Budapest Noir

by Vilmos Kondor

  Gordon nodded. Vécsey signaled to the waiter, then crossed his arms. “You didn’t drop in by chance.”

  “No,” Gordon acknowledged. “Something happened that outdoes the usual doings of the Downtown Association of Amateur Evildoers.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “A dead Jewish girl was found on . . .”

  “Nagy Diófa Street,” said Vécsey, finishing Gordon’s sentence. “One of Csuli’s men filled me in.”

  “Then you’ve heard of Skublics, too.”

  “Of course,” said Vécsey, leaning back in his chair. He unbuttoned the coat of his superbly tailored suit and reached for his coffee with a sinewy hand. “He disappeared so fast that he left everything in his studio. As if he just went up in smoke.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Gordon.

  “I get you. But there’s one question, Zsigmond. What do you want to do? You can’t write an article about it.”

  “I know that perfectly well,” said Gordon, raising the cup of coffee to his mouth and putting it back down at once. The hot liquid nearly burned his mouth. “But I do have a plan.”

  “That’s helpful,” said Vécsey approvingly. “A plan is always useful. Just don’t go telling me this is where I come into the picture. Because I’m not interested in any sort of plan. Especially not this sort.”

  “I need information. Nothing else, Leo. Information.”

  “That, you can ask for. Maybe I can serve up a bit.”

  Gordon took out a cigarette. He’d quite gotten the hang of using his left hand. Vécsey gave him a light. “What sort of information?” he asked as his brow darkened.

  “Politicians and prostitutes.”

  Leo raised a hand with dramatic flair and gave a soft whistle. “Both have a price.”

  “Leo, I’m asking seriously.”

  “I know you asked seriously, but I don’t want to answer seriously. You won’t write an article, anyway. There’s just no way you can write this.”

  “We’ve already agreed on that. There’s a flat on Báthory Street, which is where the girls are. And there’s a book, or let’s call it a catalog, from which the politicians can pick and choose. Skublics took the pictures of the girls. The whole thing is led by a woman called Red Margo, who works for a certain gentleman by the name of Zsámbéki.”

  Vécsey watched Gordon through narrowed eyes. Again he crossed his arms, leaned back, and for a little while he rocked back and forth on the two rear legs of the chair. When he came to, he said, softly, “Not just them. Not just our politicians—members of the lower house and the upper house. But foreign politicians have also seen that . . . as you put it, catalog.”

  “Are the police in on it, too?”

  “Not actively,” said Vécsey. “Those who need to know, know, and of course they don’t do a thing.”

  “I get it.”

  “No, you don’t get it. You don’t get it at all. Not only can’t you write about it, but you can’t even talk about it with anyone. For example, we didn’t even meet today.”

  “Let’s not get carried away, Leo.”

  Vécsey leaned over the table.

  “Have you heard about Schweinitzer’s state security commando unit?” he asked in a muffled voice.

  Gordon shook his head.

  “You don’t want to hear about them, either. And you certainly don’t want to meet up with them.”

  “What is it they do?”

  “You don’t want to know. Believe me, Zsigmond, it’s better if you don’t know. If you don’t keep that tongue of yours in check, Bárczy will give Schweinitzer the order.”

  “That Bárczy? István Bárcziházi Bárczy?”

  “How many do you know?”

  “The undersecretary in the prime minister’s office?”

  “That’s right, and don’t play dumb with me. What are you out for?”

  Gordon pulled his bandaged hand from his pocket and placed it on the table. “At first the dead girl was a professional labor of love. Maybe it would make a nice little article, I figured. The story seemed interesting. But everywhere I turned, I ran up against brick walls. That just piqued my interest. On Saturday night I was all but beaten to death. Early this morning someone left a broken-necked chicken in front of Krisztina’s flat—with a note saying that if I don’t stop, they’ll wring her neck next. I can’t stop now.”

  “But you should.”

  “And where will I get doing that?”

