[2017] The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  Chapter 47

  The doroshkeh cart stopped at the corner of a street lined with stores offering basic services: laundry, transportation, and film development—even if the latter was a bit fancy for this neighborhood. The district certainly didn’t seem poor, like the Mahalleh, but Lily could detect nothing particularly handsome about it either. Its only aspiring feature was a hotel—clean, but clearly for second-class tourists—and Jalal had stopped his cart directly in front of its doors. Lily slouched farther into the belly of the doroshkeh as two men walked by arm-in-arm. Chuckling, they ducked into a tiny, galley coffee house without having noticed her.

  “Jalal,” Lily whispered in Arabic—she hoped he understood. “What are you doing?”

  Jalal smiled and pointed to the front doors of the hotel.

  “Jalal,” she grunted between clenched teeth. “I’m wearing nothing but a sheet. Can’t you please take me back to Mr. Nassa’s house?”

  This time, Jalal laughed. He gestured again at the hotel, saying “Go, go, go. Go, go, go.”

  It occurred to her that perhaps Mansoor Nassa was waiting for her inside the hotel. He had, after all, sent Jalal for her—although she couldn’t for the life of her understand how he’d known where she was. Pasha! Of course, she realized. It had to be Pasha. He was undoubtedly in the hotel with the poet and Fedot. Lily smiled for the first time in what felt like years. Even that small adjustment of her facial muscles made her hurt all over, as if each tiny movement was joined to an infinite assortment of raw nerves.

  “Thank you, Jalal,” she said.

  Slowly, Lily lowered herself from the doroshkeh and limped toward the front doors of the hotel. She’d been more agile when Beryx Gulyas was chasing her, but now that her adrenaline was no longer pumping with a fury, every step was an effort. It seemed to take a long time to get to the lobby.

  “Hello,” she said in Arabic, as the doors swung closed behind her.

  Inside, no one was at the front desk, although a freshly lit cigarette lay gently against the rim of a full ashtray.

  “Pasha,” she called. But the lobby was silent.

  Lily picked up the cigarette and held it to her swollen lips. Given the state of her throat, she could hardly believe that she desired a cigarette, but she did. It even felt good as she inhaled the smoke—an Oriental blend with both depth and sweetness—holding it in her lungs and enjoying its taste again as she exhaled. Lily couldn’t remember the last time something had felt so pleasing to her senses.

  She finished the cigarette and still, no one had come.

  In the corner of the foyer was a boxy but comfortable-looking divan—roomy and upholstered in bright orange leather. Lily shuffled over to it and sat down. Beryx Gulyas had taken a lot out of her.

  Outside, various people—servants mostly—walked by the hotel’s tall, slender windows. No one looked in. The service class of Tehran was too busy carrying their packages and rushing to make sure things were just right in the homes where they worked: water needed to be boiled, bed linens to be refreshed, lentils to be soaked. They weren’t curious about who could be lurking in a hotel lobby.

  Before she knew it, Lily had lain down on the divan, tucking her feet up behind her and nestling into the now-dry sheet that still smelled of rosewater. She fell asleep a moment short of her head touching the scrolled and padded armrest that would serve as her pillow.

  “Lilia,” the gravelly voice murmured. It was familiar to Lily—very—but seemed far away. A voice from another lifetime. She felt much as she had when she first awakened to find Beryx Gulyas looming over her. Unsure of whether she was dead or alive. Uncertain about the time, or even the day. All she knew was that the voice had awakened her from a dream. In her dream, she was standing on the cliffs of Monemvasia in her billowing, white dress again. It was daylight this time, and she wasn’t afraid of being spotted by Tony Geiger’s assassin. Instead, she felt powerful—as if the sky, the cliff she was standing on, the chamomile and wild thyme that dripped from the crumbling sixth-century convent walls behind her, the wind, all belonged to her. And she felt alone.

  “Lilia,” the voice said again.

  Lily opened one eye and lifted herself up onto her elbow. The sun had broken through the overcast sky and shined in a beam into the lobby of the hotel, backlighting the man who stood before her and making him appear more like a shadow than a human being. But even as little more than a silhouette, Lily knew him. She would have known him if he were nothing more than a breeze coupled with a faint voice that rode the airstream like a wave.

