Alan Furst - Kingdom of Shadows

The Citroen stopped with a loud squeak from the brakes and two men climbed out, both of them heavy and short. They wore straw hats, dark suits, and soiled white shirts buttoned at the throat. Siguranza, he thought. Roumanian secret police. Obviously they’d been waiting for him.

“Get down from there,” the driver said. It was Hungarian, badly spoken. Morath took a little longer to dismount than they liked. The man on the passenger side of the car opened his jacket, showing Morath the handgrip of an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. “If you need to be shot, we’ll be happy to oblige you,” he said. “Maybe it’s a matter of honor, or something.”

“Don’t bother,” Morath said. He got off the horse and held her by the bridle. The driver approached and took the briefcase. Something about him made the mare nervous, she tossed her head and stamped her feet on the stone block. The driver unbuckled the briefcase and had a look inside, then he called out to the groom, “You can go home now, Vilmos. Take his horse.”

“Yes, excellency,” the groom said. He was very frightened.

“And keep your mouth shut.”

Morath watched as he rode back up into the forest, leading the mare by the reins.

The Siguranza men tied his wrists with a length of cord and shoved him into the backseat of the car, then made jokes as the starter engine whined and faded until the engine caught. They talked for a moment more-Morath didn’t understand Roumanian but caught the word Bistrita, a small town north of Kolozsvar. As the car bounced along the road, the passenger opened the briefcase and divided up Morath’s underwear and shaving kit. The two men argued briefly over Morath’s spare shirt but the driver gave in almost immediately. The passenger then turned in his seat and stared at Morath. He hadn’t shaved for several days, the stubble on his face black and gray.

He leaned over the back of the seat and slapped Morath in the face. Then did it again, harder. The driver laughed. The passenger stretched sideways until he could see himself in the rearview mirror and adjusted the brim of his hat.

Morath did not feel pain where he’d been slapped, he felt it in his wrists, where he’d tried to break the cord as the Siguranza man hit him. Later on, when he managed to twist around and get a look, he saw that he was bleeding.

Bistrita had been part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878, and not that much had changed. Dusty streets and lime trees, stucco buildings painted yellow and pale green, with fishscale roofing on the better houses. The Catholic crosses were mounted on the domes of the former mosques, the women on the street kept their eyes lowered, and so did the men.

The Citroen pulled up in front of the police station, and the two men hauled Morath out by the elbow and kicked him through the door. He made a point of not falling down. Then they beat him down the stairs, along a hallway, and to the door of a cell. When they cut the cord on his wrists, the knife sliced through the back of his jacket. One of them made a joke, the other one snickered. Then they cleaned out his pockets, took his shoes and socks, jacket and tie, threw him in the cell, slammed the iron door, shot the bolt.

Black dark in the cell, no window, and the walls breathed cold air. There was a straw mattress, a bucket, and a pair of rusted, ancient brackets in the wall. Used for chains-in 1540, or last night. They brought him a salt herring, which he knew better than to eat-he would suffer terribly from thirst-a lump of bread, and a small cup of water. He could hear, in the room directly above him, somebody pacing back and forth.

Heidelberg. Half-timbered houses, the bridge over the Neckar. When he was at Eotvos they’d gone up there for Schollwagen’s lectures on Aristophanes. And-it was late February-just to be somewhere else. In a weinstube, Frieda. Curly hair, broad hips, a wonderful laugh. He could hear it.

A two-day love affair, and long ago, but every minute of it stayed in his memory and, now and then, he liked to go back over it. Because she liked to make love in every possible way and shivered with excitement. He was nineteen, he thought that women did such things as favors, maybe, when they loved you, on your birthday, or you paid whores a special rate.

There was a thump above him. A sack of flour thrown on the floor. Cara had no particular interest in choses affreuses. She would have done them-would have done anything, to be sophisticated and chic, that’s what excited Cara. Did she do it with Francesca? She liked to tease him that she did, because she knew it interested him. Another sack of flour. This one cried out when it hit the floor.

Fuck you, he told them.

He’d thought about seeing Eva Zameny in Budapest, his former fiancee, who’d left her husband. Jesus, she’d been so beautiful. No other country made women who looked like that. Not much of a film of Eva-passionate kisses in the vestibule of her house. Once he had unbuttoned her blouse. She had wanted, she told him, to become a nun. Went to Mass twice a day because it gave her peace, she said, and nothing else did.

Married to Eva, two children, three, four. To work as a lawyer, spend his days with wills and contracts. Friday-night dinner at his mother’s house, Sunday lunch at hers. Make love on Saturday night under a feather quilt in the Hungarian winter. Summer cabin on Lake Balaton. He’d have a coffeehouse, a gentlemen’s club, a tailor. Why had he not lived his life in this way?

Really, why?

He wouldn’t be in a Roumanian dungeon if he had. Who’d sold him, he wondered. And would he-God grant! — have a chance to square that account? Was it somebody at Hrubal’s house? Duchazy?

Stop it. Here is Frieda: curly hair, broad hips, sweet laugh.

“Bad luck, Monsieur Morath. For you and for us. God only knows how we are going to get this straightened out. What, in the name of heaven, were you thinking of?”

This one was also from the Siguranza, Morath thought, but much higher up. Well shaven, well pomaded, and well spoken, in French.

The man rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. Told Morath he was guilty of technical crimes, no question, but who really cared. He didn’t. Still, what the hell was he doing with all that money ? Playing Hungarian-minority-politics? In Roumania? “Couldn’t you have murdered somebody? Robbed a bank? Burned down a church? No. You had to make my life complicated, on Saturday morning, when I’m supposed to play golf with my father-in-law.” Yes, it was Roumania, douce decadence, Byzance apres Byzance, it was all too true. Still, they had laws.

Morath nodded, he knew. But what law, exactly, had he broken?

Overwhelmed, the Siguranza officer barely knew what to say-too many, too few, old ones, new ones, some we’re just now making up. “Let’s talk about Paris. I’ve told them to bring you coffee and a brioche.” He looked at his watch. “They’ve gone to the cafe across the square.”

Now here he really envied Morath, he might as well admit it. A man of his class and connection, taking the pleasures of this delightful city. One would know, don’t bother denying it, the most stimulating people. French generals, Russian emigres, diplomats. Had he met Monsieur X, Herr Y, Senor Z? What about, Colonel Something at the British embassy. Don’t know him? Well, really you ought to meet him. He is, one hears, an amusing fellow.

No, Morath told him.

No? Well, why not? Morath was certainly the sort of gentleman who could meet anybody he liked. What could be-oh, was it money? Not to be indelicate, but the bills did pile up. Annoying people sent annoying letters. Being in debt could be a full-time occupation.