Burning Cold

by Lisa Lieberman

  “Why don’t you tell us what you want?” said Zoltán. But Frankie refused to be drawn out, perhaps fearing he might lose his focus and allow the men an opening. Really, I was surprised that he’d come alone, with just a driver for backup. I’d assumed the other man was watching for us and would have come in after us with his own weapon, but it appeared he was watching for reinforcements. Frankie must have been dispatched to hold us until they arrived. Every so often, he glanced at the kitchen clock, which sat on the ledge over the stove. Fifteen minutes passed and, during that time, every effort on our part to find out what we had in store for us met with silence.

  Finally, after half an hour, Frankie spoke. “I’d like the girl to get me one of my cigarettes. There’s a pack of them in the right pocket of my coat. The rest of you are to sit still. The girl may get up now. That’s right, do it slowly.”

  I did as he asked, conscious all the while that he was now pointing his pistol at Jakub, who was seated immediately to his right. Just breathe, I told myself. Stand tall. No stopping you now. I used to whisper these words as a little pep talk before stepping onstage, and it calmed me to think that I was simply acting a part.

  “Good. Now come closer—that’s close enough,” he said when I was within arm’s reach of him. “Get my cigarettes out of my pocket.”

  I felt around until my hand closed around the packet. Lifting it out, I recognized the green label with its black-and-white emblem, a drawing of the hero of the 1848 revolution, Sándor Kossuth. József’s brand, they were unfiltered and quite strong.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like one of my Marlboros?” quipped Gray. I’m sure he was trying to lighten the mood, for my sake, but the effort backfired.

  “Shut up, you faggot,” said Frankie, turning in his seat so the gun was now pointed at Gray. Eyes on my brother, he now directed me to remove a cigarette from the pack and place it between his lips. As I did so, he grasped my wrist with his free hand and stroked it, causing me to drop the cigarette on the floor.

  Jakub shifted in his chair. I kept my eyes on Frankie, whose lips parted in a cruel smile as he observed the effect his attentions were having on my husband.

  “Sexy little wife you have, my friend. I enjoyed watching her move on the dance floor, but you need to be rough with a woman.” Tightening his grip, he began to twist my wrist, pulling me toward him at the same time. I winced at the pain, but refused to give him the satisfaction of crying out. Frankie wasn’t interested in my reaction anyway; he was looking to get a rise out of Jakub.

  “Pick up the cigarette and let’s try again,” he said, releasing my wrist and pushing me away. I stumbled, but steadied myself on the edge of the table. Frankie gave a grunt of satisfaction. Jakub had risen from his chair and was coming to my aid, just as my tormenter wanted. Pointing the pistol at me now, he cocked it and dared my husband to take another step. Jakub had no choice but to sit back down and watch, seething in frustration, as I stooped to retrieve the cigarette and put it in Frankie’s mouth.

  While this drama was taking place, I saw Magda sliding her fingers inch by inch along the table until they reached the piece of twine that György had been working on earlier. Before anyone else noticed, she’d gathered the length of it into her hand and moved her hand to her lap. I wasn’t sure what she intended to do with it, but I wanted to be ready, should she need assistance.

  Frankie now wanted a light. He had me go into his pocket again, to fish out his lighter. I’d seen the model before, a metal briquet lighter, quite utilitarian and probably indestructible. I flicked open the lid and was just about to snap the wheel to ignite the flint, my thumb poised to strike, when I observed Magda, out of the corner of my eye, give a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. She didn’t want me to light Frankie’s cigarette? But he’d ordered me to do it. Was she trying to get me shot? I moved my thumb to the wheel. Again the cautionary shake. Her meaning was clear: don’t do it.

  I pretended to slide my thumb downward once, twice, three times. “I can’t make it work,” I whined, like a helpless female. “Is it out of fluid?” My hands were actually trembling, I was so nervous, which probably made the act more convincing, but inside I was cool, focused. Waiting for my opportunity.

  “A lány hülye. Hadd csináljam én,” Magda said. I learned from Zoltán later on that she’d called me stupid. I didn’t mind, given what she did next.

