Triptych

by Margit Liesche

  I stare at my wineglass, awareness growing. It is as if we’ve been looking for each other for years and years. A strange feeling. The feeling of surrender?

  I look over at him, smile. A soft breeze kisses my cheek.

  Our main course arrives. We are ready for the interlude it provides. The fogas is divine. And the cherry strudel we share—heavenly.

  The evening ends and Gustav walks with me to the elevator. We enter.

  “Floor?” he asks.

  “Seven.”

  His eyebrows lift in surprise. “I am on seven.”

  It is a quiet ride. And the walk down the corridor, awkward.

  At my door, I turn to insert the key. My shawl slips. Gustav standing behind me slides the silky fabric up my arms, grasps my shoulders very gently. We stand like this. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck, and the pressure of his hands through the silk. He leans down. His mouth presses into that most sensitive of spots on my neck, just below my ear. Pull away, I tell myself. If you don’t, you know how this will end. But then I feel a wave of tenderness wash over me, an overwhelming desire, feelings so intense, I forget to breathe. I gasp, lean back into him, and his arms enfold me.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Beneath the rumpled covers, I stretch lazily. My limbs, every inch of me, feel satiated. I see Gustav’s face above mine, his mouth smiling, moaning, his eyes closed and opened. I reach to trace my fingers through disheveled salt-and-pepper hair, down a chiseled cheekbone, through the slight stubble along his chin, over naked broad shoulders…

  From the dreamy fog of my awakening, I hear the short quick signals of a telephone ringing. I shove a pillow over my head, tentatively open one eye and peer at the clock on the bedside table. Today is significant, I know this even in my languid state. It is only eight a.m. I have hours before the taxi cab is scheduled to pick me up for the train station. The morning is mine.

  Between the sheets, my hand sweeps the vacant expanse beside me, cradles the spare pillow to my face. I inhale his salty male smell. Last night, sometime after midnight, following a lingering deep kiss neither of us wanted to end, Gustav had finally left to return to his room. He did not want to miss a call from the hospital in the event of an emergency.

  Next to me, the telephone continues its insistent ringing. It could be Gustav, I realize, bolting upright and snatching the receiver.

  “Ildikó. How wonderful I have caught you.”

  It is Mariska sounding like she is in the next room. I whip the covers up over my naked breasts. “Yes, hello. Nice to hear your voice.” And it truly was. But an overseas call? “What is it? Anything wrong?”

  “No, no, no. I simply would like to know if there are any developments.”

  The seductive scent of the red rose from Gustav in the water glass beside the telephone wafts my way. I grin. If she only knew.

  I describe, in a roundabout way, meeting my Hungarian family. Even the hotel telephones sometimes they are tapped, she’d warned before I’d left Chicago, adding, Use caution. Especially on calls with America.

  “Oh, and I’ve made contact with the friend Attila suggested that I visit,” I say, my mind racing down a mental checklist of what might be safe or not safe to share. I decide to amp up “use caution” to “using code.” “At her recommendation, today I’m going on an excursion to a village in the country. I’m excited. My mother visited there when she was here in ‘65. Remember the picture in my locket? I think that’s where it was taken.”

  A half-truth. I didn’t know if the girl had actually lived in the village. I wanted Mariska to know the village was an important piece in the puzzle of what my mother had discovered here, in Hungary, before she died. Would Mariska understand?

  Silence on the other end. Finally, “Yes, yes, yes, of course, lovely place. And your gentleman friend? He will go with you, yes?”

  “No, his uncle is very ill. He needs to stay near him.”

  “Ildikó, I am disappointed.” Worried was more like it. I could hear it in her voice. “Remember our mutual friend that had his apartment broke into just before you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “After, our friend comes here to the store. Well, next door to get his tickets. He is leaving town. He comes in to say goodbye. He mentions the break in, what was taken.”

