[2017] The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  Beryx Gulyas lay curled in a fetal position beneath the window. His palms were pressed into his eyes, and he was cursing bitterly in his native Hungarian. She couldn’t understand what exactly he was saying, but she was sure his profanities were directed at her. His face, neck and shoulders had been burned badly, but the capsaicin was the source of his real discomfort. At this close range, it was thick in the atmosphere, and Lily knew from experience the agony it caused—especially when it came in contact with any mucous membrane. She, herself, had grown used to it, or perhaps it was Ivanov’s voice in her head that helped her stand on her weakened legs and stomach the burning in her throat, lungs and eyes. “Come, come, Miss Lily,” she imagined him saying. Without another word to her Hungarian captor, she tied a knot in the sheet at her shoulder and stumbled toward the stairs. “Yes, good, Miss Lily, good.”

  In the back bedroom she heard a cry and remembered the baby. She’d heard it on and off over the course of the last few days as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Bracing herself against the wall, she made her way to the child’s small, wooden cradle and picked him up, cuddling him into the sheet and shielding his face from the capsaicin that lingered in the hallway.

  Downstairs, it was empty. Lily was sure there had been others there—a woman, a man, more children perhaps. Or maybe they were merely visitors. The child had to belong to someone.

  Lily moved slowly through the bakery kitchen, her legs gaining strength with each step and her arms tightening around the yowling white bundle she was carrying. Finally, at the back: a door. Thank God, she thought. Lily stepped outside into a gloriously muggy, overcast day and appraised her surroundings. She was in a poor and narrow alleyway of some kind, one too thin to support the usual tangle of clotheslines that were strung from window to window in other parts of the city. The alley was too slim for even a taxi and seemed to go on forever—or perhaps that was only an optical illusion? Lily had, after all, been in nothing but dim light for some time—Beryx Gulyas waving a lone candle in her face, or a match and a spoon. And despite the gradual return of her strength, Lily was nowhere near up for a run through the streets of Tehran clad only in loosely tied bed linens.

  A woman cried out in Hebrew, waving her arms in the air as she lurched toward Lily. There was a toddler hanging on her skirt. She pushed Lily and grabbed the child out of her arms, kissing the baby’s face and holding it to her breast. She shouted something else in Hebrew before turning and running down the alley, disappearing into a slit of a doorway. Lily wasn’t sure if the woman had thanked her or cursed her, but she was glad the child was back in his mother’s arms. Lily endeavored to run, but in a sudden shift, her legs collapsed beneath her, and she fell to the ground.

  Behind her, Lily heard Beryx Gulyas heave and slip down the stairs. He swore again, louder and angrier, but got up onto his strong legs and stomped through the kitchen toward her. Lily’s heart began to pound. The gravity of her situation was all too evident now; her clever escape from Gulyas had bought her a few minutes, had gotten her out the door leading into the bakery’s alleyway, but it wouldn’t get her to safety. She would die in this place.

  “You duplicitous piece of ass!” Gulyas bellowed. He took a long knife—sharp and serrated—from a block on a chopping table and held it out in front of him.

  Lily didn’t look over her shoulder. She didn’t have to. In her weakened condition, there wasn’t a chance in a thousand she could outrun or overpower the Hungarian assassin, regardless of his injuries. Instead she did what she hadn’t done since she was a child of eight—and even then her efforts had been half-hearted. Lily bowed her head, folded her hands close to her chest—where the squirming baby had been moments before—and prayed.

  Chapter 44

  Pasha ran down the lane, banging on windows and calling Lily’s name. As he came to the end of the tiny street, he cursed viciously in Russian, kicking a cinderblock that sat under a window as a perch for peeping Toms. He’d reached another dead end. The interior maze of lanes, alleyways and courtyards in the Mahalleh made no journey a linear one—even one that appeared as straightforward as a shotgun corridor that went from the front of one building to the rear. It was maddening.

  The Russian ran back the way he came, this time leaving the passages of the commercial lanes and entering a full-fledged street—albeit a deserted one.

  “I’m here for the very bad man,” he called out in his rusty Hebrew. “I will chase him from here and leave you in peace.” But no windows opened or doors cracked to reveal a tentative eyeball. The sound of a baby crying could be heard in the distance.