  Frankie laughed nastily. “Rendben.”

  Cautiously, the old servant got up from her chair and made her way around the table. She moved like a feeble creature, which was not at all the way she’d appeared to us, but I realized she was trying to convey that she was not a threat as she crept up to our captor and reached to take the lighter from my hand.

  In a flash it was over. Magda wrapped the twine around Frankie’s neck and pulled it tight, her strong arms gripping it until welts formed around her bulging knuckles. Frankie struggled, jerking convulsively as he fought for breath, but the old woman was in control. I kept my eyes on her knuckles as opposed to watching Frankie’s face, but I couldn’t close my ears to the horrible gurgling sounds he was making as she choked him to death. His body pitched forward as she released him, the gun falling from his hand and clattering to the floor. Someone told me to pick it up and I obeyed automatically, putting the weapon into Magda’s outstretched hand. Then Jakub had an arm around me and Zoltán was praising me for my self-possession.

  “I couldn’t have done what you did,” he said, “enduring the attentions of that thug. You played him perfectly.”

  “My sister is a superb actress,” bragged Gray.

  György smiled at me. “You were quite brave.”

  Was I? I didn’t feel particularly brave, and as for my skill as an actress, it was surprising how little effort was required to get a man killed. I’d worked harder at memorizing Cole Porter lyrics before a gig with the trio. But the worst of it was that I didn’t care. Frankie lay slumped on the kitchen table not two feet from Jakub and me, his face a horrible violet color, eyes bulging out of their sockets. The way he’d tormented us, the sadistic pleasure he took in flaunting his power: there was nothing human in him, no decency or compassion. He’d have killed us without a moment’s hesitation, just for fun, and I had no regrets about the part I’d played in his death. But it was a small part, going along with the game of the cigarettes and the lighter, distracting him long enough for Magda to make her move. She was the star performer, Magda, who was looking at me with maternal pride. I’d entered her realm, the realm of women who took matters into their own hands and did what needed to be done. This I would cherish, Magda’s respect, because it gave me confidence in my own strength.

  The men were busy making plans. “Nicholas is behind this, I’m sure of it,” said Zoltán.

  “He could be arriving any minute, too,” added Gray.

  “How do we get out of here without alerting the driver out front?” My husband turned to György. “You mentioned an escape route, didn’t you? A tunnel of some sort?”

  “The cellars! Of course.”

  “Eugène won’t be happy about the Škoda,” Gray fretted.

  “I know,” said Jakub, “but it can’t be helped.”

  I imagined that we could find another car for the Romanian playwright, once we were back in Paris. Getting out of the kitchen and away from the sight of Frankie’s face was my top priority, but how would we get to the border without a car?

  In fact, Zoltán was debating this very question with György. They switched to Hungarian, bringing Magda into the conversation, but something in her posture suggested impatience, as if she already knew what the two of them were going to decide and was eager to be about her business.

  “Igen,” I heard the old woman say, satisfied and with finality, when the men at long last arrived at the proper conclusion. Nodding to me, her newfound ally, she went into the front hallway to use the telephone.

 
“This way, children.” György led us into the pantry, a tight little room with floor-to-ceiling shelves along three walls. Jars of preserved fruits and vegetables crammed the shelves, enough to last out another siege, if need be. There was a trapdoor in the floor. Zoltán stooped to pull it open, revealing a steep wooden staircase.

  “Is there a flashlight, Gyuri bácsi?”

  “Magda’s bringing one. Ah, here she is.” He handed me the flashlight and told me to go down first. “You’ll find candles on the ledge on the right-hand side down by the bottom, along with some empty wine bottles, and there should be some matches with them.” I was to light the candles, stick them in the neck of the empty wine bottles, and call up to them when I’d gotten the cellar illuminated. Then the others would carry down Frankie’s body, to confuse Nicholas into thinking that we’d all gone off with him somewhere, buying us time.

  “It won’t be the first corpse down there,” said Zoltán. Sensing Magda’s eyes on me, I tried not to flinch. I would do what needed to be done like the strong woman I was. Descending the staircase, I located the candles and the wine bottles, although I had to dig out my own lighter from my purse because there were no matches anywhere I could see.

