District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  ‘These are for you,’ he said, addressing the mother.

  Her eyes widened as he handed over the fruit, water, sandwiches and chocolate.

  The father said, ‘We cannot pay you. We have no money left. The police took everything.’

  Balthazar said, ‘You don’t have to pay me. It’s a present. Where are you from?’

  The father stood up and extended his hand. ‘South Sudan. The world’s newest country. With the world’s newest war. My name is Samuel.’

  Balthazar shook Samuel’s hand. His grip was firm and strong. ‘Welcome to Hungary.’

  Samuel looked down at the food, raw hunger, pride and shame in his eyes that his life had come to this, accepting handouts from a stranger in a train station in a country he wanted to leave as fast as possible, so that his family might eat today. ‘Thank you.’

  The girl’s eyes widened as she saw the chocolate. She grabbed the bar and started to unwrap it. Her father took it from her hand, broke off a piece. ‘Eat it slowly,’ he said.

  ‘That’s good advice,’ said Balthazar.

  Balthazar said goodbye, stood up and started walking to the MigSzol office. The football bounced over towards him. He caught it with his right foot and flicked it towards one of the players – a boy in his late teens, wearing a Nike baseball cap back to front. The boy gave Balthazar a thumbs-up and the game resumed.

  The MigSzol office was more of a shop, the third space in a glass-walled modern building on the edge of the Transit Zone. The space on the right was empty, that on the left occupied by two uniformed members of the local Polgarorseg sitting behind a desk and playing with their mobile phones. ‘Polgarorseg’ broadly translated as ‘Citizens’ authority’, a municipal quasi-police force of unclear powers, that reported directly to the mayor of District VIII. The nuances were irrelevant to those camped out at Keleti, who usually recoiled nervously when the two officials appeared.

  Balthazar was about to step inside the MigSzol office, when a familiar – very familiar – profile caught his eye: an attractive woman with a notebook in one hand, a pen in the other, scribbling away as she spoke to a tall, thin man with long, scraggly brown hair. Balthazar knew him by sight and reputation: Arpad Pinter – known as Arpi – a radical political activist and one of the founders of MigSzol.

  Balthazar watched Eniko for a second, nodding, coaxing, smiling encouragingly at Arpi as she worked, her brown ponytail bobbing. He had not seen Eniko since her return from London. But he was not avoiding her, he told himself. No, not at all. They would meet. It was inevitable that their paths would cross sooner or later. Budapest was a small city. The migrant crisis was generating all sorts of new networks and connections. Did he need a work-related reason to see her? Maybe, maybe not. He watched her flick her hair back, a look of fierce concentration on her face, and damped down the emotions that bubbled inside him. Did she sense him looking at her? He watched Arpi walk away from her. For a moment Eniko seemed about to turn in Balthazar’s direction, but walked the other way towards a female doctor.

  MigSzol office, Keleti, 1.10 p.m.

  The space was calmer than on Eniko’s visit earlier that morning. There were fewer people milling around, but the room seemed even hotter. The glass frontage offered no respite from the heat. The warm air smelled stale, as though it had been circulated too often. There was no air-conditioning and a solitary fan made no difference. Boxes of apples, packs of nappies, and cases of small bottles of mineral water were piled up against the walls. She watched Arpi and the volunteers, mostly young men and women in their late teens or early twenties, prepare the lunch bags. Each contained two white rolls, a banana and small packet of processed cheese. A female doctor was tending to a teenage boy who was lying on a mattress in the corner of the room. He was thin and drowsy, with shadowed eyes and a drip leading from his arm.

  The Shamsis had called a doctor after Maryam had fainted. They had made it clear that Eniko should leave, which she was more than ready to do. She had walked back to the 555. hu office at Blaha Lujza, trying in vain to ignore the heavy lump in her stomach and the image of Maryam sliding off the sofa. Eniko downloaded the photograph of Simon Nazir onto her computer and cropped around his face, editing out the backdrop of the demolished building on Republic Square. She then printed it out. Nazir still had the startled look of someone in a police mugshot but it was a less disturbing image. Once she was done, Eniko had walked back up Rakoczi Way to the MigSzol office in ten minutes.

  Eniko caught Arpi’s eye and gestured for him to step aside. He did so, a questioning look on his face. She took out a folded sheet of A4 paper from her jacket pocket and handed it to him. The grainy image showed Simon Nazir’s disembodied face against a white background.

  ‘Do you know him?’ she asked.

  Arpi looked wary. ‘No, but I’ve seen him.’

  Eniko had known Arpi for several years. His gaunt face was covered in at least three days’ worth of beard and he was dressed in a grubby pink T-shirt and ripped, black skinny jeans. Arpi was a high-profile activist, always in the centre of any anti-government or anti-globalisation protest. He had recently been arrested for chaining himself to a tree on Kossuth Square, the site of Hungary’s Parliament, protesting in solidarity with the migrants.

  Eniko asked, ‘Where?’

  ‘Where do you think? Around here. He helps out sometimes. What’s happened to him?’

  ‘He’s gone missing. Do you know anything?’

  ‘I’m not sure. There is some stuff going on here. People are scared, especially the Syrians. Not just of the police and the Gendarmes.’ He looked around. ‘I can’t talk now. It’s lunchtime. Call me tonight,’ he said, and walked away.

  As Arpi walked off, Eniko glanced through the MigSzol window at the plaza and saw the side of a very familiar face. Her stomach did a little flip. What was he doing here? His job, she guessed. Balthazar Kovacs was a detective in the murder squad. And it looked more and more like someone had been murdered. Who else would have sent her the photo of the dead man with a ‘B’ in the message? So he wanted to make contact. Had made contact. Maybe he needed some help. She was surprised he had managed to work out how to use WhatsApp to send a message from an unknown number. In fact she had not known that was even possible. Balthazar was not a technophile. He could send emails and browse a website, but that was about it. Maybe he wanted give her a story tip-off. Or he just wanted to see her. Or something of both. How did she feel about that? She wasn’t sure. Untangling her love life – or lack of one – and her work life was not quite so simple.

  Eniko watched the doctor step away from the boy with the drip. Just as she walked up to her, the door opened and a woman walked in. She wore a shiny blue shell suit and looked to be in her early fifties, with a lived-in face and dyed blonde hair with black roots. Eniko felt the ripple of tension run through the air, and slipped the printout of the photograph of Simon Nazir into her jacket pocket as she watched.

  The migrants at Keleti had provoked strong reactions from the locals. The surrounding streets were a rough and poor neighbourhood, another world from the Budapest most tourists saw. The altercations were becoming more frequent now, as tempers and the temperature steadily rose. Local toughs would march into the crowds, abuse and provoke the migrants, knowing they would be too scared to respond. Three days earlier, a gang of skinheads had sprinted into the middle of the Transit Zone, screaming abuse and punching random people, including a teenage girl, who was taken to hospital, before hurling MNF flyers in the air and running off. The station was covered by CCTV but the police showed no interest in apprehending the troublemakers. Instead, they had detained the family of the girl who had been punched, only releasing her when 555.hu and other media reported the story.

  The new arrival carried two large, bulging carrier bags. She glanced around, and walked up to Arpi. ‘Here,’ she said, her voice roughened by years of cigarettes. ‘My friends and I saw what was happening on television. It’s not right.’ She suddenly looked embarrassed
. ‘This is not much, but it’s something. Anyway,’ she said, and started back to the door.

  ‘Wait, please, a moment,’ said Arpi. He carefully emptied the bags on to the table. Chocolate, Gyori biscuits, crisps, apples, bruised bananas, wrapped sliced bread, and packets of parizsi, the cheapest processed meat, tumbled out.

  Arpi turned to the woman, took her hand. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  ‘There’s no pork in there,’ she said, now blushing bright red with pleasure and embarrassment, and walked out.

  Eniko relaxed and stopped writing. She thought quickly: it was not enough for a stand-alone article but the scene would make a nice human-interest vignette in a larger reportage piece. Should she go after the woman, or focus on the doctor? The latter, Eniko decided, and walked over to the corner, where she was tending the young man with the drip.

  The doctor’s name, Eniko knew from her contacts, was Dora Szegedi. She was a recent arrival on the roster of medical volunteers at the MigSzol office. Szegedi was a paediatrician who usually worked at the nearby Heim Pal children’s hospital. She was plump, in her mid-forties, with dyed red hair, blue eyes and a gold Star of David on a chain around her neck. She glanced warily at Eniko as she stood nearby.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Eniko.

  Szegedi looked Eniko up and down, her chubby face lined with fatigue. ‘And you are?’

  Eniko introduced herself and handed her 555.hu business card to the doctor. It would, she hoped, do the trick. Apart from a couple of bloggers and the sole remaining liberal daily newspaper and television station, 555.hu was a rare example of a mainstream media outlet that had not descended into outright hysteria over the migrant crisis. Eniko had written several articles about the situation at Keleti, and the website had run numerous editorials demanding that the government provide proper sanitation and medical care for those stranded at the station.

  Szegedi turned Eniko’s business card over in her hand. ‘Eniko Szalay. I’ve read your articles.’ The doctor looked up at Eniko. ‘Why are you interested? He’s not dressed as a Gypsy.’ Her voice was not exactly hostile, but it was certainly wary.

  Eniko’s article had already triggered blowback on the liberal left. To write anything remotely critical of the Roma – even when they were committing criminal acts and working with people-smugglers – immediately placed the author in the right-wing camp. The comments were pouring in now against Eniko’s article, accusing her of being a turncoat, stooge for the right wing, even a paid agent of the government.

  ‘You read my article?’ asked Eniko.

  The doctor nodded.

  ‘And what did you think?’

  ‘The details were accurate... It seemed interesting,’ said Szegedi, rapidly correcting herself. ‘Sometimes uncomfortable truths should be reported.’

  Eniko thought quickly. How could Dr Szegedi know the details were accurate? Unless... Eniko held Szegedi’s gaze. ‘Yes. They should be. But it always helps when there’s someone nearby who knows what’s going on, someone really watching Keleti.’

  Szegedi turned pink, stepped to the side, took two small bottles of mineral water from a case. She opened one and took a deep draught, handed the other to Eniko. ‘OK, Eniko. How can I help you?’

  Eniko opened the bottle and drank. She reached inside her jacket pocket and showed Szegedi the photograph of Nazir.

  Eniko asked, ‘Have you seen him? Do you know him?’

  Szegedi looked Eniko up and down, as though assessing her for treatment or referral. ‘Yes. And no.’

  Eniko nodded enthusiastically. ‘Can you tell me anything more?’

  Szegedi said, ‘He was here a couple of times. He helped out with interpreting. He spoke pretty good English. I think his name was Simon, from somewhere in Syria.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘No. I have no idea. Where did you get that photograph? And why are you so interested in him? There are thousands of refugees here.’

  Eniko was about to reply, when something tall and heavy slammed into the other side of the glass wall.

  Transit Zone, Keleti Station, 1.08 p.m.

  Balthazar watched Eniko address the doctor, then he found himself spinning on his heel and walking away. The African family, he told himself. That was the reason. No other. They had been here for several days, that was clear. Perhaps they had seen the dead man. It was certainly worth asking them.

  He started to walk back, when his path was suddenly blocked by half a dozen burly men. Balthazar scanned the area, realised instantly what was happening, all thoughts of Eniko and the African family evaporating as the adrenalin kicked in.

  The men encircled him. The Transit Zone itself seemed aware of the coming violence. The steady backdrop of chatter immediately faded. The boys who had been playing football picked up their ball and quickly backed away. The queue of people waiting for lunch rapidly dispersed. The children splashing by the taps quickly ran back to their families.

  Balthazar’s mind divided into two: one half processed the fear, rode the adrenalin that instantly surged through him. The second half planned his next moves.

  Rule number one when facing multiple attackers: step out of the line, stay out of the line, keep moving, don’t show your back and never let yourself be surrounded. He swerved to the left, around the thugs. They immediately regrouped, penned him on all sides, started to encroach on his space, forced him back against the glass wall of the MigSzol office.

  Rule number two: if surrounded, smash your way through with the hardest, sharpest bone in your body. Balthazar wrapped his right arm around his face with the elbow facing out, clenched his left fist, flexed his legs against the wall and launched himself forward.

  Rule number three: eyes or groin. The attackers were too many, and moving too fast for him to get near their eyes. But their lower bodies were in reach. Balthazar slammed his fist into the crotch of the man on his left side. He reeled back, grunting in pain. Balthazar pushed harder, his right arm still around his face, elbow out, left fist flailing again and again, scraping against fabric, hitting muscle and soft tissue.

  For a moment there were two of them, one on either side. Balthazar’s fists shot out low, right and left, ramming into their groins. The human wall wavered, was about to part. The punches slammed into him: his back, his shoulders, his face, he felt the shock shudder through his jaw, ignored the pain, heard his father’s voice sounding, ‘Hands up, son, hands up.’

  He brought his fists up to his forehead, one arm on either side of his nose, protecting his face, forced himself forward, shoving, punching, kicking, wielding his elbows, fists flailing with hooks, upper cuts, jabs and elbow strikes, some going wild, landing nowhere, others hitting leather, denim, skin, bone underneath; adrenalin pumping, legs and fists slamming into him, panting, gasping, the rank stink of sweat and sour milk in his throat, when something slammed into the side of his head.

  The world roared, turned black.

  SIX

  Transit Zone, Keleti Station, 1.10 p.m.

  Eniko had seen punches thrown in bars, watched drunks push and shove each other, sudden outbursts of posturing that exploded then evaporated as quickly as they started. But she had never witnessed a sustained fight, the fierce concentration of violence inflicted to hurt and injure. She was horrified, nauseated and transfixed by the spectacle.

  Grunts, gasps of pain and expletives resounded across the Transit Zone. Time seemed to slow down and speed up simultaneously. She watched Balthazar pivot on his left foot and lash out in every direction, arms and legs working methodically like a steam engine. One part of her wanted to rush to his aid, another to run for her life. The kicks and punches, the flurries of movement, arms and legs flailing, seemed to last longer than any human being could bear. But the limbs kept on moving, whipping through the air like demons.

  She stepped outside, hovered on the edge of the fight. Someone brushed past her, but she was too anxious about the fight to notice. Balthazar appeared in
the middle of the mêlée, a man went down, then he was absorbed again. Then, as suddenly as it began, the fight ended. The men dispersed. Balthazar lay on the ground, his shirt ripped, a thin, crimson trickle seeping from his mouth, his eyes half open.

  Eniko bound forward, crouched down next to him and touched his face. Balthazar blinked, groaned, half-smiled in recognition, turned on his side and coughed, sending a gout of blood from his nose. Then Eniko realised. Her right hand, the one that had been holding her phone, was empty.

  Prime minister’s office, Hungarian Parliament, 3.00 p.m.

  Pal Palkovics sat back with his feet up on his carved oak desk watching state television’s afternoon news on his computer monitor. The reporter, a rangy brunette in her early thirties, was standing by a large construction works on the southern border, next to a large earth digger, piles of razor wire and bags of cement. The fence, which would seal off the frontier with Serbia through which most migrants passed, would be finished in a week, she exclaimed excitedly. ‘Then we will be free of the migrant terror.’ The camera panned across the border to the edge of Serbia, where hundreds of weary-look-ing migrants waited listlessly in the afternoon heat.

  Palkovics switched the report off. The border fence – in fact a twelve-foot concrete wall – had provoked protests from human rights organisations, the European Union and the small liberal parties that were not part of his grand coalition. He ignored all of them. The polls, both public and private, showed overwhelming support for sealing off the frontier. He looked around his large corner office in the neo-Gothic parliament building. Hungary’s prime minister had been in power for six months, and he still relished his workplace. The walls were half lined with varnished wooden panels. The Bridge at Mostar, by Csontvary, one of Hungary’s greatest artists, hung over the white marble fireplace, the pale arch of the bridge and the bright colours of its surrounds shining in the afternoon sunlight. A closed set of double wooden doors stood on the far side of the office.