  “Daddy?” she said.

  Chapter 48

  Theron Tassos walked over to Lily and sat next to her on the divan. When she lifted her head and placed it on his lap, he cradled it in his arms. Bending over her, he kissed her hair, her brow, her bruised eyes, her cheeks, her dry, distended lips, her chin and finally, her nose. It was a nose Lily had never liked, but her father’s favorite of her features. When she was little, he had assured her it was a fixture on all truly great Greek beauties. He despised the small, upturned noses that had become so fashionable in America and Europe. They made a woman look eager for approval. Helen of Troy would’ve never had such a nose.

  “You smell of roses,” he said, rocking her for a tender moment—as if she were a baby again. Lily’s mother had been ill for a time after Lily was born, and Theron had stayed up with his youngest child night after night, feeding her, singing her to sleep. Lily was the only one of his children whom he’d cared for in this way, and as a result, she had always been his most beloved.

  “How did you get here, paidi mou?”

  Lily sat up and unraveled herself from her father’s embrace. She looked into his soil-brown eyes—the kind of deep, fertile soil that looked like Turkish coffee. Pasha’s eyes were just as rich, but his were brighter, more like the Belgian chocolate her mother was so fond of. Right then, she fell into the shelter of her father’s eyes as she had into Pasha’s. They were eyes that sheltered grave, untold memories, that loved deeply and hated without sentiment. The only eyes she had seen in recent memory had been the Hungarian’s, and his, though improbably beautiful, had been shallow. Whatever pain Beryx Gulyas had encountered in his life had been channeled into anger and fantasy. Never had it been pondered, scrutinized and absorbed.

  “The poet brought me here—his driver. Or maybe Pasha. Is Pasha here? He might have sent for me.”

  Theron shook his head.

  “I will get you some clothes,” he said. “And we’ll go directly to the airport, so you can be home with your mother by morning.” Theron sighed deeply and rubbed his hand over his twice-shaven face. He knew he should wait to confront his daughter, but some things he couldn’t let pass.

  “Getting the American ambassador to help me wasn’t as easy as I’d anticipated, Lily,” he said. “It appears you’ve taken a membership in the Communist Party.”

  Meeting a man and becoming entangled in deadly intrigues because of him was one thing, but a deliberate act of subterfuge—like joining an enemy political organization—showed that his daughter had strayed a lot farther than her heart.

  Lily pulled the sheet up to her collarbone and put her hand on top of her father’s.

  “I’m not a Communist,” she said, smiling a little. It didn’t hurt so much to smile this time. She was feeling better. Maybe it was just being in her father’s company. “I don’t really know what I am. But I know I’m not going to the airport with you.”

  The Greek baron rolled back his shoulders, sat up tall and loomed over his daughter. Lily, however, was unmoved.

  “Daddy,” she said. “I’m not here by accident. A twist of fate, maybe, but not by accident.”

  Her father had a way of sitting like a dormant volcano: tall, inert, but with an occasional tremor capable of reminding every surrounding animal what kind of fate he could unleash upon them. If Lily hadn’t been looking into the eyes of a hardened predator for several days now, imagining each morning to be her last, she migh
t have complied with her father’s wishes.

  “Pasha Tarkhan has stolen the plans for a spaceship from the Russians,” she said. “We have to find him. And we have to get those plans to the Americans.”

  It sounded mad, but Lily knew that nothing could surprise her father, and little was out of the realm of his imagination. He’d seen too much in his fifty-two years not to believe in spaceships. And for all she knew—given her father’s network and the fact that he’d been able to track her to Tehran—he was aware of the Sputnik plans already.

  Lily’s father, of course, had always been able to secure the best table at the best restaurant, the best suite in the best hotel. But until recently Lily had never thought of her father’s name as one that could gain her entry into the homes of monarchs or manipulate world events. In Boston, men like her father were able to live very well, but the doors to the finest families and establishments—unless they were peopled by politicians with an open palm and a certain casual attitude towards ethics—had been hermetically sealed to keep people like them away. While that fact had nearly driven Lily mad with resentment, it had never seemed to bother her father. It was no wonder to her now. What interest could he have in a Putnam or a Peabody, when they never held the keys to the kingdoms he was interested in to begin with? And today, Lily could hardly believe she’d ever been interested in them, either.

