Strangers in Budapest

by Jessica Keener

  “How can I help?”

  Again, the shadow of that day on the driveway in Maine, a shriek, her father jumping from the car he was backing up. Was that it? Tracy’s brain injury dominated everything from that point on. Annie was pushed aside. Greg bore the guilt. Her father removed himself. Her mother devoted everything to Tracy, to make the impossible seem right.

  “You come to this country, you think you’re far away from home, but you’re not, Annie. It comes with you.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Some weeks ago. That’s not important.”

  “When did your daughter—Deborah—die?”

  “Murdered. She didn’t die.”

  She looked at the windows again, at the fan, trying to make sense of what was incomprehensible. What kind of unsafe territory was this? She saw him watching her reaction.

  “You’re scared,” he said.

  She started to shrug it off, but she couldn’t.

  “Yes. I don’t know.”

  “He’s here. I have to find him. I will find him.”

  “Does Rose know about this?”

  “That I’m here to find him?” He flicked his eyes away, a hesitation. “Yes.”

  Surprised, she felt confused, unbalanced by this new information.

  “You’re involved in the expat community, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Will is, much more than I am. I’ve been lax about it.” She spoke slowly. “But I know a few women. I had lunch with some recently. Why?”

  “I understand it’s a pretty small group—a few thousand at most. Maybe you’ve run into him?”

  She felt exposed. The sparseness of the room. The ridiculous fan creaking as it turned. The air conditioner shuddering on and off. The old man in his pajamas. She felt a moment of insanity, the wrinkle in consciousness when you wonder if you are awake, making sense. What was she doing here?

  “I’ve scared you,” Edward said again. “Tell me the truth. I’ll stop right now.”

  “Yes, but I’m okay.” His acknowledgment calmed her, even emboldened her. “Please. Go on.” She came to Budapest to live a full life, a genuine life, to get out of her shell of fears. “What is it you would like me to do?”

  “Look, I’ve done my research. The expat community is a small group. It’s easy to find Americans. You could help me locate him. He lives by the river.”

  “I see.”

  She crossed her legs, thinking of their aborted drive by the river the other day, his eyes burning—the way he looked at her when they came to the apartment the first time. Maybe he was crazy. Or maybe she was paranoid. She didn’t know. She swallowed. Her tongue felt dried up.

  “Let me get some water.”

  She went back to the kitchen, refilling her glass, telling herself that if Rose knew about it, something about this would be all right. She felt her phone in her back pocket. She could call Will. The white porcelain sink held three saucers, a fork, a pot. Simple, lonely objects. Should she leave or stay? Only the thought of Rose centered her. She returned to the living room and sat on the edge of the chair thinking Leo was safe with Klara. She was glad she hadn’t brought him here.

  “Look, forget it. I’ve scared you. The hell with it.”

  “I’m trying to make sense—”

  “There’s no sense to it! God damn it! None.”

  He pulled himself up from the chair, agitated, his face twisting in pain. Should she run? Was he having a heart attack?

  “I need to rest,” he said.

  “I’ll help you,” she said, the words spilling out of her before she understood what she was saying or agreeing to.

  But instead of calming him, he grunted and walked to the door, and unlocked it.

  “Look, I don’t have time for fakers and liars, understand? Think it over. You want to help me, fine. If not, que sera. We can both agree to leave each other alone. Make up your mind. My daughter was murdered, understand?”

  She stood at the door, her heart speeding.

  “I’ll talk to Will. Maybe he’s heard something. When should I come back?”

  “I’m here.”

  She opened the door and let herself out.

  Fifteen

  Outside, she walked away from the plain brick building but not from the impact of Mr. Weiss’s words still expanding in her chest, stretching her lungs to something thin and taut. She sucked on the thick, warm air, thoughts of his murdered child filling her mind. His daughter. Now it was coming together, the picture of him. She needed to think logically. She would talk to Will. No. She wouldn’t talk to Will. He would advise her to step back. Don’t try to save him. You can’t save him, she could hear him saying. Take care of yourself.