  Vécsey paused to reflect. “Nowhere,” he finally replied, and leaned back. “They won’t believe that you’ve quit. No matter who’s behind it all. You were right—this isn’t Budapest, it’s Chicago. Not every gangster needs a weapon.”

  “So you see. Even if I could just get over them beating me up, threatening me, and setting their sights on Krisztina, and even if I could just wave a hand to get that dead girl off my mind, not even then could I just call it quits. But I haven’t gotten over it, and I haven’t waved that hand. I’ve got to do something, because if I don’t, then . . .”

  “Don’t say any more,” Vécsey interjected. “I understand.”

  “But there is one thing I still don’t understand,” said Gordon, crushing his cigarette. “The day before Gömbös’s funeral, I was there at the wake. I saw Interior Minister Kozma, and you know who he was talking with?”

  “No.”

  “Well, not with Schweinitzer. Not with the head of the state security police but with Vladimir Gellért.”

  “It’s not that surprising,” replied Vécsey.

  “No?”

  “Both Kozma and Gellért are military academy graduates. They were in the same class.”

  “Bárcziházi went there, too,” observed Gordon.

  “That’s right, but he was several years ahead of them.”

  Gordon nodded, stood, and threw a pengő on the table. “All the best with Hollywood. And thanks.”

  “No thanks needed.”

  “Tell me just one more thing,” said Gordon, leaning against the chair.

  “What would that be?”

  “What do you know about Szőllősy, the coffee merchant?”

  “The owner of Arabia Coffee?”

  “Him.”

  Vécsey scrutinized Gordon’s eyes. “Aside from the fact that in 1933 he bought himself an official certificate giving him the title of Valiant Knight?”

  “Does that sort of thing cost a lot?”

  “Why, do you want to buy one, too?”

  “No, I’m just curious.”

  “Well, if you ask me, the title of Valiant Knight is worth every cent to a Jew who converted to Christianity.”

  Gordon got back to the newsroom well after eleven. Gyula Turcsányi was sitting in his office, a red pencil in his hand, with which he was struggling to edit a small pile of articles.

  “I’ll say!” he shouted on casting a furious glance at Gordon. “Eleven o’clock, and you’ve seen fit to show up at work. Maybe back in America this was in vogue, but in case you haven’t noticed, you’re working in Budapest. We’re fussy about work hours, you see. A reporter is at his desk by nine and writing an article, or else he’s rolling the article out of his typewriter one moment and delivering it to my desk the next. Or haven’t I told you this before? Well?”

  Only now did Turcsányi finally look up and see Gordon’s unshaven face, wounded lips, the bandage sticking out from under his hat, and his limp right hand just hanging there.

  “What in blazing hell happened to you?”

  “An accident.”

  “You were in a fight?”

  “Not for fun.”

  “Was it at least with a reporter at a rival paper? Over which one of you should write about the latest girl to do herself in by swallowing match heads?”

  “I’ve got to rest my rig
ht hand. The doctor told me not to use it until Friday.”

  From behind his desk Turcsányi took stock of him.

  “I can’t type, either. And I certainly can’t write.”

  The section editor slammed his red pencil on the pile of articles before him and gave a deep sigh. “Then go on home, and by Friday learn how to write with your left hand. Or to type. Or both.” He then took a typed sheet of paper from the pile and resumed reading.

  Gordon went down to the archives. As usual, the door was shut. Once inside, Gordon saw that Strasser was busy putting one pack of bound newspapers after another on a pile on a desk by the wall. He was utterly immersed in the task. Sometimes he’d take the pencil from behind his ear, write a note, page through one of the packs, put the pack aside, resume searching, consult his catalog, and scratch his head. Gordon knew full well that the archivist must not be disturbed at such a time.