  “Ready!”

  Gray and Jakub came down first, each shouldering one of Frankie’s legs, followed by Magda and Zoltán, who were hefting him under the arms. Last came György with a lantern, lighting their way from behind. Carrying such a big man put considerable strain on all four of Frankie’s bearers. They had to rest when they reached the bottom, propping his body against the staircase while they caught their breath. I turned to study the wall behind me to avoid looking at him. A gauzy black growth covered the earthen sides of the cellar, like cobwebs in a mummy’s tomb. I half expected to see Lon Chaney come limping out of the darkness, moaning and trailing his rags.

  “It’s called ‘noble rot,’” said Zoltán, noticing my attention. “It’s a fungus.”

  Gray was skeptical. “A fungus? What’s so noble about that?”

  “It’s what gives the Aszú its sweetness. Botrytis cinerea. Don’t make that face—it’s a benevolent fungus—Uncle György can explain how it works. He knows viticulture inside out, even if he chose not to enter the family business.”

  “And just as well,” said György, who had paused midway down the stairs to close the trapdoor and was now descending the rest of the way. “The wines they’ve produced since the industry was nationalized hardly merit the label. Those were prewar bottles we were drinking. I’ll be sorry to leave them behind.”

  I glanced over at Jakub, to confirm that I hadn’t mistaken what György had said. Yes, my husband was smiling. I couldn’t help but smile in return. György was coming with us! Of course, we were still in serious danger, but I somehow managed to push those fears aside. While the others took up Frankie’s body once again and shambled off to deposit it in some out-of-the-way part of the cellar, I kept my mind occupied by imagining Father’s reaction, when we brought both his long-lost son and his oldest friend to meet him in California. Would Magda be coming too? I didn’t see how we could leave her behind to face the consequences of Frankie’s murder and our escape. Although it was difficult to imagine the old housekeeper thriving outside of Hungary, I was sure there’d be a place for her at the lodge. She deserved to retire in a sunny place—and, of course, György would be close by.

  But Magda had no intention of leaving Mád. “She’s very well-liked in the town. People will protect her,” Zoltán assured us. “She’s survived two wars and countless changes of regime, don’t forget.”

  György had gone on ahead, to procure us a vehicle for the journey to the border. The rest of us were making our way through a tunnel that led out to the street—the same tunnel our brother had used to escape arrest, two decades earlier. Eyes fixed on the wavering beam of Magda’s flashlight, each holding a candle in a wine bottle to light our way, all we could do was to trust the plan they’d put together to get us safely to the border.

  At last we reached the exit. Magda pulled a keyring from her coat pocket and opened an iron grating. We emerged onto a drainage ditch that stretched between two rows of houses in the lower part of town.

  “Siessetek!” Magda pointed to a narrow board spanning the ditch, a makeshift bridge we needed to cross to reach the street side of the ditch. “Óvatosan!” She urged us forward, locking the grating behind.

  A horn sounded as we came out onto the street. There, behind the wheel of a livestock truck, sat György, looking the part of a local farmer in his patched wool coat, bits of straw clinging to his clothing. The truck was used for transporting pigs to market and had high wooden sides and the bed was filled with straw.

  “Don’t worry, it’s clean,” he said, opening the slatted tailgate for us. “You’ll find some blankets back there as well. Bundle up and keep your heads down.”

  Magda got in the cab with György while the rest of us clambered into the back. Avoiding the main roads would make for a cold and bumpy ride, but if all went well, we would still reach the border before nightfall. Jakub and I lay side by side in the middle of the truck bed, snuggled under a blanket, while Gray and Zoltán, each wrapped in his own blanket, took turns peering out through the wooden slats and describing what they saw.

