Burning Cold

by Lisa Lieberman

  “His type never does,” Zoltán agreed. “They’re not trained to take the initiative.”

  “How much gas do we have?” asked Jakub.

  Gray eyed the gauge. “Very little, actually.”

  “Good. That means he didn’t bother to fill the tank.” Zoltán rubbed his hands together as he worked out a strategy. “Start slowing down, let a car’s length develop between you and them, then make it two. Or three. Wait for them to slow down—they won’t want us falling too far behind—and beep the horn. Then pull over and turn off the engine.”

  We all grasped his plan without him having to spell it out any further: we’d pretend we were out of gas. Nicholas or the driver would have no choice but to stop and come back to find out what was going on, and in the time it took for them to get to us, György and Magda would have an opportunity to come to our aid. I had great confidence in Magda’s cunning. If anyone could turn the tables on Nicholas, it was her. But I didn’t intend to cower in the background and let the others take all the risks. I intended to fight back. Nobody would be expecting me to take the initiative; I too had the element of surprise on my side.

  “Okay, here goes,” said Gray. “I’m pulling over.” He gave a few beeps of the horn and headed for the shoulder, steering around the groups of refugees who were making their way to the border on foot. While we were moving, they hadn’t paid us much notice, but once we’d stopped we became a focus of attention. People peered in at us, curious. I was sitting on the right side, watching the onlookers’ faces as they appeared in my window, briefly illuminated in the headlights of passing cars. A mother carrying a small child on her hip and leading another by the hand paused in front of me, shifting her burden. Our eyes met and a flicker of recognition passed between us. We were fellow travelers on this journey to freedom, her look seemed to say.

  Zoltán alerted us to Nicholas’s approach. “Here he comes. Get ready.” The sedan had parked a short distance ahead and I could see the Soviet agent weaving through the stream of refugees. He was going against the current and by the time he reached the Škoda, he’d been forced out into the road. Approaching the driver’s-side window, he motioned for my brother to roll it down.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, all too aware of his audience of refugees.

  “We’ve run out of gas.” Our brother spoke across Gray, pointing to the gauge as if Nicholas could read it from outside the car.

  The ploy worked. “Oh, for God’s sake! Come out here so I can talk to you.”

  Zoltán got out and made his way around the front of the car to meet Nicholas by the driver’s side.

  “Change places with me, najdroższa.” I wondered what Jakub had in mind, but I complied. Now seated behind Gray, I watched as the reflection of a set of headlights grew bright in the rearview mirror. I heard the rumbling of the truck’s engine. Zoltán was facing in its direction, but Nicholas had his back to the oncoming traffic and didn’t notice that the vehicle was slowing down. A squeal of brakes and it had come abreast of us, stopping in the middle of the road and corralling the two men, in effect, between the vehicles.

  Magda was sitting in the passenger’s seat. “Bolondok! Blokkoljátok az utat!” she said in an angry voice.

  “Kuss, te vén kurva!” Our brother menaced her with his fist upraised.

  Nicholas put a hand on his shoulder. “Ignore her. You’re coming with me.” He must have been intending to take Zoltán in his car, leaving the three of us to our fate. We couldn’t let that happen. It was bad enough, leaving without our brother, but I refused to abandon Zsuzsi and her mother.

  “Ne sértegesse a feleségemet?” György shouted from inside the cab. I heard the sound of a door slamming. He was coming around to have it out with Zoltán. Magda kept up a string of abuse, waving her arms and jabbing her finger through the open window. Meanwhile, Jakub took advantage of the distraction to slip out of the car. A small crowd had gathered to watch the drama, obscuring his escape. A glimpse of his back as he ran toward the sedan and he was gone.

  “Please be careful, darling,” I said under my breath. Gray turned around, his expression calm, reassuring. He had utter confidence in my husband.

