Vilmos Kondor - Budapest Noir

“It’ll take at least an hour there and back,” said Gordon. “Can you do without cigarettes that long?”

“Go right ahead. I’ll make do.”

Gordon left the house, gave a nod to the man working at the far end of the yard, and went over to the Opel. “Take me back to the hotel, Czövek,” he said.

In the hotel Gordon bought a pack of cigarettes. He then went to the café, gathered up the newspapers on hand, ordered a coffee, and sat down to read.

They couldn’t have better timed the trip back. Barely had the Opel parked once more in front of the house than Krisztina opened the door onto the verandah, a tablecloth and a pillowcase in her hand. She said good-bye to the woman, waved a hand to the man, and joined Gordon in the car. Czövek turned his head. “Where to?”

“Back to the hotel,” said Gordon. But Krisztina put her hand on his arm. “No, let’s not go there. I’m not in the mood for all those people. Go ahead and start up the car; we can stop somewhere along the way.”

“May I suggest something?” asked Czövek.

“Please do,” replied Gordon.

“At the house where I stayed, the widow Mrs. Károly Glum—which happens to be a name that fits her well—said there’s this roadside diner up in the woods not far from the White Stone Lookout. It’s more of a hunting lodge, she said, but she swore up and down that there’s no better food around here. It’s in the middle of the forest.”

“Go ahead,” said Gordon.

Czövek shifted the car into gear and headed to the far end of the village. Gordon glanced at Krisztina, who seemed lost in thought as she caressed the embroidered tablecloth. At such times, he knew, he must not say a word to her but, instead, wait for her to speak on her own. There was a time when Gordon had tried again and again to get information out of her before she was ready, but he’d gotten nowhere, and so now he let her be. Once they’d passed the last house in the village, Gordon caught a glimpse of a wooden sign whose letters had long ago been washed away by snow and rain. Since the languid October day had already turned toward dusk, Czövek turned on the headlights and pulled over to the side. Having edged his seat forward and pushed his hat farther back on his forehead, he turned around. “Widow Glum said the road is bumpy. So hold on.”

Slowly he proceeded on this roadless road, which was in fact nothing more than a wide muddy trail cut by carriage wheels and pockmarked by horseshoes. Trees towered all around them toward the sky as the Opel huffed and puffed along. For a while they went on in utter silence. Czövek’s every nerve was focused on the road ahead: on avoiding puddles and potholes and branches. All at once they arrived in a clearing.

“Widow Glum put one over on you,” Gordon remarked. “There’s no hunting lodge around here. Or else you turned up the wrong road.”

“Of course not,” declared Czövek.

“But we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Well, then, it’s just another couple hundred meters,” replied the driver as they rolled slowly on. On reaching a fork in the road, he turned right. Dusk had meanwhile turned to darkness. The trees leaned in tightly above them and forest brush scraped against the car.

Gordon turned toward Krisztina but could not see her face. Czövek simultaneously struggled with the steering wheel, the brakes, the clutch, and the gear stick. The heavy Opel slid to and fro in the mud, and it took two tries to get up one particularly big incline. Finally, they reached the top, where a light glimmered in the distance.

“You see,” Czövek called out triumphantly, “I told you so!” He had indeed. As they slowly approached, they saw that the light—that of a flaming torch—in fact belonged to a not-so-small hunting lodge, nestled in a clearing on a moderately steep hillside. Smoke curled skyward from its chimney; two sinewy, short-haired, cinnamon-hued hunting dogs—vizslas—were loafing by the entrance; and out back stood a huge clay oven with an open door.

As they stopped beside the barn, they could hear horses stomping about nervously inside. The door of the hunting lodge now opened, and out came a stout, spectacled man with short-cropped hair. With his hands on his hips, he struck a most welcoming pose.

“So, what do you say?” asked Czövek.

“Not bad so far,” replied Krisztina.

Gordon got out and walked over to the man.

“Good evening. We heard you have good food here.”

Almost imperceptibly the man’s head started twitching, and he took a deep breath. “G-g-good evening. The k-k-kitchen won’t open for another hour.” He stuttered, and since he did everything he could to avoid doing so, his speech was all the more disjointed. It was evident that he sometimes struggled mightily with a particular vowel, but at the same time it was likewise clear that he couldn’t care in the least. “My n-n-name is István Bá-Bá-Bársony,” he said, extending a hand and offering a genial smile. “Please c-c-come in.”

The door, which he now opened wide, was a portal to the vivid scene depicted in the prewar painting hanging just inside. To the right, a fireplace poured out heat; in front of it lay another vizsla, and a cat was sleeping on the mantel. A bit farther out from the fireplace were four tables with chairs, and beside the wall was a divan flanked by a stout oak table. The walls, meanwhile, were covered by the trophies indispensable in such a venue, with candle holders placed between them. A door in the back led to the kitchen. Out popped the head of a young woman with braids. Having counted the guests, she shut the door. István Bársony now sat them down at one of the four tables close to the fireplace. “I have good grr-grr-grape-skin brandy. Would you l-l-like some?”

“We would,” replied Krisztina, who then stood up and moved closer to the fireplace. She turned her back to the fire to warm up. Bársony lit the candle on their table, gave them the menus, and went to the kitchen. Czövek just sat there looking perplexed; he was not used to sitting at one table with his passengers. Gordon had just taken a cigarette from his case when Bársony appeared with a tray that held four shot glasses. “Please d-d-do come,” he called to Krisztina. “If you d-d-drink this, you won’t be c-c-cold. You can be sure of that.”

Krisztina stepped over and picked up one of the shots. Gordon and Czövek now followed her lead, and the three downed the brandy. Gordon shuddered and asked for a glass of water. Meanwhile, he handed Krisztina a menu. “What will you have?”

Krisztina quickly scanned the one-page menu, which included no soup, no dessert, no seafood, and no vegetables to speak of—wild game and not a thing more. “I’ll have the roast venison with potato dumplings.”

Gordon drank his glass of water, then gave Bársony their order. He was having flank of wild boar with fried salted potatoes, and Czövek, though at first reluctant to order in front of his passengers, finally settled on the relatively humble bean stew with wild boar.

“Wonderful, simply w-w-wonderful,” said Bársony with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. “The most ex-exceptional choices. I couldn’t have made beh-beh-better recommendations. Everything will be reh-reh-ready in an hour. If you l-l-like, I can pull the chairs over to the fire me-me-meanwhile.”

“That’s okay,” said Krisztina with a wave of the hand. “We’re going for a walk, and we’ll warm up afterward.”

“Just be ca-ca-careful,” said Bársony. “You can see the lodge from a di-di-distance, but don’t go too far.” Pointing, he added, “If you go that way, you’ll end up at the Wh-Wh-White Stone Lookout. It’s a well-tro-tro-trodden trail, impossible to miss. If you’re not b-b-back in an hour, I’ll go after you with the dogs.”