by Michele Lang
At the top of the stairs, near Bathory’s customary table, I looked over the balcony and nodded to Imre, Bathory’s factotum, at his familiar perch at the bar near the door downstairs. He saluted me and smiled his silent, melancholy greeting with closed lips.
Imre looked like the meaty, scarred prizefighter he’d once been, with a thickened nose knocked askew and small puffy eyes like a rat terrier’s. But the creature spent his spare time translating the poems of Yeats into Hungarian, and many a night he cried into his Turkish coffee, remembering the young lover who had committed suicide when he had discovered Imre was turned vampire.
As you might infer from Imre’s example, despite its name Café Istanbul was a most Hungarian place.
Bathory perched in his accustomed corner of the mezzanine as always, his small, bent body surrounded by the corpses of newspapers from all over Europe, mounted like hunting trophies on long bamboo rods.
I admired the ancient lace cravat knotted at his bony throat, but hid my fond smile. Bathory had come of age in the 1600s, and like most people he remained moored in the aesthetics of his early youth. But unlike Imre, Bathory was vampire born, a princeling of the fanged nobility. He hailed from the mountains of Transylvania, the native lands of the tribe of Drakul.
Cigarette smoke curled decoratively all around him like gray filigree, and I warmed to the rich, redolent scent of the cup of Turkish coffee that rested on the table.
“Magdalena, your dove gray suit is most enchanting,” he murmured, hardly looking up from the Pesti Hirlap. His bony fingers clamped a lit cigarette, and he took a long, deep breath of smoke.
My pulse pounded, with pleasure or fear I’m not sure. “I thank you, my uncle Gabor.”
I let his pretty manners enfold me like a cloak, and accepted that our farewells would take some time to conclude. So be it, as long as I could contrive to keep secret my true motives for leaving. No easy task, while dealing with an undead who could scent my emotions like perfume and who had encountered nearly everything in his centuries of vampiric existence.
I pulled a cane-back chair close to his tiny round table and sat down on his left, with a rustle of the newspapers. His thin lips twitched in a smile, and he slid the Turkish coffee at me. I admired the enameled blue espresso cup as it moved along the surface of the round marble table.
I removed my gloves, wrapped my fingers around the cup, and let the Turkish coffee warm them. I studied the square red saucer, the hand-painted detailing along the rim of the cup, and took a long, slow sip of sweet, muddy coffee.
“Forgive my absence, count. I’ve been called away by a family emergency.” The best lies contain a core of truth.
His left hand darted out and captured my right hand around the wrist. The tips of his long fingernails scratched along my skin like claws. When I looked at him, our gazes locked and I swallowed hard, willed my pupils to somehow not enlarge with fear.
“Do you understand what is happening?” Bathory asked, his voice affable and mild. “The Poles are in London as we speak, ensuring that England will fight in the impending war with Germany.”
“The war,” I replied, my voice faint and far away even to my own ears. “So, it’s worse than Ziyad said. War comes to us all, then. The way it has already come to him.”
“Yes, war, and soon. How I detest war. You have not seen its ravages yet, but do not worry. It will be hard, but you are young, beautiful, and resourceful. You will survive it, my dear.”
For perhaps the first time, I knew more than my employer. I placed my left hand over his and gently squeezed. “I wish I shared your optimism, dear Count Bathory.”
He released my wrist one finger at a time, and I rubbed my bruised skin and reached again for my coffee. With studied indifference, he returned to his reading, muttering under his breath at the headlines and graciously ignoring me until I regained my bearings.
I took a long slug of coffee. Bliss: warm, bitter, sludgy, sweet. No matter what the war brought to Budapest, I hoped with all of my heart that the Café Istanbul would remain open for business, with my boss installed in his corner and a steady stream of perfect coffee waiting for anyone who could afford the price.
I cradled the still-warm, empty espresso cup in my bare hands as if it were a baby bird. “I quit. Sir.”
The count snuffled over his cigarette and slid the Hungarian newspaper away with a great crackle of newsprint. “Quit? But my dear, you have your little nunnery to support.”
