by Gaby Koppel
She’s right, of course. Mutti is our team communicator, she’s already walked far more than she would consider possible on a day at home in Cardiff. I help her up, and she shuffles along, leaning on me.
“We might as well go back to the guest house to get our stuff,” I say.
“But we haven’t found it.”
“And we’re not going to at this rate.” The return bus stop is down the road, but Mutti’s slowed down to a crawl. Looking down, I notice that her legs have swelled up to an alarming size in the heat. They look like great, painful pink sausages, straining out of their skins.
“Maybe a cab?” she says. But the traffic seems to be made up of pick-up trucks and ancient Trabants. Drinkers sitting outside some kind of sawdusty bar stare unsmiling as we creep past. Mutti responds to them with a deep-frozen glare. “Maybe we could sit here for a moment?” She nods towards some empty seats.
“It doesn’t look very welcoming,” I say. “Are you sure?” She gives me a desperate, doggy look. “OK, but no booze, I don’t think that’ll do your legs any good.”
When the waiter comes, Mutti seems to take a long time ordering soda water for two. He crosses his arms over his chest, expatiating at some length about something. Then she gets out the dog-eared cardboard file and shows him the old business card. There’s a lot of “Igen, igen.” And energetic pointing one way and then another, as if he’s giving directions. Mutti’s nodding and smiling.
“He calls us a cab. And he knows where the factory is – it’s only a couple of streets away, won’t cost much.” The waiter comes back with two large round goblets of iced beer, dripping with condensation. I turn to Mutti, but she gets in first.
“Don’t make a fuss. Hardly any alcohol. And this I learnt from your Daddy” – she takes a large gulp – “is the most thirst quenching drink on hot day. Better than soda water.”
“Yeah. Sure.” I take a sip. She’s right. It is very thirst quenching indeed.
The cab takes us along to the corner where we got off the bus, and then turns right along a busy main road. There’s a shocked look of recognition on Mutti’s face as it comes into view. She clasps her handbag tight as we stop in front of a sprawling industrial complex lurking behind a tall wrought–iron fence. A mess of styles, new bits apparently added in different decades. But in the centre, the once-white rendering and lozenge windows suggest sleek art deco origins. A sign whose jagged graphic style suggests it was added in the mid-seventies declares “Feher”. With the meter ticking, we buzz the entry phone, and enter a reception area guarded by a suited girl. Cue discussion. Usual thing, highly voluble, lots of hand gestures and some over-dramatic facial expressions on both sides. But oddly enough, quite amicable. Mutti helps herself to a brochure from a pile in a plastic tray on the desk, and gives it a quick glance mid-conversation. Then there’s a curt, “Köszönöm szépen,” and she turns to me. “Come on, we go.”
“But aren’t we going to talk to somebody?” She shrugs.
“Not necessary.”
“How so?”
“No time. And I already know all I need.”
“Ask her about Kovács.” She looks at me. “Come on, this is our last chance, you said it yourself. Ask her about Kovács.” I know that petulant look. It says she knows I’m right. But while she’s stalling I get in there.
“Do you speak English?”
“Leetle.” A fixed smile.
“Can we speak to the boss?”
“Sorry?”
“Head man, senior exec?” I can feel my voice rising.
“Not possible. Must have appointe-ment. Please.” She picks up a brochure and points to a phone number with the tip of her biro. “You telephone.”
“Who owned this factory before?” I make a large hand gesture, as if this will clarify my question.
“Before?”
“Communist time. And before communist time.” The girl looks at me with distrust.
“Current ownership since nineteen ninety-one,” she parrots as though it’s something she’s memorised. “Previously owned by Hungarian state, now company privat management. Please you telephone.”
“Can we speak to someone else? We are flying back to London right now.” She’s looking at something from the corner of her eye, hand hovering. Oh God, she’s got some kind of panic button that’ll call a battalion of security men. I grab Mutti and we leave.
I should have more faith in my mother. In the cab she repeats the entire conversation verbatim while I make notes. The name of the company, who owns it, when it last changed hands. Its entire history since the collapse of communism, its turnover, product range of computer casings and even the names of senior executives. Nothing before 1991, though. It’s as though that doesn’t exist.
By now it’s nearly four in the afternoon and we check in at six. We’ve still got to get back to Pension Eszterházy to get our bags.
“Tell you what,” I say to Mutti, “We should go straight for the airport.” I’ve only got a few forints left, and I don’t think Mutti’s got any. There’s no time to start hunting for Kovács.
“This is our last chance,” she says. “We find the apartment.” And in case I’d missed the point. “Kovács’s apartment.”
“I know, but let’s be realistic. That place may have belonged to him back in the 1940s, but what are the chances of him still being there? Virtually nil. We might as well skip it.”
“No.”
“Don’t be stubborn. If we miss the flight, we can’t get home, and I imagine you’ve had more than enough of the airport police.” As the car rumbles over uneven tarmac, she sits there brooding like an old toad. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her fiddling with the map, in that petulant way of hers, folding it one way and another. And then she suddenly yelps something at the driver, and he swerves to the curb.
“It’s here,” says Mutti, scrambling to get out of the car. “Well, just round the corner. Come on, Elizabeth, please.” We take a couple more turnings and then stop. I pay the driver. That’s it. Finito. We have now got no cash, no travellers’ cheques and just over an hour and a half to get to the airport.
“This had better be good,” I warn her. At the corner we check the name of the road. Mutti’s right, we are only a few yards away from Kovács’s last known address. As we walk along the pavement, noting building numbers and names, each heart beat thuds in my ears. The apartment block is still there, curvy art nouveau lines still evident, despite that now familiar exhausted, tattered look.
“Do you recognise this place?” I ask. Mutti nods, throwing her cigarette butt into a drain, and pocketing the holder, as she marches through the door. Inside, what was once an elegant stairwell has been vandalised by the addition of an old-fashioned cage lift. It clatters to the ground floor, we get in, and it starts hauling us up noisily. My hand finds Mutti’s. Hers feels warm and dry, while mine is cold and sweaty. We get out at the third floor. Before ringing the bell, she takes out her powder compact and gives herself a couple of quick dabs. Then she pulls herself up to full height. The door is opened by a young woman in tight jeans and a red jumper. She takes a cigarette from the corner of her lipsticked mouth to say, “Igen?”
Mutti says something in a low voice, about Kovács. There’s a mention of her own maiden name. The young woman looks doubtful. She makes to shut the door, then seems to have second thoughts and calls into the flat. Leaving the door half-open, she retreats inside. We can hear her in conversation with somebody else, an older woman whose mottled voice echoes down the passage. Mutti flushes, and she nods to herself. A few moments later, an elderly woman in a flowery apron creaks towards the door. She gives us a suspicious look, before asking Mutti a question. Again, I catch the word Kovács, but everything else is just a clatter of Hungarian vowel sounds.
Whatever Mutti has said, it has an amazing effect. The old woman claps her hands together, and lets out a babble of verbiage beginning with the only Hungarian I know.
“Ó Istenem, istenem.”
Oh God, Oh God. She seems rather in awe of Mutti, taking her hand in hers and bending forward and back in a worshipful kind of way as though she is honoured to bits at our presence. We are ushered into the front room, to sit on heavy, forbidding armchairs while the old lady hobbles excitedly into the kitchen. After a few minutes filled by creaking and jangling as well as a constant stream of chatter, she comes back with a tray of cake and soda water. The china plate stands on a white lace cloth, along with silver spoons and cake forks of exactly the kind Mutti would think de rigueur.
It’s a long time since breakfast and my hand shakes as I help myself while our hostess chatters away, wiping her hands on her apron while we eat. Mutti keeps up the conversation, turning pink and then pale by turns. Not knowing what they are banging on about is killing me, especially as Mutti is giving me meaningful looks. The moment there’s a pause, she turns to me.
“Kovács is her brother. She hasn’t seen him for years, but they write.” She stops to listen, nodding. “He lives in London. For forty years.”
“He what?”
“London.”
“Where in London?”
“I don’t know, not clear.”
“Well, if her letters are reaching him, she must have the address.”
The old lady takes a plastic covered book from a bureau, flicking through its alphabetical pages, and showing it to Mutti, and saying, “Vestempersted.” We must look blank. She gives us a quizzical look, as if it’s us who are stupid.
“Sorry?” I say. Mutti squints at the book.
“W–E–S–T– H–A–M–P–S–T–E–A–D,” she spells out. Mutti looks puzzled.
“West Hampstead?” I ask.
“Igen,” says the old lady, nodding with pride. “Vestempersted.” She turns to a shelving unit in the corner, where some aging post cards are on display, and brings one to show us. Buckingham Palace from around 1960, complete with guards in red jackets and bearskins, the colours faded from years’ exposure to sunlight. The old lady points to it, with pride. “Vestempersted,” she repeats, nodding enthusiastically.
“The man who took your father’s factory lives in West Hampstead?”
“He may not have taken it, we don’t know.”
“That’s not what you said this morning.”
The old lady is holding out the plate of cake to me, smiling and urging me to have another piece. It is a cloyingly rich confection, but I need the energy so I tuck in, allowing Mutti more time to prise information from our hostess.
As we emerge back onto the pavement, I check my watch. Apparently Kovács’s sister claimed to know nothing about the factory. Ignorance is safer, I imagine, to someone who has spent their adult life under communism, and what I imagine is constant fear of the secret police. It’s five o’clock, which means we have just one hour to get back to Pension Eszterházy, grab our bags and leg it. At the bottom of my bag I’ve found a few coins, but not enough for a cab. We head for the main road, hoping to spot a bus heading roughly in our direction.
Mutti makes a show of setting off energetically, as though she believes positive thinking can get her there. But it’s only a few minutes before her swollen legs have pulled her to a halt. Just when I’m wondering how much washing up you have to do to earn an air ticket, she starts laughing.
Then I see it. Coming towards us is a horse-drawn carriage, adorned with brightly coloured ribbons with pom-poms. She waves the driver to a halt.
“We can’t go in that. We’ve got nothing to pay him with, and it’ll be no quicker than walking anyway.”
But she’s already in the carriage. I scramble in to keep up with her as it moves off, getting bounced into the plush, plum-coloured upholstered seat. Opposite me, Mutti sits there like the Queen Mother greeting her people. She puts a cigarette in her holder, looking pleased with herself, and conducting some kind of regal conversation with the driver.
“Don’t worry, darling. I make a deal. Will be most reasonable.”
Now I’m going backwards along the avenue, and the bumpety motion is beginning to make me feel sick. Mutti points out the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, something called the Gresham Palace, and the glories of the gothic, baroque and Romanesque parliament I’ve already heard so much about. She turns her face up to the sun.
“Isn’t this wonderful?”
“Not if we miss the plane,” I say. The driver keeps up a commentary in Hungarian, with Mutti interrupting him now and then, and they share some kind of private joke. When we get to the Pension, we get out. I open my handbag with trepidation, wondering if he’ll take a few quid in sterling. He waves his hand at me.
“Nem,” he says, shaking his head and then rattling something off to Mutti. She says something back to him, smiling her regal smile and shaking his hand.
“He refuses to accept any payment.” I shake the man’s hand, puzzled. As he drives off, Mutti says, “Gypsy family.” She gives a dark nod implying some kind of fellowhood in suffering.
Mutti persuades Madame Eszterházy to sub us money for a cab to the airport, promising we’ll cable it back from London. By the time we hit the departure lounge, the rich cake we ate at Kovács’s sister’s is churning round in my stomach. Mutti fusses round, getting me water to drink, and dousing me in refreshing travel spray.
Once we’re on the plane, I push back my seat, but images of Kovács’ sister and the fascist boot boys float round in my mind. I can hear the echoing sound of footsteps on a tiled floor, and “Ó Istenem, istenem,” repeated over and over again in my grandmother’s voice. I open my eyes to find the air hostess standing there with a tray. The paprika fumes from the hot food make me feel like gagging. But Mutti tells her to put it in front of me, and proceeds to polish off both meals. Then she strokes my forehead like she used to when I was a little girl.
“I phoned him,” she says.
“Who?” I ask. My brain grinds slowly, like a machine without oil.
“Kovács.” I jolt upright, narrowly avoiding a spillage into my lap.“You phoned him?”
“From the airport. When you were resting.”
“You should have waited for me!” I’m fuming. “What did you say?”
“I just asked if we can meet,” she says.
“And?”
“Ja, he sees us. Tomorrow.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “And maybe we take you to the doctor?”
“I’m not that ill – tummy upset. It’s been a difficult couple of days. Better tomorrow.”
“I think it will take longer than that. Nine months is the usual time.” Oh God, Ó Istenem. Why didn’t I think of that?
“You think I’m…”
“Do you think?” I think back over the past month. “I’d better call Dave,” I groan.
“Mazel tov, darling.” She takes a forkful of dessert.
But it may not be that simple.
“You know, I think is best to stick to white or yellow until it is born. Don’t you think?” I give her a weary nod, as she continues, “You want that piece of cake?” Between mouthfuls of creamy gateau, Mutti expatiates on the relative merits of different sorts of buggies and prams. Sounds as though she’s been researching it for some time. I’m still trying to do the maths.
Chapter 26
I wake feeling sick and shattered. Leaving Mutti to unpack our bags, I drag myself into the office stopping only to buy a coffee and throw up in the ladies’ toilet. I make damn sure I’m on the phone to East Midlands police at the exact moment when Sarah sweeps in. My desk is a construction site of files, folders and ordnance survey maps reflecting how bloody busy I’ve been. But each time I put the phone down, the same question pops into my head. Who is the father?
I work through lunch, so by mid-afternoon I’ve made a good start on the research and the script is underway. Looking up for a moment, I register a one-line newsflash: Nachmann Cohen has been relased without charge. Why am I not surprised? I fling off an email to Jenkins and at the last moment decide to cc in his boss. But it’s hardly worth expendi
ng any more emotional effort on it, I’ve got bigger stuff on my mind right now. By five in the afternoon I’m making enough headway to slip away without any harm and head home to pick up Mutti. But as I’m driving up Kilburn High Road, there’s a niggling thought in the back of my mind. Bruchi’s killer is still out there.
West Hampstead is all posh delis and smart furniture shops. We cruise the narrow roads of terraced houses looking for the address while Mutti dabs on some powder. It’s not that difficult to find, up some invincible looking granite stairs, and then there’s that terrible moment when he opens the door. A distinguished if frail looking elderly man in a cravat. There’s a frisson of recognition on both sides, but also a kind of wariness in Mutti. They just stand there looking at each other for what seems ages. And I think what have we come for? To get an old man to sign away rights to a property he doesn’t own? Suddenly the whole project seems ridiculous. I want to run away, back to the safety of my flat. But he greets my mother with a stiff “Szervusz,” holding her hand for a long time and shaking his head as if he doesn’t quite believe she’s real. She doesn’t resist, but turns her eyes away. Then suddenly he lets go and ushers us in, with a dramatic Prussian-style bow.
In a spacious lounge, the floor is criss-crossed with Persian rugs. A pair of deep sofas face each other, flanked by table lamps on artful ceramic bases. Mutti and I navigate our way round a coffee table piled with large format art books, and sink into one of the sofas. It’s the kind of upholstery that doesn’t let you sit up straight. Kovács himself chooses instead to sit in a high-backed leather armchair to one side of us.