Under Budapest (23 page)

“Leave him alone, Andras,” Pavel cautions.

“You should get him to open up the door when she coughs. And then you could lay eyes on her again. Don't you want to
see
her?”

Gyula lies down, turns his back on Andras. He knows it's her. She's alive, and for now that's enough.

Days without a cough. More days than usual. Is she sick? Has there been an accident? Gyula tries to pace, but the others stop him. “There's no room,” says Pavel. “Do some situps or something.” But he's so worried and his worry chases him like slavering dog and yet there's nowhere to go.

And then, finally, after ten days, he hears the guard's clomping boots and, beside them, the girlish steps. And then, three loud hard coughs, one after the other: COUGHCOUGHCOUGH.

Gyula starts up, hugely grinning, but before he can reply, Andras starts banging.

“Guard. Guard, open up. We have an emergency in here.”

“What's going on in there?” A hurried jangle of keys.

“No.” Gyula leaps. He lands on Andras, smacks his head
slam
into the edge of the door as it is thrust in. His body goes slack so suddenly.

Zsofi, it wasn't you. Another girl, your age, blue-eyed, like you, staring at me the way I stared at her. Each of us the death of the other's hope. I wanted to die. It is too hard, this pain. I didn't mean to leave you. Please don't be scared, Zsofi. I'll make it right.

I might be a prisoner, but I'm an engineer and if I can't build up, I'll build down. You remember how buildings reflect in the Duna? If you look at it from the bridge, it's like there's a whole world down there, upside down. When I was little, I imagined living in the Duna. Shimmering windows open into watery rooms. Stairs spiral deeper and deeper, but nothing goes wrong and no one ever falls.

I'll make a city like that.

No. That's a child's dream and we're not children anymore, are we? Why gild when there is no sun? They don't turn the light on for me anymore. Murderers don't get light, they say. I tell them I don't need it. My name is Gombas now. Like a mushroom, a fungus, I thrive in the dark and some days the difference between dead and buried is inconsequential. I've got nothing to draw with so I'll do the calculations in my head. I'll make our tunnels safe. I'll calculate the weight the walls have to bear; I'll support the ceilings with steel beams. I'll dig to you, Zsofika, and under Budapest, we'll be free.

Brothers

Let's be clear about this. Csaba doesn't have a lot of great ideas. Doesn't have many ideas, period, but he's good at weaselling out of things. Something you learn as the younger child of two, I think, as the younger, less intelligent, and less attractive brother. He can talk his way out of pretty much anything, and I guess that takes some smarts. Ever since we were kids, whatever trouble we got into, it's always been my fault, not Csaba's, because he's too little and too dumb. Too much of a follower. And sure, most of the time this was true. Whatever we did, it was always my idea. That's what I'm saying. I'm the idea guy. He's the “not my fault” guy. But I'm not worried. Not yet. I'm still smarter. I think faster, wider, longer. The difference is ambition. You have to know what you want in life and then go out and get it. Me, I always wanted a big car, big house, a beautiful wife, and maybe a fling or two on the side. So that's what I got. Wasn't all that hard. You'd expect it would have been harder, the way everyone walks around, not getting any luck for themselves. Decide what you want, then take it. That's my advice. For free.

Which is exactly what I was doing walking along Andrassy at 4:30 a.m.: going after what I wanted. And what I wanted at that exact moment was to be a long way away from Csaba's friend Janos and the dudes who were about to seriously mess him up. And sure, I was smoking a fat spliff that Janos kindly left in his coat, but given I left all my fucking cash in the coat
he
's wearing, fair's fair, right? So that's what I was doing—that's all I was doing—when the fucking cop car pulled up beside me and asked me if I knew Csaba Bekes. Do I know him? He's my brother. And what do you care?

But Csaba's like an idiot savant when it comes to getting out of shit. Like I said, guy can talk his way out of pretty much anything because he doesn't
look
smart enough to lie well. People underestimate him. Maybe I underestimated him. Because suddenly, Csaba has his one great idea. First idea he's ever had in his life. To give him credit, it's a pretty good one. This is what I'm thinking as I sit here, in this interrogation room, getting interrogated by a cop who doesn't look tough at all. Looks like a math teacher. Maybe he's a smart cop, but don't worry, I'm smarter. So let's go:

INTERROGATION
,
Scene One.

