The Appraisal

by Anna Porter

“From?” Marcia asked.

  “From a man who said he had taken it from a Jew before he was killed. I don’t know whether he was killed by the Germans or the Russians. His whole family was wiped out.”

  “So, he just took it,” Marcia said.

  “He was in the Securitate,” Braunschweiger explained.

  Marcia nodded as she translated for Vladimir.

  “He sold it?” Vladimir asked.

  “He needed the money to go to Germany. He was well known around here and thought he would be safer there.”

  “That’s why you want to sell?” Vladimir asked. “You were in the Party, I assume.”

  Braunschweiger wiped his hands on his pants.

  His wife poured another round of Silva.

  “When I was six, I was already in the Komsomol,” Vladimir said. “If you wanted to get anywhere you had to be in the Party, right?”

  When Marcia translated, Braunschweiger nodded enthusiastically.

  “But it was slim pickings around here, even for the insiders,” Helena said in Russian. “That’s why he is wearing old clothes and is selling his painting. He does not have an Infiniti and a chauffeur.”

  Vladimir rose and stood facing the painting. “It’s smaller than the other one,” he said.

  “And it’s less expensive,” Helena said.

  Vladimir didn’t ask how much till they were back in the car, heading toward the Orthodox cathedral. He said he had seen a restaurant near there that served food after midnight.

  “I will sell it to you for only twenty million,” she said once they were inside. “Dollars,” she added when she saw him stiffen.

  Marcia joined them after they had already ordered their food. She seemed flushed, breathless, as if she had been running. Her hair was hanging looser than it had been, and there was a new bruise on her wrist. The bulge under her arm was still easy to see, but she no longer had a knife tip poking out of her cuff. Helena hadn’t been sure whether Marcia had intended to display the knife and the gun openly at the Braunschweigers or if she was just out of practice and had forgotten how to be less obvious. She had guessed the former.

  “Seems like a lot,” Vladimir said, returning to the subject of the painting. “It strikes me the deal is shady, the owners are shady, and I am not convinced they even own the thing.”

  “Talking about shady, did you get a letter from the Accademia?” Helena asked.

  “You mean the one from your old friend, Giorgio Matamoros? Yes, I did. How much did you have to pay him for it? Or did he write it for old times’ sake?”

  “If two experts tell you that a painting is not a real Titian, chances are it’s not a Titian,” she said. “And since you are so concerned about provenance all of a sudden, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem does not belong to Krestin. My client has title to the work. The only reason he is willing to pay for it — although it belongs to him — is to avoid having to launch a lawsuit that could last longer than he will. He is over eighty.”

  They ate something that could have been stew, and Vladimir talked about his yacht in the Adriatic. He had wanted something on which he could land a small plane. Much more convenient when your business interests are so far flung. What with the way things looked in Kiev, he thought he might even purchase a house in London. Isn’t that where most of the Russian oligarchs lived? And wasn’t it the most civilized country? Didn’t it have the best tailors? The British didn’t think they should interfere in your affairs. They liked business. Vladimir said “biznis,” as if it were some form of rare disease.

  He said he would buy the painting for sixteen million and deliver the cash to Helena in a briefcase the next day, unless she preferred a bank transfer.

  She opted for exchanging the painting for the briefcase of cash at the Opera Plaza Hotel, at 7 a.m. He offered to drive both women home.

  “I don’t think that will be possible,” Marcia said.

  They were standing in front of the restaurant, waiting for the Infiniti.

  Vladimir turned to Marcia, his eyebrows up, “Why not?” he asked.

  “Your driver has, I am sorry to say, met with an unfortunate accident.”

  Vladimir nodded. “Serious?” he asked.

  “I think he will recover, but you may need another man to drive you and the painting to the airport,” Marcia said.

  “Till the morning, then,” he said to Helena and turned on his heel. He didn’t speak to Marcia. They could see him talking on his cell phone when he reached the corner of the street, then he marched into a hotel bar.

