The Corpse with the Ruby Lips

by Cathy Ace

  “I understand what you mean,” said Alexa, “but, honestly, they’re just fakes. You needn’t have worried. While he sleeps, we’ll take a few more away. We do it this way so he won’t notice. It’s not that they are dangerous, you see, I just don’t think the atmosphere they create is healthy—even though he says he needs them for his research.”

  Struggling to reassess the amount of danger I’d truly faced, I felt embarrassed at running off.

  “He always notices when we take things—if he’s having a lucid period, that is,” said Zsófia, seeming to not realize my consternation. “His collection is extremely well organized. He’s that way about everything. A place for everything, and everything in its place.”

  We were back in the salon when Alexa offered me another piece of cake. “The coffee’s cold now,” she said. “But there’s still wine.” She held up a half-empty bottle; I wondered if it was her second of the day. If it was, and she was still appearing to be only a little tipsy, I reckoned she must drink a great deal on a pretty regular basis. It had been that way with Angus; an alcoholic can function when they’ve glugged their way through enough booze to leave most non-alcoholics utterly incapacitated. I knew why Angus had drunk—to bury the feelings of loss he had about his own childhood, he always said. I wondered what it was that Alexa was using alcohol to wipe from her mind. Jack White’s recollections of her as a resilient young girl were from decades earlier.

  Finally, seated, though still shaking, I accepted the cake, hoping it would steady my nerves. I dragged my mind away from my concerns about Alexa, and decided the best thing I could do was try to comfort her. Despite the glass of wine in her hand, she looked genuinely concerned about my state. “Valentin was fine for most of the time, and he’s fiercely intelligent, highly perceptive. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to thin out his collection of deadly weapons a little—though I expect it causes a different sort of problem for you when he notices they’ve gone.”

  “You’re right,” replied Alexa. “He notices everything, when he is himself. But his periods of lucidity are now broken by longer periods when he’s not himself. He’s not always violent, of course. Just confused usually. And he tires so quickly these days, which means his good times are shorter and shorter.” She took a deep swig from her glass, almost without noticing, it seemed to me. “He wanders now, so we have to lock his rooms at night, otherwise he might do something bad.”

  I noticed her hand had begun to tremble. She placed the glass on a table and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. As she wiped at her tears, she and her daughter grasped each other’s hands.

  “Uncle’s such a worry for Mama,” said Zsófia. Her eyes were glassy with pain and tears.

  “I can understand that,” I replied. Stuck in the presence of two weeping women, with a half-eaten piece of cake in my hand, I did the only thing I could think of—I stuffed it into my mouth and chewed as fast as I could. I was beginning to get a grip on my own emotions, and felt ready to take the conversation forward when they were able.

  I had to wait a few moments until I sensed the time was right, then I took my chance. “While we were chatting about this and that, Valentin said a few things about the death of your mother, Alexa,” I lied. The woman looked shocked. “Coming from UVan as I do, the tragedy of your mother’s death is well known to me. Is it something you and your brother ever talk about?”

  Alexa stared, open-mouthed, at me, and I could tell Zsófia was pretending to be surprised.

  “My brother spoke to you about our mother’s murder?” asked Alexa finally. Every syllable dripped with disbelief.

  “He did.”

  “I’m amazed,” she said, looking it. “He’s never, ever talked to me about it. I’m his sister. Why on earth would he say anything to you—a complete stranger?”

  I felt I had to tread carefully, and I didn’t want to reveal Zsófia’s private request. “Maybe because I’m a psychologist and he felt I could help him work through something?” I ventured.

  Alexa drained her glass. “Like what?” she snapped. I noticed her daughter wasn’t making eye contact with either of us.

  “Alexa, I don’t know the extent to which your brother was speaking about real facts or something he’s maybe imagined, so do you mind if I ask you some direct questions? They might be difficult for you to tackle, though.”

  Alexa plonked her empty glass on the table and flung back her head, her tearful eyes glittering. “Ask away,” she said as though throwing down a gauntlet.

  “Did your father take you and your brother to see your mother’s remains in the morgue?”

