[2017] The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  Peering through the maple’s paper-thin leaves, Lily made a wish on the moon, as her father had taught her when she was a little girl. “The moon is the closest thing to God’s face,” he’d told her.

  She wished to go home, but the wish felt hollow. Lily, herself, felt like a shell. She struggled to find the things within herself that had always given her comfort—humor, the love of her parents—but those were lost to her.

  “Tony,” she said. “You can take your damned life.”

  The words had barely left her lips when Lily became aware of a faint chorus of chants approaching her from behind. The chorus began to swell and Lily turned to see a procession of monks filing one by one into the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Each of them was holding a candle and staring ahead with stanch concentration as if hypnotized, their voices blending together like a fine meal.

  Tears came to Lily’s eyes. Her heart beat hard and felt as hot and dense as a basalt stone. The voices of the monks seemed to want to gain entry to her. She breathed them in through her mouth, their resonances pulsing through her lungs. She felt them pierce her skin and inhabit her internal organs.

  Lily dug the bases of her palms into her eyes and wiped her tears away with the backs of her hands. She looked up at the moon again and made another wish—but this time, she meant it. She wished she’d never shared a cab with Tony Geiger, had never gone on his errands, had left his tickets and his metal card with his dead body on top of Monemvasia, had never met Fedot, or Ivanov, or Pasha Tar . . . her mind’s voice stopped its litany of regrets as Pasha came into her thoughts. Somehow, she didn’t wish she’d never met Pasha Tarkhan. Lily closed her eyes at this unexpected realization, but before she could debate its merits with herself, Ivanov knelt at her side and placed his long fingers on the back of her neck. In his other hand was a small book of poetry, which he held out to her.

  “The Death of the Orange Blossom by Mansoor Nassa?” She shook her head and accepted the volume, laying it onto her lap. These people and their poets, she thought. It was like an obsession for them. Lily had heard of Nassa, of course, but had never felt any inclination to read him. “Inscrutible” was how he’d been described to her.

  “I think Nassa will be very helpful for you,” Ivanov told her. He removed his hand from her neck and placed it on the front cover, stroking his thumb over the poet’s name. He closed his eyes and began breathing deeply, as if he were praying.

  “Who are you people?” Lily asked. “And what do you want from me?”

  “You’re mistaken, Miss Lilia,” Ivanov said. “It is you who wants something.”

  Lily opened her eyes but wouldn’t look at the Russian holy man.

  “That’s what I thought, but then why do I feel like a fly that’s been caught in a web?”

  Ivanov smiled and petted Lily’s neck. “Yes, yes—you are in a web,” he said. “But I think that web has been waiting for you all your life. And maybe you are the one who spun it, and we are the ones caught.”

  Lily stood and turned her back to Ivanov, leaving The Death of the Orange Blossom in the grass. She wanted nothing to do with him right then. Not his flowing hair and philosopher’s beard; certainly not his truth-seeking phrases and rhetorical questions. And not his damned poetry. What began as merely a march away from Ivanov became a trot, and then an all-out run back to the dilapidated rectory. She ran past a sleeping Pasha and to the ice bath, where she picked up the ladle and began spooning the freezing water over her head. When she was finished, Lily felt lightheaded and undone, but better somehow.

  Reluctant, or perhaps unable, to get to her feet, Lily crawled into the next room, where Pasha lay. She watched him for a moment—his wide shoulders rolling with each breath. Lily inched toward the door, her eyes fixed to his sleeping form. At the doorway, she pulled herself up and started to leave, to go anywhere—back to the library, or maybe into the tunnel and out of the Lavra.

  “Are you alright?” Pasha asked. His voice was tender and uncomplicated; a real question asked with genuine sentiment.

  “You lied,” she said. “Nuclear arsenals are a bigger piece of candy than imaginations.”

  “Perhaps.” Pasha turned on his side and took a long, deep breath. “Please don’t go,” he said.

