[2017] The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  “Have a nap, Miss Lily,” Fedot prescribed. “It’s been a long day. I’ll wake you when Kandovan is asleep.”

  Lily wanted to protest, insisting they begin their search for Pasha at once, but she was too dog-tired. Besides, if Pasha was in Kandovan, as Chandler and Pearce believed, then he certainly wasn’t going anywhere during a violent dust storm. She went over to the simple washbasin on their night table and splashed her face with tepid water that instantly turned a brownish-gray. Lily then lay down on one of the cots flanking each side of the guest room and slept until Fedot’s cool fingertips touched her shoulder some hours later.

  “Your sucuk looks like a turd,” Ismayil complained, pointing to the spicy Turkish sausages.

  Rasul was a nothing and always had been. The only reason Ismayil did business with him at all was because of how fine a person he believed Rasul’s father had been.

  “They are fresh—just brought up from Elmira’s cellar,” Rasul said. It was a lie.

  “They are months old and have been improperly stored.” Ismayil shook his head and crossed his arms.

  “It’s the air,” Rasul persisted. “The weather makes them look too dry, but they are as new as the dawn, I tell you—and firm, not hard.”

  Ismayil rolled his eyes.

  “How could it be the air when your mother’s house is connected to mine?” he demanded. “They’ve never seen the air!”

  Their arrangement worked well most of the time: Rasul brought a breakfast platter for the pension guests the night before, and Ismayil stored the peynir, butter, eggs, tomatoes and sucuk in the root cellar until morning. A sunrise delivery system would have been nice, but Ismayil felt an obligation to Rasul’s family, and Rasul was no good in the morning. He stayed up late drinking raki with his friends and was rarely seen around the village until noon. And with the exception of tonight, he’d never pulled anything like this.

  “I won’t pay for them,” Ismayil said, stomping his heel.

  Rasul shrugged. “Take them. Take them for nothing.”

  “And what will I feed my guests? I have an American couple here, and they’ll think I’m cheating them.”

  Rasul laid the platter of food at Ismayil’s feet. “I’ll tell Mami to bring you a simit first thing in the morning.”

  Ismayil waited for Rasul to skulk away before he picked up the platter. Rasul’s mother would have never allowed him to bring such sausages if she had seen what he’d prepared. Especially not for foreigners. Ismayil picked up one of the sausages and examined it under the light of a lantern. Dry as a bone. He could never serve them to a guest, of course, but it would be a shame for them to go to waste entirely—and on such a terrible night when all he’d had was a bowl of lentil soup for supper.

  Chapter 58

  I’m here, Barney,” Sandmore Chandler said, nearly shouting. He’d placed the telephone receiver on his desktop while he unpacked his overnight case. “The site isn’t far from ancient Praaspa, you know. It’s practically the same place Marc Antony failed to capture in 36 BC. Antony’s expedition there, in fact, ended in utter failure with heavy losses to the Romans.”

  Chandler fancied himself an expert on world history, and Barnaby Pearce supposed he was, but that didn’t make his dry, pompous lectures any easier to bear. But having gone to Cambridge, Pearce had a lot of experience in suffering pompous lectures.

  “Mmm, yes,” he said, as Chandler expounded on Marc Antony’s various deficiencies. As a general, he found the man overrated.

  Overall, Pearce liked Chandler okay. He was a good card player and drinking companion most of the time. Where they differed—and often—was in their approach, and on occasion, their conclusions. Pearce had to admit, when Chandler was right, he was spectacularly right. But his wrongheaded notions had been devastating as well—letting betrayal escape unpunished and leaving true friends to hang. In fact, Pearce believed it was Chandler’s paranoia and arrogant misreading of a similar situation that had resulted in the death of Mansoor Nassa. He had come to believe, wrongly, that the poet had anti-Pahlavi sympathies because of a comment Nassa had once made about the speed with which the Shah was modernizing Iran.

  “Sandy, he’s Jewish,” Pearce had reminded him. “Pahlavi’s the only leader in the region who not only doesn’t want to kill the Jews, but lets them thrive.”

  “All the same,” Chandler had said. “Plenty of pink Jews in America, and look how the Russians treat them.”

