Appointment in Berlin

by Neil Maresca

  “Come in, Comrade Farkas,” he said as he wrapped an arm around László’s shoulder and ushered him to a seat, “and please excuse my delay in answering your knock. I had private business, and one cannot be too careful these days. I’m sure you understand.”

  László nodded his head in agreement, but sat in silence.

  “Now what is this urgent news you have for me?”

  László told Dunayevsky all that he had seen and heard, which was actually quite a bit. He hadn’t gone very far into his narrative before Dunayevsky leaned forward, intensely interested. When he had heard all that László had to say, he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap.

  “So,” he said, “it has come that far. Do you know when they are to leave?”

  “Only that is to be within the next two days.”

  “Two days! They have moved much more swiftly than we thought. Congratulations Comrade Farkas. You have learned more with your ear to the door than our best agents in England.

  “The Count must not be permitted to get to Croatia. We cannot reach him there. He must be dealt with here—in Budapest.”

  “I am ready, Comrade. I await only your command.”

  “Then it is in your hands. You must not fail. We cannot permit Hungary to fall into the hands of the capitalists.”

  “He will be dead by morning.”

  “And you will be a hero.”

  László began to rise from his chair, but Dunayevsky placed a hand on his arm and stayed him.

  “One more thing, Comrade...You must kill the bitch and her child as well.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “You know their lineage. The Count is related to the Emperor and his wife to the Empress. With royalty on both sides, the child is more dangerous than the Count. He must be gotten rid of.”

  “Very well.”

  “Will you have a problem killing the child?”

  “None at all.”

  László left The King’s Treasure in high spirits. He had several reasons to be happy. He had won high praise from Dunayevsky. He was going to be a hero. And he was going to kill the Count and his entire family.

  László was not a deep thinker, but even he had to admit that something had changed. From the time that Dunayevsky had passed the Wather P-38 across the table to him, he had become a new man. He loved that Walther. It gave him power, something he had never had before. He loved the feel of the gun in his hands. He cleaned and oiled it every night before he went to bed. He named it “Walter.” He would talk to it. Soon, Walter, soon. Be patient. It will not be long now.

  As he walked home from his meeting with Dunayevsky, he fantasized about killing the Count and his family. Sometimes, he would shoot the Count first, other times, Lukas, but always he saved Sasha for last.

  As delicious as these thoughts were, László recognized that Dunayevsky’s insistence that the entire family be eliminated presented a problem. The family was rarely in one place at one time. The brat Lukas was almost always with that damned Jesuit. The Count could usually be found in his study, but the Countess was unpredictable. And from what he had heard of the conversation between the Count and the messenger, the Count was to travel to Croatia alone, making the task of killing all three at one time more difficult than perhaps Dunayevsky appreciated—especially if he were to escape unscathed—and László had no desire to die for the Party. He intended to be a live hero, not a dead one.

  Gradually, the glee that he had experienced upon leaving The King’s Treasure diminished as he contemplated the difficulty of his task. By the time he reached 45 Andrássey Út, he had sunk back into his usual angry depression. He simply could see no way to accomplish his goal.

  He might have been happier if he had known that events were moving in his favor. The Count’s decision to bring his family with him to Croatia meant that for a short time, all three would be in one room at one time. But he had no knowledge of this, so he spent the better part of the day angry and bitter, just as he had spent most of the days of his life.

  The Count, on the other hand, spent his day happily anticipating his life in England, having gained Horthy’s agreement to his plan. Horthy was not happy because it necessitated a delay while the extra travel documents were cleared through German authorities. He had planned to have Milán leave that morning, but there was nothing he could do about it. The Count had informed him that he was not leaving without his family, and it was too late for Horthy to start over with a new intermediary. Milán’s name was on all the documents. His signature was necessary to seal the treaty. So Horthy gave in and delayed until the evening to allow time for the additional paperwork to be completed.