  Gentleman friend. Mutual friend. Our friend. I might need a chart to keep track of Gustav’s shifting pseudonyms. But clearly she thought it important not to pinpoint his destination to Budapest or me. “Yes—”

  “—an owner of a neighboring grocery store was here, too. She remembered her unofficially adopted daughter have a newspaper article with identical picture like the one stolen. She knew her daughter had this, but only made the match after our mutual friend was here. And only after he has left on his trip.”

  Grocery store owner = Mrs. Bankuti. Unofficially adopted daughter = Eva.

  I kick a foot out from under the covers. “Yes, Auntie Mariska, but what about the photo in this article that the daughter had? Recent?”

  “No, from back then, of her parents. So you can understand the article it is a valued treasure to her. Imagine, an original clipping from the great Szabad Nép.”

  Mariska is still speaking in riddles and, so far, I am keeping up. Gustav’s photo had been of a couple, obviously freedom fighters; in 1956, Szabad Nép was the Party newspaper, carrying ‘official’ news. Mariska’s deliberate enthusiasm for the Communist daily was for the benefit of a secret agent who might be listening. But where is she going with all this?

  “What does the unofficially adopted daughter have to say about all this?”

  “Nothing. She cannot be reached.”

  “Isn’t she on a job in New York?”

  “A mystery. She cannot be reached.”

  Seek help from what you know best. Through your own gifts you shall succeed. The fairy queen from the gardener boy’s dream.

  I turn over the clues Mariska has been feeding me.

  “All right, then, Mariska. I appreciate the update. Before I head out on my excursion I’ll pay a visit to my gentleman friend’s uncle. Mysteries are right up his alley.”

  ***

  At Péterfy Sándor utca Hospital, I get off the elevator on the fourth floor. Passing the nurses’ station I see Gustav, a Styrofoam cup in his hand, approaching me from the opposite direction. He still wears his shirt and slacks from last night. They match his fatigued look.

  I stop. He comes up next to me, bringing with him the acidic aroma of over brewed coffee.

  “Ildikó, I did not expect to see you.” He leans toward me, so close I notice the rims of his eyes are red with fatigue. “I am very happy to see you. Last night a beautiful dream start for us.” I feel his breath on my face. His lips brush my cheek.

  I step backwards, attempting to ignore the delicious shivers his touch has set off. “You look like you didn’t sleep. Your uncle, is he okay? How is he?”

  “When I returned to my room last night, there was a message I should come here. A difficult night for him, but this morning the pain does not seem so bad.” He rakes his hair back from his forehead. “Now you are here. I am certain this will help him to improve even more.”

  “I have some questions for him. But, his condition…is he strong enough?”

  “We can try.” Gustav sips his coffee, grimaces, holds out the cup. “I wanted to offer you some—there is more in the room behind the nurses’ station—but this is not so good an idea.” A trash bin resides nearby. He dumps the drink and takes me by the elbow.

  I do not appreciate the “we” can try reference, nor do I like the sense of being commandeered, his hand maneuvering my elbow like a rudder as we walk.

  Beneath the petty irritations a bigger concern lurks.

  “Gustav.” I halt abruptly. “I need to ask you something. Does the name Benedek mean anything to y
ou?”

  “No—”

  “You said the photograph of that revolutionary couple was a random shot. Brought out of Hungary on a roll of film, ruined except for that shot.”

  “It was. Correct.”

  “Then how come an identical picture appeared in the newspaper Szabad Nép?”

  Gustav touches the side of my face. “Kérem, please. We have been over this. You can trust me. There were many photojournalists in Budapest recording the events of the uprising. It is possible someone else—perhaps even a Soviet observer—got a similar shot from the same angle, or it could have been confiscated, but not from me.”

  I look into his eyes. I think of his uncle in the next room. Of the trust Mariska and Zsófi have shown toward him. Of last night.

  “Where is this paper?” he asks before I can say anything. “I can prove to you—”

  I press my finger to his lips. A pair of doctors, engaged in intense discussion, their expressions grave, walk past, oblivious to us.

  “You don’t have to prove anything, Gustav. I believe you. Can we see your uncle now?”

  ***

  A little color has come back into Uncle Ferenc’s pale skin. Maybe it is just the glow from sunlight steaming in through the window. He smiles, but with obvious effort.

