Budapest Noir

by Vilmos Kondor

  Gordon looked up and, though he sensed there was trouble, could not do a thing about it. He was just about to take a step forward when someone seized his arms from behind him and held them tight. He tried looking up, but his hat slipped over his eyes, and it was in vain that he sought to tear his hands free. He was held in an iron grip. His attacker pulled him into a doorway. The other man now stepped in front of him and tore off Gordon’s hat. Gordon jerked up his head, but a streetlamp shining behind his assailant kept the man’s features obscured. He thought of shouting for help, but he knew it would be pointless. They needed only a couple of seconds to take care of him. One blow, one gunshot, that would be it. The man behind him held tight. Gordon tried scrutinizing the eyes of the man before him, but he still couldn’t get a good look. Lightning-fast, the man socked Gordon in the gut. He doubled over and began heaving. The man behind him still had him in a certain grip. Gordon knew he shouldn’t, but he prepared for the next round by tightening his stomach muscles. The second blow filled him with excruciating pain. Tears came to his eyes. His legs gave way beneath him. He tried catching his breath but couldn’t. It was as if a lead cube locked away in his stomach was now seeping metal toward his lungs. He did everything to keep from letting panic get the best of him. The man raised his arm to ready for another blow, and Gordon tried slackening his body. Although it didn’t hurt as much this time, his stomach contracted and he began heaving once again. A foolish thought popped into his mind: Lucky he hadn’t had supper in the hash house, or he’d have been throwing up as well. Gordon could hear the man’s fingers cracking as he made a fist. He didn’t even see the fourth blow coming—which for once didn’t land in his gut but on his chin. Gordon felt his lips tear and heard his teeth grind as they slid over each other. The man behind him now let him go. Gordon collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut. His head knocked hard against the pavement. He felt blood start running from his forehead. And yet he hadn’t bitten his tongue. Perhaps something had stayed with him from all the boxing matches he’d seen: “Put your tongue to the roof of your mouth, don’t think a thing, and just leave it there.” On the ground, he wanted to spit but couldn’t. Saliva mixed with blood dripped from the corners of his mouth. The man in the hat now leaned over him.

  “You should call it quits here and now,” he hissed. Gordon looked in his face. He saw little, but what he saw was quite enough. He caught a glimpse of his mouth, if it could be called a mouth at all. The lower lip curled downward, he had hardly any bottom teeth, and Gordon could make out only his canines up top. Above the mouth was a nose so terribly crooked that Gordon couldn’t even imagine how its owner could take in air. “You should call it quits here and now,” he resumed. “If you don’t, your pretty little girlfriend won’t look so pretty with a sliced-up face.” Gordon groaned. He shouldn’t have. Again he started heaving, and blood gushed from his mouth. The man with the crooked nose stood upright, dusted off his trousers, and stepped back. He kicked Gordon in the belly so hard that Gordon’s world turned black. He didn’t even feel the man level the one solid good-bye punch to his kidneys. But when he stepped onto the palm of Gordon’s right hand, as if stomping out a cigarette butt, Gordon came to. A car turned onto the street, and the two men vanished in an instant. It was all Gordon could do not to focus on the pain, but he was afraid of losing consciousness again if he didn’t. He lay there like the drunk vagabonds in front of the bars on Ülloi Street. The nausea was unrelenting. Finally, he tried sitting up by leaning on his right hand, but a sharp pain shot through him. He rolled onto his back and out onto the sidewalk, then slowly managed to sit up, this time using his left hand for support. He threw his back against the wall and felt his right hand. The slightest touch was enough to make the hand contract. The pain was great, but he tested his fingers one by one. With the exception of his index finger, which alone rested at an unnatural angle, every finger moved. Now came his wrist. He managed to move it left and right, though he heard occasional cracking. There was pain, of course. Slowly his breathing took on a more normal rhythm. He shut his eyes and took ever deeper breaths. At first, he’d wanted to vomit every time he inhaled, but some five minutes later the queasiness passed. He wasn’t in a hurry; he knew he could not count on help.

