by D K Bohlman
*
In the event, the worry of what tomorrow would bring was taken away from Katalin’s mother in an unexpected way.
Katalin had lain in bed for hours, unable to sleep, unable to believe her mother would have stayed quiet for so long.
What exactly had Marton done to ‘help’ her and why hadn’t she told anyone? Or maybe she had and it had gone no further for some reason.
But Mother wasn’t saying anything. She was holding back, she could see that much at least. So, if her mother wasn’t going to tell her, maybe Marton would. But she’d need to find him first.
She left at dawn carrying a rucksack, full of clothes curled around a stash of banknotes she’d kept under her mattress and some bread for breakfast.
The thought of tolerating a Nazi sympathiser as her mother was making her feel physically sick.
She needed to know everything and that meant finding Marton Kovacs. She would find his address later.
What’s more, she wasn’t going to come back here until she knew something.
In fact, she nearly never came back.
Marton receives a guest
____________________________
Marton Kovacs was seated at his desk when Katalin was shown into his room at the Hotel Cristal three days later.
The girl nodded politely as she entered and had the door closed behind her by the bellboy who’d shown her to the room.
‘Good morning. Mr Kovacs.’
‘Hello, my dear. Please take a seat. There are a few to choose from.’ He smiled as he swept an arm out across the spread of the room.
Katalin looked around and chose a comfortable looking armchair close to his desk.
‘Well, you have grown up a lot since I last saw you at your mother’s house. I remember you on a swing in the garden sometimes.’
Katalin pursed her lips into a forced smile.
‘So, coffee?’ He indicated a large pot, on a polished walnut side table behind her.
‘No thanks. I’m OK. I just want a quick talk about my mother. And you.’
‘Yes, so you said yesterday when you called me. So why don’t you tell me what is on your mind, my dear?’
Marton stared at her. Looked at her posture, heard her voice. Felt the tension in the air.
‘You see my mother sometimes, although I haven’t seen you for a while now, I know. You are friends I assume?’
Marton looked thoughtful. After a moment, he replied.
‘Yes. We are old friends. We keep in touch. Well, we used to. I haven't seen her or talked to her for a while. I’m not so well now, as you can see. You lose contact with people as you get older somehow. Except for a very few. But didn’t your mother tell you that anyway?’
‘Mmm, well yes I suppose she did, though when I was younger I didn't really think about who you were. I only thought about that recently. She has many friends, my mother.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I found out recently that you had something to do with Arrow Cross. Did you?’
‘Yes, I did, Katalin. I was in the party when I was a boy. Why do you ask?’
His heart sank even as he asked that question. He was fearing the answer. Fearing what had been poking him in the back for a lifetime, shadowing his moves, always threatening to burst into the open and destroy his world.
Katalin cleared her throat and swallowed before speaking.
‘Because I read a book. A book my mother had. There was a picture in it, a photo of a group of the Arrow Cross party. You were in it, though I think they got the names confused. Was it you?’
Marton’s old mind raced in a way it hadn’t done for years. Names confused … the term sprinted round in his head like a lizard in ever-decreasing circles until he had to squint.
‘Well, it’s hard to know. Do you have the book to show me?’
‘No. My mother has it. I didn’t think to bring it.’
She faltered, then recovered. ‘But it was from January 1945. The picture I mean. It talked about some killings by this group of young men, in the Jewish ghetto. You know, in the war. Were you involved in that?’
The girl’s directness and lack of any social niceties before she barked these questions out was astonishing Marton. He was stunned.
‘My dear girl, no, of course not. The people that were responsible were punished after the war. It was all very thorough.’
‘I read that some of those accused disappeared and weren't found though?’
Marton’s age was beginning to tell. He was trying to answer her … at the same time as working out what to do with this situation … and he was struggling to cope. He held his face as best he could. He spoke slowly, trying to avoid any mistakes. He felt sure that she would notice.
‘Well, yes, maybe some did leave the country. But not me. I have stayed here since the war. In fact, apart from some trips to Bucharest, to see my son, I have never left Hungary.’
‘Oh, you have a son. May I ask … is your wife alive?’
Marton considered his stance on this question. ‘In fact, she died ten years ago or more. Emphysema. But I’m not sure why I should be telling you about my family. What exactly is the point of your questions? Is this about Arrow Cross? Or your mother?’
She looked surprised at that.
‘My mother is nothing to do with this really … although, of course, I was unhappy to find out she’s been friends with an Arrow Cross member, however long ago that was. Even more so if he’d been guilty of a war crime. Especially where children were killed.’ She stared long and hard at him as if trying to discern the truth in his face.
Marton was silently making a decision. One that would affect the rest of his life, in a way he couldn’t understand yet.
He rose slowly from his chair. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I need the toilet. You will need to excuse me for a moment.’
Katalin blushed. ‘Of course. Of course.’
‘Help yourself to coffee now maybe?’ He motioned towards the coffee pot again.
‘Yes … yes, I will, thank you.’