“Well, my brother's lying.” (That's me: bored, belligerent.)

“Is he? Why would he do that?”

“Sibling rivalry? How the hell should I know? For God's sake, he's the fuck-up, not me. I'm a businessman, I run my own company—what the fuck would I be doing beating on a gypsy in the middle of the night?”

“The thing is, though, Mr. Bekes, we have two witnesses who saw you and your brother running from the scene of the crime, and your running shoes show blood on the soles and we think if we test it, we'll find the blood is from Mr. Zoltan Kolompar, who died of internal bleeding—but you may know this already—at approximately 1:00 a.m. this morning.”

“Well, the shoes aren't mine.”

“Ah.”

“They belong to a friend of my brother's.”

“And I suppose he killed Kolompar, then persuaded you to wear his bloody sneakers because, what, you needed an image makeover?”

“Where's my lawyer?”

That's a short one because of course I have to talk to my lawyer. I know how this works. I tell my lawyer how it's going to go. He takes lots of notes. He corrects my story where he has to, where it's going to get me into too much trouble. He says things like, “Will your wife corroborate that?” and “Did you speak to anyone at the club? Anyone who can vouch that you were there?” and then he says, “We can work with that. You ready?”

You bet I am.

INTERROGATION
,
Scene Two.

In the room, me, my lawyer, Detective Rev, and Detective Roth.

“I'm telling you, it wasn't me. It was Csaba and his best friend Janos. All this”—I waft my hands top to bottom, from the poser hat to the really-not-my-style Maple Leafs bomber—“and the shoes. They're his. Do I look like a hockey fan to you?”

Detective Roth interrupts too fast. “So you're saying Janos and Csaba committed a murder, then Janos, what, calls you up? Calls you up and says, ‘Laci, can I give you my clothes,' and you say, ‘Hurray. Tradesies.' Is that what you're telling me?”

“No. That's not what I'm saying, but if you'll listen to me for a moment, I'll explain. It's rather complicated.” (I know I'm being pedantic and arrogant. It's on purpose. Makes people mad. I also know the word
pedantic
, which is more than you can say for most dudes in construction.)

“We'll try to keep up,” says Detective Rev.

He's the smart one. I can see that he knows how to be wry and unperturbed. That's fine, let him. Because he's going to have to listen to me for as long as I want to talk—and believe me, I'm in no rush—and my story will exculpate me from this bullshit pile of evidence. Which I have to agree looks bad. Never mind the shoes don't fit. If it can help them frame Laci Bekes, they'll make them fit. In addition to the aforementioned witness report, they also have my brother and his idiot friend (in hockey bomber and shoes) at the bank machine near Margit Hid. They have a drug dealer willing to testify he sold me dope. They've got Csaba's phone in the dead gyp's pocket, and then they've got Csaba himself swearing up and down that I did it. Me. His brother. Murder a fucking Rom? Like I've got time for that. But that's all right. I know the truth of it and I've got my story.

I give my lawyer a look. He nods. That's for show. We've been working together a lot of years, Mr. Teleki and me. And he has just given me the one piece of information that will exculpate me, veritably. And when I'm finished here, I'll start on feeling bad about the events I put in motion, as they say, but for now I'm thinking if you got 'em, smoke 'em.

Rev clicks the tape recorder. Get your head straight, Laci. Get your face on. This is one deep pile of shit to get through.

“It started yesterday. Well, no, before that. A few weeks ago I bought this beautiful piece of property up on Rozsadomb. Gorgeous. View of the Duna, Margit Island, Kispest. Floors are fine, inlaid parquet, French doors open out onto curved balconies—I love those—and it's got this wide entrance, sweeping staircase. Elegant, you know, real old Magyar elegance. Trees in the back look five hundred years old. It was a deal.”

Detective Rev gives the other detective a look. Yeah, they're thinking. A Laci Bekes kind of deal. Let them think what they want; no charge has ever stuck. They want to say, Get to the point, but they won't. One, because they figure they've got me. Two, because they figure they've got me. They're wrong both times, but they don't know that, and I've got Gombas after me, so, believe me, I'm in no rush.

