District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  MAGYAR NEMZETI FRONT CLAIMS LATEST ATTACKS ON MIGRANTS

  555.hu reporters

  Eight migrants, including three women and children, were taken to hospital yesterday after they were assaulted by thugs wearing masks. The group, composed of three families from Syria and Iraq, had crossed the border at Kelebia and were approaching a line of taxi drivers when around half a dozen men attacked them.

  The article detailed how the assailants wore black trousers and T-shirts and ski masks. They had pushed and shoved the women and children and screamed abuse at them. The serious violence was reserved for the menfolk, all of whom were beaten, one until he was unconscious. Balthazar noted how the article had no byline. The MNF had first appeared six months ago, in the spring, as the migrant crisis grew. Several reporters covering the group had received threatening telephone calls and emails. Balthazar had heard that one journalist at 555.hu had been sent a video clip of his journey home to his wife and young child. The article ended with a quote from the government’s spokesman: ‘We ask our compatriots to channel their outrage at the daily breaches of our sovereignty and territorial integrity through legal means and channels.’

  The siren was much louder now. Its howl filled the bus as the vehicle pulled over to the side. It halted between stops, halfway down Thokoly Way, two stops from Keleti Station. The traffic on both sides quickly parted. Two motorcycle outriders sped down the middle of the road, flashing blue lights mounted on their black fairings, in front of two Gendarmerie vans.

  Balthazar looked out of the window to see if he recognised the riders. They were not wearing police uniforms, but were dressed in black leathers with no insignia or name tags. Instead of the usual open-face helmets, they wore the full-face version with tinted visors. A motorcade followed in the motorcyclists’ wake: an S-class Mercedes saloon with blacked-out windows, two more Gendarmerie vans behind them and two more motorcycle outriders at the rear. Balthazar could just make out the number plate on the Mercedes as it swept past: MEH-005. Miniszterelnoki hivatal: the prime minister’s office. Not the prime minister himself, whose number plate was MEH-001, but the fifth most important person in the building.

  It was noon and the bus was half empty. The passengers grumbled at the delay. There was no air-conditioning and the grimy windows only opened inwards, at the top. No air circulated at all while the vehicle was stationary. It would have been quicker to take a police car from the police headquarters on Teve Street, marked or unmarked, and drive it to Keleti, but he had wanted some time to think, and to get the sense of the city. Balthazar had travelled by metro to Zuglo, a green suburb in the north of the city, then taken the 8E, which stopped right outside Keleti. His plan had been to call in station CCTV feeds, ask around among the migrants about the dead man, then check in with MigSzol, Migrant Solidarity, the charity that had set up shop in a row of unused offices in the Transit Zone. After that, he would walk down Rakoczi Way to Luther Street and Republic Square. Even if he could not get the municipal CCTV from the interchange at Keleti, or inside the station, there were a number of shops on Rakoczi Way that used street-facing CCTV, especially the Arab-owned moneychangers at number 46.

  Balthazar reached inside his shirt pocket and took out the evidence bag that Sandor Takacs had returned to him with the SIM card inside. He turned it round in his hand. Whose SIM card was it? The dead man’s or someone else’s? Whoever the card belonged to, its call log and contact numbers needed to be stripped out. A crime had been committed, probably a murder. The SIM card and the photograph on his phone were the only evidence he had. The evidence bag was the smallest size. He folded it several times and jammed it into the ticket pocket of his jeans, pushing it down as far as he could into the tight space, feeling the edge of the SIM card against his finger. It wasn’t ideal, but would do for now, until he got home.

  Meanwhile, the traffic was solid and the bus was stuck at the side of the road. The passengers’ muttering was getting louder and more bad-tempered. If the government wanted to use its tame television stations, newspapers and websites to pump out propaganda about the migrant menace and unsettle the population, it was succeeding. Tempers had been fraying all summer and the atmosphere was ever more febrile. The kanikula only made things worse. Slights, real or imagined, quickly turned into fights. Two young men had nearly come to blows in the metro over the last empty seat in the carriage. Balthazar had been about to intervene when one had backed down at the last moment.