  Naturally, even now, a cigarette hung from his mouth. Gordon sat down in the visitor’s chair and he, too, lit a cigarette. It was a couple of minutes past noon. Strasser took the packs of newspapers and returned them one after another to the shelves. Once finished, he plopped down behind his desk, read over his notes, and stared at the ceiling for quite a while. Then, all at once, he sprang up, rushing headlong to a particular shelf. Grabbing a pack of papers, he paged through them, taking the pencil from behind his ear to write something down. “I thought so,” he grumbled, then returned to his desk. Adjusting his elbow guard, he spoke.

  “I’m done, Gordon.”

  “Wonderful.”

  The archivist set his notes down in front of himself and looked at the reporter. “You didn’t ask for this in writing, so I didn’t write down the sources. Maybe I’ll remember if it’s important, but don’t bet your life.”

  “I don’t need to know when and where the articles were published, Strasser, much less by whom. Your word is enough.”

  “So then,” said Strasser, craning his neck. Gordon was on pins and needles and would gladly have given Strasser a good shake to get him to start talking. But he knew it was worth waiting. He knew full well that if he’d hired a private investigator, the man would have found out ten times less in twice as much time, and he would not have kept as tight-lipped about what he was up to. “So then,” repeated the archivist, “Valiant Knight András Szőllőshegyi Szőllősy was born in Budapest in 1876. His father was already officially called Tamás Szőllősy, or more precisely, Tamás Rotenau Szőllősy. He arrived in Buda as an Ashkenazi Jew after the 1848–49 revolution and there opened a general store. Just when he converted to Christianity is hard to say exactly, but it was sometime in the late 1850s. And so he didn’t have his son christened with the foreign-sounding name Andreas, but under the Hungarian name András. His wife also took the Roman Catholic faith. Szőllősy’s father became really well-to-do when he moved his business across the river to Pest in 1867. András was the only child, so he was sent abroad for schooling. First he studied in Antwerp, then Berlin. In 1902 he returned to Budapest and immediately went to work for his father, who, however, died in 1905. A year later, in 1906, András got married; his wife’s name is Irma Petneházy. They had a daughter in 1914 who was christened Fanny. During the first two years of the Great War he traveled a lot, mainly to Africa. He was among the first to make business ties in Abyssinia. By 1919 he already had five stores in Pest, but their proceeds paled in comparison with that of his coffee imports. For a while he was the main supplier for stores in Vienna and Belgrade. It was from there that, in 1920, he entered the German market. He was deft at maneuvering his way around the touchy political situation of the time, managing to avoid the storm clouds at every turn, and before long he’d opened several stores in Germany that also operated as wholesale outlets. One in Berlin, one in Munich, one in Bremen, and one in Nuremberg. In 1933, our country’s leader, Miklós Horthy, made him a Valiant Knight and simultaneously named him his confidential advisor. Since the start of the year, the bulk of his coffee exports have gone to Germany, where he is one of the biggest suppliers. He lives in the Buda hills, more precisely, at 48 Pasaréti Street. His office is in Pest, on Kaiser Wilhelm Road. He drives a Maybach DS8 Zeppelin sedan, license plate MA 110. He’s known to be reserved, and spends a lot of time in Germany seeing to business affairs. He doesn’t go to the theater, and he has almost no social life to speak of. His wife, Irma, is much more active, belonging to various women’s associations. The greatest disappointment in Szőllősy’s life is that he didn’t have more children, and so he doesn’t have an heir for his business.”

  Gordon didn’t even try to take notes on Strasser’s hollow, colorless speech. The archivist would not have made a good radio announcer, but then again, he didn’t aspire to be one, either.

  “Say, Strasser,” Gordon asked, “may I have your notes?”

  Strasser took thorough stock of Gordon. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Nor have you ever seen a journalist who wanted to work but couldn’t, because someone almost broke his hand.”

  “Well, I’ve already seen more than one journalist in my time who couldn’t work, and then there are exceptional cases.”

  “This is precisely such a case,” said Gordon, standing up and setting down yet another pack of Egyptian cigarettes in front of Strasser.

