Triptych (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

“It is important what you are doing, visiting your mother country,” Irina tells me when I arrive at her store to say goodbye. “I understand this. Part of me is wishing that you would be seeing instead Paris, or London, or Rome. Places with culture and beauty and history, without the shroud of Communism hanging over. Wait and see. You will feel a heaviness in the air. Faces without expression, voices with no inflection. The memory of life like this has never left me. It will stick with you as well. Your personal Party souvenir.” Irina shakes her head. Her tone lifts. “When will you leave? Tomorrow did you say?”

“Yes, late afternoon. I bought some calendars with photographs of downtown Chicago. Gifts for my cousin's daughter and maybe others I'll meet. Wish I'd had time to think of something better. At least it's something and easy to pack. You don't suppose I'll have a problem with customs there, do you?”

A carefully groomed eyebrow lifts. “This I am not sure of. Should they be confiscated, at least you are assured you will not have donated something key to advancing the Communist cause.”

I smile. “Maybe I'll check with Mrs. Bankuti. She went a few years ago.”

“Mrs. Bankuti. Her name came up the other night when I am having dinner with Mariska and Zsófi. She is related to the woman called Eva, yes? An aunt?”

“No, no relation. Mrs. Bankuti, her husband, Eva and Eva's parents, all lived in the same apartment building in Budapest. After Eva had been in Toronto for awhile, she found the Bankuti's through the Hungarian grapevine. They invited her to stay with them and go to art school. Why?”

“The other night, the two of you were going out. When she stop by, I think I recognize her, this Eva.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“After, it nags at me and as we ladies talk, it comes out about Eva's story. How she comes to Chicago. And it is then I recall knowing her long ago, in Toronto. 1960. She was fifteen.”

“Eva? Are you sure?”

“No doubt. I was teaching at ballet school. She was my student.”

“Wow, small world. I'm surprised she didn't recognize you. She didn't say anything at dinner afterward. Have you tried to get in touch? Will you go see her?”

“Not yet, but perhaps soon.” Irina is standing with her hands clasped behind her back, her feet turned out. She is wearing flats, and she lifts up and down on her toes, sucking in her cheeks, holding back a smile. “I hear you have a new man in your life. A handsome, talented, unmarried Hungarian man.”

I have to laugh at how she had slyly sandwiched unmarried into the mix. And how, levitated by joy, she was nearly
en pointe
when she had said it.

“Yes, I met a man. Thanks to Zsófi's bulldog persistence. He seems nice. And…” I wag my eyebrows. “I just learned he's going to be in Budapest while I'm there.” Irina is grinning. I wave my hands crisscross in front of me. “No, no, don't jump ahead. Like you said, he's available. And you know how I've always shied away from
that
sort.” Irina's expression has turned serious. I smile. “At least until now.” Then I immediately shrug. “But this trip is about my mother. Her last days in Budapest. What she learned. And he, Gustav, has family business to attend to as well. We may not even cross paths.”

Irina's mouth forms a sly smile.

I ignore it and check my watch. It is only a couple of blocks from my place to Irina's shop. Walking here with a large suitcase had been manageable, but just barely. The train station is an additional six blocks.

The shallow entry space outside the door provides some shelter from the sun, but it is still quite warm while we wait for a cab. A mother with two young daughters, one on each side, both wearing sundresses, both holding their mother's hands, stroll past. I waggle my fingers, waving as one of the girls peers back over her darkly tanned shoulder.

“When you taught Eva, she would have still been living with the family that brought her out of Hungary, adopted her after her parents died. There were two daughters. They became like her sisters, Eva once said. Did you meet them?”

“Sisters? No. But I meet the mother, Mrs. Fekete.”

“Fekete? That can't be right. Fekete is Eva's given name. Her real parents, in Hungary, they were Fekete.”

“No.” Irina's response is adamant. “The family in Toronto was Fekete. Eva's surname it was Benedek.”

“But…”

“No buts. You may ask Mariska. We discuss this when I visit.”

“But she never …No one ever told me.”

Irina shrugs. “Is this so important? Many people in wartime change names.”

The heat is getting the best of us. Irina and I maneuver the suitcase across the sidewalk, hoping for relief beneath the shade of the curbside tree.