  Despite her wish on the moon, Lily supposed she’d always known she wasn’t leaving. Not the chapel, not the Lavra, not the life she’d taken from Tony Geiger. Most of all not Pasha Tarkhan. She was scared. Scared of her own thoughts and desires, scared of dying, scared of living like this. Lily was scared of becoming like her father and scared that if she left right now she’d just go back to being what she had been until the night she’d watched Tony Geiger take his last breath on Earth. And she was scared of what she was feeling for Pasha and even more scared that he could never feel the same way about her. Could anyone? she wondered. The worst thing was that it felt like being scared was just a part of her life now, as being bored had been. And the scariest thing of all, perhaps, was that part of Lily liked it.

  “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s the hundred and eleventh psalm and repeated in the first chapter of Proverbs. And something my dad always used to say when I was growing up.” Lily sighed. “I’m sure he still says it—I just haven’t heard it in a while. Funny how these things come back to you out of nowhere.”

  She sat beside Pasha and stroked his hair.

  “Pasha?” she whispered, but he was asleep again.

  Lily snuggled down next to him, spooning him the way her mother did when Lily had a fever. His body was hard and felt immoveable—like the wall of a citadel; its essence seemed to know right from wrong and truth from fiction.

  “I knew you would stay,” he murmured.

  “No, I can’t leave,” she said. “There’s a difference.”

  “And what difference is that?”

  Lily rolled onto her back and looked up at the free-floating hand painted on the ceiling—graceful and delicate, except for two intertwining rivers of thick, blue veins.

  “The difference that destiny makes, I suppose.” Lily closed her eyes, letting sleep overcome her. It didn’t take long.

  Pasha Tarkhan turned over and propped himself up on his elbow. He leaned over and smelled her hair—hints of lavender and rosemary. Lovely. Pasha watched her for a long time.

  Summer, 1956

  Chapter 24

  The outskirts of Moscow

  Beryx Gulyas stole a freshly plucked chicken from a local farm and nailed it to a piece of plywood with its wings and thighs spread pornographically and its limp head dangling in the middle, across its chest. He turned and walked forty paces before pivoting again to face the dead bird. Shooting its limbs off was simple—he almost hadn’t bothered. The more difficult shots were the head and heart—especially since his shoulder was still sore from the beatings he’d taken at the bath house. The pain made it difficult to hold his gun steady once fatigue began to set in.

  He took another ten paces and got the heart in two shots, but only because he burped suddenly as he fired the gun the first time, splintering the wood that lay just where its head would’ve been. The chicken’s head had slumped to the side, so he didn’t have to adjust his position in order to shoot it clear off, which he did in one steady shot.

  Satisfied with his performance, Gulyas left the torn, raw chicken behind for the animals. He tucked his gun into his pants and walked out of the eye-shaped clearing and back through a short distance of forest until he reached Grigori’s car—an eighteen year old Mercedes Sedan that had been cared for with all the love Grigori would have reserved for his family, had he ever married.

  Although Gulyas would never consider Grigori a friend, his wife’s cousin had fulfilled his obligation well. He’d cared for Gulyas’s injuries with enormous diligence after the Hungarian’s escape from the bathhouse—even if Grigori was a liver specialist who hadn’t endeavored to treat broken facial bones since medical school. Gulya
s’s wife had been surprised by his call, since he hadn’t contacted her in over a year, but she, too, had delivered, calling Gregori immediately. She must have put a real fire under the man, as Gregori had not only tended to Gulyas but fed him a diet of meat and noodles almost every night. It must have cost him a fortune. The food was uncommonly good for Russian fare but had cost Gulyas dearly as well. His weight was up three kilos from the four he’d managed to lose. He reached into the front pocket of his trousers and fingered two marbles of rutilated quartz and tiger’s eye—for will power.

