” the man in silk said. “I suppose that’s the tactic of a great detective. At least that’s what they say about you. That you are great.”

  Rodki Semyonov shrugged and smiled. “By they do you mean the other monks at the Lavra?” He patted the man’s padded shoulders and leaned in to examine the delicate stitching on his lapel.

  “I must say,” Rodki said. “Your current ensemble suits you much better than the monk’s robe you wore when we first met. Your suit, if I may say—suits you as if it were a second skin.”

  The man in silk ran his fingers through his thick, salt-and-pepper hair. A quail’s egg, floating in its half shell, was placed before them on gold-trimmed china. The server dipped a miniature mother-of-pearl spoon into an iced, silver bowl and applied a coif of caviar to the tiny yolk.

  “By they, Mr. Semyonov, I mean Ambassador Chandler, and our distinguished host and hostess, Shahanshah, the King of Kings, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi and his wife, the Shahbanu.”

  Ambassador Chandler nodded his greeting—affable, business-like, while the Shah appraised the Great Detective disdainfully. It could have been Rodki’s disheveled appearance that offended him, or simply his being Russian. The Shah was now good friends with the Americans and may have wanted to make a show of disapproval over his Soviet visitor. Or perhaps it was the man in silk he wished to impress—a man whom Rodki was willing to bet was selling the Persian ruler his weaponry.

  Rodki slurped down his quail’s egg, licking a tiny cluster of caviar from his upper lip. “And what would these distinguished gentlemen say of you, brother?”

  The man in silk leaned forward. His breath was nearly odorless and his movements as strong as they were measured.

  “They say I’m a ruthless bastard, Mr. Great Detective. And one who wants his fucking daughter back.”

  The Shah put his cutlery down, and Ambassador Chandler folded his arms.

  “Great Caesar’s ghost,” Rodki heard the American ambassador grumble. “Is that really the Great Detective?”

  “Ah, your daughter,” the Great Detective said, pulling Lily’s passport out of his breast pocket. “I’d like to talk to her myself, but I have a feeling someone will have beaten us to it.”

  Chapter 36

  Tehran, Iran

  This is the largest market of its kind in the world,” Mansoor Nassa boasted as he and Lily bumped and pressed their way through the Southern foyer of the Grand Bazaar. It was sweltering—even at nine in the morning—and made worse by the crowds that packed each corridor of the market’s ten-kilometer spread. The heavy linen tunic Lily wore, disguising her as a maidservant, was already soggy with perspiration, as was her head scarf. She felt like a wet kitchen rag.

  It was hard to believe—as Nassa insisted—that this was the least congested time in the day to do their shopping. By noon, the poet contended, the market would be swarming with five times as many shoppers, and it would be difficult to move from one corridor to the next.

  The poet assured them it was indeed the least conspicuous time for them to attend to household business as well. Not a soul in Tehran would expect a man of Nassa’s stature to be attending to his own needs, especially at this time in the morning—a time for sipping tea and reading the newspaper. Perhaps enjoying a neighborhood stroll before the sun became burdensome. Only servants were hustled out of their bedrooms this early, charged with not disappointing their masters with later-day goods that had been picked through.

  “Pomegranate syrup, quince, rice, saffron, dried limes, cinnamon, a new copper serving tray.” Nassa read his list aloud, as if inviting commentary—No, no—not cinnamon. I’m sure the ambassador would prefer cloves! Lily had told him
she couldn’t boil water. Still, he was insisting on her input as he and Goli, his servant, burrowed their way through the dense throngs of buyers, sellers, and seekers. Lily scampered behind them, pointing out various spice vendors and coppersmiths who called out to her in any number of languages. She went largely ignored, as Nassa and Goli knew exactly which vendors offered the finest fare for the best prices—as far as they were concerned. They plotted their course through the maze of dripping gold, foodstuffs and dazzling textiles that covered every square inch of the market—except for the high, arched ceiling and its crumbling mosaic tiles.

  “Kann ich ihnen helfen?” a stout man with vivid green eyes inquired in stilted German. He beheld a gleaming copper bowl filled with an iridescent yellow powder he had labeled as turmeric.