Not long before, his comment would not have rankled. But now, in the world of Gisele’s vision, Hitler had already set his plans into motion, and Horthy and a good percentage of my countrymen had already done plenty to the Jews beforehand. And with that knowledge, a secret, invisible barrier had gone up between my beloved, frightening Bathory and me.
I rolled the empty cup between my fingers. “Ah, so you understand I am the man of the family now.” I shot him a half smile, to let him in on the droll joke of my circumstances. How amusing, the young pretty girl the head of her little family of girls. How charming. How . . . plucky.
I sighed and continued. “But, to take care of my little nuns, I must travel abroad. Without delay.”
I looked at Bathory to see how he was taking the news. His eyes narrowed as his gaze rose again to capture mine. “A . . . trip. Nothing like a pleasure cruise off the edge of the world, eh, Magdalena? Where the sea monsters await?”
My demure smile felt tight, like an imperfectly applied plaster. I plucked at my nice white gloves. All around us, the Café Istanbul hummed with the warm, intimate sounds of conversation, the clink of coffee cups, and the metallic clatter of silverware. No place in the world was as comforting and civilized as a café in Budapest; no place in the world was so irretrievably lost to me.
I slid the espresso cup back onto its saucer, where it belonged. “Do you have any family left alive, Count Bathory?”
His paper-white face went a little green. “Er, I am not sure. Ruthenia is now Hungarian again, and we hope for Transylvania next, but my estates were well scattered after the wretched conclusion of the Great War and the difficulties that followed. And, regrettably, I do not know if my ancestors remain undisturbed.”
Bathory meant that the villagers, left to their own devices, most likely dug up and staked his defenseless old relatives once the Hungarian gendarmerie in their employ had gone. The peasants, both Magyar and Romanian, had always, understandably, hated the children of Drakul.
We sat together, the truth a silent presence. Until this moment, I had been his first assistant, in the sinful city of Budapest, the closest creature he had to family. And yet barriers—between mortal and vampire; Jew and Christian; guttersnipe and nobleman—kept us apart, separated by an unacknowledged chasm.
“You are alone and unencumbered, dear sir. I still have a little family. They need me now.”
“But don’t they need your salary to eat?”
He wasn’t being funny, my courtly vampire count. He, who had never known material want, could only guess at my life outside working hours.
I found his wealthy innocence rather endearing. “Of course, we all need to eat, yes? But we three also need to stay alive. And if I don’t take this action now, all three of us are dead.”
The war, the deepest chasm of all, interposed itself between us. He folded up the newspaper like fine linen and set the bamboo rod alongside his table. A waiter ran to gather up all of the papers now that the count evidently had finished with them.
He leaned toward me, took my hand in both of his. “But my dear, I will simply send the three of you away, then. To America, or perhaps South Africa. I have excellent prospects in Istanbul also, as you well know from our trading contracts.”
How he tempted me, so unintentionally and so cruelly, little knowing what exquisite agonies he inflicted. I wanted to agree, send at least the girls away to safety so that I could grapple with the witch’s backhanded blessing alone. But they would never agree, never, no matter what I did or how I trie
d to trick them into it. I also knew that Bathory, no matter how courtly and generous he appeared on the surface, would extract an exorbitant price for his generous act of mercy. From them, as well as from me.
No matter how much I wished it were not so, vampires are not human beings. Bathory’s offer was not motivated by the spirit of self-sacrifice; he saw our salvation as a good investment, nothing more. The girls were a great prize, turned or not.
“It is certainly an enticing offer, sir. But Budapest is my home. Our home.” The count was such a patriot in his undead bones he accepted my explanation at face value, even though we both knew I spoke nothing more than a fervent lie.
His expression never altered, and I could not tell if I had offended, bored, or amused him. As usual, he charmed me and threw me off balance at the same time. He smoothed his whiskers with a linen napkin. “Where, then, Magda?”
“Sir?”
“Your trip. Where is your destination?”
“Amsterdam.”
