A Hidden Girl

by D K Bohlman

  ‘For my father, only, do I do this,’ she said with real venom.

  It was still difficult. Aliz was not so strong. It was only by clever use of Marton’s wheelchair and a desk chair with castor wheels that they managed to move Sarah across the room and pour her limp body into the rectangular wooden receptacle that was to become her temporary tomb.

  As Aliz pulled the cover shut, Marton let out a sharp cry. He said nothing but the tear rolling down his cheek told her how much he regretted this. He looked up at her from his chair.

  ‘Please, make me a sandwich Aliz and get me a glass of water. Then I must sleep. And after that, I must think a lot.’

  Aliz left the room, banging the door heavily. Marton sighed, with some considerable sympathy. He knew how their past had entangled them both, for different reasons. In Aliz’s case, it was her father’s name she was protecting, although he had known for years that she wasn’t exactly unsympathetic herself with the party’s original aims. Far from it, in fact.

  He hauled himself over on to his bed and lay still, exhausted. It was an hour before he managed to drop off to sleep, but his sandwich still hadn’t arrived by then.

  A chambermaid listens

  ____________________________

  Hanna Elek dawdled along the third-floor hotel corridor, trailing the cleaning cart behind her. She was tired, her daughter was suffering from a nasty sore throat and had kept her awake for a good part of the previous night. She’d had to leave her with her grandmother for the day since she’d seemed adamant she was too poorly to attend her primary school class. At least Hanna’s mother was fit and well enough to look after a lively eight-year-old when she needed her to. Not that Lili was likely to be running around much today, by the look of her when Hanna left the apartment. She hated leaving her when she was ill, it just didn’t seem right.

  Still, she needed to keep this job, it paid OK and she could swap shifts around when she needed to. The managers were fair and old Mr Kovacs who owned the place had seemed kind when she’d cleaned his room sometimes. He seemed to eat an awful lot for an old man, there always seemed to be a pile of dirty dishes to clear up in there. Obviously, it hadn't done him any harm, he must be well into his nineties now.

  Today was dragging already. She needed some more coffee. Maybe she’d pop a guest kettle on in the next room she cleaned and help herself to a free sachet. No one would know. Maybe one of those little packets of biscuits too.

  She stopped the cart outside room 312 and looked at her daily room list. Number 312 was ticked as needing attention, so she pulled down her cleaning bucket and some disinfectant from the cart and reached for the master key in her overalls pocket. She leant against the wall opposite the room door and sighed, trying to energise herself for the next spurt of physical effort.

  She didn’t quite pull the key all the way out of her pocket though.

  There was an odd noise, coming from somewhere behind her. Some thumping and a woman or a girl’s shout?

  It was very faint. Could have been a television. There were a lot of daytime soap dramas on the new cable channels. But there was something not quite television about this noise. It was a bit more dynamic than you’d get from a TV and the thumping was almost felt. But it was still very distant. She turned her head slightly and pressed her ear to the wall.

  There wasn’t much more definition of the sounds. She couldn’t tell if it was a shout or a cry and couldn’t make any words out. Hard to tell where it was really coming from as well. Maybe it was a room above or below. Except Mr Kovacs was pretty much above this spot, when she thought about it, and he didn’t make much noise. So it must be below or to the side somewhere.

  Anyway, she’d have a listen when she moved along and went down to the next floor. Right now, she needed that caffeine.

  She pushed herself wearily off the wall and entered room 312, closing the door behind her so she could enjoy her secret coffee break in peace.

  She filled the kettle, clicked it on and sat down on the small dressing chair in the corner, waiting for it to boil. There was a packet of chocolate chip cookies left unopened on the coffee tray so she ripped the cellophane off and started to munch one. It was good. Maybe she’d have another pack from her cart as well. She didn’t earn that much and bringing up Lili on her own was a struggle. A few snaffled biscuits and the odd sachet of hot chocolate were just about her only perks in this place.

  She couldn’t hear any noises in here, except for some traffic outside. She pushed her mouth into a pout and shrugged her shoulders. All thoughts of the noises left her then, not to return for a while. She pulled out her mobile phone and dialled home, hoping for an update on Lili’s sore throat.

  Sarah in a box

  ____________________________

  Sarah sensed her consciousness rise from a muddy mental swamp; her brain felt as if it was moving slowly in circles, with a miniature accordion lodged in her temples being squeezed in and out with a regular rhythm, a spiralling crescendo which hurt with a vengeance.

  She opened her eyes gingerly, to be met with a blank view. Some kind of large flat surface inches from her nose, illuminated only by the merest hint of light. It looked like wood.

  She made to stand up and was shocked to find no part of her really moved at all. Her heart rate shot upwards as she remembered the gun in Marton's hand. Had he paralysed her completely? She struggled with a massive effort and understood that her limbs were not exactly lifeless but very constrained somehow. Her neck could twist around a little and that was about the extent of her free movement.

  Her panic made her gasp for air and then she realised she was gagged.

  So, bound and muted in some kind of cupboard seemed to be her current reality. She loosened the tension in her limbs, as she began to cogitate more clearly about where she might be and what it meant.