  “Nein danke,” Lily replied. But the man wouldn’t leave her alone—offering her a cup of tea and maintaining that he had the most premium spices in the market.

  “Deluxe,” he said. “Die meisten ausgezeichnet.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Lily told him. “But I have to go.” Lily had never enjoyed haggling. She was an American shopper tried and true, who loved the comforts of a nice grocery store, a pretty boutique, a cosmetics counter—and not all crammed into essentially the same space and smelling of incense and animal blood.

  “Bitte, bitte,” the spice vendor entreated, stirring the golden seasoning with the tip of his index finger. Goli and Nassa were a few steps ahead of Lily now and would soon disappear from her vision, swallowed by the horde and the stratigraphic layers of merchandise.

  Lily wished Pasha had come with them, but everyone agreed it was best he keep as low a profile as possible, especially now that they were in a city. He hadn’t wanted her to go at all, calling her silly and reckless, but she was desperate to walk, to be among people and do her best thinking. Pasha’s protestations, however noble in their intention and perhaps sensible in their reasoning, would not move her.

  “Quickly, okay? Schnell,” she said.

  The vendor nodded and made an attempt at a smile, but the gesture seemed forced, a misanthrope’s attempt at levity in a dreaded social milieu. He dug his fingers—plump like breakfast sausages—into the bowl of shimmering powder and cradled a tablespoon of the substance in his hand. Lily bent down to smell its aroma, as the vendor insisted, but could detect no scent at all. She shook her head and bent down farther as the vendor pressed his thin lips together—this time into what was probably the closest thing to a smile that he could manage. He flattened his palm, blowing the weightless powder into Lily’s face. Lily drew a sharp breath—but before she could cough or try to expel the tiny, yellow granules from her nose, the market went black, like a movie screen. Lily closed and opened her eyes in a useless effort. Inside her eardrums came a high-pitched scream—mimi-mimi-mimi-mimi—compelling Lily to drop to her knees and lie down on the filthy market floor. She would remember nothing else of that day, or the day after, or the day after that—even if Beryx Gulyas would insist to her that she was quite conscious the whole time.

  Chapter 37

  Theron Tassos welcomed Fedot into the hotel lobby and locked the door behind him. It was his hotel, one of many, and perfectly nondescript. Theron preferred using hotels, where an influx of various people—or not at all—went largely unnoticed. Today, his hotel stood empty, except for his manager who smoked languorously at the front desk as he peeled through a weeks-old Tehran Daily.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Fedot explained.

  “No, Fedot,” Theron countered. “As soon as you could would have been the moment you met my daughter in Moscow. I’m the one who had to find you—here, in Persia.”

  Fedot appeared unfazed by his castigation. “I’ve been hunting the Hungarian, as you instructed,” he said.

  “Unsuccessfully.”

  “Yes.”

  It was a delicate business with men like Fedot, and Theron Tassos knew it. Unlike the other men in his employ, Fedot worked for no money—only for the belief that he was doing the work Divine Providence had apportioned for him. This made what should have been a normal boss-underling relationship somewhat complicated. Especially since Theron Tassos was not used to being a middle manager whose commands could be overridden—even if by a deity, or a deity’s direct report.

  “I met a very interesting man, recently,” the Greek baron said. He took a photograph out of his breast pocket, displaying it on his palm. It was of a police officer—bulky man, ugly face—staring forward, unsmiling, as was the custom for any official photograph in the Soviet Union. “Do you know him?”

  Fedot shook his head. But he’d seen him once—at the Hotel Rude.

  “He has a unique job description, unlike any I’ve ever known,” Theron said.

  Fedot took the photo and tucked it into his trousers. “You would like me to kill him or follow him?” Fedot asked.

  “Follow him—though he in all likelihood has been following you already. Doesn’t matter. He’ll lead you to wherever that Hungarian took Lily.”

  “Assuming it was the Hungarian, of course,” Fedot said.

  “You have any doubts?”

  “No.”

  Theron Tassos smirked. He was a hard man, but behind his eyes—past their animal curiosity and pitilessness—there was a swell of fear that he was using every bit of strength in his being to suppress. Children—especially daughters—were a weakness for a man like him.