  Pearce hadn’t bothered to try and explain the difference, culturally and politically, between Jews in the Middle East, in America, and in Russia. It never did any good to contradict an enumerator of facts. And Chandler, while unrivaled in his ability to conjure particular facts, was less skilled when it came to understanding themes. Still, Pearce wondered if he should have tried. He would never know for sure if the poet’s death was truly an accident or the result of an irresponsible exchange between Chandler and the Shah about Nassa’s political leanings. Nassa himself had mentioned to him some weeks ago that he thought he was being followed. He’d noticed a well-dressed fellow, terribly young-looking and affecting the look of Humphrey Bogart—part Key Largo, part Casablanca. The poet was sure he was an agent of the Shah.

  “I hear the local youths still dig up a Roman coin here and there,” Pearce said.

  Pearce’s stomach sank in a feeling he knew well. He regretted telling Chandler that he believed Lily Tassos and everything she’d alleged about the Russian—Pasha Tarkhan.

  “I don’t know why you would ever trust a word that comes out of that woman’s mouth,” Chandler said. Pearce could hear him rustling through papers. “She is a member of the American Communist Party.”

  “Sandy, she says Tony Geiger arranged for that membership. It seems to me entirely possible that--”

  “It’s right here in black and white, Barnaby,” Chandler insisted, thumping his index finger along each word of his type-written fact—MEMBER-OF-THE-AMERICAN-COMMUNIST-PARTY.

  “So it does,” Pearce conceded. “What do you propose we should do?”

  Chandler sighed, exasperated. “You’ll leave it to me is what you’ll do.”

  Chandler placed the receiver into its cradle. He shuffled the papers on his lap before tucking them back into their folder and took a drink from his tea. The beverage was already coated with a thin layer of dust, as was everything else in the room. Chandler got up and walked over to the wooden shutters shielding his lone window. He pulled out the felt he’d pushed between crooks of the shutters and peeked outside into the dust storm. It seemed worse than before, and Chandler figured there was no way Pushkin’s plane would be landing in this anytime soon.

  “Mister-mister,” a voice called above the circling wind. A knuckle rapped on the window glass, and Chandler motioned to the door. He opened it just enough to let in a significant puff of dust and debris that was followed by Rasul—covered head to toe in dust as if he were a floured cutlet.

  “All done,” Rasul said. “Money, money.” The mister had promised he would give Rasul three times what Ismayil paid him.

  “Here,” said Chandler, stuffing a bag of coins into Rasul’s hand. “And don’t come back.”

  Rasul didn’t understand him, but it didn’t matter. He had no intention of coming back there. He had enough money now to buy plenty of raki for himself and his friends.

  Chapter 59

  Fedot stood over the pension’s owner, Ismayil, studying the anguished look on his face and the way his arms were wrapped tightly around his belly. There remained a nub of dry sausage in the palm of his hand. Stepping over the man’s corpse, Fedot walked behind the desk in the pension lobby and rifled through its drawers, procuring for himself and Lily about one hundred rials and a simple iron dagger with a sheath that hung easily from Fedot’s belt-loop. The Russian spiritualist crept over to the front door, opening it just a crack and assessing the state of the dust storm outside. If anything, the storm had gotten worse. The wind, though not much stronger than it was upon their
arrival, had kicked up a significant amount of dust and debris that now floated freely through the air. The sun had set completely, turning the already dark cloud that enveloped Kandovan black.

  “Mr. Ismayil has eaten some bad sausage,” Fedot said, as he stepped back into their room.

  Lily had been crouching by one of the vents, listening to the storm. She stood up, checked the barrel of Pearce’s .44 and tucked it into her waist. It was a sheriff’s gun, or an outlaw’s, and seemed an odd choice of gun for a British diplomat. Then again, Barnaby Pearce seemed an odd sort of man. It was no wonder he ended up in the Foreign Service—a professional ex-patriot—instead of a university or London business. She tossed Gulyas’s gun to Fedot, who caught it one-handed and slipped it into the inside pocket of his leather jacket—the one he’d borrowed from Sandy Chandler.

  “We better work quickly,” Lily said. She tied her hair into a knot, securing it at the base of her skull with a pen that still smelled of Pasha’s fingers. Lily then spit-cleaned her goggles and pulled them over her head.

  In the empty hallway outside their room, the muffled noises of the storm seemed to crescendo. Lily felt as if she were inside a conch shell. She tiptoed past the other rooms to a narrow staircase that she hoped would lead to the roof. Fedot followed, carrying two of the glass lanterns from the lobby. They’d left the lanterns burning in their room, hoping to give the illusion it was still occupied.

  As Fedot passed a hanging tapestry halfway up the staircase, he watched the lanterns suddenly flicker.

  “Miss Lily,” he said, lifting the tapestry. It revealed a passageway that appeared to lead to the dwelling next door.

  “You think the whole village could be connected in this way?” Taking one of the lanterns from Fedot, Lily stepped into the passageway, stooping under its low, rounded ceiling. When they reached the end, Lily peeked under the flap of another tapestry—this one frayed and smelling of stale incense—and stepped carefully into the adjoining house. It wasn’t as clean as Ismayil’s pension, and disappointment seemed to hang in the air as surely as the dust that seeped in from the outside. Lily and Fedot crept past the kitchen, where an older woman sat sleeping in a hard, wooden chair. Her chin rested on her upper chest, and a wet snore came with her every inhale.

  “I wonder if this is such a good idea,” Lily whispered. The woman mumbled in her sleep, drooling over her wrinkled bottom lip.

  Behind the kitchen was another narrow staircase—this one less than a dozen steps long. A flowered cotton sheet hung halfway up the staircase just as a tapestry had in the pension, and a perfectly square wooden door beckoned at the top.

  They would cover more ground in a shorter time if they split up, so Lily slipped through the cotton sheet, while Fedot continued up to the wooden door. He pulled the glass slide over the flame of his lantern, turned the knob and stepped out onto the flat rooftop, holding his lantern high and hoping to see beyond the two feet of visibility he’d encountered earlier. Up on the roof, the wind was less fierce and the debris was considerably lighter—consisting mostly of dust as the harder particles tended to stay low to the ground. He could even see a couple of meters ahead of him and was able to make out the edge of the roof. Fedot walked over to the roof’s brink, stepped backward, and jumped to the next rooftop, landing squarely. Getting to the other side of the village wouldn’t be nearly as troublesome as he’d thought it might be.

  Lily snuck through several archaic dwellings—past toddlers sleeping on hand woven cots, a liaison between a young widow and her sister’s husband, an old man who’d fallen asleep during his evening prayers and lay on a prayer rug with his behind high in the air and his cheek nestled into his folded hands—before reaching a dead end where the bridges from home to home seemed to stop. She was on the second story of a domicile smelling of allspice, fragrant tea and something distinctly sulfurous. Downstairs, a radio was tuned to a Turkish music station, and Lily could hear the rhythmic steps of a young man dancing.

  Holding her breath, Lily put her lantern behind her back, letting it dangle from her fingers. She stole down the stairs, lurching in one large step past the doorway where the late night dancer was undulating to the opening notes of a Kanto melody. Lily opened the door to a huge gust of wind and grime that knocked over a water pitcher. The music stopped abruptly, and the young man called out for his father. Leaving the door wide open, Lily thrust the lantern in front of her and entered the storm—ducking out of sight just as the dancer arrived at the doorway. He sheltered his eyes, peering into the swirling dust, before deciding that it had been a bluster that had blown his front door open. With a cuss he closed it again, and Lily was finally able to exhale. She looked down at her hands and saw they were gripping the .44 Magnum Barnaby Pearce had given her. She didn’t remember taking it out of the waist of her trousers or clicking off the safety. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger.

  Chapter 60

  Pasha Tarkhan softened visibly as the morphine flooded his veins. It wasn’t too much; he could still think clearly and scrutinize the details around him—mainly Rodki Semyonov bent over a small metal serving tray, stirring his tea with his index finger and pretending not to pay his captive any mind. The syringe sat empty on the serving tray, the point of its needle still holding a single drop of morphine, like a tear ready to drop from the lower lid of a child’s eye.