  Zsófia’s sharp intake of breath drew a sideways glance from her mother. Nostrils flaring, head still held high, Alexa said, “He did.”

  “Oh, Mama, that’s terrible. I couldn’t look at you—like that. Why did Grandfather make you do that?”

  I could see a vein in Alexa’s neck throb as she replied, “It was good for us, Zsófia. We needed to understand our mother was gone, and the best way for us to realize that was to see her dead. A coffin is nothing. It’s just a box. To know a person is gone you have to see them, feel that the life has left their body. Even an open casket, with a body primped and prepared so it looks like the person is just sleeping, doesn’t help. You have to touch their wounds. You have to feel the death.”

  As the grown woman in front of me spoke I knew she wasn’t the one forming the words; her father had given them to her when she was no more than a child, and she was passing them on to us.

  I ventured, “With your father being a renowned psychologist, and understanding the psychological role of closure, I still have to say you were very young at the time, Alexa. Maybe seeing your mother that way was a little harsh.” I had decided to understate my own reaction in order to try to find out how the experience had made Alexa, and Valentin, feel. “As Valentin was speaking to me about this event, I noticed he clenched his fists, which suggests to me he was holding tight to the memory and the anger it made him feel. He told me you and he were holding each other’s hands, but your father pulled you apart. As I said, I realize you were just a young girl at the time, but could you maybe try to explain to me how that event made you feel? I didn’t have the chance to ask your brother.”

  Alexa studied the ceiling as she appeared to think about my question. Her fingers moved as though she was trying to grasp memories in the air. “I don’t remember holding Valentin’s hand. What I remember is Kristóf placing my fingers almost inside the wound on Ilona’s head, telling me to feel the edges of the cracks in her skull. That was how I would know her life had gone, he said.”

  Pushing aside the horror I felt at imagining poor little Alexa being made to perform such a cruel and nauseating act, I noticed she, as well as Valentin, used her parents’ given names rather than their parental titles. It was puzzling, so I took my chance to ask why.

  Alexa’s tone suggested she felt she was on firmer ground when she answered, “When I was little, Valentin always called them Kristóf and Ilona—so I did too. They never said I should call them anything else.” It seemed to be completely natural for her, so I told myself maybe there was no deeply suggestive reason for it, after all. “Names are just words. What does ‘father’ or ‘mother’ mean?”

  Fat tears rolled down Zsófia’s youthful cheeks as she looked at her mother’s impassive expression. “Oh, Mama,” was all she could manage. Then, “I didn’t know Grandfather made you touch Grandmother’s corpse. How horrible for you.”

  Alexa tossed her head and screwed up her face. “I got it. Of course I got it that Ilona—my mother—was dead. Gone forever. Kristóf told me I would be the woman of the household from then on, and that’s what I became. I looked after him—and Valentin, of course. I ran the house. They didn’t help much. I grew up that day.”

  “But Valentin didn’t, did he?” I said.

  Alexa’s chin fell, and she pinched her bottom lip between her fingers. “No, he didn’t. You’re right. I grew up, but he becam
e like a little boy again.” She looked at me as though begging for my understanding. “I’d always thought of him as grown-up, you see. My big brother, Valentin. But after that? He changed so much.” She reached for her daughter’s hand, not making eye contact. “Kristóf didn’t see it. He seemed to think Valentin had been ‘cured’ when he came out of hospital that first time, but I knew he was still horribly unhappy. Kristóf didn’t even spot that my brother was taking drugs; I had to tell him.”

  “Uncle Valentin did drugs?” Zsófia sounded surprised. Turning to me she added, “He always says he hates taking any medications because they make him feel not like himself.”