  Will wouldn’t like it. Maybe it was better to say nothing. Delay telling him. That’s it. She wouldn’t say anything. Not yet. Getting herself entangled when they had their own concerns? What had she walked into? Why couldn’t she resist?

  She started to cross the street when a tiny red car honked and startled her, the woman driver skidding toward the next traffic stop. Annie stepped back on the curb to collect herself. She should go home, but she was too upset, disoriented. She turned and headed for the flower cart to see if the Gypsy woman was there. Maybe she was part of the wallet-theft racket. Everything felt elusive as she moved through the crowded sidewalks in her jogging shorts and sneakers. She did not fit in.

  Nor did Mr. Weiss. Edward. Strange man.

  And murder.

  She bumped into a man on the sidewalk who had stopped to light a cigarette.

  “Pardon,” she said, that word that cupped the universal sound of apology. Pardon. The man nodded. He was middle age, dressed in a business shirt and dark pants, his thinning hair sweaty from the hazy heat. What deaths lay hidden in his family chest? she wondered. Annie took in the crowds passing her—professional, all of them, with indifferent, secret eyes. What had they seen? What did they know? She imagined that every Hungarian who had lived through the wars knew of bloodstains hidden somewhere in their lives. And every American? She saw a flicker again, a shadow of Greg hurling his white baseball, a white flash in the air, and screaming her name. Annie! Get out of the way!

  What was it? She shook her head and looked around her. She felt dizzy. She purchased a bottle of water from a corner store and moved into the shadow of a stone building. The city was swirling. Trolleys dinging their bells, sliding along circular paths from one crowded district to the next—odorous minicars skimming like oil drops on water across avenues, exhaust smelling like sulfur. It’s because they run on two-cycle engines, Will had explained. You have to put oil in with the gas. Look it up, he said.

  When the traffic light turned, she crossed the boulevard and walked alongside the river. She needed to get home to relieve Klara, to see her Leo, to center herself. But her tears spilled over, soaking her cheeks. She needed to calm down, stop crying. She wiped away more tears.

  The river smelled rusty and let off a cooler draft. A ferry heading for Vienna flushed up white foam, a widening trail of bubbles. She paused to watch it. She and Will should take that boat. Leo would like the ride.

  MURDER AND BLOODSHED stained this very river decades ago, this river of history running alongside her, deadly and silent, its brown, swirling surface hiding bloodied dreams and despair. She thought of Will. His mother or father might have been one of those children, a Jew protected by nuns, but fate placed them both in America before the war, not here, where fifteen thousand Jews were hacked down on the banks of this river, shot by sick, pro-Nazi vigilantes. How could Hungarians stand it? How could she? How could Will, a Jew, live here, too?

  Her mind sank into a pool of bitter feelings. The truth was: Mr. Weiss was right. She wasn’t happy. She was afraid. She didn’t want anyone taking her child. What place was truly safe?

  Murder and Mr. Weiss. He had come all the way here looking for a killer. What would she do in his situation? A bloodless murder. How many hundreds of Hungarians walking on this very street ha
d been deadened by the murder of their loved ones?

  Annie felt for Mr. Weiss, understood that hope was no longer in his vocabulary. She’d seen it in her parents after Tracy’s injury. For years, they tried to cure her sister’s seizures, the ones that came after the accident. Experimental surgeries slowed but didn’t stop the downward turn of her life. Medications dulled her mind. Tracy became wheelchair dependent. The worse she got, the worse Greg got. Their brother drank. He couldn’t hold jobs longer than a few months. And then there was Annie, the witness, the one who lived through her family’s private grief, who listened to her mother cry behind closed bedroom doors—her father not there, too busy rambling through empty buildings, assessing them, buying and selling them, obsessed with converting them to usable space. All these memories glutted her mind.