  Gustav goes to the foot of the bed and slowly cranks the lever. “Uncle Ferenc, you are looking better. How are you feeling?”

  Another slight smile. His voice is weak. “Fine, köszönöm, thank you.”

  Gustav offers him water. After a difficult start, Uncle Ferenc sucks the liquid greedily.

  “It’s good to see you again,” I say. “This morning I spoke with my Aunt Mariska. She sends her best and hopes your recovery will be speedy, like hers.” I tell him about her heart attack and how well she is doing. “Back at work now,” I conclude.

  Ferenc nods. “Always a strong woman. This I remember.”

  “I hope you won’t mind, but I have a few questions about ’56. Do you feel up to it?”

  “Yes, yes, kérem.”

  “Do you remember a husband and wife by the name of Benedek?”

  His mouth shifts back and forth, creases forming across his brow while he concentrates. “Ahh, yes, Franciska and Miklós. Brave couple.”

  “Can you tell me about them, please?” I ask.

  Ferenc’s pillow has slipped. Gustav helps his uncle lean forward while I scoot the pillow higher, punching it from the sides to fluff it. Ferenc leans back, his chest rising and collapsing, as he takes a couple of deep breaths.

  “Both took part in the armed fighting. She, Franci, in particular the preparation of the Molotov cocktails.

  “On ninth of November when the armed resistance it was abandoned, many run for the border, but they would not. Instead, they take refuge, here, in the basement. Join up with the political resistance instead.”

  “Doing what?” I ask.

  “Franci, she was very smart. Creative. She help to word the leaflets. Also Élünk.”

  “And Miklós?”

  “Duplicated documents. Both help with distribution, too. This was important work. A last effort to keep alive the revolutionary spirit. Hold on to gains made. But on sixteenth of November…” Ferenc’s face tightens with pain. “Ahh—” he rasps.

  “Uncle—”

  Ferenc shakes his head. A hand lifts limply from the mattress, a signal for Gustav.

  Gustav nods, takes over. “On sixteenth November, the hospital was raided by Soviet forces. The building and its underground passageways were searched, the typewriters and duplicating equipment seized. There was no armed resistance.”

  “And the Benedeks?” I ask.

  Ferenc licks parched lips. “Arrested during the raid. Miklós and a comrade, they were carrying duplicating machine, preparing to hide it.”

  “Franciska?”

  “Held for three days. Questioned, then released.”

  After being tormented into telling what she did with her child, I think, recalling what Anikó had learned from the prison documents. The deceitful child who’d lied about her teacher. Lied to the AVO.

  “Arrested again, not long after.” Ferenc’s mouth crimps into a tight white line.

  I don’t bother asking about the charges. “Condemned to death and executed?”

  With a pained expression, he nods.

  Ever so gently, I stroke his forearm. I feel bone and flesh, cool to the touch. “I am sorry…another question?”

  “Kérem, please,” Ferenc says. “Distraction it is good, and I am feeling useful. I have missed this. I know this very important for you.”

  I glance sideways at Gustav, expecting him to intervene. He doesn’t.

  I look down at Ferenc again. A lump forms in my throat as I appreciate how, in the last days of his life, at this moment, he is not consumed with himself, with what he is going through, but that he is feeling concern for me.

  I swallow. “It is very important. Did you make arrangements for the Benedeks’ child, Eva, to leave the country? She went with a family, the Feketes. They had two daughters, schoolmates of Eva’s.”

  “I make the plan for the child, yes. No family.”

  “No family?” I repeat.

  “She was alone. I remember this. Sad, many children sent alone.”

  I recall the evening in the Blue Rooster Restaurant, Eva telling me about the little girl. How moved I’d felt, learning her parents had abandoned her, blindly trusting that she would escape safely, that strangers would look after her.

  “Did you meet her? Eva?”

  Ferenc shakes his head. “Other times, yes, but for this occasion the guide make the contact.” He frowns. “You say Eva. Back then, she went by the pet name, Évike.”