Marton moved slowly to the bathroom on the other side of the room, using a stick to steady himself. He slid the door open then back shut.
*
Marton was churning through his options as fast as his mental state would allow. Not that quickly. The pressure of time started as soon as the door lock slid into place and he felt it squeezing his heart and tensing his shoulders, clouding his brain.
He shook his head and pressed his eyes shut as his head dropped into his hands. There was a sandstorm going on inside his head. And a big problem at its centre. He needed time to think. To react properly. To plan how to deal with her. And he had no time, well, not if he was going to let her walk out of here with the freedom to talk to who she wanted, armed with whatever he told her or what she decided to assume.
That wasn’t permissible. He had to stop that happening. Then decide what to do. He had only one, ugly, solution forming.
He stooped down and opened the small cupboard under his bath. He opened the safe inside and, pulling out the contents, unwrapped a number of components and assembled them quickly.
He pushed the result into his waistband, underneath his over-long cardigan.
Last time he used this gun it was on a bear in the Carpathians, during a hunt. He just hoped he’d judged the dose correctly. Otherwise, his target might not survive.
*
Katalin heard the toilet flush and door lock open, turned to watch him return across the room to his desk. He remained standing behind it, both sets of fingers making a tent on the wooden top, his body leaning forward slightly.
He started to speak.
‘I am afraid …’
‘Of what?’ she interjected before he could finish. He stood silent for a moment.
‘Just afraid. And I suppose of what you might do … what you might think, no matter what I say to you, even if it is all the truth and all innocent.’
He pushed a big right hand under his cardigan an
d retrieved a gun. Katalin’s terrified expression showed she understood she wasn’t going to be able to decide her own fate now.
He stood up straight as a rod, looming over her like the giant over Jack. He extended his arm, pointing the pistol straight at her chest. It had a funny shaped thing stuck out the end of it, like a dart.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but …’
That was all he got to say to her. She screamed over the top of his words, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. He aimed slightly higher and right, pulling the trigger.
The dart hissed into Katalin’s left shoulder, tearing the flesh, filling her body with pain and her eyes with tears. Marton lumbered around the desk and lunged at her, pressing a massive hand across her mouth, stifling her screaming. She bit at it, as hard as she could. He grunted then pulled his bloodied paw away before clamping her again, this time with his other hand pressing her jaw upwards, so she couldn’t open her mouth.
Katalin tried to wriggle her face free, but her resistance was fading before his eyes and she gave way to his own poor strength. Her eyelids closed slowly and her body went limp.
*
Faced with a deadweight tranquilised body to deal with, Marton had panicked for a good few minutes, before managing to calm his nerves with his favourite Scotch whisky, the one he only drank on special occasions. This was definitely one.
Four fingers of whisky later, he thought unsteadily through his options. She would probably stay unconscious for a few hours if bears were anything to go by. He could always shoot her again, though the thought wasn’t particularly appealing. No, he needed to sort this out in a couple of hours. But for that, he really needed some help.
There was only one person he could turn to easily, apart from Alfred. But Alfred was old and not here right now. Aliz Gal was. She was in the hotel today, his manageress. Aliz was the only person who knew the truth about himself and Alfred. What’s more, her father had been in Arrow Cross too, so she had some sympathies. Sympathies without any of the internal moral tussles that it seemed to cause in other people, or at least that’s the impression she gave.
He called her and asked her to come up straight away, to drop whatever she was doing.
She arrived at his room within a couple of minutes. She was a tall woman, always so elegant, even as she had become an old woman she was always impeccably dressed. Never lost her temper either, so calm. He admired her for that. She still had energy too, more than he had, for sure.
Even her cool manner was ruffled by what she saw on the floor as she entered Marton's room, though.
A young woman, sprawled awkwardly on the floor, as if she had fallen without restraint from the chair next to her. With a small arrow in her shoulder.
Aliz gently pressed a hand to her mouth and shut the door quickly behind her.
‘What have you done, Marton?’
‘Aliz, look, I need to trust you in this. She was asking me about Beata Sandor and a book Beata has at home. She is her daughter. She knows about the group Alfred and I were in. She was asking if I was implicated. I didn’t know what to do. She could say the same thing to anyone Aliz, anyone. Then what might happen?’
Aliz stared fixedly at him. She didn't react. But her eyes gave away her sense of the danger this girl might pose.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do. So I stunned her with my shooting pistol. We have a little time to work out what to do.’
‘How long, Marton?’
He looked timidly at her. ‘Two hours, maybe a little more.’
She winced and looked thoughtful. ‘Well, you don’t really have too many options then. You let her go, you kill her, or you keep her. Simple as that.’
The emotionless ease with which she arrived at that clarity took Marton aback. He sat very still for a moment except for a soft nodding of the head, thinking through each of the paths she’d suggested.
His thinking became crystal clear at that moment. ‘Keep her,’ he almost shouted. He wanted the words out fast, then maybe they wouldn’t be from him. And before he changed his mind.