“Better,” I say.

Irina agrees, adding, “A minute ago, you say something that surprise me. Eva did not like those sisters. My class was her escape from them and this was good. They were mean to her, she once told me. Hide things from her. Break her things. Tell lies to other kids in school so they make fun of her, do not want to be her friend. She was the outcast. The parents were ignorant of this. Or if they knew, they did nothing.

“I tell Eva, the sisters they just jealous. Ignore them. Make them more jealous. Accomplish big things. And it was in her, the potential to do this, to be successful ballerina. Her body was the right shape, her movements expressive, and she worked hard. Having the physical activity, something special, it helped her, I think, very much with the problems at home.”

I shake my head. “Well, I never heard anything about bad sisters. Maybe they got over it. Grew up. Began to see her in a new light. ”

“Of course, this is possible. I did not hear of anything more serious or see signs of physical punishment. At least not from home. Only what the normal ballerina must go through. Ankle sprain, torn cartilage, bloody toenails.”

I shudder dramatically. “How long did you torture, er, teach her?”

Irina chortles. “One year, only. Then I move to the States, Chicago. Eva was visiting the Bankutis around then also. What do we know? Maybe we pass one another in the street, cannot recognize who we are. How wonderful the way things they have turned out. She is very accomplished. It was in her. I recognized this.”

In the corner of my eye, I see the taxi approaching.

“You have many gifts as well,” Irina adds. “You are excellent teacher. Your students, they appreciate you. You show through quiet example. Maybe you can inspire those in Hungary.”

Dragging the suitcase closer to the curb as the cab pulls up, I roll my eyes. “Now there's a tall order.”

***

Mariska and Zsófi have convinced me to spend my last night with them. They want to cook a special meal and also brief me on things to expect. In Chicago at the El station, I grab another taxi. It drops me at Duna Utca.

From the back, Mrs. Bankuti's dark hair looks modish, strands standing on end, poking out in every direction. I've been around her long enough to know the wild look has nothing to do with hairspray or gel. Mrs. B has a finger-twirling habit.

She is standing with Mariska beside the magazine rack just past the counter. Their conversation is so intense, the bells are ignored, but at the clunk of my suitcase hitting the floor, Mariska looks up. She smiles and the two women greet me with animated enthusiasm.

This is Mariska's first day back at work. I comment on this, asking about Zsófi.

“She is making a delivery. While she is gone, Magda has come over to make certain I do not overdo.” Mariska grins playfully at her friend.

Magda Bankuti is a tall, solidly built woman whose fashion sense leans to polo shirts, cotton twill skirts and white tennis shoes. “A golfer in another life,” Eva and I like to joke. She is in her seventies, a jovial woman with a hearty laugh. As we speak, she is joyless in bemoaning the dreary and apathetic landscape she encountered during her visit to Budapest three years ago. The building where she lived—where Eva and her parents had also lived—had been rebuilt. “But in ‘the Russian way,'” she says. “Plain, functional, gray.

“Everyone everywhere carries with him a black cloud,” she concludes. Her face visibly brightens. Her voice turns teasing. “But no dark clouds for you. We hear you will have someone special there with you.”

The two women smile knowingly at one another. Gustav's surprise concurrent trip has provided distraction enough for one day. I ignore them.

“Is Eva home?” I ask. “I'd love to pop in, say good-bye.”

Mrs. Bankuti's dark eyes are suddenly forlorn. “Eva is off to New York. Back in a week. We hope.”

“But the baptismal font. She's restoring John the Baptist's hand.”

Mrs. B's finger works a dark strand near her temple. “New York has big emergency. A dignitary from Rome is coming to speak at St. Patrick's Cathedral next week and a major statue has been vandalized. In front, near the altar. St. Patrick himself, I think Eva said.”

“Oh my. Disaster indeed.” I look at Mariska, then Mrs Bankuti. “Auntie Mariska, Mrs. B., why didn't you tell me about Eva's name. That she changed it. Irina only just told me.”

“Eva has a marked surname,” Mrs. B says quietly.

“Marked surname?”

“Her parents were freedom fighters.”