At the city’s name, Bathory’s face lit up with a rare, enormous, and sincere smile. His yellowed fangs flashed his pleasure at me, and I involuntarily drew back: like a dragon’s wings unfurled, they were impressive and frightening to behold. “Ah, my dear, one of my closest contacts resides in Amsterdam. An American, but cultured and discerning. What brings you to Amsterdam? An emergency, you said.”
I took a deep breath and squeezed his cold fingers. I determined to keep my tone of voice casual, at all costs. “An old relative. She’s asked me to look after some family business that needs urgent attention.”
The count’s smile turned shrewd, and he let my fingers go free. Ah, he knew too much, too much . . . I had little hope of hiding my errand from those knowing, old eyes. “Lazarus business, eh. Then the matter is settled. You must go, and immediately.”
Surprise flooded through my body in a warm rush before I could make sense of his words. “I don’t mean to abandon my position so quickly, sir. I came to offer you two weeks’ notice.”
“Nonsense. You are a Lazarus witch, and the eldest, no less.”
I felt the blush rising into my cheeks, and I pressed my lips together hard against my teeth to force myself to stay quiet.
The vampire’s eyes twinkled as he leaned back in his chair and watched me squirm. “I am old, my dear, but your line runs older. Your service is useful to me, but tut, tut! You are meant for greater things than this.”
“No, I am not.”
The words came out too quickly, and Bathory leaned his head back and crowed with laughter, thin high blasts like a rooster’s over Tokaj in spring. “Now, you are worth infinitely more to me should you learn how to properly wield your power. War is coming, I am old enough to recognize the obvious signs. Go, run your little errand, and come back to me alive. I will pay your way, and you will owe me favors.”
I shook my head against his generosity, and he drummed his fingers against the marble tabletop, the sound a staccato tattoo. “You are wasted by my side, your mother was right.”
My blush deepened, grew painful. I had no idea how he knew about my final battles with my late departed mother. My cheeks burned as if gasoline had set them aflame. “I don’t intend to waste your time or your money, Count Bathory.”
“Nonsense. I have a packet of letters for you to deliver to my contact, Knox, and you will go on Ziyad’s business as well. Ziyad needs me to inquire into his mysterious doomsday device, and Knox will know better than most if the Americans are working on one or have one. So. Go on my business as well as your own, and travel with my resources in hand. I suspect that your business is more important than all of mine totaled together.”
The breath caught in my throat. I had not wanted to entangle him in my family’s disaster, for a myriad of reasons; I kept forgetting our little doom was knotted up in the world’s great affairs. And I desperately needed money to speed the journey.
“Thank you,” I whispered, but Bathory pretended not to hear me. His attention returned to the newspapers now perching on the metal frame against the far wall, and he rose to his feet as he waved his fingers vaguely in my direction. “Imre will make your travel arrangements and prepare the necessary documents. Take the Orient Express—nothing less for my personal ambassador.”
As I rose on rubbery legs to go, he shot me a final stare, half hidden by the clouds of cigarette smoke rising like incense all around us. “You seek The Book of Raziel, yes?”
My stomach did a backflip, and I held on to the back of the chair to keep my knees from buckling. “Ah, but what is The Book of Raziel?”
Before I could speak any additional foolishness, he laughed again, this time with a good strong dose of menace in it. “Good question, my little protégé. Bring it back, give me my rightful share of it, and I will make your fortune.”
I woke late the following morning, the day of my departure. Eva took the day off to stay with me, and Gisele’s sewing lay untouched in her woven basket by the rocking chair.
We sat quietly at the kitchen table before our meager midday meal. I forced myself to eat some bread and cheese, to drink a cup of weak, tepid coffee.
I looked across the table at Gisele’s face. She smiled at me, even as her eyes shone with unshed tears. “When will you come back to us?” she asked.
I swallowed hard; there was no answer. Instead, I nodded at her, forced my lips to smile as I rose from the splintery table. “Soon, my darling,” I lied.