  “Attila the Hun is supposed to be buried near here,” said our brother. We were driving across the Great Hungarian Plain, where the barbarian invader had set up headquarters, launching forays into Greece and the Balkans. After his defeat at Châlons, he returned here to lick his wounds and plan his next attack on the Eastern Roman Empire, but he died under mysterious circumstances on his wedding night. Legend had it that his grieving generals diverted the course of a river in order to bury their leader in its bed, releasing the damned-up waters after the burial ceremony so that Attila’s tomb would be forever submerged. Indeed, it had never been found.

  “Must have been some wedding night,” murmured my husband, nuzzling his face against mine. He hadn’t shaved for two days, and his cheek was scratchy, but his lips were soft and inviting, reminding me vividly of our own wedding night and our subsequent honeymoon weekend, when he also hadn’t bothered to shave.

  We’d been married by a justice of the peace in a private morning ceremony at the lodge, just Father, Gray, Jakub, and me. Afterward, we went out to lunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. We’d decided on lunch as opposed to dinner because the hard-drinking members of the Rat Pack commandeered the place in the evenings, but Father surprised us by inviting a few of my favorite stars to drop by our table for a glass of champagne. Fred Astaire was there, and Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall, who both happened to be outside by the pool that day, filming the opening scenes of Designing Women. John Wayne was eating a steak at a neighboring table, but he and Father had never gotten along and we pretended not to notice him.

  The best surprise arrived with dessert. Marlene Dietrich sashayed into the room wearing a man’s suit that made her look anything but boyish.

  “I hope you’ve saved me a piece of cake,” she said in that alluring German accent of hers.

  Father rose to pull out her chair. “Only you would upstage the groom at his own wedding party.”

  “What do you mean?” she pouted. “I wore this for you, Robbie.”

  Another bottle of champagne appeared. “To love,” said Marlene, when our glasses had been filled.

  “To love,” we all repeated, clinking glasses.

  Jakub drained his glass in one gulp, his eyes never leaving the actress’s. I could see that he was completely smitten, but there was no point in being jealous; Marlene had that effect on everyone. John Wayne had stopped eating the moment she entered the room. They’d had a torrid affair in the forties and he seemed eager to pick up where they’d left off, but she was still carrying a torch for Yul Brynner.

  After the champagne and the cake, Marlene handed Jakub and me the keys to her
bungalow. “Number ten, darlings. You’ll like the bed. It’s custom-made, and you can just pick up the telephone and order room service—they’ll bill it to me—that way you won’t have to leave the room if you don’t want to.”

  Attila the Hun probably didn’t have room service, I was thinking. We’d stopped for gas at Szolnok, a crossroads town at the confluence of two rivers, the Tisza and the Zagyva. György sent Magda around to open the tailgate, allowing us to get out and stretch our legs. She’d purchased bread and sausages from a market in one of the towns we’d passed through earlier. While we consumed the food, György entered into a lengthy conversation with the filling station attendant. Zoltán was straining to overhear the exchange and, toward the end, he managed to pick up a snippet or two, which caused him to burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” said Gray.

  “Do you like pigs?” Our brother was still chuckling.

  “As food?” I asked through a mouthful of sausage. It was seasoned with paprika and was pretty tasty.

  “No,” said Zoltán. “As company.”

  We assumed he was joking, but then we saw Magda go off with the attendant on the back of his motorcycle. Ten minutes later they returned, and when they dismounted, we saw that the old woman was clutching a pair of piglets to her chest.

  I’d never held a baby pig. These were Mangalicas, a famous Hungarian breed that grow up to be wooly haired, like sheep. Our two were not very wooly; their coats were still coming in. To me, they resembled puppies, plump and floppy-eared. True, they had cloven hooves and snouts but, like puppies, they adored being tickled on their bellies.

  We were embarking on the most difficult leg of our journey. Budapest was completely surrounded, Soviet forces stationed at various junctions all along the way to the border. The filling station attendant had been hearing reports of troop buildups all day. He thought our best chance of avoiding a military checkpoint was to head south, giving the capital a wide berth. Students from the university in Sopron had seized control of the municipal government and we’d be safest crossing there. The piglets were for distraction, in case we were stopped and searched. Daylight was fading, and if we covered ourselves with straw and kept to the back of the truck, we might not be spotted.