  “That’s exactly why he took the stuff back then,” said Alexa, a wry chuckle coloring her tone. “Of course, I was just a kid, but I knew generally what was going on. Guys would turn up at our house to sell him whatever it was he was taking. All times of the day, but always when Valentin and I were alone. I didn’t know what he was taking; I just knew it wasn’t right. So I told Kristóf.” Alexa paused and looked at her daughter with great affection. “I tried to be a good girl for my father, as you always were for yours, my darling child. You were your father’s princess, as I was for mine. Kristóf went nuts, of course. I’d never seen him so angry. Ever. Valentin hadn’t left the house much for about a year after Ilona’s death, but when Kristóf screamed at him that he couldn’t go out at all for a month—that he was grounded—Valentin took it as more of a punishment than I’d expected he would. That’s when his tantrums began.”

  “Might your brother have been going through withdrawal?” I asked gently.

  Alexa furrowed her brow, poured the final drops from the bottle of wine into her glass, and sipped. “I guess, but young as I was, how would I have known? Kristóf locked him in his room for weeks. There was a lot of anger in our home, even more than there had been before Ilona died. There was screaming, and begging. Maybe you’re right, Cait. Perhaps that’s what it was—withdrawal. But withdrawal from what, I don’t know.”

  “What about afterward, Mama?” asked the woman’s daughter gently.

  Alexa smiled, dangling her glass between her fingers with an ease borne of great experience. “For a while it was okay again. Kristóf and Valentin would go for long walks and come back full of fun and stories about what they’d seen on the trails. I was keeping house at the time, the best way a teen could, so I recall we had a lot of easy-to-cook meals. I’d make up lists and Kristóf would do the shopping; we’d all share the cleaning. Well, I guess we didn’t do much cleaning really, because Kristóf and I were out all day—I kept up my grades throughout school you know,” she looked proud for a brief moment, “and Valentin didn’t care about that sort of thing.” She paused, and her face fell. “Then it changed again. The winter came and Kristóf got busy at school, I guess. That was when Valentin first got into trouble with the police. I remember they brought him home one night in a cop car. Kristóf went berserk, locked him in his room, and we repeated the pattern all over again. I don’t know how often all that happened. Lots of times.”

  “Poor Mama,” said Zsófia, touching her mother gently on the leg.

  “It must have been tough for you,” I said.

  Looking haggard, Alexa replied weakly, “I guess. I don’t think I really had a childhood after Ilona was killed. I was done with being a kid, and I’ve been Valentin’s guardian ever since.” For the first time I noticed she was slurring a little.

  I felt it was time to leave, and said so, but had a final request to add. “I wonder if I could beg a set of Valentin’s books, so I can read up on his work? I’ll take good care of them, but maybe you have some here that aren’t first editions?”

  “Sure,” said Alexa heavily, looking at her daughter. “You can bring them back when you come for your next visit.”

  “Let me get that sorted for you, Cait,” said Zsófia, rising. “We’ll pick them up as you leave.”

  All finally standing, I was hugged by Alexa, who swayed a little as I held her, and I promised to return, as she’d asked.

  I pulled on my coat beside the front door as Zsófia packed a set of five fat books in two bags. “I’ll read these, and I’ll pass on what I’ve learned today to my husband in Canada, okay?” I checked.

  “Please,” replied Zsófia, her eyes pink and raw. “Thanks for not mentioning that I asked you to do all this. But I think now you can see it’s not just me who needs help. We all do.” She hugged me, and then I left.

  As I made my way to the metro station, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of the sadness in the home I’d just left. I knew a fair bit about alcoholism—living with Angus for years had taught me some harsh lessons. It sounded as though Valentin had reacted to his mother’s murder almost instantly, with a state of nervous collapse followed by drug use. Maybe alcohol was Alexa’s way of “managing” the grief she felt over the loss of not only her mother decades ago but also her seemingly beloved father, her husband, and now her brother who, though still physically present, was no longer the person he once had been. I was pretty impressed by how Zsófia had managed to handle her home life and still be the bright, optimistic, hardworking young thing she was. Good for her.

  Conversations Afloat

  THE WORKWEEK FLEW BY WITH little passing between Bud and myself that wasn’t a health update on his mother, or a rant about all of the poisonous emails flying around my department back at UVan. There really wasn’t much either of us could do about the Ilona Seszták case, because he was waiting on developments regarding access to old files, and I had grading to get through and my research paper to keep on top of.