  Up ahead, an elderly woman and her tiny dog meandered along the stone wall next to the river. The dog hunched over to poop on the pavement. People didn’t pick up their dog waste here. Piles of it corroded the hot air. Did people not care? Had they simply given up? Is this what had happened to Mr. Weiss? Is that why he came to this city: to chase after some crazy notion in the rest of his empty life?

  SHE KEPT GOING in pursuit of a positive thought. She needed to right herself. She was late, past her promised time of return to her flat. Surely this city had more to offer. Even the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, had come here to film his newest music video. Another American leaving a territorial mark, another male dog pissing on a tree?

  Will was having yet another meeting with Dave from General Electric, and with Bernardo. A lot was riding on these meetings, or maybe nothing was riding on them. If only one of these rendezvous would lead to something concrete. If only Will or somebody could convince the mayor from that City of Kings to sign onto his cable business, his venture could get some traction. If only. If only. She almost didn’t care anymore. How bad was that?

  Next to the Duna, she stopped again, surprised by the beauty of flowering gardens bordering the Parliament, a massive gray building inspired by Britain’s Westminster Abbey. Two football fields wide, it looked like the fortress it was, built a hundred years ago to protect Hungary’s constantly shifting borders. Hungary had been through so many regimes over so many centuries.

  Over by the rose hedges, she spied three dark-skinned Gypsy girls —Roma, she remembered Jane correcting —crouching as they pulled and snapped off roses. They were thin-limbed, with dark, round eyes, wearing the same long skirts and cotton blouses as the two girls at the flower stall. She recognized the taller one, who spotted Annie and walked directly up to her. The Roma held out her hand, offering Annie the stolen flower for sale. Annie noticed a small mole on the girl’s lip.

  “Dollar,” the girl said.

  Annie hesitated. She wanted to give these girls money, but the rose was taken from public property, so she shook her head. “Nem.” She made a disapproving face and pointed to the rosebushes. “You shouldn’t do that. Nem.”

  The other two ran over and the three girls giggled and started to dance in a circle in front of her. Annie was spellbound, confused, and captivated by their persistence as they danced in a ring around her—all of them barefooted. Even as Annie began to move away, they followed, pumping their hips and twirling in an effort to entertain her. The tallest girl smiled, showing big white teeth, looking right into Annie’s eyes, daring her with her hand held open for money. Annie knew she was the same girl she had seen outside Luigi’s. Maybe the third girl was a sister, too—all of them too young to be running about without an adult in this city of millions.

  Annie refused to take the flower from her. Instead, she gave each girl one hundred forints—one dollar each—a fortune for them. The girls shrieked and ran off.

  Tired of wallowing in self-pity, Annie headed toward the main boulevard and hopped a number 2 trolley. The tram ran along the river and offered a full view of Castle Hill across the river. She walked to a window seat and sat down. The bus was mostly empty this time of day except for a small clique of young men sitting at the far end. They dressed like the super’s son: black pants, black heavy boots, black leather jackets, a crazy thing in this heat. But this group had shaved heads. Skinheads. Metal chains dangled from their jacket pockets. It was a look, all right, and a scary one. She made the mistake of looking directly at one of the boys, who shouted something at her. She turned away to view the river again. Someone banged what sounded like a stick against the seat. “Fuck American! Fuck American!” This brought on an explosion of sinister laughter.

  She refused to turn, her body stiff against the insult. The man driving the trolley car up front didn’t move. Maybe he was scared, too. She didn’t know. She walked to the front and stood next to the driver for protection. When the trolley stopped and the doors flipped open, she forced herself to slowly walk down three steps to the pavement. She made herself wait until the trolley sidled past her, until she saw the boys’ ugly faces pushing against the window glass, their tongues flashing. And then she ran. She sprinted down the pavement toward home, away from those angry young men.