  Across the aisle of the bus sat a young woman in her early twenties, absorbed in her mobile telephone. She had dyed red hair, pencilled-on eyebrows and the orange remnants of a solarium tan. She wore a tight denim skirt and a red T-shirt with sweat marks under her armpits. Two large plastic bags filled with apples sat on her lap.

  Balthazar watched as an elderly woman pointed at the fruit. ‘Hallo, draga, darling. Those look like lovely Hungarian apples. Got one for me?’

  The young woman looked up, smiled and handed her an apple.

  ‘Thanks. What are you doing with the rest? Taking them to the market?’ asked the elderly woman through a mouthful of chewed fruit. Her straggly grey hair was pinned up and she wore a stained floral housedress.

  The young woman’s smile lit up her face. ‘I’m going to Keleti. They are for the refugee kids. I saw a report last night on television. All those children, living outside. No toys, no proper food.’ She looked at the bags of fruit. ‘These are from my uncle’s orchard.’

  The elderly lady stopped chewing. ‘Does he know what you are doing with them?’

  The young woman looked puzzled. ‘Of course. It was his idea. It’s so sad to see how these poor people have to live. They don’t even have enough toilets.’

  The elderly lady looked at the apple with distaste. ‘No it’s not. Nobody asked them to come here. Hungary is for Hungarians. Not all these Arabs and Muslims. They don’t fit in here. They don’t know our culture.’

  The young woman frowned. ‘But they don’t want to stay. They want to go to Germany. They would all be gone tomorrow if the government opened the border. They are just human beings, like us.’

  The elderly woman’s face creased in sour anger. ‘I told you,’ she exclaimed, almost shouting now as other passengers turned to watch. ‘Hungary for Hungarians. That’s how it is. And always will be.’ She took one more bite of the apple and threw the rest out of the window. A middle-aged man in a rumpled grey suit clapped enthusiastically. The red-haired woman turned away, embarrassed.

  Balthazar looked at her. She caught his eye, her head bowed, clearly very unsettled by the exchange. He smiled encouragingly. ‘You are doing the right thing.’

  The redhead smiled gratefully and offered Balthazar an apple. He smiled and she threw it across the aisle. Balthazar caught it in one hand. The elderly lady watched and began swearing volubly. Balthazar stood up and walked over to her. She glared at him from her seat, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ‘First the Arabs. Now it’s the Gypsies. What next, the fucking Jews?’

  Balthazar opened his wallet and showed her his police ID. ‘The fucking police, actually.’ The woman was blind in one eye, he saw. He softened his tone. ‘Take my advice, Grandma, and give it a rest.’

  She turned and stared out of the window, still muttering to herself.

  FOUR

  Editorial offices of 555.hu, 2 Jozsef Boulevard, 12.00 p.m.

  A brisk ten-minute walk south of Keleti Station, in a high-ceilinged, five-roomed flat of faded art nouveau grandeur, Zsuzsa Barcsy marched across the 555.hu newsroom and stopped in front of Eniko Szalay’s desk, iPhone in hand. ‘You’re famous,’ she exclaimed. ‘Even more famous.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m also busy, Zsuzsa,’ said Eniko, keeping her eyes on her computer monitor. She had three browser windows open and an email half-written. One window showed the 555. hu website. Her story on the refugees dressed as Gypsies was still the lead, with 687 comments and more than a thousand shares, a high feedback rate for a country whose population was barely ten million
. The second, the in-house website tracker, showed the hits on her page, which were running at several thousand an hour. She was way out ahead of her colleagues. Her nearest rival, the football correspondent, had barely half as many. The third window showed the results of her Google news search for her article. Her story, she was pleased to see, had been picked up by the local correspondents for the Associated Press, Reuters and the BBC, which in turn had triggered a second wave of mentions around the world.