  Sasha spent a bittersweet day packing, unpacking, and repacking suitcases, stopping from time to time to look wistfully at some article of clothing, or a picture, or memento before deciding that it had to stay. She enlisted Ema’s help in the packing and sorting, and had Maya prepare a basket with sandwiches and some of Lukas’ favorite snacks. It would be a long trip, she knew, and harder on young Lukas than on her and Milán. She told Ema that her mother, from whom she had been estranged for many years, had fallen ill and asked to see her, and of course, she could not refuse. She made the sign of the cross when Ema left the room, and asked God’s forgiveness for lying.

  Lukas was disappointed. It was a bright, gorgeous, sunny May day. The flowers along Andrássey Út were blooming, the trees reveling in their new, fresh green leaves. It was a day for fun, and Lukas had anticipated a trip to the park with Father Márton, maybe even a game of football, if the local boys were not in school, which was almost every day. Instead he was dragged around from one dreary office to another, forced to sit and wait endlessly while Father Márton went from office to office and line to line gathering papers. “Important business” for his father, he said. Maybe so, Lukas thought, but he wished his father weren’t so important, and he didn’t have to waste a beautiful day watching Germans in uniform bossing everybody around.

  By evening, all the plans had been made, the bags packed, and the picnic basket stuffed with treats for Maya’s pet, Lukas. With the family gathered around the table for dinner, Milán broke the news to Lukas. “How would you like a trip to the seashore?” he asked. Lukas was ecstatic. He had never been to the seashore, but he had seen pictures and heard stories. He couldn’t believe it. “Is it true? You are not teasing me?” he asked, worried that his parents were having a laugh at his expense. But they assured him it was true. “Father Márton has been getting our travel documents,” they said, and when Lukas asked why he hadn’t been told, the Jesuit explained that Milán and Sasha wanted it to be a surprise, and he didn’t want to ruin it for them. Lukas was delighted—a trip to the seashore, what could be better? He was so excited and happy that the others couldn’t help but laugh. They laughed as they hadn’t laughed for years. It seemed that all of the sorrows brought on by the war had, at least for a time, been forgotten amid the joy of the evening.

  László, who was listening outside the door, was growing excited as well. I could do it now, he thought, while they are happy. The idea pleased him. But Father Márton was there, and the big man scared him almost as much as Dunayevsky’s man, the hulking mammoth, Slava.

  László knew that Father Márton often left the table before the others in order to pray in the solitude of his room. I’ll do it then, he thought, and left his post outside the door to get his gun from the room.

  Had he stayed, he would have heard Lukas begging his parents to know When? “When are we going, Mama?” he asked, so excited he could barely speak. “Tonight,” came the unexpected reply.

  “Tonight!” cried the delighted child.

  “Yes dear, right after dinner.”

  Lukas jumped out of his chair, wiped his mouth and declared himself ready to go.

  “Slow down and finish your dinner,” his mother said, “There is no rush.” But Father Márton corrected her, “Lukas is right. Our train leaves in only a little more than an hour. I s
uggest we leave as soon as possible.”

  “Well,” Sasha said. “We’re all packed and ready to go.” And with that, they all happily rose from the table and went to their rooms to gather their belongings, leaving László amazed to find the dining room deserted when he returned, gun in hand.

  He was staring into the empty room when he heard voices coming from down the hall. He immediately spun around and placed his hands—and the luger—behind his back.

  “László”

  “Yes, Your Excellency”

  “Fetch the bags from our room and bring them to the foyer. The Countess’ mother has taken a turn for the worse, and we must leave immediately.”

  “Certainly, Excellency”

  He bowed his head as the Count turned and walked down the hall to the foyer, followed immediately by the Countess and Lukas.

  László had no idea where Father Márton was. Perhaps, he thought, he has gone to arrange a ride to the station. In any case, there was no time for any further delay. The family was leaving. They were only steps away from the door, and they were together. It had to be now.

  Instead of turning toward the bedrooms as directed, László fell in behind the Countess and Lukas. He stood, with his hands behind his back, while Milán hugged his wife, and Lukas stood by.