  A couple was approaching on the sidewalk. The woman wore a cocktail dress and a mink coat, and the man had on a tuxedo, hat, and a camel-fur jacket. On noticing Gordon’s filthy, bloody figure, they hastily crossed the street. Gordon waited another couple of minutes. When he felt he had enough strength, he tried staggering to his feet. It didn’t work. His belly throbbed, as did his hand. Again throwing his back against the wall, he began pushing himself to his feet. His legs were nearly straight when all at once he felt the building’s foundation come to an end, and the ornamental brickwork begin. He took a deep breath, placed his hands just above his knees, and pressed himself until he stood erect. Dizziness set in. He leaned against the wall to keep from falling. The blood ran from his forehead into his eyes. He wiped it with his coat sleeve.

  He checked to see how far he was from his building door. His flat was at the head of Lovag Street, just two buildings down, close to Nagymező Street. He had four doors to go. Pulling himself together, he pushed himself away from the wall and tried staying on his feet. This is when Gordon really felt the blow leveled against his kidneys. Had he been unable to grab hold of a brick jutting out from the building wall, he might well have fallen again. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand up one more time. Gordon leaned against the wall with his left hand. He would be strong enough.

  Slowly, step by step, he moved forward. With his left hand he grasped another brick, then moved his left foot, then his right. Left hand, left foot, right foot. Left hand, left foot, right foot.

  On reaching the door, Gordon had to gather all his strength to be able to knock. Then he turned around, fell against the door, and slid slowly to the ground. The door opened and the super looked out. On glimpsing the slumped figure, he moved to close the door, but Gordon called to him: “It’s me, Iváncsik.”

  The super leaned down and looked into Gordon’s face. He exclaimed in astonishment: “Don’t you move, Mr. Editor!” Gordon had no intention of moving. “I’ll help you right away.” With that, he carefully reached under Gordon’s arm, did his best to help Gordon to his feet, and led him to his little flat underneath the stairwell. The super’s wife stood in the kitchen as if looking at a ghost. “Don’t just stare like that. Irénke!” Iváncsik yelled at her. “Run, go get the doctor!”

  “There’s no need,” Gordon moaned.

  “Who are you kidding, Mr. Editor? The last time I saw this sort of thing was on the Italian front. We need a doctor right now.”

  “Go up to my flat,” said Gordon softly. “Krisztina is waiting for me there.”

  “Right away,” replied the super. “Irénke, don’t just stand there twiddling your thumbs, you heard the man. Get a move on.”

  His wife hurried off as Iváncsik now slipped Gordon from his shoulder onto a stool. Not even a minute had passed before Krisztina appeared in the kitchen. But for her cheekbones, which were flushed, her face was a deathly white. She knelt down beside Gordon.

  “Zsigmond, Zsigmond. What have they done to you?” she asked, reaching for his right hand.

  “They ran away in the end,” Gordon moaned, pulling away his hand.

  “You stay here,” said Krisztina, running her fingers through Gordon’s bloody hair, “I’ll call Mór.”

  Gordon replied, “Don’t you worry, for once I’ll stay right where I am.”

  When Krisztina returned, she was carrying a wet towel that she now carefully wrapped around Gordon’s hand. She also wiped the blood from his face. When Mór arrived hardly ten minutes later, Gordon looked much better, given the circumstances. The old man took just one glance at him before pronouncing, “Call an ambulance.”

  “Not that, Opa. Not that. You’re here, and that
’s just fine for me.”

  “Son, you won’t get far with me. I was just a wretched district doctor, not a surgeon.”

  “Please try all the same, Opa,” said Gordon. The old man sighed. “I’ll examine you in your flat. If you can get up there, that is. If you can’t, you’re off to the hospital.”

  Gordon slowly staggered to his feet. Mór and Iváncsik each reached for an arm, then helped him up to the second floor. Krisztina had already opened the door and in the bathroom had put out a few sheets along with the first-aid kit they’d gotten from Mór. Gordon sank into a chair, and Krisztina gradually undressed him. Although she had to cut the trousers off him, she managed to pull the rest off. Using the sheets, she then washed Gordon’s upper body and thoroughly cleaned the wound on his forehead and his lips.