“
Freedom fighters?
”

“Yes, they gave their lives. To us—to many Hungarians—they are heroes. To others, enemies of the people. And Eva is their flesh and blood. So Eva change her name. Her papers when she arrive in Toronto were—are—in the name of Fekete.”

“But Eva told me her parents were never rebel fighters. Her father had been exiled.”

Mrs. B's eyes meet mine. “It is the story she tells because it is best for people not to know. Only few know the truth. Mariska, Zsófi, Tibor, myself, your mother. Now you.”

Why hadn't Eva been willing to tell me the truth herself?

I look into the women's faces. Think again of the hardships they—Eva—endured under Soviet Communism. How their very survival depended on the web of lies and deceit they wove around themselves. The level of trust it would take to break open the cocoon, face life honestly.

A complex knot
.

I feel compelled to press further. “Thirty years have passed. Eva is in America. Has her citizenship. Surely now it would be safe. Why not switch back to Benedek? I would think she'd want to carry on the family name. Especially as her parents were martyrs for the cause.”

“Eva, she does not want to bear the risk that there could be a tie to her past. In case…” Mariska halts abruptly, the pink coloring seeping from her cheeks.

“In case what?” I ask.

Both women's eyes shift and they glance sideways at one another.

“Oh, c'mon. You don't really believe the AVO—sorry KGB—has it out for descendents of '56 freedom fighters. That they're skulking around on U.S. soil, determined to hunt them down, harm them, along with anyone who has ever sheltered them, do you?”

Dead air follows and I think to myself, What am I getting into, going to a place with an arm of terror that has the power to reach across nearly 5,000 miles, even after thirty years?

Chapter Twenty-three

Budapest, 1986

Before I'd left Chicago, Mrs. Karinthy had gone over procedures for obtaining a visa. At our connection in Frankfurt I asked for an application form. A sharp-featured blonde clerk with a crisp German-accent said simply, “Not possible.” I am exhausted after my nine-hour flight. What if I am similarly rejected at the Budapest airport?

I am woozy with fatigue and worry and feel little concern over the next “not possible,” a seat selection for the short inter-Europe flight. Then I am relegated to the very rear of the plane and my misery grows. My seat is on the left side, designated “non-smoking,” while the right is for smokers. Are they kidding? I am soon enveloped in a gray blue haze. By the time the “No Smoking” and “Fasten Seatbelts” signs light up over Ferihegy airport, my clothes reek of tobacco and my lungs are toxic.

When the plane stops taxiing, we passengers descend onto the tarmac. With a silent fanfare I take my first steps on hallowed motherland.

The bustling arrivals hall is a vast gray space with a high-ceiling, flourescent lighting, and shiny floors. My mind feels muddled, a combination of jet lag and smoke asphyxiation, but I make a beeline for the visa application window. I get in line behind a Brit with an extra form. I fill it out as the queue inches forward.

A young, olive-skinned clerk with dark eyes, wavy black hair, and a blank expression nods, and I slide the form, my passport and twenty dollars across the counter. He opens my passport. One thick dark eyebrow lifts. His gaze shifts to my face then back to the document.

“Are you related to Gabor Palmay?” he asks. “He was my classmate.”

A trick question? Intended to point a finger at Gabor Palmay, punish him for having an American relative?

I swallow. “I know no Gabor Palmay,” I answer stiffly.

In truth, the name was on a family tree I had seen once long ago. It is not an unusual name, and I have never met any of my Hungarian relatives.

The young clerk eyes me evenly. With a resigned shrug, he shoves the documents through a curtain where I had seen the Brit's paperwork disappear moments before.

I proceed to a cordoned off area where I have been directed to wait along with twenty others. A half hour or so later, names are called out, mine among them. I have my visa.

Another official looks in my eyes, taps keys on his computer, and within minutes, I am directed to move along.

The pounding of my heart reaches a crescendo as a third custom's agent comes up alongside me. “You have nothing to declare,” he says in heavily-accented English. “Why do you not just go through here?”

He gestures toward an exit closed off by wide, swinging doors with opaque glass panels. I push through them, passing into a throng of family, friends and uniformed drivers awaiting arrivals.

Outside, the late afternoon air is like Chicago, humid and warm. I pause at the turn-around drive, looking for a taxi.