  By Friday night I was feeling the strain, but was finally clear of my purely academic commitments for a couple of days, and I knew I had reached a vital “stewing” point in my paper; sometimes I have to let things sit in my brain for a while before they finally crystallize and deign to come out of my fingertips onto the keyboard. A break was in order, and I wanted to plow through the five volumes of the Bloodline Saga before Sunday, when I’d been invited to return to the Seszták/Takács household. By the time I was munching my way through a platter of cheese and crusty, fresh bread for lunch on Saturday, I was so familiar with the world Valentin had created within his books I felt as though the view beyond my window was the dream and the violent realm he described so vividly was reality.

  It had been a long time since I’d read such a large dose of fiction, and I was quite enjoying it—despite the blood and gore—so the last thing I felt like doing was spending a Saturday evening on a riverboat with my students, but that was what had been planned for me. Being an ambassador for UVan at the HUB had its responsibilities, whatever might be going on back at my department.

  Like everyone who’s ever visited Budapest, I’d seen the dinner boats tied up along the Pest side of the river between the iconic Széchenyi Chain Bridge and the Elizabeth Bridge. All I had to go on was a sailing time and a dock number, so I splurged on a taxi to take me from my apartment to the right spot, because I really didn’t fancy tottering along the edge of the Danube looking for the right boat to board on what was turning out to be a bitterly cold late afternoon.

  My heart sank when I saw the vessel in question; the oldest of the lot, it had open balconies atop, and lower decks with windows someone had seen fit to open halfway. I walked the rickety gangplank with apprehension, and entered the main body hoping the only thing that would sink that night would be my heart. Once inside I could see why someone had opened the windows; I’d cut my arrival close to sailing time, and a hundred or more warm bodies had already created a good deal of humidity in the gloomy dark-wood interior.

  Just when I thought the prospect of the evening’s festivities couldn’t get any worse, I felt a hand grab my elbow and I spun around to find myself facing Patrik Matyas.

  “Cait! How wonderful, you came. I told the doubters you would. Good for you. The cloakroom is at the stern, near the WC, and the bar’s at the other end. Why don’t you drop off your coat while I g
et you a drink?” He sported a particularly flamboyant, floppy bowtie with scarlet and yellow stripes, and was almost vibrating with excitement.

  I tried to not sigh while accepting his offer as graciously as possible, and asked for a Soproni. As I lined up to hand off my heavy outerwear, exchanging pleasantries with the few students, staff, and faculty I recognized, I began to hope the beer would be cold, because the boat was stifling, despite the open windows. I also wondered why that odious, grinning little man had said some people thought I wouldn’t show up. Why on earth would anyone think that? I’d been working really hard at being the most affable version of myself whenever I talked to anyone at the HUB. Was I really that transparent? Did I come over as standoffish? I felt quite unsettled.

  The boat was underway by the time I reconnected with Patrik. I was at least relieved to see my beer bottle was dripping with condensation and promised immediate refreshment. I made sure I didn’t grab when I took it from the man’s damp hand and held it toward him saying, “Egészségedre,” which I made sound like “eggy sheggy drey.” I might have an eidetic memory that allows me to learn most of what I need of a new language pretty quickly, but my pronunciation is often mangled by my Welsh accent, so I was hoping for at least a smile at my attempt, but Patrik glared at me. I added, “Was I that hopeless at saying ‘Cheers’ in Hungarian?”

  My fellow professor’s face was a picture of prudish disdain as he whined, “Since 1848, when the Austrians clinked their bottles and glasses and shouted ‘Cheers’ to each other in celebration of defeating our brave national heroes, no self-respecting Hungarian has done this. It is not what true Hungarians do.”

  I couldn’t help but notice pretty much every other Hungarian on the boat was proving him wrong, but I let it pass with no more than a mumbled apology, and glugged my beer. He did likewise, and we fell into an awkward silence for at least two minutes. I found I’d all but finished my beer already, and I spotted an escape route. “I was rather thirsty, Patrik, and it’s quite warm in here. How about I get us another?”