  “What happened?” Helena asked.

  “Azarov was trying for a shortcut. He sent his man back for the painting, but I had already taken the Braunschweigers and their Titian to your hotel. They are on your floor, in an adjoining room, in case you need to talk to them before you meet Azarov.”

  “The driver?”

  Marcia grinned. “I went back to the Braunschweigers, as I thought Azarov would try something. His man tried to push his way in. Didn’t work. I called an ambulance but, you know how these things go in Romania, he may still be there tomorrow morning. Big brute but no balls. They don’t make them like they used to.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Attila had not planned to visit the Russian oligarch that morning, but Tóth, who seemed considerably less concerned about the Russians than the Ukrainians, phoned him and insisted that Piotr Denisovich Grigoriev was owed a personal call. Attila had not mentioned his conversations with Alexander, so Tóth couldn’t have known that Grigoriev had hired the dead guy in the Gellért, yet he seemed sure the Russian was somehow involved. Perhaps it was the years of too many Russians walking about in Hungary that made him suspicious, who knew? Tóth couldn’t have been around for the worst of it. So why? Had he been chatting with Ukrainians again?

  Hired men wouldn’t ask such questions, and Attila had been reminded often enough by Tóth that he was just a hired hand.

  On the way to the Gresham, he stopped by the Ukrainian Embassy. At least that was what he told himself, ignoring the fact that the Ukrainian Embassy was nowhere near either his home or the hotel, unless you take the longest possible route. The embassy was on Istenhegy on the far side of the Danube, not one of Attila’s usual haunts. All he knew about it were the first few lines of Miklós Radnóti’s poem, “Istenhegyi Kert.” Poor Radnóti had been only thirty-five when he was murdered by one of his fascist countrymen.

  Attila had been on nearby Rózsadomb a few times, investigating burglaries, but never on Istenhegy. He prided himself on knowing exactly how his city was laid out and being able to find just about any place in it, but he had to consult a map for a road up God Mountain.

  The Ukrainian Embassy was a whole lot less palatial than the Russian one, but still an impressive red brick pile for a country whose national debt outstripped the combined debt of most of southern Europe’s laggards, including Greece. There were police barricades along the front of the building, an electronic gate where he showed his old police ID, an X-ray machine for his wallet, gun, and loose change. Then he submitted to a pat-down by a sweaty security guard. Once inside, he was told to wait in a room with two doors and worn leather chairs and sofa. There were white rectangles on its yellow walls the size and shape of large pictures. Attila assumed that staff had removed all photographs of Yanukovich, his son, his wife, and other relatives, but had not yet had time to replace them with suitably prominent photos of the confections king, let alone the rest of Poroshenko’s government.

  A very pretty woman with serious breasts and long blond hair, in a short skirt and high heels, entered through the other door and smiled at Attila. “You are with the police?” she asked in Hungarian, placing equal emphasis on each syllable.

  Attila nodded.

  “And you are here to enquire about one of our citizens?”

  “Yes,” Attila answered. “A Mr. Azarov. He has been i
n Budapest for about a week. He came on his own aircraft.”

  Azarov’s name seemed to have created a frisson of excitement in the young woman’s breasts. At least that was what Attila thought, staring at them. It was a reaction he was sure he had not elicited from a young woman, or a woman of any age, in a long time.

  “Mr. Vladimir Azarov.” She nodded thoughtfully. “He travels a great deal. He is a very important man, with many business interests and many offices everywhere.”

  “Indeed,” Attila said. “But I am only interested in the part of his busy schedule that he has chosen to spend in our city. Could I speak with the ambassador?”

  “I am sorry but that is not possible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the new ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Ukraine has not yet been appointed and the old ambassador has already left.”

  It was Attila’s turn to nod.

  “We cannot help you, here,” she added, standing at attention, her pretty shoes pointing outward, her knees locked together.

  “You know Mr. Azarov?” Attila asked.

  “Yes. He has visited our embassy a number of times.”