  The Count noticed László standing there, and moving his wife to his side, asked, “Where are the bags?”

  László responded, “Here, Your Excellency,” and drawing the Walther from behind his back, fired two shots into the Count’s chest from near point-blank range. Sasha screamed and instinctively grabbed her husband as he fell to the floor. László turned his attention to Lukas, who was standing still, looking up at him.

  “I saw him pull the gun from behind his back,” Lucas would later tell Doctor Rosenfeld. “I distinctly recall that it was a Walther P-38. I had seen many like it before of course. Living in a German-occupied city, you would have been blind not to have seen them, since every German officer carried one. But I had never seen one fired at point blank range. I remember that the noise was enormous. It echoed and reechoed around the foyer.

  “I saw the gun fire. I swear I could see the bullet—I know that’s impossible, but everything seemed to be happening in ultra-slow motion. I heard my father groan, saw him grab his chest, heard my mother scream, and saw her grab hold of my father as he fell. You know, I don’t think his head ever hit the floor, she was that quick.

  “I didn’t really look at my father. I guess I knew he was dead. I kept looking at László. For some reason, I thought this was important. After he shot my father, he turned the gun on me. I didn’t move—I don’t know why. I saw him aim and press his finger on the trigger. Odd—I wasn’t scared. I don’t know what I was—curious?

  “Then it gets a little confusing. There was a flash of black, a roar, a flash of red, and the whoosh of air as a bullet zipped by my ear.

  “Things returned to normal after that. I mean my sense of time returned to normal. The events were anything but normal.

  “Father Márton in his black robes was on the floor, as was László, several feet away. He must have hit him pretty hard because both men appeared stunned, and the gun had fallen out of László’s hand and was lying at my feet. Father Márton got up and took a step in László’s direction, but stopped when he heard my mother call his name. He looked at László, who, by this time, had also gotten up and was making for the door. I think Father Márton cursed then, and turned his attention to my mother and father.

  “I looked at them too—for the first time since it all began. My mother was sitting on the floor, holding my Father’s head in her lap like Mary holding Jesus in Michelangelo’s Pieta. There was blood everywhere. It poured from my father’s chest and soaked into the Foyer carpet. It bubbled from his mouth and ran down his face onto my mother’s dress. Her hands and face were smeared with it. She was sobbing. They killed him, she said. She said it over and over.

  “I didn’t understand. I didn’t know who ‘they’ were. I knew László had killed my father. I had seen him do it. And I swore that one day, I would kill him.

  Chapter 12

  May, 1957

  Landstuhl Army Medical Center

  Frankfurt, Germany

  Dr. Rosenfeld and Lucas sat on a bench in a small garden adjacent to the hospital. Lucas’s wheelchair stood patiently waiting for the time that Lucas would tire of the outdoors and need to retire to his room.

  “I don’t need that, you know,” Lucas said, motioning to the empty chair, which, Rosenfeld thought, looked a little forlorn sitting there unused and, apparently, unneeded.

  “You mean, you made me push you when you could have walked?”

  “Doctor’s orders, and those nurses mean business. I’m more afraid of them than I am of the Stazi.”

  “Since you brought it up, would you like to talk about the Stazi?”

  “No. Besides, I already told you that there is nothing to discuss. They’re goons. They beat me up. I told them nothing. That’s all there is to it.”

  Dr. Rosenfeld recognized the change in tone and pretended to write in his notebook. He had made good progress with Lucas. The tension that had been present in the first meetings was gone, and Lucas had spoken openly about his early years in Budapest, but the relationship was still fragile.

  ‘You’ve spoken a great deal about your father, but you’ve told me nothing about your mother.”

  “Isn’t it all in my file?”

  “You know it’s not.”

  “Why do ask about my mother?’

  “I’m a psychiatrist. Don’t you know that I believe all my patients are in love with their mothers?”