  “Senki sértéseket a feleségem!” György rounded the fender, making straight for Zoltán. Pushing past Nicholas, he shoved our brother into the side of the Škoda, thrusting himself between them. Now Magda was climbing down to stand beside György, further distancing Zoltán from the Soviet agent’s reach. Nicholas was now aligned with my door instead of Gray’s, giving me a clear view of him through the window. His hand went to his waist. He was holding something in his palm, something small and metal. He raised his arm and I realized that he had a pistol. He aimed it at György, who was lunging at him, full tilt.

  “No!” I screamed. Flinging open the passenger door, I clipped Nicholas in the back, knocking him off balance. A shot sounded and I heard screams from the some of the bystanders. György staggered, but continued to advance on his target, the two men falling together onto the ground. I scrambled out through the open door, desperate to save György, but Magda had already launched herself into the struggle, grabbing Nicholas’s outstretched arm and twisting it until the pistol fell from his grip. Zoltán stooped to pick it up, unsure what to do with the weapon. The old woman seemed to have the situation well under control. She’d gotten the Soviet agent into a half nelson, pinning him with her body, one elbow locked around his neck.

  Gray and I helped György to his feet. Blood was flowing down his face from a wound on his forehead. I attempted to staunch it with a handkerchief, but it was instantly soaked through. A woman came forward and handed me a piece of cloth, which turned out to be a baby’s diaper. She smiled and made the sign of a cross as I took it from her.

  “Isten legyen veled.”

  Magda glanced up, momentarily loosening her hold on Nicholas. He sought to take advantage of this lapse of attention, thrashing his legs in an effort to free himself from her grip. In response, she drove her knee into his back, tightening her arm around his neck until he was still.

  “Ugh,” he said, fighting for breath.

  I knew Magda had both the strength and the will to finish him off, but I didn’t think she’d do it in front of a crowd of people. For one thing, Nicholas was disarmed; the threat he posed to any of us at this point was minimal. I was more worried about the driver of the sedan. What would he do, with Nicholas gone? Would he shoot his hostages? Would he shoot Jakub when he tried to rescue them? My husband would be cautious, but the man he was up against might be desperate, or ruthless. Or both.

  To my relief, some of the refugees now came to Magda’s aid. A pair of heavyset men tied Nicholas’s wrists behind his back, using his own necktie. Another produced a piece of rope and proceeded to truss up his legs. Zoltán pressed the pistol to the Soviet agent’s temple, for good measure.

  “Add ide!” The old woman took the pistol away from him and pocketed it. She climbed back into the cab of the livestock truck and came down with a different gun—Frankie’s gun—which she gave to him instead. “Menj, és segítsd a családod.” She pointed in the direction of the black sedan.

  Our brother was itching to go, but still he hesitated. “Gyuri bácsi, will you be alright?”

  “I’m fine. Go to your family, Zoli.”

  György didn’t seem fine to me—he seemed dazed and weak—but he’d said what Zoltán needed to hear and I was glad he was going off to assist Jakub. Nearly fifteen minutes had elapsed since he’d snuck off—ample time to have accomplished his rescue mission, I would have thought. Why hadn’t he returned with Anna and Zsuzsi? Any number of things could have gone wrong, and it was mostly to keep my imagination at bay that I suggested we move to the car, where György would be more comfortable. Magda nodded her assent as we eased him inside the Škoda, the determined set of her jaw a guarantee that she would guard Nicholas until the others returned
.

  “Bludy mess. Wha wallaped the auld codger?”

  “Lay off the Scottish, that’s a good man. Can’t make sense of half the words that come out of your mouth.”

  “Sorry.”

  Ames and Ian were standing in the road, their voices carrying in through Gray’s open window. The front of György’s overcoat was drenched in blood. By putting pressure on the wound, I’d managed to stop the bleeding, but he did look pretty gruesome under the dome light.

  “Do you know these gentlemen?” he said.

  Gray introduced the two journalists—he used the word “journalists,” but qualified it with “or so they claim.”

  “What? What? What do you mean?” sputtered Ames. “Of course we’re journalists. I’ve got my press card right here.” He pulled out his wallet, ready to produce the evidence, but Ian made him put it away.

  “Gie it a break, Petey. He knows whit we ur.”