‘But where, Marton? It needs to be somewhere no one else will find her. Also … maybe someone knew she came here. There must be no trace of her left in this room.’
They both looked down, then up at the same time. They knew what each other was thinking.
Room 31.
Room 31 was their secret. They had reserved it for anything Arrow Cross. Books. Pictures. An occasional gathering of old survivors. More recently, for a new group of young people, who were interested in rekindling those old fires that they once burnt themselves.
They’d walled up the door from the corridor years ago and kept just a double-locked connecting door from Room 33, which was only sparingly let out to guests if the hotel was full to bursting. Almost never, in fact. It was heavily soundproofed as well, so no one could hear what was going on in there.
‘We might need to make some changes? Block the window … maybe hide the door off inside the room … somehow. But yes. It could work. Certainly for now.’
He didn't discuss it much further. He had no immediate alternative. Within an hour, Aliz had brought up a large food trolley from the kitchens and they had pulled Katalin onto it and covered everything with a white dining tablecloth. She was taped up and gagged to give them time and space to work out how to manage the next steps.
‘I’ll check her in an hour or two, Marton. I need to sort out some things on the front desk. I’ll block off any bookings for Room 33 completely. Tell everyone you need it as a store for a while. Then I’ll be back.’
She shut Marton’s door behind her, leaving him to contemplate the future.
Katalin has a new home
____________________________
When Katalin woke up from the dark, she felt as if she’d spent all day drinking palinka mixed with vodka. Her tongue was dry and sticky at the same time.
She was facing sideways, across the floor. Her eyes were stuck together with sleep mucus. She moved her hands to rub them but they wouldn’t obey her brain. Her brain was slowed by the effects of the tranquiliser and didn’t understand what was happening.
She moved her head upwards and sideways, to peer around the room. That part of her anatomy wasn’t playing ball either. She could feel some resistance to flexing her neck muscles and twisted her head to try and work it out. Then she saw the tape on her ankles, felt it on her wrists and around her mouth. The best she could do was rock herself gently and stare ahead, which quickly made her feel sick.
Ahead of her was a wall, papered but scuffed. She sensed a big source of daylight behind her. Probably a window. It didn't feel like Marton’s room, though. Where the hell had he put her?
The thought of that and the remaining effects of the drug made her retch and vomit, bursting the weak tape seal around her mouth. A thin veneer of bile slapped across the floor and splashed the wallpaper. She fell back into a doze, not to wake until night stole the room’s light.
NOVEMBER 2018
A delivery
____________________________
Yet another tram shuttered past the crack in the wood and Katalin’s stomach grumbled. Breakfast was very late, it was lunchtime in fact. Food was hardly ever delayed and never as much as this. She started to pace the room in frustration and for something to do.
Mealtimes were a welcome interlude between the interminable blocks of dead time. Long hours that moved imperceptibly to the next clatter and scrape of the dumb waiter. She would often spend an hour or so on a meal, chewing each mouthful slowly and savouring every squelch of flavour, every swallow. It made her feel fuller and it minimised the time with nothing to do but stand at the crack. Sitting on the exercise bike didn't help pass the time in that way. It was an automatic process, pushing the pedals around and her brain trudging repetitively through her daily stimuli: the crack viewings that day, what she had seen on the television recently. Sometimes a new flavour in her food that she hadn’t recognised.
&nbs
p; Suddenly a bump or two on the ceiling, then a flurry of movements. After a moment of silence, the drone of the dumb waiter started.
It continually frustrated her that she seemed to be able to hear faint noises in the room above her, yet no one heard her when she screamed. It had been a long while since she’d tried.
Her digestive juices woke up with a vengeance, as the thought of imminent food flooded her thoughts. She turned expectantly to the closed hatch. The rustle of the rope and pulley mechanism stopped abruptly.
Normally a bell rang. This time it didn't. She hesitated, wondering if she was supposed to go and retrieve her food yet.
But she was really hungry now and she decided there was no point in waiting. She walked over to the hatch and put her hand on the wooden handle.
As she touched it, the bell rang out long and shrill. It startled her and her hand dropped away from the handle sharply. For a reason she couldn’t put her finger on, she felt nervous.
‘Stop it, why are you worried about eggs and coffee? Or lunch either, if it’s all arriving together today,’ she muttered at her own chest.
With a brisk movement, she grabbed the handle again, shoved the sliding door upwards to its full height and peered inside into a cubic space of about three feet each way.
Except there didn’t seem to be a space today. She blinked. Her mind couldn’t process the visual signals she was getting. There was no coffee jug, which was the first thing she always spotted. Usually smelt before she saw it too. So good in the morning, that delicious aroma. But now there was no jug.
In the milliseconds that followed, she saw no bread or eggs or any other kind of food or crockery of any sort. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog of confusion that was stopping her seeing what was in front of her.
But she could see no small items, just a fullness. The space inside the serving hatch was packed, full of a canvas of black fabric. And some blue material, like denim. She moved a step backwards and tried to get a wider perspective on the waiter’s contents.