  Eniko quickly wrote an email to all three, thanking them for the mention and offering to help if they needed more information. One question remained unanswered. Who was her source? An email had arrived three days earlier, tipping Eniko off. She searched her inbox now:

  From: keletiwatcher@freemail.hu

  To: szalay.eniko@555.hu

  Who was keletiwatcher? Clearly, someone who spent a lot of time at the station. The text of the email was long and comparatively detailed, outlining how the people-smugglers operated from the nearby cafés and kebab houses and a particular set of benches in the centre of Republic Square, in front of the children’s playground. Eniko had spent most of a day checking the locations, spending several hours simply walking around Keleti and its environs, people-watching, getting a sense of the place and its rhythms. All the details, she soon discovered, checked out. Without the email she would not have been able to write the story – or at least write it so quickly. Most intriguing of all, the sender knew enough to use a free email service that did not demand any personal details – but not enough to disguise the email’s IP address. It traced back to the free Wi-Fi at Keleti that the volunteers had set up.

  A hand holding an iPhone appeared in front of Eniko’s screen. She looked up from the email to see Zsuzsa standing behind the monitor, her right arm extended forward. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she exclaimed, now waving her telephone excitedly. ‘This is much more important. You’re Date of the Day on Szilky. You and Tamas Nemeth.’

  Szilky.hu was the country’s most popular celebrity gossip website. It provided multiple updates every day on the doings of Nemeth, the best-known actor in Hungary. He had just won the lead role in a lavish new production of a play about King Stephen, the eleventh-century monarch who brought Christianity to Hungary, soon to be staged at the National Theatre. News of the production had caused uproar in Budapest’s cash-strapped artistic world. The playwright was a former press officer for the prime minister, not known for his dramatic talent. The director had previously made campaign videos for the ruling Social Democratic Party, the successor to the Communists. The play was heavily subsidised by the Ministry of Culture and sponsored by several companies known to be close to the government. None of the actors, hired at great expense, had seen the script. There were rumours it had not been written yet.

  Eniko ignored her friend’s telephone and continued typing. ‘I’m a reporter. I write about the news. I don’t make it.’

  Zsuzsa laughed. ‘Ooooh, pompous. Well, you are this morning. So you might as well listen.’

  Eniko stopped typing. ‘I’m all ears,’ she said, dryly.

  Zsuzsa’s eyes dropped to her screen. ‘You were more than ears last night, apparently. Szilky says you were wrapped in a black minidress, topped with a gauzy black chiffon wrap that that showcased your slim but curvaceous figure.’

  Zsuzsa continued reading, ‘The stylish couple were ensconced at a discreet corner table at Arigato, the city’s newest and hottest Sushi eatery, where the star reporter shared a set meal for two, including the signature grilled octopus, with Budapest’s hunkiest star of the stage and screen.’

  Eniko was horrified to see that at least two other reporters had stopped working to listen to Zsuzsa, clearly enjoying the show- She turned pink and looked down, suddenly intensely interested in her keyboard, and started typing again, even more rapidly. ‘Stop, Zsuzsi. And I really need to finish this email.’

  555.hu operated out of flat number I on the corner of Jozsef Boulevard and Rakoczi Way. The windows shook in their wooden frames when the number 4 or 6 tram trundled by below. The ornate plaster cornices, once bone-white, were chipped and grey. The black marble fireplace was cracked but still imposing, its shelf crowded with trophies and prizes. There was no air-conditioning and all the windows were open. Stand-up i930s-style metal fans were positioned all around the newsroom, sweeping back and forth to little effect. A large poster of the famous American reporter H. L. Mencken took up much of one wall, together with his most famous quote: The relationship between the journalist and the politician should mirror that of the dog and the lamp post.’ ‘Especially in Hungary,’ someone had added by hand underneath. But the shabby, bohemian decor perfectly suited the site’s irreverent reporting, and the room crackled with energy.

  The news department, home to half a dozen reporters and two editors, occupied the biggest of the five rooms. The commercial and advertising departments all had their own spaces, as did the editor, Roland Horvath, and the newly appointed news editor, Kriszta Matyas. The website had launched a couple of years before and its lively style had proved an immediate hit with Budapest’s hipsters. But Bohemian urbanites, retweets, an army of Instagram followers, and Facebook shares of article links were a poor substitute for a proper business plan, adequate start-up capital and advertising. For now, the fifth room stood empty, waiting, so far in vain, for the massive expansion of advertising personnel that would drive new websites and other digital publishing operations.