  “No Scottish, remember?” Ames scolded.

  Remarkably, I was beginning to understand Ian. “What are you?”

  Ames answered for both of them. “MI6, dearies.”

  “British intelligence!” My brother was outraged. “I thought you lot were professionals.”

  “We mucked up in Budapest,” Ian admitted, nudging Ames with his elbow. “Petey here was supposed to be keeping an eye on that Frankie fellow.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Ames looked at his feet. “I should have stuck to my own supply of gin. They slipped me a mickey.”

  “Yer wair oot yer nut,” said the Scotsman, adding in English for our benefit, “sick as a dog afterward, he was.”

  I could tell from the look on his face that Gray was about to say something scathing, and I was angry too. József would still be alive. None of the trials we’d undergone in the past twenty-four hours would have occurred. Zoltán and György would have reconciled without our being there to observe it, and György wouldn’t be injured. Nicholas wouldn’t have been in a position to endanger anyone if Ames had been doing his job. We’d have been fast asleep in our comfortable beds at the Hotel Sacher by this time and the various lives we’d disrupted by coming to Budapest would be returning to normal—or what passed for normal.

  Which was the problem. Now that we’d made it through the ordeal and were poised to bring our brother and his family out of Budapest, I couldn’t disown everything we’d been involved in. If someone had asked me whether I was willing to exchange one man’s life for the liberty of three people—four, if you included György—of course I’d have said no, but the decision hadn’t been in my hands, and here we were.

  “Here’s your husband!” announced Ames. “I was wondering where he’d gotten to. And that must be your brother, holding the child. Am I right?”

  I rushed out of the car and embraced Jakub. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” I murmured, not caring that we were kissing in front of a crowd of strangers. It felt as if a month had passed since he went to rescue Zoltan’s family.

  “Najdroższa.” His kiss was more than perfunctory and it took me a moment to realize that something was off. Zoltán was right there behind us, as Ames had said, carrying Zsuzsi in his arms. The girl was weeping, and he was doing his best to comfort her.

  Our brother answered my unspoken question. “Anna isn’t coming. She won’t leave the children.”

  Ames and Ian were loading Nicholas, trussed and gagged, into the back of their car. They’d be escorting us to the border, where “interested parties” would take him off their hands.

  “Come along, dearies. Say your goodbyes and let’s be off.”

  Anna would ride with Magda as far as Budapest. She took Zsuzsi aside and was crouched next to her by the truck, the two engaged in a somber conversation. She seemed to be extorting a promise from her daughter. We saw the girl nod, and then her mother straightened up, took her by the shoulders, and kissed her once on each cheek before sending her back to us and climbing up into the cab.

  I was making an effort not to cry as I watched Zsuzsi approach on her crutches. Magda already had the engine running. The old woman was having difficulty turning around on the two-lane road, with so many people milling about, but Anna avoided looking at us. I thought that she was also trying not to cry.

  József had said it first: heroes can be very hard to live with. Until the moment when Nicholas had forced him to choose between his family and his principles, Zoltán’s moral purity was unsullied. He was like Icarus, heedless of those around him as he flew into the sun. Our brother was saving the world. Well before Anna betrayed him by turning informer, he’d betrayed her. The children’s home was her way of saving the world—not the entire world, but a small piece of it. Zoltán had put all of that in jeopardy by engaging in his underground activities, subsuming her work, her ideals beneath his own.

  I wasn’t sure if anyone else saw Anna’s dilemma as I did, but it made me think. Jakub had it too, that heroic instinct. No matter how tempting it was, to be taken care of, I wanted to be the author of my own life.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Vienna, Austria

  November 4, 1956

  A pink mist was rising off the Danube as we arrived in Vienna. The city resembled Budapest so strongly, architecturally, that I was surprised to find it intact. It was too early on a Sunday morning for the trams to be running on the famous Ringstrasse; we had the vast boulevard practically to ourselves.

  “There’s the State Opera,” said György, pointing to an elaborate building that filled an entire block, statues of men on horseback crowning its pillared facade. He’d traveled to Vienna frequently for his job as a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, but it had been twenty years since his last visit.