I am booked into the Duna-Intercontinental Hotel. Opened in 1969, it sits on the site of the former Duna Hotel. This is meaningful to me because my mother, fearing the unwelcome scrutiny her first visit had imposed on her relatives, had taken a room at the old Duna in '65. Significant also, the old Duna was where foreign journalists stayed during the '56 revolution, determinedly and courageously sending out their reports to world capitals around the globe. Strong inspiration for getting the story I'm after.

The taxi passes through suburbs with tall, concrete slab apartment buildings and industrial pockets of squat, monotone structures until at last we are driving along broad streets and large open squares into what appears to be the center of the city. It is late afternoon on a Saturday. Women carrying string bags stuffed with food items and other goods, and men in blue suits and white shirts, stroll the sidewalks.

At the unassuming entrance to the Duna-Intercontinental Hotel, a doorman with a dark full mustache, a green uniform, and a visored cap opens the taxi door, and takes my bags from the trunk.

The lobby is spacious and grand with a sprawling seating area fitted with sofas and high-backed chairs. I step up to a long reception desk, hand over my passport to the English-speaking clerk.

***

In my room, the porter heaves Irina's bag onto an open luggage rack. Skirting the king-sized bed, he gives a brisk tug to a cord of the heavy drape covering the far wall. The material retreats in pleats, revealing a floor-to-ceiling window and glass sliding door leading to a narrow balcony. I glimpse billowing gray and white clouds against blue sky.

The porter leaves, and I step out onto the balcony. The Danube flows directly past the hotel. It is not especially blue, but broad and majestic and unquestionably very beautiful. A walkway along the river's edge is alive with pedestrians strolling in either direction. Across the river on the Buda side stands the breathtaking architecture of Castle Hill with its medieval monuments, including a walled fortress and the sprawling Royal Palace. The cliff face in front of it is alarmingly steep, obvious even from this distance. Still, in spite of the supposedly unassailable hill, the castle was destroyed time and again; first by the Turks in the 16th century, then during the 1848-49 revolt against the Hapsburg rule, and finally during WWII. Rebuilt and renovated as often as it was knocked down and ruined, the now enormous Royal Palace is no longer the royal seat but instead houses the Hungarian National Gallery, the Budapest History Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in its vast wings.

A long, drawn out whistle draws my gaze to a tug boat chugging upstream, pushing two barges. The tug nears the elegant twin-towered Chain Bridge, linking Buda to the Pest half of the city where I am staying. Cars, buses, and a trolley cross the bridge. I stare.
The view my mother might have enjoyed.

An ache stirs in my heart and I turn back inside.

I hurriedly unpack, tossing items, including Mariska's shawl, into the drawers of a chest-high bureau and draping them on hangers in the small built-in closet. The mystery locket is secured around my neck. I had decided to leave the prayer book behind, worried a hard-nosed Communist customs agent might confiscate the religious item, or note Attila's name written inside. My other talisman, my mother's daisy piece, gets wrapped around Kati's picture and tucked into my skirt's pocket.

***

I pause before a maitre d' in formal dark suit and tie. Behind him is a large pillared dining room overlooking the Danube.

A few minutes later, I sip my dry white wine and dine on cucumber salad, then the chicken
paprikás
, rich with sour cream and strongly spiced with paprika, served over
nokedli
, small dumplings. Nearly as delicious as my mother's.

From outside comes the long, drawn-out blast of a ship's horn. It would be sacrilege to go to bed without first paying homage to the Danube.

I head north from the hotel entrance, the river on my left. Swarms of people stroll past me in both directions. Outside the neighboring Forum Hotel, candlelit tables, hemmed in by flower boxes, spill out onto the walkway.

I admire the reclining lion statues guarding the Chain Bridge. Between them, square, compact Russian cars inch bumper to bumper across the broad roadway. Alongside, a crush of people snake along a pedestrian passage.

Tomorrow morning, I, too, will cross the Chain Bridge to the Buda side where Mariska has made arrangements for me to meet my deceased cousin's daughter, Gyöngyi. What will she be like? Will she be able to answer my questions? Can I discover what happened to Kati? Did something my mother uncover here cause her death? Was Attila killed to keep him from telling me?