  “Gulyas! I’m here!” Pasha bellowed, grabbing a broomstick that had been leaning against a doorjamb and banging it over and over on an adjacent water pipe. He felt like a lunatic.

  He heard the clip-clop of horse’s hooves behind him and turned.

  “Hello,” he shouted as he caught a glimpse of Fedot rounding a corner from a lane leading out of the Mahalleh. Fedot stopped at the curb and smiled.

  “The Hungarian—he’s here,” Pasha told him, although Fedot was unquestionably aware of the fact. “And Lily. I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes, she’s here,” Fedot said. His face was impassive—even in light of his smile—and his eyes were penetrating. Pasha had seen this look on the young man’s face before. It was the way he had beheld the crucifix Ivanov had fashioned from a birch branch; the way, years ago, Fedot had revered a seventeenth-century Russian icon of Saint Mary of Egypt that he had stolen from a member of the Politburo.

  “Please, my friend,” Pasha entreated. “We have to find Lily. The Hungarian can wait. I’ll help you get him, I will. It’s me he’s looking for anyway.”

  Fedot nodded, allowing the smile to melt from his face.

  “It’s so good you’re alive,” Fedot said, putting his hand on Pasha’s shoulder. “I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t kill you until I didn’t.”

  Lily’s prayer echoed inside her head as if it were a bat trapped in an attic room. I want to live was all she said, but she meant a great deal more than that. Gone was the Lily of Fifth Avenue shopping, of Monemvasian debauchery, the girl with her nose pressed up against the glass of the Chilton Club—waiting—hand outstretched for a Boston Brahmin to guide her in and give her a seat. The new Lily was, perhaps, a question mark. A girl who had fallen in love for the first time. Love, finally, love, and with Pasha Tarkhan. This was love—invasive and total. She would do anything for Pasha. And this new Lily—this woman in love—was also one who could make hard decisions but had no idea where that skill was going to take her. Still, it seemed like a waste to let her die in a Tehran alleyway.

  “Kurva!” Gulyas howled at her back. She heard the baby—the one that had been taken from her arms by his mother—bawling in the distance. Still, her legs betrayed her, and she couldn’t get up.

  A clamor of pots and pans from the baker’s kitchen alerted her to Gulyas’s approach. His eyes were still painful and tearing, causing him to trip over a bucket of cake flour. The powdery grain puffed up into his face, settling into his burns and causing him to shriek.

  Lily started to crawl, but before she could advance farther into the alleyway, at least putting some distance between herself and the Hungarian, a crack of a whip caught her attention. There, roosted on his doroshkeh, was Jalal—his tooth-poor mouth open wide as he chided his miserable horse. He was a beautiful sight.

  With every scrap of strength she could muster, Lily pulled herself to her feet, quivering, yet holding steady. The doroshkeh didn’t fully stop at the door to the baker’s kitchen, but Lily was able to mount it, heaving her body into the cab. The baby stopped crying as soon as she settled into the seat, as if he knew now that Lily was safe and was glad.

  Lily dared look behind her now. Beryx Gulyas was running after the doroshkeh, but Jalal was keeping ahead of him. She could hear Jalal laughing as he snapped the reins. Still, the Hungarian would concede no defeat. He threw knives he’d gathered from the baker’s kitchen�
�one landing at Lily’s feet and another, a short paring knife, grazing the horse’s behind. The wretched thing whinnied and redoubled his efforts, galloping faster than he had in years until finally leaving Beryx Gulyas in the dust.

  “You and I, Lily,” Gulyas shouted from the cloud of earth and city grime that obscured Lily’s vision of him. He didn’t finish whatever it was he wanted to say. Instead he turned his back on the speeding doroshkeh and walked back to the bakery, looking once more over his shoulder before disappearing inside.

  Chapter 45

  Rodki Semyonov’s taxi pulled up to a curb on an unmarked, vaguely commercial street in the Mahalleh. His driver sucked hard on his teeth and popped a chew candy onto his tongue, letting it melt slowly as he awaited further instruction. The foreigner paid well, and he was in no hurry.