  Sixteen

  In the elevator, no super in sight, thank goodness, she rode up to her floor. First Germans come, then Russians, now you Americans, her Hungarian neighbor had said as a joke some weeks ago when she shared the elevator with him. His shoulders shook with laughter. He avoided direct eye contact, observing her from a sidelong glance as she’d seen so many Hungarians do. And though she knew he was trying to be friendly, his humor struck her as a backhanded way of telling her—albeit nicely—to go home. She had smiled at him because that’s what Americans liked to do. Smile. Act like the world was theirs to do as they pleased. Behave like winners.

  Today she counted seven beers on the welcome mat in front of his door as she wiggled the key to open her apartment. Klara was in the kitchen, handing Leo pieces of cheese as he sat in his high chair. “Hi, sweet pea.” She kissed her son, then poured herself a glass of water and stood by the window fan. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Nem probléma.”

  Maybe it was time they succumbed and bought an air-conditioning unit. If Edward could get one, so could she. Hadn’t she had enough of her “when in Budapest, do as the Budapestians do” silliness? She stroked Leo’s head.

  The kitchen was a cheerful, tiny room with grand views of the Duna and Castle Hill on the hilly side of Budapest. White marble floors and pretty golden pine paneling on the kitchen walls gave the small space an alpine feel: light and airy.

  “He is hungry today,” Klara said.

  “Another growth spurt, pumpkin?” Annie kissed him again.

  “Igen. I think so.” Klara looked apologetic when she smiled, as if smiling were indulgent or dishonest or not cool. She usually braided her hair in two pigtails, but today she wore her brown hair in a single ponytail.

  “Where do the Roma live?”

  “Gypsies? In the seventh and eighth districts. They are very poor.”

  The lower-numbered districts were closest to the center. Higher-numbered districts expanded outward from the center like the arrondissements in Paris. The eighth was about a forty-five-minute walk from the flat.

  Klara lined up another battalion of cheese squares on Leo’s plate. He tried picking one up with two fingers, but the cheese slipped away, dropping to the floor, his fingers not yet able to follow his mind’s instructions. He was on track, though. All developmental milestones met on time or early.

  “Do you know any of them personally?”

  “No.” Klara stooped to pick up the cheese and placed it in a trash can under the sink. “Some Gypsies live in Sandor’s building.”

  “He lives in the eighth?”

  “Igen.”

  Victorious, Leo held up a piece of cheese. “Jeeze, jeeze,” he said, putting a piece in his mouth.

  “Why are they treated so poorly here?”

  Klara shrugged again. “It is the way. They are Gypsies. Not Hungarians.”

  “I don’t understand. The
Gypsies have lived in Hungary for hundreds of years.”

  “But they are not pure Hungarian.”

  Annie looked at Klara. “Did you say pure? You know that’s how the Holocaust got started, with talk like that.”

  “Nem. I don’t think so,” Klara said, shaking her head. “It is not the same.”

  “Up up,” Leo said, stretching his arms out. Annie removed him from his seat to the floor, and she and Klara followed him down the hall to his room, which stayed neat and clean because of Klara’s efforts.

  “Well, it doesn’t sound right to me,” Annie said, her anger rising. “Think about what you are saying.” She adored Klara but this “pure” talk upset her. She couldn’t get a handle on why Klara didn’t question her attitude about Gypsies—Roma.

  “I am sorry. Maybe my English doesn’t explain it. Talk to Sandor,” Klara said. “He explain better.”

  Leo flopped on the floor and began playing with his favorite wooden puzzle.

  “Eye-ger,” he said, putting a tiger-shaped piece in the correct slot.

  “Tiger. Good, sweetie.”

  They heard Sandor knocking on the door. He came most days to walk Klara home. Leo hurried to the door, reaching his arms up when Annie let Sandor in.

  “Hello, kicsi baba.”

  Sandor lifted the baby and set him down again. “I will spin for you.”

  They watched Leo walk back to his room and return with a spinning toy, which he handed to Sandor. Annie laughed. Clearly this was a familiar game between them.

  “He is good today,” Sandor said.

  She nodded and said, “Klara told me Gypsies live in your building.”

  “Igen.”

  “Do you know the family?”