“So I was in my new house, and I decided the one thing it was missing was a wine cellar. I mean, what kind of self-respecting Magyar doesn't want a cellar full of wine? There was a cellar, of course, but old style. Mud floor. Stone walls. You can't store wine down there, not the valuable stuff, not the stuff you want to keep. Last owners used it for preserves. Shelves and shelves of peaches in syrup, sauerkraut, pickles. Like you can't just go to the market and buy that stuff now? Peasants. Whatever.

“I hired a guy who specializes in wine cellars. There's an art to it, turns out. You have to know all this stuff about temperature and humidity regulation, and condensation and insulation, and it's more complicated than you'd think. You don't want anyone but an expert designing for your wines, trust me. So we go down to the cellar together to take a look around and he figures out what we'd have to do to support the structure, and by this time I can see my bill is mounting, but I love wine and I got a veritable collection of the stuff so I give him carte blanche. Go ahead. Do what you have to do. Just make it elegant.

“First day into it, they're pulling all the old shelves off the walls. Foundation's brick, right. Have to waterproof the shit out of it. So they're on the last wall and what do you know? Behind all that shelving, there's a door. A metal fucking door straight into the earth. They stop work. They call me up. I'm at a job site, just outside the city. What do I want them to do? What do you think I want them to do? Blow it.

“Metaphorically, I meant. I mean you can't blow up a door in the foundation, you risk jeopardizing the future stability of the entire edifice. No, I mean torch it. Do what you have to do. Get it open. Because you never know, do you, what those old communists hid in their basements. House used to belong to Farkas.”

Aha. That got their attention.

“Not Gyula, his father. That old boy's picture's in the hall of shame at that new museum, the Terror House. You probably knew that, though. So I'm thinking maybe the old boy hid some Russian guns down there or something. Maybe he's got some ‘liberated' art. I mean, a secret door to a secret room? I was dreaming all kinds of shit. Shit that'd make me rich. Fuck the job site, I took the fast way home. Got there about an hour later, and the boys had the door off already. The room behind it was about ten by ten. Brick walls. Shelves on every wall but most were empty. Obviously someone had lived down there for a time. In one corner, empty cans of all kinds of German shit from before the war: sauerkraut and pickles and ham and fruit. You get the picture. But the weirdest thing, another door. But this one wasn't metal. It was wood, and it was open, off its hinges, earth spilling out of it. Looked like a cave-in. The rubble had half knocked over a table, pushed it into the corner. Creepy. I got shivers. Backed right out of there, the other guy too. Except something caught my eye. Under the cobwebs and dust, on the ground by the overturned table, something that looked like a scroll.

“Now, I've read the fairy tales same as you have, Mr. Rev — sorry,
Detective
Rev—and you know there's always warnings about what you find in a place you shouldn't be. But I took the scroll. I mean, who wouldn't?”

Rev is getting edgy. He thinks I'm spinning this out too long. He's got dinner waiting at home, maybe a hot wife. No. Not likely. Maybe an ordinary wife, then. Or a dog that needs walking. Well, that's your problem, detective. You're the one who took me in. You might as well just sit back and enjoy.

“Keep going, Mr. Bekes.”

I was taking a long drink of water. But, okay, I put the cup back on the table.

“Okay, it wasn't a scroll. It was a five-page letter, rolled up, tied with a ribbon. I untied that ribbon. I unscrolled that letter on the table in that creepy room. First thing I see: dated November 10, 1956. Next thing I see, ‘Dear Gyula.'”

The detectives are thinking I'm full of shit. Rev gives me a pretty decent sardonic, I'm-humouring-you kind of look. Do they teach these things at cop college? Amazing.

“And I suppose you have that letter, Mr. Bekes? You can produce that letter?”

“I wish I could. Yes. I wish I could. It would certainly make my story more persuasive, but you have gone directly to the root of the matter. The letter is the veritable issue at stake.

“I read the letter. It was sentimental crap, teenaged love — When you first kissed me, I knew it was real—that kind of thing. Some predictable complaints about living in someone's cellar, on and on about someone named Agi, and do you love her, Gyula, or do you love me? Did you go to her and leave me here? When will you come back, and kiss me again…Love, your Zsofika. You get the picture. Well, you and I both know Gyula Farkas was one of our heroes of the revolution, and this was his father's house, so obviously it was his letter and just as obviously, I figured, it would be only right to let the man know what I found.”