  She thought about Marton’s room. There were some wardrobes she remembered, and a wall cupboard that stretched from floor to ceiling. Somehow they didn't fit with what she was experiencing. She couldn't see or feel any other items in her space. Surely there would have been something in a cupboard. Perhaps he had dragged a crate into the room. Crate rapidly turned into the most dreadful word she could think of right now.

  Coffin.

  She instantly perspired across her brow as her pulse soared again. Then she checked herself. It was the wrong shape for a coffin. The light was coming from the side, somewhere behind her. Maybe not even a crate, then?

  Just as she recovered from the thought she might be nailed inside a coffin, a sudden loud whirring noise immediately above her would have made her jump out of her skin … if she had been able to move at all. Instead, she made to cower, as she imagined a circular saw bearing down on her, cutting through the wood like in a stage magician’s stunt. There was a banging movement and she realised she was descending. Thirty seconds later, her body shook as the drop ended with a firm bump. Then silence.

  She was feeling very drugged still. The light levels had dropped even further down here. The air smelt stuffy, dead, with a faint tang of food. Not fresh food. Had he lowered her into a cellar? A well? No option she could think of was sounding appealing right now.

  EIGHT YEARS EARLIER

  Katalin and the book

  ____________________________

  Katalin jumped out of bed with a flourish and pulled the curtains wide. It was a gorgeous late spring morning and the leaves were filling the gaps on the horse chestnut trees at the end of the small garden. Shafts of sun shot through the gaps in the branches and streaked across the lawn. The old rope garden swing moved gently in a light breeze, rocking to and fro an inch or two, the seat still glistening from some overnight dew.

  She opened a window and smelled the air. Lavender and grass filled her nostrils.

  She was looking forward to a full day of reading in peace. Mother was away until late evening and she’d been too busy recently to spend much time on her hobby.

  She just loved reading. Almost anything wo
rked. Long days of doing nothing but living inside another person’s head, in another time and place. Yawning occasionally. Feeling peckish but finishing another chapter first. Then another. Then piling up some sandwiches and eating them slowly as she ploughed on and on. Stretching slowly, taking a quick pee and making a cup of tea. Then returning to the sofa and settling down for more.

  Bliss.

  She made herself some toast and coffee, ate quickly and dressed, eager to get started in the study.

  She hadn’t decided what to begin with, for once. She allowed herself that little excitement of scouring a room full of shelves which held, even now, plenty of titles she hadn’t read, and then picking one or two out for that day. Mother always read so much, she had years’ worth of delight stashed around that room.

  She took the remains of the pot of coffee in with her and sat on the desk, peering around the hundreds of book spines for somewhere to start.

  There were a lot of novels. They made up most of the room. Some of Mother’s own interests and hobbies were part of the stacks too: pottery, wildflowers, some history - mostly about Hungary.

  She pulled out one about flower-pressing. She loved to read about her mother, things she had been interested in as a girl. She imagined her collecting flowers on the shores of Lake Balaton, near the village of Tihany where she’d been brought up.

  As she pulled the book down, a brown tome with a scruffy spine, its title almost illegible, came out too, the two books’ covers stuck together with heat and time.

  It fell to the floor, a section of its binding loosening, spilling a dozen or more chunks of pages around itself.

  She swore under her breath and picked up the book and the spilt pages carefully.

  She set the spine and the loose pages out on the desk and started to assemble them back into order. She wondered how to glue them back into position. Mother had some paper glue in the desk drawer that might be good enough for a quick repair. She slid the drawer open and rummaged around, finally picking out a cream bottle encrusted around the neck with old glue.

  She pinned each section that had slipped out into position, after first giving the inside edges a thin smear of glue. Within a few minutes she’d almost finished and she picked up the last loose section.

  She stared at it a fraction longer than she intended. Something on the visible page had caught her eye. She scanned it again, more slowly this time.

  It was a name, which had somehow caught her attention. Marton Kovacs. It was a name she knew. A man who had visited Mother sometimes, for tea on a Sunday. Maybe once a year or so, though he hadn't been for a while now. Someone her mother knew through her work apparently. Katalin usually ate her tea politely and then went to play with her own things. The man had never really spoken to her much.

  She read around that page. There was a photo too. It was part of a chronicle of the Arrow Cross activities in 1944-45. Marton's name appeared below the photo, with a number of others. She counted in from the start: he was the fifth name. She looked up at the fifth man in the picture, a group of them all lined up like a school class photograph.

  He didn’t look like Marton. It was an old photo, not exactly high definition. The book was published in 1951 too, so its own pages would have yellowed somewhat. Most of the faces on the faded brownish picture looked very young. Teenagers. But that face was just the wrong shape. She let her eyes drift across the photo. Then snap back to a boy in the next row. Now he looked as if he could have grown up to be the man who had visited their house. A large round face and a big nose. Yes, possibly him. They must have printed the names underneath the photograph incorrectly, maybe screwed the rows up. In any case, if that was Marton, then what she read further down the page about those boys filled her with horror.