  “I want to stretch my legs,” the Great Detective told him, miming a stretch and little walk around the car. He pulled out a few rials and handed them to the driver, assuring him he had no intention of giving him the slip.

  The moment he closed the taxi door behind him, he heard it. It was the unmistakable sound of the doroshkeh cart that had pulled up at the manor house in the Elahiyeh, taking Fedot Titov with it. It felt close, as if it was coming up on his back, but when Rodki spun around, nothing was there. Only a hot breeze as thick and tacky as pine sap.

  Rodki slid down the side of the taxi, peeking up into the side-view mirror. The oval glass displayed nearly the entire street, and the Great Detective instantly spied Fedot Titov—his graceful stride more kitten than cat-like—as he ran tip-toed down the pavement and rounded a bend. Rodki stood and sprinted toward the end of the street, not wanting to lose the nimble Russian around another corner. He knew the streets leading into the bowels of the Mahalleh were intricate, having walked it once already. And the Great Detective wasn’t keen to test his memory in a chase with such an unpredictable character. He stood at the top of the street where Fedot Titov had turned, his back pressed up against a spattering of worn graffiti. Slowly he twisted his neck, letting his left eye get a look onto the lane.

  “Great Caesar’s ghost,” he said, imitating the American ambassador’s favorite phrase from the Shah’s midnight supper. It was at times like this Rodki’s instincts genuinely amazed him. In the middle of the lane stood Fedot Titov—as Rodki had hoped, but not necessarily expected—while next to him was a bear of a man close to his own size and, he suspected, as skillful a puzzle solver.

  “Pasha Tarkhan,” he said under his breath. The Great Detective reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the pistol General Pushkin had supplied for him. It felt oddly comfortable in his hand, although it had been years since he’d actually held one with the intent of using it. When orders were issued to bring someone in dead or alive, as they had been in the case of Pasha Tarkhan, the real message was that this man knew too much to be allowed to get away. Sure, it would be nice to question him before his execution, but ultimately, stopping him was the principal goal. Do what you need to do was the unspoken instruction. And Rodki had a clear shot to Pasha Tarkhan’s head that any assassin would have considered a gift from fate.

  Not even a whisper is heard in the great, great night,Just a faint wind, like the breath of a woman.If you only knew how I crave them when I go,The lights of Moscow nights!

  The song, “The Lights of Moscow Nights,” was familiar to just about any urban Russian. It was a song that held particular significance for Rodki and one that Pasha Tarkhan—his voice low and lugubrious—had sung some years ago when they’d met briefly at one of Stalin’s residences. He’d performed it at Stalin’s request—eyes closed, as if waiting for his death. Rodki would never forget it. And now, as he prepared to put Pasha Tarkhan to death, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

  The wind is blowing, so cool and original Dressing the moon in the jeweled sky.The whispers that ride the wind are but fleeting words from a part-time lover,Behold the lights of Moscow nights.

  Rodki Semyonov shook his head, then readied his pistol once more.

  Why, oh why, my darling do you doubt me?Watching my face like a gypsy thief.

  Porphyri Ivanov flashed into Rodki’s mind, naked and singing the very same tune. He’d tried to keeps thoughts of the Russian mystic at bay. The Great Detective knew Ivanov from his time in the psychiatric prison where he was being held after the war. Deprived of food, except for a potato on some days, and stripped of clothing, he had ignored the indignities hoisted upon him and spent most of his time—when he wasn’t in the interrogation facilities—in prayer and song. Every day, when the guards came for him, he smiled, as if they were meeting in a tavern. Disassociated personality, the Great Detective had deduced at the time, a disorder most commonly observed during wartime. In fact, everyone indulged in it to some extent—how else could a human being function in times of tremendous stress? But in the extreme cases, a soldier, or someone like Ivanov, might actually convince himself that he was, say, among friends, when he was in fact being tormented day and night by people who meant him deadly harm.

  No matter how far I go, I can never leave behind These lights of Moscow nights.

  With the Russian mystic’s voice still in his head—high, mellow, almost feminine in its countenance, a fine compliment to Tarkhan’s tone—the Great Detective stepped out into the lane, aimed his gun at Pasha Tarkhan and fired.

