The Exiled (17 page)

WHEN ANNA ARRIVED
at Judit’s cousin’s house, the celebrations were already in full swing. People were playing violins and guitars, and dancing in the yard, and straightaway someone pressed a glass of
pálinka
into Anna’s hand. She took a cautious sip. It was peach
pálinka
, stronger than usual. The bride and groom were both dressed in white. They looked like cake decorations as they sat behind a table reserved only for them. Anna saw Benedek and waved. The boy smiled and waved back at her.

A sweaty Judit made her way through the crowds of guests and hugged her. ‘Come and dance,’ she said and began pulling Anna past the orchestra towards the crowd of revellers.

Anna was reluctant. ‘I don’t really know how.’

‘Nonsense. At weddings everybody knows how to dance. Come on!’

And so Anna followed Judit, joined the energetic throng of dancers and let her hair down. It was easy to catch the infectious rhythm of the music, the trumpets blared and the violins squealed so much, she didn’t have to think about dancing at all, her legs and body moved of their own accord. Anna had never experienced anything like it before. Given that she normally only danced when she was drunk, now she allowed her body to be carried away by the music and forgot about herself. There was nothing but the psychedelic rhythm of the accordions and the beat of the dance; the collective movement of bodies blended with the music, forming something extraordinary, a figure with no defined edge. Dust flew up from the ground as they stamped their feet. The evening had darkened, but the air felt as warm as if a lightless sun were still burning down upon the partygoers. Laughter, noise, the rhythmical thud of feet. The brassy chaos of the trumpets. The dance continued, on and on, at least that’s what it felt like. Until Judit tugged at her sleeve and invited her to have something to eat. It was as if Anna woke from a trance, and for a moment she stared at Judit’s laughing face without fully understanding where she was.

As they edged away, the amorphous throng continued dancing and playing, new people joining in as others pulled themselves from its centre of gravity.

‘Let’s have a cigarette first,’ said Anna. I need to come back to earth before I can eat anything.’

Sweat trickled in rivulets down her cheeks. She surreptitiously tried to sniff her armpits; her deodorant was holding out.

Anna and Judit lit their cigarettes and watched the crowd of dancers.

‘I’ve never danced like that before,’ Anna said eventually.

Judit laughed. ‘I don’t think anyone can resist music like that. I certainly can’t.’

‘Thank you for inviting me. This is quite an experience.’

‘I thought you’d like it. Come on, let’s go and eat.’

Anna threw her cigarette to the ground and followed Judit as she darted through the crush of revellers towards a long table laden with all manner of delicacies. Further away there was a small bonfire with a whole pig roasting on a spit propped above the flames. A group of children had gathered and stood throwing twigs into the fire.

For the sake of politeness Anna took a slice of cake, though she wasn’t very hungry. To her great astonishment she wanted to go back and dance some more. And that is what she did.

When a combination of sweat and thirst eventually forced Anna to leave the group of dancers, Judit had disappeared and she couldn’t see Benedek anywhere either. Anna looked at her watch and noticed she’d been dancing for at least an hour. She’d completely lost her sense of time. She went to the dining table to fetch some water, gulped it down and looked out across the assembled guests. People had stuffed banknotes into the bride’s hairpiece and the front of her dress. The notes were dangling here and there, making her look almost like a scarecrow.

‘Are you the Fekete girl?’ Anna heard a gruff voice say behind her.

She turned and saw a wrinkly old man, his bright eyes looking her up and down.

‘I’m Fekete Anna,’ she replied, wiped her sweaty hand on the hem of her skirt and held it out to greet the man.

He gripped it in his own rough, sturdy hand. ‘Kolompár Lukács. It’s my son’s girl that is getting married.’

‘Oh, congratulations. What a great wedding. I’m privileged to be here.’

‘Judit brought you, did she?’

‘Yes. Didn’t she …? Is this…?’

‘Don’t worry. You’re perfectly welcome. Everyone’s welcome at our weddings. Except Bangót.’ The man muttered the last words so quietly that Anna wasn’t sure whether she’d heard him right.