  “Daddy,” she told him. “You can help me or you can get out of my way.”

  A contained collage of emotions crossed her father’s face—ones only detectable by those who loved him and had a long, intimate knowledge of his expressions. Lily saw raw anger shaded with a trace of pride. Her father, after all, had been the only person in her life—her life before Tony’s murder—who’d never rolled his eyes at her, had never expected less of her. In fact, he had told her on more than one occasion that there would come a day when she would stop wasting her time and become the woman her blood had predetermined her to be.

  There was something else on her father’s face, too, but it was an emotion that was unfamiliar to Lily. One she had never encountered in her father and wouldn’t decipher until later. By then, it would be too late.

  Chapter 49

  Orekhovka Verkhny Kondryuchy, Russia

  Porphyri Ivanov’s home was a typical Russian country cottage: French-blue painted wood, one story with the exception of a tiny attic room, and roof tiles like overlapping gingerbread cookies. Its window frames were a golden brown and carved into a lace pattern every bit as intricate as the hand-sewn lace curtains that hung in every window, excepting the kitchen. There, the light spilled in without a filter, and Valentina, a woman with once-black hair now streaked with ribbons of iron, tended to a fire, boiling a pot of tea over its dying embers. She sighed, staring out at her husband, who stood nearly naked in the chilly, early autumn air, wearing only a thin, bone-colored scarf tied around his groin. The axe she had thrust into his hands when she shooed him outside was lying in a bed of wildflowers, and the man she had loved for some two and a half decades now was dancing around a Norway Maple, its leaves just beginning to redden.

  Valentina smoothed her eyebrows and removed her apron, hanging it loosely over the back of a wooden chair. She stepped outside, squinting up into the cloudless sky before looking back at her husband. He stroked one of the maple’s branches and inhaled the smell of her leaves. He tapped his bare foot onto the dry soil that housed the roots of the tree and sang “The Lights of Moscow Nights” in a sweet timbered soprano.

  The woman smiled, sighing deeply. She marched into the wildflowers, shaking off a bee sting between the knuckle of her index and middle finger. The offending creature had been flung to the ground, and she stomped it into a black and yellow smear. Picking up the axe her husband had discarded and tucking her long hair into the collar of her blouse, the woman made her way toward the cellar doors of her cottage. There, she rolled a slice from a tree trunk away from a rusted iron crucifix nailed into the side of her house. It faced southwest, toward Jerusalem.

  Raising the axe high above her head, she struck the tree slice, splitting it in two. She stepped back to brace herself and repeated the motion over and over again, until the slice had become several jagged logs that she then piled onto a wheelbarrow and rolled into her kitchen. Peering out the window, she saw that her husband was no longer singing. He was standing, his arms outstretched and looking directly into the sun.

  Tehran, Iran

  Fedot was facing east, peering openly at the hot, mid-morning sun when Lily spotted him. She called his name, and he turned in her direction, blinking hard to readjust his vision and letting tears stream unhindered down his face. Lily ran to greet him, while her father remained standing outside the hotel lobby where they had emerged. Lily took Fedot’s hands and kissed both of his cheeks.

  “Where’s Pasha?” she asked. Fedot had come alone from the decrepit lanes of the Mahalleh, and its smells of cement dust, citrus and raw sewage still clung to his clothes.

  “I thought you’d be gone by now,” Lily said. “To Mr. Nassa’s mountain retreat.”

  Fedot had few answers for her and even fewer questions, despite how long Lily had been gone and how peculiar she must have looked to him in a pale blue Givenchy dress her father had supplied and a thick coat of waxy red lipstick that clashed with the fading bruises under her eyes.

  The fancy dress and the bright lipstick were a sufficient enough distraction from the way Lily’s facial muscles tightened whenever she swallowed. And from the look of world-weary knowledge she’d acquired in just three days with Beryx Gulyas. A girl her age, in her clothes, could look discontented, perhaps, without drawing a more skillful observer to her eyes and what lay behind them. But Lily had not yet learned how to mask her hardening emotions and needed tricks and distractions to do the work for her.