  “And you are?”

  “Mrs. Klitchko,” she said. “Counsellor, Science and Education Division.”

  “Perhaps you would like to sit down?” He gestured at the leather couch across from his chair.

  She considered it for a moment, then rejected the idea. Perhaps she was concerned that her short skirt would ride up her thighs if she sat, or she didn’t like the feel of leather against her bare legs — Attila had ascertained she was not wearing stockings or pantyhose.

  “We are concerned that Mr. Azarov may have become involved in some illegal activity while he has been here. Innocently, I am sure, but nonetheless involved in the potential transfer of illegal goods across the border.”

  “Which border?” Mrs. Klitchko asked.

  “Our border, of course. We would not be much concerned if Mr. Azarov decided to transfer an entire shipload of illegal goods from Romania, for example, to Ukraine, as we have no jurisdiction there and, for all I know, no goods are really illegal. Could you tell me when Mr. Azarov was last here?”

  “In the embassy? Let me think. No, definitely not recently. But he did inform us that he was passing through Budapest.”

  “Would that have been in the past few days, perhaps?” Attila asked patiently.

  “Yes. He passed through this morning, on his way to Montenegro.”

  “Montenegro,” Attila repeated, as if it had been just the name he had been expecting to hear. “To his yacht,” he added.

  It was a happy guess. Mrs. Klitchko smiled for the first time, displaying her fine small teeth, and she risked leaning against the side of the leather couch. “It’s where he docks it, most of the time,” she said with apparent delight. “It is too large for any of the Italian harbours. He can even land a plane on it.”

  Attila whistled appreciatively.

  “He stopped here for only a few hours,” she said. “He has very little business in Budapest.”

  “Except for buying paintings,” Attila said.

  “I wouldn’t know about that, but Mr. Azarov has a famous art collection in Ukraine. He has been acquiring it since Independence, and he even allows visitors to come and see it sometimes. He is a friend of Mr. Poroshenko. Mr. Poroshenko has some artworks of his own.”

  Poroshenko was not a name to bandy about lightly, at least not in the Ukrainian Embassy. Attila thanked Mrs. Klitchko and asked her to contact him if Mr. Azarov returned to Budapest. He provided his cell number.

  The list of suspects who may have hired a Bulgarian to attack Ms. Marsh had been expanded by one, and Attila’s suspicion that Tóth had been paid off seemed to take shape in the dazzling form of Vladimir Azarov.

  ***

  Attila picked up Sofi and Anna at his ex’s new apartment on Nap Street, not far as the crow flies, but with the nightmare of morning traffic and roadworks, he was fifteen minutes late. The ex and the girls were already waiting on the street in front of their building’s elegant double doors. He was grateful not to have to climb the stairs to their swish new apartment with its views of the Danube and his furniture and curtains. He hated the way she had recovered the sofa in shiny burgundy and Gustav’s favourite chair in what looked like yellow brocade.

  “You are late,” Bea observed when he emerged from the car. “Again.” She was wearing yoga pants, a zip-up top, and red-and-white running shoes. Her hair was gathered in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup but managed to look fresh and pretty. Her new body must have required hours of hard work at some gym, he thought maliciously, and maybe even running along the gas-choked embankment. She hadn’t bothered with much of that while they were married.

  “I am sorry,” he said in the hangdog way he used when addressing his ex. “I was held up in an interview on Istenhegy, and the traffic —”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “Always something. Please have them back by six. We have plans for the evening.”

  “I thought they were staying overnight. We’re going to go to the beach in Leányfalu —”

  “Another time,” she said. She kissed both girls on the tops of their heads and left at a fast clip to a short chorus of good-byes. She turned when she reached the corner and called back over her shoulder. “Should I assume that you are still on for next weekend?”

  “Of course. I’ll pick them up on Saturday. They will sleep over at my apartment.”