‘Great music here too,’ she said. Having felt so welcome and joyful, she now felt awkward and out of place. The man was still looking at her with his bright, unblinking eyes. Staring at her. He took a sip from his bottle of beer, and some of it trickled down his chin.

‘I hear you’ve been asking round about the boy that died on the riverbank,’ said Kolompár Lukács without taking his eyes off her. ‘He was one of ours.’

Anna was suddenly alert.

‘Yes, I’ve been asking this and that. There’s something suspicious about the case.’

‘Everything’s a little suspicious. Nothing’s ever out in the open in this country. Nothing.’

‘For some reason the police don’t want to investigate the case properly,’ Anna ventured. She had the impression the old man wanted to tell her something important.

He swilled down what was left in his bottle and burped. ‘Listen, girl. That’s the way of the world. When it’s one of us, they never investigate anything. Why should they? All gypsies are thieves and crooks. You don’t need an investigation to prove that.’

‘Surely it can’t be like that,’ said Anna, in a coaxing voice.

The man scoffed.

‘Even here in Serbia everyone is equal in the eyes of the law…’ she continued.

The old man burst into a cackle. He laughed so much that tears rolled from his eyes. ‘That’s right, that’s just how it is. The law is one thing, and the way of the world is another. Just like in your father’s case.’

‘What case?’ said Anna and felt a cold hand squeeze her gut.

‘Your father was that policeman, right?’

‘What policeman?’ asked Anna.

‘Fekete, the one that got himself killed.’

‘That’s right. But that was a long time ago.’

‘You must have been a little lass back then.’

‘I was.’

‘It was bad luck. For your father, I mean. And you too, mind. It’s not easy growing up without a father – though who am I to judge? My own father played no part in my life after getting my mother knocked up. We didn’t see him much after that. They say he was handsome. I’ve got my father’s genes,’ said Lukács and smiled to reveal his toothless gums.

‘Do you know what happened to your father?’ he asked eventually.

‘Of course I do. Well, I know something.’

‘So tell me,’ the old man commanded her. From his voice Anna could tell the man was certain Anna knew nothing at all.

‘He was shot. It was to do with the mafia. The shooter was caught and executed.’

‘That’s the official story. They still had the death penalty back then,’ said Lukács. ‘Did you know the accused was a gypsy?’

‘No. I mean, there was some mention of it,’ said Anna, now unsure of herself.

‘That’s right. He was one of us. And he didn’t do it.’

‘What?’ The knot in her stomach tightened. It was as though she could barely breathe.

‘He didn’t shoot your father. He was framed for it.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Anna was becoming agitated. The cold fist gripping her stomach rose higher and higher. It was now constricting her throat.

‘It’s true. It happens round here all the time.’

‘Who was it then? The shooter, that is?’

‘I don’t know who the real killer was, but the gypsy boy didn’t shoot your father, that’s for sure.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘He had an alibi, but the people giving him that alibi were our lot too, so the police didn’t believe them. It really is a while ago now. So long ago, there’s no point dwelling on it. I just wanted to tell you, seeing as you popped up at the wedding. I don’t think anything happens by accident, especially not if Judit invited you here.’

‘Does Judit know something about my father’s death, then?’

‘Judit is still young, but she knows a lot of things. People still talk about your father’s case, though not all that much these days.’

‘Did you know him?’

Again Lukács guffawed. ‘He took me to the cells, more than once, Fekete István. He had a good reputation. He was a decent man, your father.’

‘I work for the police too, now,’ said Anna.

The old Romani looked her up and down. ‘I’ll say this much, I’d rather be taken to the cells by you than your old man.’ He chuckled. ‘Come on, girl, let’s dance. Now’s no time to worry about the past. Tonight we celebrate!’

But Anna didn’t want to dance any longer. The trumpets and violins hurt her ears, made her wince, and the noise of the crowd was beginning to irritate her. She left without looking for Judit, without congratulating the bride and groom, without saying a word to anyone. The party atmosphere had vanished.