  “Can you go into the room, son?” asked the old man, eyes sparkling with worry from behind his round glasses.

  “Yes, Opa,” replied Gordon. With Krisztina’s help, he went into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

  “Krisztina, can you give us a minute?” said Mór. He then opened his medical bag and proceeded to examine Gordon. Once finished, he said, “If you don’t piss blood tomorrow, you can stay at home. But if you do, it’s off to the hospital with you.” Krisztina, who of course had not left the room but was leaning up against the doorjamb, sighed with relief. “And your hand didn’t break, either,” continued Mór, “just one of your fingers snapped out of joint, that’s all. I’ll set it back in place. It will hurt, but I’ll do it fast.” Gordon nodded, and the old man grabbed his wrist tight with his left hand and his index finger with his right. First he yanked the finger forward, then pressed it back in place. Tears formed in Gordon’s eyes.

  “You didn’t say it would be like this, Opa.”

  “And I haven’t even tended to your head wound,” said Mór. “You’re just lucky it’s not long, otherwise it would have to be sewn up, and I don’t like doing that. The blow tore a vein, which explains the blood. Krisztina, hand me the iodine.” He wrapped a matchstick in cotton, dipped that in the little bottle, then thoroughly cleaned out the wounds on Gordon’s forehead and lips.

  “Drink this, Zsigmond,” said Krisztina, handing him a cup.

  The old man nodded by way of approval. “Go ahead and drink it, son.”

  Gordon gulped down the plum brandy. His eyes slowly closed and his head slumped to the side.

  Six

  When Gordon awoke in the wee hours of the next morning, he felt firsthand the typical boxer’s refrain: “In the ring it only hurts a little. Afterward it hurts more. But that’s nothing. The real pain comes the next day.”

  Everything hurt. His head and his kidneys throbbed with pain, as did the fingers and palm of his right hand. But he could stand. He staggered out to the living room. Krisztina was sitting in front of the window, drawing by the light of the reading lamp. Leaning against the door, Gordon watched her. He had watched her draw on several occasions, sometimes for as long as a half hour. He’d seen many illustrators—mainly police artists and court reporters—but their work had never absorbed him so. Sometimes he, too, tried his hand at drawing, but he was incapable of decently depicting even a street map. Krisztina’s hand moved over the paper with complete, consummate confidence. Hardly ever did she stop to think, and rarely did she make a mistake. She’d already illustrated several storybooks, and as only Gordon knew, when it came to drawing children, Krisztina’s models were her relatives. She hadn’t seen them for years, but she had preserved their memory since childhood. Since she was of Saxon descent, it was clear from the outset that she would study in Germany. Her father had relatives in Weimar, and so Krisztina attended the Bauhaus school there. She did not hold firm to this approach to art but gladly went about planning posters and building façades, and, indeed, the pavilion of the light-bulb manufacturer Tungsram at the Budapest International Fair was built from her designs. Never did she have a normal job, no matter what that might have meant. She always worked alone, on request, and never went looking for work—work always found her. Gordon often asked her: “And when will there be a Krisztina Eckhardt exhibit?” Krisztina hated being called an artist; the only thing she hated more was being called a suffragette. Men were both suspicious of her and respected her; behind her back they gossiped about her. Not that she cared. While she didn’t deny that she agreed with the movement for women’s equal rights, she wasn’t too vocal about it, either. “People should stick to asking about what I draw and design,” she often told Gordon. The upshot was that she didn’t have girlfriends, either, in the traditional sense. She didn’t understand women who suffered in bad marriages, women who kept lovers, and what she deemed the meaningless self-sacrifice supposedly endured for the sanctity of marriage and family. Rarely did she go out with friends, and when she did, it was with similar women. And they played cards. Bridge, which Gordon just didn’t get. For him, the only mystery greater than Krisztina herself was bridge.

  And so Gordon stood there in the doorway, his limbs hurting, burning, throbbing. Mór was sleeping on the divan. Krisztina rose to put a blanket over him. That’s when she turned and saw Gordon. She cast him an angry look and was about to say something when Gordon brought a finger to his lips. He motioned for her to join him in the bedroom.