  The website had recently been bought out by Sandor Kaplan, a former business partner of the prime minister. Like Pal Palkovics, Kaplan had been a leader of the Communist youth organisation during the 1980s. Both men had made a fortune in the early 1990s, a period known as vadkapitalisz-musz, wild capitalism, when state-owned assets and property were sold off for a fraction of their actual value to well-connected insiders. Kaplan had immediately appointed Roland Horvath editor of 555.hu. A paunchy, balding divorcee in his late forties, he had previously worked as a political reporter for the state news channel. He had excellent access to government politicians, and always seemed to be able to get ministers to answer a few questions – mostly, Eniko thought, because they were such soft questions.

  Eniko finished her email, pressed send and glanced upwards. Zsuzsa was still standing behind her computer monitor. She grinned and raised her eyebrows. ‘You really don’t want to know what the rest of it says?’

  Eniko said, ‘No. It’s hideous. Full of cliches.’

  ‘What’s full of cliches?’ asked a third female voice.

  Zsuzsa turned to see the news editor approaching. Kriszta Matyas was ten years older than Eniko, recently arrived from the state news agency, where she had worked on the foreign desk, much of whose coverage consisted of rote accounts of state visits and international cooperation agreements. A skinny brunette who was married to a senior official in the Foreign Ministry, she seemed to have little understanding of twenty-first century digital media and had provoked nervous laughter by asking what Instagram was. Her expensive business wardrobe and heavy make-up did not sit well with 555’s bohemian image. Nor did her deference to authority. Her main contribution to the editing process seemed to be demanding ever longer quotes from spokesmen for the government or the ruling party whenever 555.hu exposed another scandal.

  Zsuzsa said, ‘Just some gossip on Szilky. Nothing important.’

  ‘Then why are you spending office time on it?’ Matyas looked Zsuzsa up and down. ‘What are you working on now, Zsuzsika?’

  Family and friends often added the ‘ka’ or ‘ke’ diminutive to names. It meant ‘little’ or ‘small’ and was a term of endearment. In a work or business environment it was extremely patronising. Zsuzsa blushed and stuttered.

  ‘Zsuzsa,’ said Eniko, ‘is helping me out with my Keleti story. I have a lot to follow up.’

  ‘Is there nothing else happening apart from the chaos at Keleti?’ said Matyas, her voice arched. ‘Can you please come and see me this afternoon, Eniko? There are some th
ings I would like to discuss with you. Say two o’clock?’

  Eniko nodded. ‘Sure.’ She and Zsuzsa watched the news editor walk away, her heels clacking on the worn parquet floor. Zsuzsa glanced at Eniko. ‘Thanks. What was that about?’ Eniko squeezed her arm. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Why is she here? She’s completely out of place.’

  ‘I know. What worries me is that maybe soon she won’t be. Kaplan isn’t a philanthropist. He must have an agenda. I bet she knows what it is.’ Eniko lifted her head towards the French doors. ‘Let’s go outside. You can tell me about the rest of the Szilky article. But keep your voice down.’

  The two women walked out onto the apartment’s balcony, and stood looking out over Blaha Lujza Square. Eniko watched the afternoon bustle as she listened to her friend finish reading the article. She could see all the way down to the Astoria Hotel and the Elizabeth Bridge that spanned the Danube. The traffic was locked solid but the number 4 tram trundled steadily along the main boulevard. Pedestrians hurried across the square, rushing to catch the 8E bus north along Rakoczi Way. A harried-looking mother walked quickly towards the metro entrance, a toddler in each hand. An elderly lady was in her usual place, selling bunches of bluebells for 300 forints.

  ‘Are you listening, Eni?’ asked Zsuzsa.

  ‘Yes. Sure,’ she replied, focused on the scene on Blaha. ‘Look at him,’ said Eniko, pointing at a tall man in his early twenties, wearing blue shorts and a black polo top, who was walking back and forth, handing out leaflets. Two large pieces of red cardboard covered his chest and back, advertising the Bella Roma pizzeria.

  ‘What about him?’ asked Zsuzsa.

  ‘What’s he so happy about?’

  The walking advertisement smiled at every passer-by, which among often glum-faced Hungarians marked him out as a potential lunatic.

  ‘I dunno. Whatever. Don’t worry about him. There’s a photo of you and Tamas,’ said Zsuzsa.