  The locket is wrapped in my mother’s pastel princess flower embroidery, stuffed in my pocket. I remove the packet. “This is small, but here, can you see her? Do you recognize her?”

  Ferenc’s glasses are on the table beside Gustav. He slips them on the bridge of his uncle’s nose.

  Uncle Ferenc studies the photo. The lines on his forehead pucker, then relax. “Something in the expression is familiar, but, no. I am sorry. I do not recognize this girl.”

  I snap the heart shut. “You’ve told me exactly what I need to know,” I say. “Truly. Thank you.”

  I return the necklace to my pocket. We talk about Mariska and Zsófi and their bookstore until a nurse arrives with a tray holding a syringe and medication. “Őnnek pihenne kell most.”

  “She is saying he must rest now.” Gustav leans over his uncle, kissing him goodbye. His uncle whispers something I can’t hear. Gustav nods, kisses his uncle again.

  Now I kiss Ferenc’s cheek. Like his arm, it feels cool. “I will never forget how you have helped me. Thank you.”

  He manages a warm smile. “Take care of my Gustav.”

  ***

  Outside Uncle Ferenc’s room, Gustav suggests we walk back to the hotel together. It is only ten o’clock. My train does not leave until two. What better way to spend the rest of the morning? We enter an unoccupied elevator.

  “Your uncle seems worse,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “Your visit was good medicine. But the Benedeks…Eva. You implied she is their daughter. Is this the same Eva who is your friend, Eva Fekete?”

  I give him a pleading look. “I can’t…don’t want to say anything more until I get to the bottom of this. Maybe later today.”

  He hesitates, but then says, “Ildikó, I would appreciate if you will reconsider letting me accompany you to Kopháza. You will need an interpreter. You cannot know—there might be danger.”

  He was right about needing someone to translate. Even in Budapest, few people spoke English. In a rural area, it would be even less likely that I could communicate. My self-sufficient side, my stubborn str
eak, my abiding wish for autonomy—or is it the need to prove myself?—were reluctant to cave in.

  “You would want to revisit the area where your friends were…were slain?”

  Gustav’s eyes flash. “Why not? It is time. And what about you? You are visiting the place, maybe the individual, that set the dominoes in motion leading to your mother’s death.”

  Touché.

  His eyes soften. “Ildikó, your mother showed kindness to me. If I can help to heal your heart, I should like to do this. Like Uncle Ferenc said, it is a good thing to feel needed.”

  My determination to make the trip alone is fading. “But your uncle…”

  “Before we left him, he told me I must do this.”

  We have arrived at the main floor. The elevator dings. “Yes, please come with me.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Gustav and I walk hand in hand, lost in our private thoughts. The buildings along Rákóczi út, a mix of classic and modern, are home to department stores, offices, and apartment dwellers. My eye is drawn to a Gothic-style apartment building across the street, its soot-laden exterior elegantly detailed with spires, angular balconies. I turn to comment to Gustav when I glimpse a woman dashing through traffic, crossing the street to our side, her loose navy blue shift flapping with her long strides. Oversized sunglasses and a bold print scarf, different from the one yesterday, juts out over her face, casting it in shadow.

  Gustav notes my irritated expression. “What is it?”

  “That woman. The female member of the dynamic duo. She’s behind us.” Gustav glances over his shoulder. I squeeze his hand. “See her? Not too discreet, is she? Let’s give her a few minutes, see if she sticks with us.”

  We travel another block, chatting and periodically stealing glances at our tail. We cross an open area, Blaha Lujza tér. A stairway descends to the metro below ground. She stays with us.

  As we stroll alongside the Rókus Hospital, a solid brick structure running nearly the entire block, our conversation turns momentarily to Uncle Ferenc. Before we left Péterfy Sándor Hospital, a couple of Ferenc’s nurses volunteered to keep close watch on him in Gustav’s absence. The train journey is about three hours in each direction. By catching the late evening train back, we won’t be gone long, yet Gustav feels more comfortable because of the nurses’ kind offer.