  Chapter 46

  The force of the bullet propelled Pasha Tarkhan headlong, causing him to stumble. He gripped his shoulder, the blood pouring over his fingers, then stood upright, running toward the rusted, iron gate into which Fedot Titov had disappeared. The Great Detective wasn’t about to give him another reprieve. The first one—when he had shot the former Russian diplomat in the shoulder rather than the head—had surprised Rodki as much as it must have surprised Pasha Tarkhan. It was a decision made with no deliberation, a last-minute change of plans. It was so unlike Rodki—opposite anything the Great Detective was prone to do. The Great Detective was a deliberative man, pragmatic in his thoughts, unsentimental about outcomes. He’d lost too much to indulge himself in either curiosity or empathy for other people’s miseries.

  The Great Detective aimed the gun again, easily tracking the hulking Russian as he wobbled his way out of the street. As curious as Rodki was about Pasha Tarkhan’s self-directed mission in Tehran, he wasn’t about to let that curiosity get the better of him again.

  Yet he did.

  The twinkling lights, little fires lit by our souls,More beautiful than the eyes of a woman,Ah, the lights of Moscow nights.

  The gate creaked and slammed shut. Tarkhan was inside. And the Great Detective remained unmoving at the top of the street, his legs apart, his gun still pointed to where he could have effortlessly taken his target down. As the song gradually faded from his mind, Rodki put the gun down. He wondered if his own imagination, the one that had kept his Polina so close to him all these years, had followed him from his apartment in Moscow all the way to Persia. Or if Pasha Tarkhan had a friend in the netherworld. It didn’t matter, he supposed. All he knew was that he now had to undertake a chase.

  With the gun at his side, Rodki walked toward the decrepit gate and let himself in. It smelled musty and damp, full of urine and perhaps a dead animal or two. It was dark. He could scarcely see his hand in front of him.

  “Tarkhan?” he whispered. No one answered, but the Great Detective could feel Tarkhan’s ragged breath on the back of his neck. In a sharp movement few would attribute to a man his size, Rodki Semyonov, The Iron Knuckle, The Great Detective, spun and shot, hoping, despite himself, that he had aimed low enough not to kill his target.

  Pasha Tarkhan fell to the ground in a slide. Fedot turned around at the sound of the shot and saw his friend go down. The Great Detective stood at the entranceway, the gun wrapped so fully in his muscular hand that it almost seemed to disappear. There was no point in running to Pasha’s aid—all, in that case, would be lost. Instead, Fedot said a silent prayer for his friend as he disappe
ared behind another rotted metal gate and into a damp, fungal corridor.

  Pasha, for his part, was glad to see Fedot continue on without him. Time was of the essence, and he was only a liability now. His shoulder burned; the second bullet had ripped straight through his side, just under his rib cage, and he found it difficult to breathe. He looked up at the man who had shot him—the one Stalin had loved like a prized thoroughbred—and wondered why General Pushkin hadn’t ordered an immediate termination. Even an under-skilled marksman could have killed him with such an easy shot, and Pasha Tarkhan knew the bullet that had breezed so artfully in and out of his shoulder had not been meant for his skull. Nor had the one that had penetrated his torso been meant for his heart or any other vital organ.

  He ran his hand over the new bleeding hole. The Great Detective continued to aim his gun at him as a warning not to move. Get a hold of yourself, he was saying. But don’t think of trying anything funny. Of course, there was nothing funny Pasha wanted to try. He had been present at dozens of interrogations that preceded an unceremonious execution, and he had no intention of allowing himself to become a victim of one of those. As merely a principal interrogator, it would take him days to recover—not just mentally, but physically. And he had told himself every time that he would die rather than succumb to that unlucky destiny.

  Pasha couldn’t for the life of him think of why Pushkin would want him alive, but he did know that the general would never want him to escape. Since that comprehension was the closest thing to comfort that he was going to get, Pasha took an anguished breath, rose and faced his executioner. He nodded to the Great Detective, acknowledging that he remembered him and that he understood what he needed to do, and wished him no ill will. Looking ahead at the gate Fedot had vanished into, Pasha made a break for it, knowing full well that as a vassal of Moscow, The Great Detective could never allow him to reach its rusted bars.