  Rodki straightened up, unhooked the shutter and looked out the window again. The tiny handle of his tea glass broke suddenly, sending the drink to the floor and splattering Rodki’s shoes with hot liquid. The Great Detective grunted, plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and crouched down to clean his only pair of shoes. Outside the window, Pasha noticed a glow. It was scant, like a lit match in a large cellar, but noticeable. As Pasha edged up and focused his eyes, he could see it was from a burning lantern. Slowly, a form began to take shape behind the light—the form of a young man, perhaps. Pasha could see the form’s profile now. His eyes followed the slender slope of a neck, a pair of full lips, a strong, aquiline nose.

  “Lily,” he whispered.

  Even with her eyes covered by a pair of goggles and her hair tucked into a jacket, Pasha knew it was her. He repeated her name entirely to himself this time. Just saying it was a comfort to him. And seeing her was finer than the rush of morphine he’d so relished. Lily was alive, and she was well. My lovely Lily, he thought. Pasha wanted to take something—the three coins Rodki Semyonov had placed on the bedside table—and throw them at the window. The clink of the coins against the warped window glass would be lost in the clamor of the storm, however. In little more than a moment, Lily’s profile disappeared from view, and all that was left was the darkness again. He lay down again as the Great Detective rose from his crouch.

  “It’s a good thing my shoes are black,” the Great Detective said. He stood up and tossed his tea-stained handkerchief onto the tray. “My last pair was brown and looked dreadful by the time the soles wore out. And I polished them twice a week.”

  Pasha sat up, taking a deep breath as the blood rushed to his head. Too much up and down.

  “I see you’re feeling better,” the Great Detective said.

  Pasha shrugged. “Just tired of lying down. My back was beginning to cramp.”

  “Still, a good sign, I think.”

  Pasha Tarkhan nodded. “Yes, a good sign.” He sniffed the air and smiled. “Apple tea?”

  Rodki Semyonov leaned against the table and folded his arms.

  “You are well traveled. It’s Turkish, like a lot of the tea around here. And it’s good. Very strong—like coffee. Would you like some?”

  Pasha tried to lift his arm over his shoulder. It was painful, but not impossible.

  “Oh, yes. I most certainly would,” he said.

  “Good,” Rodki said. “The water is still hot.” The Great Detective rubbed his hands together and went to work on the tea. He might just get a good conversation out of this after all.

  Lily was standing between two beehive structur
es, shielded somewhat from the storm. Her lungs ached, and though she’d kept her mouth closed tight, the grotesque sediment lodged between her cheeks and gums was now collecting beneath her tongue as well. She spat it to the ground, wiping her lips against the back of her hand.

  Up ahead, a Persian man wrapped head to toe in white muslin was unloading a donkey. The animal hawed in misery even as its burden was eased and it was tied to a drain pipe, a linen sheet thrown over the donkey’s head and body for protection.

  The Persian stepped away from the animal and stretched his neck and back. He had obviously been riding for several hours. In his hands, he held a corked jug of clean water, a satchel and the pelt of a golden jackal. He looked to Lily like he could be a merchant, and she wondered why he hadn’t weathered the storm in Tabriz or another more hospitable place. He threw the pelt and the satchel over his shoulder and put the jug in the crook of his arm. Hunched over and battered by the wind, the Persian made his way toward the narrow gangway where Lily had taken her brief refuge.

  “You there—boy,” she thought she heard him say in Azeri-Turkic. Although he was shouting, the wind and flying debris made it difficult to hear. Lily covered her mouth with an already filthy handkerchief and shook her head.

  The Persian grumbled, pointing to Lily’s lantern, but she felt no inclination to be a good neighbor right then. Time was precious, and she could feel that Pasha was close. The Persian, however, was belligerent and continued gesturing toward her lantern. His journey and general discomfort had plainly made him irritable, and he was blocking her path out of the alley in an obstinate manner that made it clear she would not pass. Not without a fight. It would, Lily realized, be easier to light his way for a few steps rather than waste even more time getting into an argument with the man. Begrudgingly, she nodded.