  “When he leads you to Lily, then kill him,” the Greek commanded. “And the other Russian, too—Tarkhan.”

  Fedot looked away from Theron Tassos’s eyes and slipped his hand into his canvas bag. He stroked the crucifix Ivanov had fashioned from birch branches, scratching some of the charred pieces of bark with his thumbnail.

  “And what about the film?” he said.

  “The what?”

  “The microfilm,” he said.

  Theron narrowed his eyes and sat down on a white lambskin chair.

  “Tarkhan stole it—images of it, anyway,” Fedot illuminated. “They’re plans of a spaceship. He thinks it will be done in a year or two and that the Americans are far behind on their own plans.”

  The Greek folded his arms across his chest. “Geiger knew, didn’t he? About this spaceship.”

  Fedot nodded. He gripped the crucifix in his palm, removing it from the bag and holding it flat against his belly.

  “Do you have the film?” the Greek asked.

  Fedot shook his head. “I could get it.”

  “Yes, get it,” he said. “And get that damned Russian, too.”

  Theron Tassos lowered his voice into a hiss. One seething with hatred—of the Hungarian, of the men in Lily’s life, of the unfamiliar helplessness he was feeling.

  “Rip him to shreds for getting Lily caught up in this mess.”

  Chapter 38

  Wine?” It was terrible, of course, not that Beryx Gulyas knew anything about wine. But he did know this wine was terrible. It would take a rube not to know that, and Gulyas had worked hard to shed his peasant tastes.

  He held the goblet up to Lily’s swollen lips and poured the wine into her mouth, massaging her throat as if he were force-feeding a goose. She winced. Even with her eyes ringed in purple bruises, she looked beautiful, and her torso, sadly, was still too sore to allow her to get up for a short dance. He’d longed to dance with her since the end of their first day together, but by then he already knew she wouldn’t be getting up for some time. It was a good thing he hadn’t marred her body very much. Gulyas knew how to inflict pain without the resulting unsightliness, but until Lily Tassos had come into his life, there had never been any point in keeping a would-be corpse in tip-top shape. A disfigured body, Gulyas believed, made a good statement in most cases. It let people know who they were dealing with.

  “Careful,” he said. The wine had gone down the wrong pipe, and Lily began to cough. She moaned as he turned her onto her side and patted her back.

  Normally, Gulyas wasn’t the soft velvet and
scented oils type of man. He liked an earthier woman. It was why he had dismissed Lily at first—spoiled little rich girl who got in over her head, he thought.

  But what a surprise!

  Though the effects from the Muralti powder were temporary—lasting no more than a few hours—the nature of being suddenly blinded, then tortured was enough to make even the most hard-boiled crumble. Not so Lily Tassos. She screamed and cried at first like any woman, like most men for that matter. But only a short time into their encounter something changed. Her breathing slowed, and she began to nod, as if she were in a dream. She did this for some time, and Gulyas watched her out of curiosity. Then all of a sudden she smiled a light, guileless smile—like a child—and said, “Thank you, Holy One.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gulyas said. And he meant it.

  From that point on, things were different between them. He tortured her carefully, bringing her to points of unbearable pain—yet he knew she would endure, saying nothing about the Sputnik or her Russian friends no matter how many times he asked her, no matter how many ways. Lily was in a different place now, a place where pain and uncertainty meant little. Gulyas touched her lips, and she started to sing again, this time a Greek hymn, then she talked about the trees in the Lavra.

  “They were very nice trees,” he said. It was true. He couldn’t help but notice them even if he’d had other things on his mind at the time.

  Gulyas removed a midnight blue scarf from his back pocket. It had belonged to his Aunt Zuzanna, and he’d taken it some time ago after losing the monogrammed handkerchief his wife had given him as a wedding present. Gently, he lifted Lily’s head and tied the scarf around her eyes, making the knot good and tense.

  “Porcia Catonis was Marcus Brutus’s second wife,” Gulyas said. “The one who killed herself by swallowing hot coals.” He took Lily’s jaw in his hands and pried it wide open, placing a wooden block between her teeth. “I always admired her fortitude.”