  “Right,” she said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  The three of them watched her get into her Fiat sports car and speed off toward Erzsebet Bridge. When she was well out of sight, Anna hugged him and Sofi said, “Good morning, Apu,” and inspected the front of his beat-up, ten-year-old Škoda. “Somebody hit you again?” she asked.

  “They don’t like Škodas in Budapest anymore. When I bought it, they were all the rage.”

  “I’ve never known you to have another car,” she said.

  They piled into the back seat, which Gustav had scratched and slashed over the years of circling and pummelling the ungiving plastic in a vain effort to make himself comfortable.

  “Anything special you would like to do today?” he asked.

  “No,” they chorused.

  “How about the zoo?”

  Vehement head-shaking.

  “Vidám Park?”

  “Hate that place.”

  “It’s for little kids.”

  At nine and ten, they were hardly big kids, but Attila conceded that he had been taking them there for the rides and candy-floss since they were three and four, so they may, justifiably have concluded that it was for younger kids.

  “The castle?”

  “We did that last time,” Sofi said. Anna didn’t say anything, which meant she was beginning to feel sorry for him. “And it’s fake.”

  “Okay,” Attila said. “Let’s go to the Gresham Palace. You can have ice cream and play hide and seek among the potted plants. It’s the most magnificent palace you will ever have seen, and the ice cream will cost me about a day’s pay, so I will have to earn it while we are there. One hour, max. Then we can go to the wave pool at the Gellért.”

  They were already crossing the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace rising impressively on the other side of the Danube.

  A doorman opened the car doors for the girls, which almost made up for Attila being late, another doorman bowed and waved them through the hotel’s exquisite carved metal doors and enquired whether he could take care of their luggage. Attila was grateful for the doormen’s impeccable manners in not treating his Škoda as the wreck it was.

  The girls giggled all the way to the wide chairs in the marble foyer and whooshed into them in a way that perversely reminded Attila of Mrs. Klitchko
’s reluctance to sit. He dug in his pockets for a fistful of bills and pointed out to them the less-elegant cafe’s open door. He said the menu featured all kinds of ice cream and sorbets. They should order what they wanted, and he’d be with them in a moment or two.

  They were still giggling and whooshing when he flashed his old police ID and asked the man on the front desk for Mr. Grigoriev’s room number.

  “I will call his secretary for you,” the man said. The name on his badge was Zoltán, and he looked as if he had spent much of the previous few days in the sun. His nose was peeling, his cheeks below his glasses were bright red. “Your name, sir?” he asked.

  “Fehér. Budapest Police Department.”

  Zoltán relayed that into the house phone and asked what his business was with Mr. Grigoriev.

  “I will discuss that with Grigoriev, in person.” Attila wondered whether there was still some offence on the books about obstructing the police.

  “His secretary will be down in a moment,” Zoltán said.

  Attila slouched over the mahogany desk, hoping to appear both threatening and overconfident. “Gotta keep that schnoz out of the sun,” he said. Zoltán side-shuffled to talk to a more-polite guest.

  The secretary turned out to be a bulky man in an ill-fitting suit, his hair short back and sides, a buzz cut on top. Very 1950s, but perhaps back in style in Russia. He had a face like a potato, as if someone had tried to push it out of shape and almost succeeded. “You explain to me your business with Mr. Grigoriev,” he said in halting English.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Attila said, straightening up from the desk. He noted with joy that he was taller if not wider than the secretary. A shoving match was unlikely here, in Budapest’s best hotel, but you could never tell with Russians.

  They waited, eyeing each other. “He is busy man,” the secretary said. Russians were allergic to pronouns. “He is meetings all day. Leaving Budapest tomorrow. No time in schedule for more appointments.”

  “Well, Mr. Grigoriev can’t leave this country until I have spoken with him. So, I shall wait,” Attila said. “Meanwhile, you can tell him the body of his Bulgarian employee is safely stored in a freezer compartment at the chief medical examiner’s office, and that we are making every effort to return it to Sofia.” English was still a tough language for him, but it seemed to be even more difficult for the secretary.