  Jakub had passed through the city after the war and remembered how much of it had been destroyed. “They’ve finished rebuilding it, I’m glad to see.”

  “Yes,” said Zoltán, leaning forward to be heard by the others. “I was here as well. The building was a shell in ’45 after you Americans bombed the place. This entire section of the city was in ruins.”

  Gray sighed in exasperation from behind the wheel. “The Germans were dug in, just like in Budapest. How else were we supposed to end the war? Hitler’s orders were to stay or die.”

  “I suppose that explains Dresden as well?”

  György turned in his seat and glared at our brother, admonishing him into silence, but Zsuzsi had already picked up on the tension in the car.

  “Mi a baj, apa?” she said. “Miért vagy ilyen mérges? Kérlek ne haragudj ránk.”

  Our brother looked stricken. “She already thinks I’m angry with her mother. Now she’s afraid I’m angry with you.” Pulling the child into his lap, he began speaking to her in a soft, reassuring voice, but his words did little to calm her fears. I wished I spoke Hungarian, so I could explain to Zsuzsi that her father wasn’t angry with her mother or with any of us. He’d been carrying around that anger for most of his life, I wanted to tell her.

  My own son might be harboring anger against me, and I would never know. At least there was a chance that Father and Zoltán might heal the breach between them, for Zsuzsi’s sake. For my part, I pledged to remain in my niece’s life. I could not take the place of her mother, but as she grew up, I hoped she might turn to me when she needed a woman’s ear, a woman’s understanding, to help her navigate the world. She would be the author of her own life. I would make sure of it.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my readers, Dusty Miller and Bill Lucey. Your enthusiastic support kept me going, and I’m pleased that you laughed at most of my jokes.

  Gabor Lukacs corrected my Hungarian and made many useful suggestions. Köszönöm szépen to Gergely Bárányos at Cityrama Budapest for leading my husband and me on a seven-hour walking tour around the sites of the 1956 revolution, with a few from 1848 thrown in at no extra charge, duri
ng a 2015 research trip to Hungary. The staff at Hotel Palazzo Zichy made our stay in Budapest special, and even managed to come up with a spare room when we were stranded for an additional two days, owing to the Lufthansa strike. Barnabás Fehér, the caretaker of the Mád synagogue, was kind enough to show us around.

  Thanks also to my editors, Richard Marek and Lourdes Venard. Burning Cold is a better book as a result of your attentions. The team at Encircle Publications has been a pleasure to work with.

  Finally, to Tim, my partner in publishing—along with everything else that matters: viva l’avventura!

  About the Author

  Lisa Lieberman is the author of numerous works of postwar European history and the founder of the classic movie blog Deathless Prose. Trained as a modern European cultural and intellectual historian, she studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University and taught for many years at Dickinson College. She now directs a nonprofit foundation dedicated to redressing racial and economic inequity in public elementary and secondary schools. In her spare time, she lectures on postwar efforts to come to terms with the trauma of the Holocaust in film and literature and works with young writers at the Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School in Holyoke, Massachusetts. After dragging their three children all over Europe while they were growing up, Lisa and her husband are happily settled in Amherst, Massachusetts.

  The Glass Forest, the third Cara Walden mystery,

  will be published by Passport Press in 2018.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Continental Palace Hotel, Saigon

  March 9, 1957

  Although it was not yet dark, the restaurant staff were setting the tables for dinner, laying white cloths, cutlery, wineglasses, crystal vases with sprigs of frangipani, and still Tam hadn’t come. Jakub and I were having an aperitif on the terrace with my brother Gray and ordinarily this would have been our signal to finish up. The Continental’s classic French cuisine was so heavy, cream sauces and braised meats unpalatable in the tropical climate. We much preferred the Chinese food at The Rainbow. Tam considered it a tourist trap—overpriced and too westernized for his liking—but that didn’t prevent him from patronizing the upstairs nightclub, where cool jazz could be heard any night of the week.