Anna slowly walked towards the town square. The lights in the bakery were still on, but she couldn’t see anyone inside. The sound of men talking carried through the open door of the Gondűző bar. Thick, grey smoke puffed out into the street. Young people were walking up and down. She couldn’t think of anything, didn’t know where to go, what to do. Her head felt as empty as a dried-up well. She wandered through the dark town smoking a cigarette and pondered how quiet it was, pondered herself, her life.

Who am I? What makes us who we are? Our language: I have two of them. Our home: I have two of them as well. Work, friends, hobbies – all far too superficial. Our family, our roots. What do I have left of those? The memory of my father. A memory now suddenly prodded with a burning iron, branding me so that the smell of burning skin rises into the air. She wanted to talk about her father, about Áron. But she didn’t know how she could ever bring up with her mother what she’d heard at the wedding.

The weight in Anna’s chest felt heavy and her legs were like lead. They carried her somewhere, one step at a time. Towards Péter’s house. Anna didn’t even attempt to withstand the will of her feet.

Many times during the course of his life he had wondered what was ultimately true and what was false, what was reality and what merely illusion, and how much of it was nothing but a web of words and thoughts in our brains, a tapestry of our own making.

He felt almost dizzy every time he thought about it and began to wonder whether reality truly existed as we understand it in everyday observations. What if his private hell was simply a product of his own thoughts, and nothing else? What if no one but he carried this thought inside them, like a slowly spreading cancer, a tumour that could not be operated away. Did it exist only to him? Did the world around him exist in another reality, another time dimension, a place where the world inside his head was utterly insignificant?

The worst of it was the guilt. Sometimes he thought the worst thing was constantly keeping up the façade, wearing a mask that he could never remove but that made his true face clammy and, like the severest form of asthma, made it hard to breathe. He hadn’t had to lie for years, and in his own head the lies had begun to resemble the truth so vividly that the mask had merged with his own features. Nowadays what plagued him the most was the fact that the mask essentially hid him, hid the truth that only he knew, hid the inescapable fact of his guilt.

Over the years he had learned to live with it. Days could go past, sometimes weeks at a time, when he wouldn’t recall the matter. Rather, he remembered but he didn’t think about it. Everything had been just fine; at times they were even splendid. He had lived a respectable life. He had worked hard, looked after his family, even looked after local stray cats. Nobody had any reason to think ill of him. He had done a lot of good.

If that woman, Fekete Anna, weren’t doggedly digging around in his
business, in his private hell, it might all remain hidden behind the mask forever. And that would be a good thing, best for all concerned. For if only one person knows the truth, lies can be almost true.

But now it had happened. Anna’s suspicions had been awoken.

Drops of sweat appeared on the man’s brow and armpits. His heart was thumping. He paced back and forth across his office and thought hard about what to do. What the hell should he do next?

He sat down in an armchair and looked out of the window, took long, concentrated breaths and counted to twenty. He lit a cigarette. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled it slowly through his nostrils.

He thought about the possibility of a bribe. But Anna was from Finland. There weren’t the same levels of corruption over there. On the other hand, if the sums involved were large enough, people’s morals had a habit of loosening. He’d seen this first hand more than anyone would believe. But he had to remember this was about Anna’s father. An emotional attachment always made things more difficult. And it meant that such things didn’t necessarily have a price.

Just stick to the old story and you’ll be fine, he told himself. My story didn’t arouse any suspicions at the time, so why should it arouse them now? This is no time for panic or rash decisions. A cool head will see me through. It had worked in the past and it would work now.

But somehow he had to watch his back. That much he understood. After smoking three cigarettes and giving the matter careful consideration he knew he had to find and kill the Lakatos girl. He didn’t like the idea. Killing a child was in a different league from killing an adult. On the other hand, the tinkers breed like mosquitoes. And the girl’s an orphan. Her life will probably be nothing but a cycle of endless poverty and suffering – he’d be doing her a favour by putting her out of her misery. Besides, the most important thing now was keeping his life and the life of his family from falling apart. You always had to put your own family first, he mused. That’s right. I’m doing this to protect my children, my good name, my honour. And if Fekete Anna doesn’t take a hint and back off from her little investigation, I’ll have no choice but to take action against her too.