“Can you believe our Magduska is going to Paris?” Eva cut in, her tone of voice carefully bright. “She’ll fit right in with that new suit, Gisi.”
Eva brushed the crumbs from her lap and joined me where I stood, and she hugged me so hard the air was pressed out of my lungs. “Come back to us, my darling,” she whispered in my ear, her breath a soft tickle against my neck.
“I will, I will,” I managed to say. I smoothed Eva’s brilliant blond hair back, rubbed the smudged mascara from her cheeks.
It was time. We walked to the station, took the far way to Keleti so that we could stay together as long as possible. Eva insisted on carrying my valise; I held my satchel with my precious papers in one hand, held Gisele’s hand with the other.
The platform was crowded with families making grand farewells, a grand fuss as their grand suitcases were lugged by the porters onto the royal blue cars of the Orient Express.
Time for farewell. My girls hugged and kissed me once more, Eva straightened the white hat on my head for the last time.
“Stay safe, girls,” I said, my voice trembling. “Beware of Count Bathory. He looks like a charming old rake, but he drinks blood. Don’t let him drink yours.”
Gisele clung to me, weeping. “Don’t worry about us. Just do what you must, Magdalena. But swear you will come back to me!”
“By the Witch of Ein Dor, I will.” Even if I had to return as a ghost.
Eva handed me the valise. “Bless you, Magda. Keep your wits about you, magic or no magic.”
I wanted to tell her, “You don’t need magic, Eva . . .” but a long, harsh whistle interrupted our farewells. With a final kiss, I untangled myself from their embraces, turned, and dragged myself up the steps and entered my car. A porter took my bags and led me to my opulent compartment; I lifted the blinds, opened the window, and leaned out.
There they stood, together, the two girls I loved beyond all measure. An unintelligible announcement rent the air, and a huge puff of steam escaped the engine as the train began to move, slowly, then faster and faster.
I watched them grow smaller and smaller as the train pulled away. I did not know if I would ever see them again.
5
Vienna was a city hatched from my worst nightmares—gilded and cold and filled with hatred for me and my kind. I was grateful that I didn’t have Gisele’s talent for envisioning the future or the past. Plenty of dreadful events had already transpired here, and I didn’t want to know what new travesties waited for me now.
Until Gisele’s screaming horrors,
I hadn’t considered my Jewish ancestry much of anything to remark upon. I was Magda first, a Lazarus witch second, Hungarian third, and only then, as an afterthought, did I consider my Jewish descent as part of my identity.
But the world, and Austria in particular, begged to differ with me. Here, I was jude, beginning, middle, and end, and my humanity never factored into Vienna’s calculations at all.
By some small, mysterious miracle, the false papers Bathory’s factotum Imre had arranged satisfied the armed guards in black uniforms at the border of the Reich. They surmised no Jew would be insane enough to voluntarily enter Hitler’s living room . . . so without too much further scrutiny they assumed my papers, proclaiming me a provincial Catholic and an ethnic German no less, were all in order. I had been prepared to bribe them, but it hadn’t been necessary to test whether their greed outweighed their loyalty to the Fatherland.
But, immediately afterward, I had heard the furious whispers in the hallway outside my compartment. And once we arrived in Vienna station another first-class traveler, with a gentleman’s clothes and a fine face pinched with fear, was made to vanish off the platform. After I witnessed through the window blinds his quiet, futile struggle, I could not sit still; could scarcely breathe.
According to the timetable tucked away among my papers, the train was scheduled to depart from Vienna’s West Bahnhof station after a short stop, only thirteen minutes. I hoped to get some fresh night air on the platform and calm my nerves before the whistle blew and I could get out of this cursed place, Vienna.
I sat on a wrought-iron bench, and watched the steam rising from the engine at the head of the royal blue Wagon-Lits sleeping cars. All the souls inside reposed in peace, while I took the air on the platform and fretted. With any luck, the whistle would shriek and the westbound train would depart on time . . . that is what the Germans were famous for, after all.
To distract myself, I unfolded and read again the letter of introduction that Count Gabor Bathory had written on my behalf: