Strangers in Budapest

by Jessica Keener

  “Does your boy want something to drink?”

  “Thank you. We’re fine,” Annie said.

  The old man grunted and started toward a tiny kitchen area, an alcove off the living room. He turned on the tap, poured himself a glass of water and drank it in one gulp. He was gruff, rude, then polite. What was going on here, she wondered.

  Will called to their son. “Leo, come over here.”

  Annie scooped him up. On the easel, the picture of a mountain on a canvas the size of a book charmed her and revealed an able hand. On the floor, a small stack of similar-size canvases caught her eye. “Beautiful paintings,” she said, but she wondered how could he paint in this low light. The living-room windows, tall and wide, needed cleaning. Street grit dulled the sun pressing through. A set of old-fashioned velvet curtains framed the windows. She didn’t want to imagine how old they were. The part of her that liked things neat and in order wanted to dust and clean up this place.

  She turned to Will. “We should go.” It was time for lunch and Leo’s afternoon nap, but Leo pulled away from her again, wanting to touch the paintings.

  Edward shuffled toward her. Despite a slight stoop, he was nearly Will’s height.

  “Let the boy look. He’s fine. He can’t hurt them. Go on. Pick one up.”

  Leo grinned as he slid from her grasp and plopped down on the floor. The canvases were small enough to manipulate with his chubby thumbs.

  “They are lovely,” she said.

  Edward almost smiled. Encouraged by this, she said, “Are you from Boston, too? Do you have family here?”

  As soon as she asked, she regretted it. The old man’s body locked up. His eyes flogged her as if she had insulted him.

  “No. No family here.”

  “Pains,” Leo said, picking up a brush.

  Mr. Weiss turned to Leo and the burning in his eyes cooled down. How sudden these changes, she thought. She’d seen this sort of thing at the shelter: emotional squalls in grown men, erratic behavior flip-flopping, the way Leo acted when he needed something. She’d seen it with her brother, Greg, when he started drinking in high school.

  “You have a nice boy,” Edward said, his voice tender. “You trust your babysitter? I assume you hired a Hungarian. You trust her?”

  “Yes. She’s wonderful,” Annie said.

  “You did a background check?”

  “Yes, another American family referred her to us,” Annie said.

  “People can fool you.”

  He looked stricken again, as if a sharp object had stabbed his stomach. He leaned over and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Mr. Weiss?” She reached toward him.

  “Sir, why don’t you sit down?” Will put his hand on Edward’s elbow. “Is it your stomach?”

  She wondered if they should call a doctor.

  “No. Look. Please. You’ll have to excuse me now.” The old man started for the door, his body tilting as if his legs were not the same length. “I’m going to have to cut this visit short.”

  Annie picked up Leo and settled him on her hip, but he resisted, reaching out first toward the easel, then Edward.

  “Honey, no. It’s time for lunch.”

  “Sorry for the trouble,” Will said.

  “Everything in life is trouble, haven’t you learned that yet?” Edward said, breathing hard.

  Annie paused at the door.

  “We’re happy to run an errand for you. We have a car. If you have a doctor’s appointment—anything. Please call us. Our cell phone number is on Will’s card. Did you bring a cell phone with you?” She quickly scanned the room for a landline, not expecting to see one. Very few Hungarians had phones in their homes. Or, if they did, it meant they had waited five, even ten, years for one and paid too much money or had some special connection to someone higher up in the food chain of favors. Only a select group had cell phones—the nouveau riche, state and city officials, politicians, and of course, Americans. She spotted Edward’s cell phone on the couch. “Please call us if you need anything,” Annie said.

  Will handed him his business card.

  “Look, I knew you’d show up eventually.”

  “Call anytime,” Will said. “We don’t live far from here. We’re down by the river.”

  “The river, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  Annie watched this information ricochet inside the old man’s throat. He swallowed and straightened his back, seeming to engage in something, then looked at her with new intent and interest.

  “Any other Americans in your building?”

  “No. No other Americans. Just us. The rest are Hungarians,” Annie said. She shifted Leo onto her other hip, but her son had become a body of twists and twirls. “Please, call us.”

  “I will. I will do that.”

  He nodded and opened the door, his surprisingly nimble fingers grabbing hold of the doorknob. “Keep an eye on your boy there. Watch out for thugs. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Two

  He needs a doctor,” Annie said as soon as they stepped outside. She let Will take the stroller so she could call Rose on their cell. “He is not okay.”

  “Maybe not. We caught him off-guard. He wasn’t expecting us.”

  “That’s true, but did you see how he walked?”

  “Arthritis is my guess. He’s old.”

  “How do they know him? Why is he here?”

  Annie dialed Rose’s number and listened to the echoing wires connecting overseas to the States. It would be very early morning in Massachusetts. “You’ve reached the Szabo residence. Leave your name.” Click. Rose’s message made no attempt to sound friendly. In this way, her old neighbor’s Hungarian roots, despite nearly fifty years of living in America, revealed itself. Earnest, serious people, Hungarians didn’t put on cheerful pretenses or offer gratuitous smiles the way Americans did.

  She spoke slowly into the phone in an effort to sound calm and clear. “It’s Annie. We’re fine. We just left your friend, Mr. Weiss. Honestly, he does not look well. Does he have a doctor here? Maybe it’s nothing, but I’ll feel better when I’ve talked to you. Call when you get this message. We miss you.”

  As soon as Annie hung up, the cell rang.

  “I was in the bathroom,” Rose said. “What happened?”

  “Your friend doesn’t look well. He looks feverish.”

  “He’s not well,” Rose said. “You are suffering terrible heat, yes?”

  “Yes. I think he should see a doctor. He was in pain. His stomach or legs—he limps. How do you know him? Why is he here?”

  “I can’t tell you, dear. You will have to trust me. He has a good doctor. I know this. There are good doctors in Budapest. Did he talk to you?”

  “Yes. He let us in. We saw your apartment. It’s nice. He was sweet with Leo.”

  “He’s a good man,” Rose said.

  “He wasn’t happy about our visit.”

  “No. But now you are friends?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that, but he said he would call us.”

  “Good. I knew he would like you.”

  “When did he get here?”

  “I can’t tell you. Maybe he will tell you. Listen. You know you can trust me, Annie. Remember what I used to do. You did the right thing. How is little Leo?”

  Annie remembered quite well what Rose used to do, and she thought back to the first time she learned of Rose’s involvement in the Jewish underground during the war. “I know how to keep a secret,” Rose had said, sitting across from Annie in a booth at a neighborhood restaurant in a strip mall. Rose had sounded stern, but her hazel eyes had filled with tears. Annie didn’t press. At the time, she was just getting to know Rose and wanted to respect the older woman’s privacy and the memories that clearly and understandably upset her. From then on, Annie felt conscious of Rose’s role as a Jewish woman from Hungary who had managed to make it to the States after the war, and how Rose responded to life in general, as if everything mattered intensely—whether i
t was sharing a recipe for a chocolate cake or the name of a landscaper or her husband’s uncertain health. Now, with an ocean between them, in different time zones, Annie accepted Rose’s authority on keeping confidences and followed her lead by detailing the list of Leo’s new words. But after she hung up, she couldn’t shake her uneasiness around Rose’s insistence on secrecy. And, yes, she understood in an abstract way what Rose had done during the war. But that was fifty years ago. A half century had passed. What did that have to do with Mr. Edward Weiss right now?

  “Bizarre,” she said to Will, catching up to him. He had continued down the block with Leo while she was on the phone. She repeated what Rose had said and waited for Will to offer some insight. “So what do you think?”

  “My advice? Don’t get caught up in this, Annie. We did what Rose asked us to do. We don’t have to do anything more.”

  It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.

  “He needs a doctor. He looked feverish.”

  “He’s a grown man. Do you want to go to Luigi’s for lunch?”

  “Yes. That’s fine.”

  They turned back onto the main avenue. At the very least, Annie thought, the Italian restaurant that catered to American expats would be air-conditioned. But the old man’s voice kept echoing: Keep an eye on your boy there. Watch out for thugs. Thugs—what an old-fashioned word. Of course she would. Of course she would watch her son.

  “Strange man,” Annie said, leaning over to give Leo a kiss.

  “Chew, chew,” Leo said, pointing to his shoes. He kicked the footrest, clapping it with his heels because he liked the sound of his new shoes tip tapping on the metal frame.

  “Yes, sweet. I’m glad you like your shoes.”

  She smiled and took a deep breath in an effort to lighten up. Innocence and oblivion in one refreshing package. Why not do what Hungarians do on summer weekends? Stroll. Eat. Stroll some more. If only she didn’t feel so restless amid the crush of pedestrians, which if viewed from above, looked like a giant organism undulating up and down the sidewalk. Again, she tried to put the visit with Mr. Weiss out of her mind, but his voice had found its way in. Traitors, too, if you know your history.

  “But aren’t you the least bit curious?” she said to Will, who, she could tell, was back in his own world, most likely thinking of all the meetings he had to set up, the money he needed to raise to launch his venture.

  “I’m sure he has his reasons. We don’t need to know what they are.”

  “Could explain the real reason Josef didn’t rent his flat to us,” she said, remembering how Josef had steered the conversation away from talk of Will and Annie’s renting his apartment. “If Mr. Weiss was living here, it would explain why Josef told us he didn’t want to rent it in case he needed it. Remember?” Annie said.

  “I remember. Or it could be simpler than that. He said it needed repairs. And he was right. Our place is much nicer.”

  They both laughed.

  “True,” she said. “It definitely needs a face-lift.”

  Back home in Stow, Massachusetts, Josef and Rose lived in a brick ranch that needed repair—Monet-like ripples stained their foyer’s ceiling from roof leaks. Josef probably knew his place wouldn’t be right for them. Annie and Will lived across the street in a white colonial—the contrast between the two homes like polar opposites, yet she grew to love her elderly neighbors with their sharp Hungarian accents. She and Will lived on that street before selling and coming to Budapest.

  Many a time Annie had stood in their foyer exchanging gardening tips, borrowing eggs, and listening to the older couple’s stories about Hungary. Josef talked about his apartment in Budapest, about World War II, about his escape from the Nazis by wearing a German uniform. He went on and on, rhapsodizing about Hungary like a possessed lover, his voice husky from years of smoking cigars, while Annie listened with fascination and sorrow.

  It was Rose who connected them with their Hungarian landlady and their lovely rental apartment located mere blocks from the Duna. The apartment was furnished, the wooden floors polished and shiny, and the price was cheap—75 percent less than what they would pay for the same space in the States.

  Annie felt her chest flattening again, her arms rubbing against walls of heat. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and remembered the glow on Mr. Weiss’s face, his peculiar intensity that she sensed had nothing to do with the summer heat wave. He reminded her of the men at the shelter in Boston where she’d worked. They had the same fevered expression from suffering too many heartbreaks and disappointments, all of them limping from injuries in their pasts, unable to escape addiction, mental health, war traumas. Hadn’t she come here to escape her past, too? She was a new mother who wanted to get away from the adoption agency that gave them Leo, and of course it all coincided with Will’s desire to escape corporate life and go out on his own. Again, she heard Mr. Weiss’s parting words: Keep an eye on your boy there.

  Three

  Edward listened through the door until he could no longer hear the baby chattering in the stairwell as the family descended the stairs. He returned to the kitchen to drink another glass of lukewarm water. As long as he stayed hydrated and didn’t exert himself, he would be okay. He took the blood sugar kit out of the drawer next to the sink and pricked his finger to measure his levels. He would be okay. He was fine right now. Hot. Christ. It was hot, but he would manage that. The digital numbers acceptable. For now, anyway.

  He avoided stepping on the spilled coffee grounds on the floor. The girl, Annie, was concerned about him—he could see that—but he would leverage it. She could help him.

  It was inevitable, their visit.

  Rose told him. She said they needed to know about him. “It is my job to look after you. You will have to trust me.” Trust. He didn’t trust. Nonetheless, he agreed.