  In the past, Gulyas had always been able to rely on his strength and reflexes, but his new bulk made him feel vulnerable and slow. Turning forty had been a physical milestone for him, and he could almost remember the day that he realized he could no longer eat what he liked. Now, only three years later, he was out of breath when he ran and had a difficult time rising from a crouching position. Bending down was fast becoming a nuisance. The only skill he had that remained fully intact was his aim. Nobody could shoot like him. Just ask the chicken, he sniggered to himself.

  But the chicken, instead of crumbling in defeat, teased him mercilessly—striking delectable poses on the roasting pans of his imagination. He’d originally taken the bird for dinner and as a way to thank Grigori, but thought better of it when he caught a glimpse of his belly in the reflection of a shop window. He only liked chicken when it was baked with butter, garlic and bacon, or fried in sour cream and breadcrumbs, so there was no point in trying to make it a light meal. He would eat roughage tonight: crisp vegetables and lettuce with lemon juice and fresh dill. A sad way to spend an evening, indeed. As for Grigori, he’d leave him twenty American dollars and two of the pens he’d taken from the bathhouse reception desk. But not until the man did him one more favor.

  “I want you to do a little bit of investigating for me,” Gulyas ordered, as he took out a pen and paper and began to draw.

  Grigori gave an eager nod, scrutinizing the work he’d done on Gulyas’s nose. Grigori was proud that the nose looked as good as it did, considering the extent of the Hungarian’s injury. His nose would never be straight or thin again, but it would function properly.

  “Take a look at this,” Gulyas instructed. He showed Grigori his drawing of a rectangle with an X and the word tree written beneath it in Cyrillic.

  “It was made of metal and double sided,” Gulyas continued.

  Grigori shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “You work in a hospital, Grigori. You see all types of people. I’m sure someone, somewhere has seen something like this. Would you be so kind as to inquire amongst your colleagues?”

  Grigori readily agreed.

  “I want this information fast,” Gulyas forewarned. “I’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow and I’ll need to know where the hell I’m going.”

  Chapter 25

  Sergei Posad

  Hot days didn’t come often during June in this part of the country. And rarely did the sun ever get strong enough to encourage a Russian to do what Pasha was doing—soak in a tub full of ice water, while Lily sat on the ground, occasionally dipping an oil cloth into the frigid bath and patting the back of her neck to cool off.

  She’d been dressing Pasha’s burns and helping him get in and out of the tub since they’d arrived, so sitting with him as he alternated bobbing naked in the water and drying out on a cotton blanket should’ve seemed normal to Lily, but it didn’t. The Russian was well enough to care for himself now, and Lily no longer felt like his nurse. And the way that his eyes would roam her body made her feel unexpectedly shy, too. While the way her own eyes would linger too long over his chest and abdominal muscles made her feel downright ridiculous.

  “Could you bring me my robe?” Pasha asked.

  Fedot had supplied Pasha with a monk’s robe, and the Russian had worn it every day since he was able to leave his bed. It flowed loosely over the tender parts of his skin, and he always appeared comfortable in it, although Lily thought he looked no more like a priest than he would a cowboy had he donned a ten-gallon hat.

  “Feel better?” she asked.

  “Immeasurably.”

  Evening was at hand, and Pasha wanted to take a walk in the gardens. He said he hadn’t been able to truly enjoy the outdoors since he’d left Vienna and wanted to breathe in the perfume of the Asessippi lilacs that the monk, Matvei, was cultivating.

  “When do you think we’ll be able to leave here?” Lily tried not to sound too eager.

  Pasha put his arm around her and steered her toward a row of powder pink rosebushes that looked as if they were made of crepe paper.

  “Fedot is working on getting us out of the province, while His Holiness is arranging for us to leave the country.”

  “His Holiness,” Lily repeated. “How?”

  Pasha plucked a rose from the bushes and tucked it behind Lily’s ear, arranging her hair so it parted at the side and fell away from her face. His smile right then was almost boyish.

  “Ivanov is a man of many resources—if he can be called a man at all,” Pasha told her. “When he asks for help, he receives it.”

  Lily touched the flower at her temple. Though she’d begun to take for granted the way the monks in the Lavra kissed Ivanov’s feet and hung on his every syllable, his effect on people didn’t seem natural when she contemplated him in any other environment.

  “What do you mean—if he can be called a man at all?”

  Pasha took Lily’s hands and led her to a stone bench that sat amidst a crescent of tall fire bushes, their yellow buds having only just bloomed. It felt like their own private room within this sprawling garden.

  “Porphyri Ivanov is not an ordinary man. He was born quite ordinary—in a peasant town with working parents—and he was an ordinary boy. But as a young man, his true nature emerged.”

  Lily blinked and looked down at the grass before engaging Pasha’s eyes again. It was a gesture Pasha would come to recognize in her—a polite indication of her hostility to anything she deemed irrational.

  “A man like Ivanov is as much a disturbance to the world around him as he is a comfort to those who follow him,” Pasha continued. “He certainly disturbed my life.”

  Lily leaned closer to him. Pasha’s eyes, which had been puffy and fatigued even before he was attacked, now looked as lively as Fedot’s. His expression was fixed, as if he was recounting an extraordinary dream.

  “Are you one of these people?” Lily asked.

  The Russian reached down to his shoe and pulled a small metal card from a seam in his leather upper. Like the one Tony had given her, it had a cross on one side, a star on the other, and a series of Cyrillic letters embossed under each symbol. He ran his fingertips over the grooves of the letters and briefly shut his eyes before meeting hers again.

  “Some years ago, when the Nazis occupied Ivanov’s village, they decided to test the holiness of the so-called Russian saint,” Pasha began. “His followers tried to protect him, but Ivanov urged them to allow his fate. That fate, as it turns out, was to spend four hours submerged naked in a frozen lake during the middle of winter and another two being ridden around—wet—on a motorcycle in the frigid air. His

  hair broke off at the shoulders like glass thread, but otherwise Ivanov remained as healthy as he had before his torture. Any man I’ve known would’ve died.”

  Lily looked down at her lap and saw that she had taken Pasha’s hand and interlocked her fingers with his. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Were you there, at the village?”

  Pasha shook his head.

  “The story could’ve been exaggerated by his followers,” she reasoned.

  Pasha nodded. With his free hand, he adjusted his monk’s robe and fanned his healing skin.

  “Ivanov’s popularity grew as a result of this—possible myth, as you say—and his name became known throughout Russia. Needless to say, our esteemed leader was none too pleased. Stalin had barely tolerated Ivanov before the w
ar. By the end of it, he would’ve liked nothing better than to have eliminated him, the way he eliminated anyone who bothered him. But, instead of killing Ivanov—which might have created a martyr and greater competitor—he had him committed to a psychiatric hospital. Spiritual seekers are the most difficult subjects for brainwashing under any circumstances, but Ivanov was a case unlike any other.”

  Lily looked down at the grass again, but Pasha placed his finger under her chin and tipped her head up, making her look into his face. Earnest. Grave. Resigned.

  “This I saw with my own eyes,” he said. “Not only was I present when he was injected with the neuroleptic drugs, but I was his principal interrogator and brainwasher. I beat him and I tortured him and I drugged him. It was, you could say, part of my Foreign Service exam. And the beginning of my political disillusionment.”

  Lily let go of Pasha’s fingers and laid her face in her hands. The Ivanov of Pasha’s tale was one she couldn’t reconcile with the happy, robust man who spoke to the trees in the Lavra compound as if they were close friends. The Pasha of newspaper articles that detailed his gruesome acts and of torture chambers inside psychiatric hospitals was one she could hardly comprehend. Especially as he traced his finger around her ear and stroked her hair while he spoke these things to her.

  “Like you, Lily, I don’t believe in God,” he told her. “But I do believe in Porphyri Ivanov. And I believe in this.” Pasha held up the metal card. “This is the symbol of Derevo, the Russian Spiritual Underground, of which I am a member. We have no leader and we have no directive other than to do what is right—or at least what is least wrong.”