  “That’s also how I see it,” he said, slipping the pack away in no time, then pushing his notes toward Gordon. “I don’t know what use you can make of them. Don’t tell me you want to write an article about him? Because that would be interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “Szőllősy has never spoken to the press. Definitely not to us or anyone else. He’s been written about, but he’s never commented on himself.”

  “Why so secretive?”

  “You see there, that’s your job to figure out if you want to. It’s not like I can do that from down here in the archives. Not as if I’d want to, I should add.”

  Gordon went up to the newsroom, stepped over to the telephone, and dialed. Mór answered.

  “Are you two all right, Opa?”

  “We’re all right, son. How long do we need to sit here for?”

  “Not long. Have the super get you lunch, but don’t go anywhere until I get home. Can you give the phone to Krisztina?”

  “Hold on there, son. What is this all about? What have you gotten yourself mixed up in?”

  “I’ll tell you, Opa, but I can’t talk about it now. Tell Krisztina I’m on the line.”

  While waiting, Gordon pulled up a copy of the 8 O’Clock News and began paging through it. He paused at the announcements column, which comprised five short texts, each a couple of sentences long. He read the first, though he knew full well what these announcements were all about: “I hereby notify my most esteemed present and future clients that as of October 10, I have Hungarianized my family name from Klein to Kutas. Sincerely, Dr. Endre Kutas, attorney.” The other announcements were the same. Doctors, merchants, lawyers—all people whose surnames suggested dubious ancestry who were obliged to announce that they’d adopted Hungarian names. The only surprising thing was that—

  “Zsigmond.”

  “Are you all right, Krisztina?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Better. I wouldn’t have thought this would have made me so upset.”

  “Don’t be angry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “But it is.”

  Krisztina pondered the matter for a couple of moments. “Okay, it is. Were they the same people who beat you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “I have a hunch.”

  “A hunch.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not telling me just now.”

  “Exactly,” said Gordon, casting his eyes around the newsroom. No one was looking his way. Gömbös belonged to the past, and
Gordon’s colleagues were now all busy at work on other stories.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “How long are we sentenced to confinement in the flat?”

  “When I get home, we’ll talk over everything. Now I’ve got to go. Watch yourselves.” He put down the phone.

  For one reason alone, Gordon wasn’t sorry that he was unable to work. In recent days speculation had been rife about whom Kálmán Darányi would invite into the government alongside the National Unity Party. Why was this such a big mystery? He’d invite the same people who’d been there up to now. Horthy had appointed Darányi as prime minister on the day of the funeral, so Darányi had functioned as the acting head of government only for a couple of days, a position that had been a mere formality in any case.

  So the newsroom was now abuzz with journalists churning out reports on the formation of the new government. The Budapest Journal was on the desk beside Gordon. He paged through it. Nothing showed Horthy’s confidence in Darányi more than his having appointed him so quickly; and Darányi promptly moved to consolidate the trade and industry ministries, giving István Winchkler the boot, and naming Géza Bornemissza the head of the newly unified ministry. He also replaced the defense minister, Valiant Knight Jozsef Somkuthy, with Vilmos Roder, the general in command of the nation’s infantry. But the government’s key figures would stay right where they were, Gordon surmised. Bálint Hóman would remain culture minister; Tihamér Fabinyi, finance minister; Kálmán Kánya, foreign minister; and, of course, Miklós Kozma, interior minister. Gordon understood the newsworthiness of this; and at the same time, he didn’t. Ultimately, it didn’t matter who was at the helm of the government and who belonged to the cabinet. Nothing would change, anyway. The papers had to appear, and they had to run the news, even if, in fact, it was the same old news.

  On Blaha Lujza Square, Gordon boarded Tram No. 4 and once again read thoroughly through Strasser’s notes. He transferred at Kálmán Szell Square to Tram No. 14, got off at the head of Italian Row, and walked from there onto Pasaréti Street. Although his kidneys still throbbed with pain, moving felt good. And it gave him time to ponder what to do next.