  Lucas smiled. “Is that supposed to be your idea of humor?” he asked.

  “It always gets a laugh at the psychiatrists’ convention,” Rosenfeld responded.

  “Guilty as charged. I love my mother.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do love her, just as I am sure that you are not in love with her. Still, there is some reason why you have avoided discussing her in your description of events in Budapest, and I should like to know what it is.”

  Lucas didn’t respond. This was the pattern of their relationship. Rosenfeld recognized it, knew that Lucas needed time, and couldn’t be pushed. So, he sat, and waited, as he had done every day since he began treating Lucas.

  After a period of time long enough for Doctor Rosenfeld to wonder if he had pushed his patient too far, Lucas responded.

  “Mother and I have enemies.”

  “As did your father, yet you spoke about him.”

  “The tense matters a great deal.”

  “Excuse me? The tense?”

  “Yes, my father did have enemies, past tense. He is gone. His enemies are no longer a threat to him.”

  “And they are to you and your mother—a threat?”

  “Yes.”

  Rosenfeld inhaled deeply. Lucas guarded his information more jealously than Scrooge did his gold. The Doctor had no doubt that the East Germans got nothing from him, no matter how hard they beat him. And even if he did speak, you had no guarantee that he was telling the truth. He wasn’t a pathological liar, just a very accomplished one. You got nothing from Lucas that he didn’t want to give. The trick was to make him want to give it. So, instead of pressing for an explanation, Rosenfeld waited. And waited. And waited, until he couldn’t stand to wait any longer.

  “I would have thought that the threat to you and your mother ended when your father was killed. He was the target—because of his part in the treaty. Once he was out of the way, what threat did you and mother pose?”

  “You misunderstand the mind of the enemy, Doctor.”

  “By ‘enemy,’ you mean….”

  “The communists, of course.”

  Chapter 13

  May, 1944

  Kerepesi Cemetary

  Budapest

  It was the perfect day for a funeral. The sky was heavy with dark, ominous clouds that hid the sun and press
ed down upon the small group of mourners who made their slow way through the gates of Kerepesi cemetery on the outskirts of Budapest. Two black-plumed, jet-black horses were the first through the gates, guided by a sallow-looking man in a black longcoat and tall hat, and drawing the glass-sided hearse containing the last mortal remains of Count Mihal Károlyi de NagyKárolyi.

  A storm had been building in the East for days, casting a pall over the entire city. The Russians were coming. It wasn’t a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when.’ With the assassination of the Count, Horthy’s plan to align Hungary with the Western Bloc nations ended, leaving Hungary with no choice. It would fight the Russians, not for Germany, but for Hungary and freedom.

  None of this mattered to Lukas, who sat alongside his mother in the carriage behind the hearse. He was only vaguely aware of the machinations of nations. His world was much smaller, and it had been shattered in one evening by the act of a single person. How this person figured into the great conflict that was consuming the rest of the world was of no interest. Lukas only knew that his father was dead at the hands of a servant that he had trusted. The lesson had not been lost on him. It would be many years before he would ever trust anyone other than his mother and Father Márton.

  The funeral cortege, if it could be called that, wound slowly past the statues of Hungarian poets, artists, and heroes on its way to the Károlyi mausoleum, an ornate, marble structure that resembled a small Grecian temple. It sat atop a small hill, crowned by a stately, ancient oak tree. The cortege consisted of the horse-drawn hearse, the carriage containing Sasha and Lukas, Father Márton, who had made the two kilometer journey from the cathedral to the cemetery on foot, one black sedan with Sasha’s brother-in-law, Mikhail, and a second sedan containing several of Mikhail’s Arrow Cross goons for protection.

  Sasha had vehemently objected to the presence of the brown-shirted Arrow Cross militia, but Mikhail, who despised her “Jew-loving” husband, and had agreed to help only out of respect for his deceased wife, Sasha’s sister, had insisted, and Sasha, having been long ago disowned by her family, alone and in danger, had nowhere else to turn.