  Fedot would notice that change in her, of course. Fedot noticed everything. She liked that about him. Lily had never liked answering questions about herself anyway, and would grow to like it even less in the coming years. It was why she almost married a man like Richard Putnam, why she had always found herself in bed with any attractive man who crossed her path. They would never know her, and it had suited her that way. But, of course, Pasha Tarkhan was different, and that was why she’d fallen in love with him. Pasha never had to ask—he knew. At least about what really mattered.

  “Fedot, we have to find Pasha,” she said, and the Russian nodded. He focused his stare across the street, his sun-stung eyes taking in the image of Theron Tassos, who stood watching their exchange. It occurred to Fedot that perhaps the Greek was wishing him dead now as well—for not stopping Lily from coming to Tehran, for not contacting him when she first arrived at the Hotel Rude. It didn’t matter. Fedot was no more afraid of Theron than he was of any earthly being. And like Tony Geiger, he’d never particularly liked Lily’s father—if you could qualify his feelings in terms of likes and dislikes. He did like Lily, though, and he was glad to see her alive.

  “Find Pasha, yes,” he agreed. “But first, perhaps, we should deliver this.” Fedot reached into his pocket and pulled out the brown bottle of Myer aspirin, holding it up for Lily, but out of her father’s sightline.

  “Pasha gave that to you!” Lily gasped. “Where is he, Fedot?”

  Fedot shook his head. “He’s been captured by Moscow.”

  Lily took the bottle of Myer aspirin and held it to her chest. Her face felt hot, and she bit down on her lip.

  “We can’t go to the Americans now, Fedot, not until we find Pasha.”

  “Miss Lily,” Fedot said, lowering his voice. “I fear the Americans are the only ones who can help us find Pasha. And they’ll feel much more inclined to give their assistance if we have something for them.”

  Fedot took the Myer aspirin from Lily’s fingers and tucked it into his palm. Theron Tassos was crossing the street and walking toward them, one hand in his pocket and the other hanging loosely at his side. Fedot felt sure the Greek wouldn’t acknowledge their
acquaintanceship, and he was right. Theron waited for Lily to introduce them and then extended his hand.

  “Have you spoken to Mr. Nassa?” Lily asked Fedot after the necessary pleasantries had been exchanged. The Russian shook his head.

  “I suppose he’s gone to the mountains, then,” she said.

  “The Americans will want to help us find Pasha Tarkhan,” Fedot said, asserting himself. “Especially once we tell them about the Sputnik plans Mr. Tarkhan still has on his person.”

  Lily looked curiously at Fedot but decided against contradicting him. She glanced down at the Sputnik microfilm and watched as Fedot tucked the bottle of Myer aspirin into his trousers with a slight of hand so deft Harry Houdini would have been impressed.

  “Shall we go, then?” Lily’s father ventured. “My car is just around the corner.”

  Chapter 50

  Reza Shah Boulevard,” Fedot instructed the driver, guiding them out of the city and toward the Alborz Mountains. Fedot sat in the front seat with his eyes closed while Lily and her father were in back—he, sipping the cup of coffee he’d missed that morning and smoking a cigarette. She thought of taking her father’s fingers in her hand, but a coffee and cigarette signaled his time for reflection and mental preparation. She didn’t wish to disturb him.

  Lily’s father, like many constant business travelers, became a man of rigid habit when he was on the road. The Chrysler Imperial that was shielding them from the Persian sun and whisking them off to the mountains was the only car he would drive or be driven in. Theron Tassos owned at least a dozen of them around the world—maybe more.

  It felt like a long time since Lily had had any creature comforts in her life, and while she certainly was at home in her father’s black Imperial, its leather seats and air-conditioning didn’t feel like the necessities they once were, even in the cruel heat of Tehran. Perhaps they wouldn’t until Pasha was safe and next to her again, his muscular arm enveloping her shoulders and one of his giant hands holding both of her own. Or perhaps a full surrender to the enjoyment of luxuries was a thing of the past for Lily.