  She knew the Arrow Cross had done some bad things in support of the Nazis. The group in this photograph had been linked to a number of war crimes, including the killing of children in their own houses, along with their parents. Some of the culprits had been caught after the war ended and tried successfully, others had disappeared.

  She rubbed her temples and ran her fingers along her scalp, back through her hair. She didn’t want to know about this. Not at all.

  This man, if it was Marton, had been visiting her mother’s house freely. Was he one of those who disappeared? Or was he innocent of anything, just a member of a group caught up in the weirdly distorted sense of righteousness that war breeds? And why did Mother have this book?

  There was only one way to find out. She would have to talk to her when she returned that evening.

  *

  It was a long day after that. Time dragged and she found it difficult to read for long without returning to the black feeling that was hanging around her thoughts, prodding her mind, asking her to worry about what it all meant. She took a long late lunch, went into the garden with a sandwich and sat on the swing down in the far corner. She idled there, swinging in a dozily warm shaft of light, feeling anything but sunny.

  It was almost eleven p.m. when the latch clicked, as her mother came into the front hallway. Katalin was sitting in her bedroom and heard her drop her bag with a clunk onto the tiles.

  ‘Hello?’ she shouted from the hallway.

  ‘Hi, I’m upstairs. I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Katalin took a deep breath, composed herself, walked out of her room and down the carpeted stairs. Mother had moved on by then, so she walked to the threshold of their small kitchen and stood against the doorframe, arms crossed.

  Her mother was filling the kettle.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  Mother turned her head. ‘Hello, darling. Coffee, or is it too late for you?’

  ‘I’m fine thanks. It’s been a long day, I might have some wine.’

  Her mother looked at her, squinting her eyes, alerted by something in her voice. ‘Are you OK? You sound … I don’t know … tired?’

  Katalin felt herself flush. She always did that when she was nervous.

  ‘Huh, well, there was something I wanted to talk to you about. I found a book this morning … dropped it actually. Some pages fell out and when I was trying to mend it … well, I read some things that seemed weird.’

  By now her mother was glaring at her. She turned to face Katalin, folding her arms and dropping her head to one side.

  ‘Which book?’

  Katalin gave an edgy little giggle and looked away from her mother. ‘Mmm, I didn’t really notice the title. I was too busy trying to fix the pages back. It was about Arrow Cross, though.’

  She looked back, to gauge the reaction.

  It stood out. Like a queen bee on a jam sandwich. This was something that her mother was most definitely not wanting to talk about. She turned away from Katalin and attempted to busy herself with the coffee machine. She was flustered, though, and her movements were jerky. She spilt some coffee grounds on the counter, cursing.

  Katalin kept silent.

  Then her mother cracked.

  ‘So, what did you want to know, my darling?’ She turned to face her daughter as she spoke, coffee in hand. ‘Oh sorry, you wanted some wine.’

  She got a glass for Katalin and filled it with white wine. She walked across the kitchen and handed it to her. She remained standing very close, looking her steadily in the eye.

  ‘Is it him? Is it Marton who comes here sometimes?’

  Katalin saw the tremor in her mother’s eyes. Just a quiver in the pupils, a small dance.

  Mother breathed in heavily, ready to exhale the truth.

  ‘It is, yes.’ Katalin looked away and back again.

  ‘And you read about this, in this book, yes?’

  ‘Yes. A long time ago … where is the book now Katalin?’

  ‘It’s in the study. And he still comes here? Is he guilty of this, what it says in the book?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. It was a long time ago Katalin. Things were different then. People were at war. Everyone was scared for their lives. A lot of the people from that tim
e are dead, killed by the war or old age since. Marton is just a friend. He has helped me a couple of times and well, you know, since your father died before you knew him, he has been kind to me. I don’t judge him for what may or may not have happened in the war.’

  ‘But he was in the Arrow Cross, you can see from the photos and everything. He should be investigated for this … and the crimes they may have committed!’

  Katalin’s voice was ratcheting up the volume more than a few notches now and her hands were starting to tremble.

  She had heard a little about Arrow Cross before, in school. The notion her mother might be somehow comfortable with someone who hadn't been tried for their crimes was just astonishing. Especially when this chronicle suggested there was actually something specific to answer to.

  Her mother remained silent. Either unwilling to speak or unable to say anything that would help.

  ‘You know what? I’m going to need to think about this, about what I should do about it!’ Katalin blurted, pushing her head forward, shouting the words and spraying a fine mist of spittle in her mother’s face.

  Her mother recoiled from the verbal assault, taken aback by the emotion that came with it.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Katalin said, ‘I’ll let you know in the morning what I think we … you, should do about it.’

  She picked up her wine and slung it into the sink, before running out of the room and up the staircase.

  *

  Mother stood still for quite some time, propped against the countertop with one hand.

  She pondered the truth, round and round in her head, like she hadn’t done for many years now. And she also recognised how little of it she’d told Katalin.

  How that was going to turn out tomorrow was anyone’s guess. She wondered whether to warn Marton, but decided against it, for reasons best kept to herself.