  “You’ll find a letter in the inside pocket of my blazer,” he said when Krisztina entered the room. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and trying hard not to move. “Bring it over to me.”

  Krisztina found the envelope, looked it over, and extended it to Gordon. “Read it out loud, Krisztina,” he said. “I don’t think I could even pick it up.” Krisztina opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper folded in two. She cleared her throat and began to read:

  My dear, sweet Fanny, I miss you like the devil. I miss you terribly. What will I do with myself without you? The days drag along, and not even the Torah helps. I look to it for answers, but find none. I seek answers everywhere. What is the answer if I love you with all my heart, and our being together is more important to me than everything else? What is the answer to their wanting to tear us apart? It’s not by chance that my father became a rabbi. Maybe he doesn’t really know the answer to everything, but he acts as if he does, and that’s enough for people to believe him. They respect him, they love him, they fear him. I share with them only the last of these sentiments. My love is now for you alone. Remember what I told you in that restaurant? Well, don’t forget it. And don’t forget me, either. I’ll work things out somehow—how, I don’t yet know, but I’m constantly racking my brains. To finally be able to be with you, to be able to freely kiss your lips, to freely hold your hand, to freely look upon your lovely eyes. I want to make up for everything—for everything—and it is my firm intention that you should be the happiest woman in the world, even if no one else wants this to be so. Your devoted Shlomo.

  Krisztina refolded the letter and returned it to the envelope. “Don’t you want to tell me what this is all about? What you got yourself beaten up for? Do you feel better, by the way?”

  Gordon tried to smile, but his torn mouth made it look more like a grimace. Then, slowly, faltering, he told Krisztina the story of his visit to Red Margo.

  “And this is so important to you that you’re willing to get your brain knocked out because of it?”

  “Now that they’ve already half knocked my brains out, yes.”

  “Zsigmond, don’t you go playing the hero,” said Krisztina, standing up.

  “Calm down. I’m not playing the hero. But what else can I do? How could I look in the mirror if I didn’t try catching the person who did this? How would you look at me if I didn’t try?” Gordon didn’t see the point in sharing the threat made by the man with the crooked nose. But he had to act, and fast.

  Krisztina gripped the back of the chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Clearly she wanted to say something, but instead she turned around and
left the room. She nearly knocked down Mór, who, disheveled and sleepy, stood in the doorway holding a tray, on it a glass of milk, a slice of brioche, and a jar of jam. “It’s a waste filling him with your jam, Mór,” said Krisztina. “He’s so hardheaded he should be eating cement.”

  “My grandson, oh, my boy,” said the old man, shaking his head, “you just eat this up now, and then we’ll talk.” He put the tray down by the bed and then sat beside the window. He watched in silence as Gordon slowly ate it all. “Last year’s peach jam,” he said finally, “that turned out pretty well.” Gordon nodded approvingly, then tried standing up.

  “Where to, son?” asked Mór.

  “I’ve got business to tend to, Opa.”

  “For the love of God, you’ve got no other business than to be lying down and moaning.”

  “I can moan even without lying down,” said Gordon.

  “It will work better if you’re lying down,” said Mór, shaking his head.

  “I can’t do that now, Opa. I’ve got to go.”

  “Go? Where in the name of sweet holy hell do you have to go? You can’t even get up, much less go. But even if you managed, you’d terrify people out on the street, that’s how hideous you look.”

  “I’ve got to go to Dohány Street,” said Gordon. “There’s a rabbi there whose son is called Shlomo.”

  “If you ask me, there’s not just one such rabbi out there.”

  “Then I’ll find this particular one and have a talk with him.”

  “I’ll go talk with them all,” proclaimed Mór.

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. Zsigmond, you really can’t go anywhere. You’ve got to rest. What do you want to find out about that rabbi?”

  “About the rabbi? Nothing. I want to find out about his son, and I want to know everything about his girlfriend.”

  “I shouldn’t ask why, right?” asked Mór, fixing his eyes on Gordon. He patted down his hair, and with his other hand he buttoned his vest askew over his wrinkled shirt and necktie gone awry.