  Look. He knew he could move into that new hotel downtown. Rose told him about that, too. Told him about the air-conditioning. Told him the hotel met American standards. She said their flat would not. Damn right. But he wanted anonymity. That was number one. He couldn’t get that at a hotel. He’d have to register at a hotel. He’d have to show his passport. He’d have to tell them how long he planned to stay—no, not what he wanted. He wanted this. What he had right now.

  He turned back to the living room to sit down. It was too hot to paint. The interruption, it rippled through the big room like a muted siren, sound waves disturbing the air. He needed to rest. Quiet things down, stop the motors running in his mind. Always the looping thoughts about his daughter and wife. This would do for now until he got situated. That was the thing. He would get himself in order.

  As soon as he sat down with the glass of water on the table next to him, the fan blowing hot air across his chest, he let his head nod, easing into the sound of the fan growing louder like an airplane taking off. He felt the air lifting underneath him, his body hovering, floating on top of waves.

  I’m not going to let this slide, he had told Sylvia.

  And where am I in this equation? she’d asked him.

  What equation? Who’s talking math?

  Me. I am.

  Sylvia wanted it to go away. All of it. The questions about their daughter Deborah and the pills. Vicodin. Miracle pain drug. What the death certificate said. Overdose. No. He didn’t believe it. No. Something wasn’t right.

  The sound of the fan and the soft cushion on his back disappeared into darkness. The sound of blowing fans, wing motors, plane engines. That was it. The plane. All of them wounded. He was the only one sick. The only noncombatant unwounded, yellow-sick with hepatitis. Yellow-eyed. Fatigued. Worse than now. His body jerked and he woke—saw the parquet floor, his easel and half-finished painting. Back here in Europe. Not war. Deborah. His daughter.

  He let out a groan. He knew about sick. This didn’t compare to that. In that field hospital for a couple of weeks or more. There with the American 106th Infantry Division, the ones captured by the Germans. Those men starving and wounded and eve
rything else you see in war. He had been the only sick one. White defecation. Took months to get rid of it. Not wounded. And they moved him to Paris by air, that hospital just near the tennis courts. What the hell was the name of that place?

  He put his hand on his chest, sweat soaking into his shirt. The whirring of fan blades, the afternoon hours whirring, too. Edward lay on the couch, the whole planet spinning, sinking into time’s shadows shimmering in his mind, the whole room, the whole strange city of people, and that scum who married Deborah was in Budapest, somewhere close to the river, so close he could feel him. Found a place by the river. Wish Deborah could see how beautiful it is here.

  Four

  A block from Luigi’s restaurant, they approached a pushcart florist on the corner selling roses and carnations. Good prices. Super cheap. Two dollars—two hundred forints—for an entire bouquet. The American dollar went a long, long way here.

  “Ower!” Leo leaned out of his canvas seat and pointed to flowers in vases on the pavement. Will stopped so Leo could look. A petite dark-skinned woman sidled over to Annie.

  “You want? Flower?” The Gypsy woman spoke in broken English, her dark eyes shining like moonlight.

  “No. Köszönöm. No thanks,” Annie said.

  Annie smiled, but the woman persisted, yanking a bouquet of pink carnations from a plastic pail and swinging it under Leo’s nose. Annie nodded.

  “Bell-ah. Yes?”

  “Yes, they’re lovely.”

  Leo reached out to touch them and the Gypsy woman zeroed in, holding the flowers for Leo to touch.

  “Dollar.” The woman raised two fingers.

  “Okay. All right. Igen.” Annie pulled out two hundred forints, but the woman shook her head.

  “American.”

  “While you get the flowers,” Will said, “I’ll check out that phone booth.” He pointed to a red phone booth a few blocks down a side street.

  “Please don’t be long,” she said. Phones were the reason Will left his job at Fendix. The majority of Hungarians didn’t have phones, neither landlines nor cell phones, so they used public phones owned and run by the state, located in colored booths on street corners like the one Will was off to inspect. Red phone booths were wired for long-distance calls only, silver for local calls, and blue for both. Will wanted to make private phones affordable.