Strangers in Budapest

by Jessica Keener

Genres: Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction; Jewish Fiction

Synopsis

Budapest is a city of secrets, a place where everything is opaque and nothing is as it seems. It is to this enigmatic city that a young American couple, Annie and Will, move with their infant son, shortly after the fall of the Communist regime. Annie hopes to escape the ghosts from her past; Will wants to take his chance as an entrepreneur in Hungary's newly developing economy.

But only a few months after moving there, they receive a secretive request from friends in the US to check up on an elderly stranger who also has recently arrived in Budapest. When they realize that his sole purpose for coming there is to exact revenge on a man who he is convinced seduced and then murdered his daughter, Will insists they have nothing to do with him. Annie, however, unable to resist anyone she feels may need her help, soon finds herself enmeshed in the old man's plan, caught up in a scheme that will end with death.

Keener has written a transporting novel about a couple trying to make a new life in a foreign land, only to find themselves drawn into a cultural, and generational, vendetta.

Release date: November 14, 2017

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

One

She’d grown used to calling the Danube by its Hungarian name—Duna. In fact, she preferred it over the American version. The whimsical sound—Duna—felt light on her tongue, fanciful and upbeat, a spirit rising. But, like all things in this city, the river that glittered at night concealed a darker surface under the day’s harsh sun. The water looked sluggish and dull from this high point on the bridge.

“How much farther?” Annie asked. They had walked a mile, but it felt longer to her.

“Almost there,” Will said, waving his well-worn map. “A few more blocks.”

“Good, because this whole thing feels crazy.”

She pushed their son, Leo, in the baby jogger across a crowded Árpád Bridge—one of eight bridges spanning the river that divided the city into two distinct parts, Buda and Pest. In her running shoes, T-shirt, and shorts, Annie nudged the jogger between couples and families seeking relief from the excessive heat, many of them heading to Margaret Island and the kiddie sprinklers, woods, and shade the park offered. Today they would bypass the park and its entrance from the bridge. She tried to hurry on, but throngs of people strolling in front of her forced her to slow down.

“Think of it this way,” Will said. “We finally get to see their apartment.”

“I know. I’m glad about that.”

She did not feel good about it, though. The day had begun with an unsettling fax, an urgent request from their neighbors back home in the States. The strident beeping from the machine in the living room woke her early, before dawn, while Will lay immobile beside her in bed, undisturbed. She sat up, trying to locate the unpleasant sound.

On the bridge, she turned her attention back to the riverbank below and the ferry boats boarding day-trippers for a journey to Vienna four hours away.

“We should take that ferry to Vienna sometime,” she said.

“I agree. We’ll do it,” Will said.

She pushed harder, the humid air dragging on her T-shirt like a heavy coat.

“Up and over,” she said to little Leo, tilting the baby jogger back and hiking it over a curb. Leo loved the sudden movement and let out a joyful screech.

She and Will both laughed at the happy sound. How little their son required—sleep, food, a ride in a stroller—to make him feel loved. She wished she could say the same for herself. After eight months of living here, things were not turning out as they expected.

At last, they reached the opposite end of the bridge and stepped onto the Pest side of town—pronounced Pesht—otherwise known as the flat industrial section of Budapest, where streets, arranged in gridlike patterns, fanned out for hundreds of blocks. Buda was the hilly side.

“Look both ways,” she said as they crossed a wide avenue ringed with trolley tracks.

“There’s the street,” Will said. “Károly utca. Number 647 should be on the left.” He closed his map.

They entered a serene residential street, empty except for parked cars and deeply shaded by maples and oaks, grand as any she’d seen back home in Massachusetts, limbs reaching high into the moist atmosphere. The trees offered a soft feeling of relief from the sharp-edged, intractable sun reflecting off the main boulevards. Leo bent his head back to take in the quilt of greenery overhead. His auburn curls matched Will’s exactly, a coincidence that seemed more miracle than a stroke of fate. How else could she explain it, given that their son had come to them via an adoption agency in North Carolina?

“Ap, Dada.” Leo pointed to Will’s map.

“Map, that’s right,” Annie said. “Daddy needs to hold on to it.”

THE THREE-STORY BRICK building lacked classical architectural adornments. She guessed it to be late 1930s modernism. Old newspapers littered the entranceway, where a panel of buzzers listed residents’ names. Annie stepped closer to the panel, scuffing a roll of newspapers out of the way, and rubbed her finger across the handwritten letters.

“Just as Rose said. Here it is, number 2F. Rose and Josef Szabo.” From her hip pocket, she unfolded the piece of thin fax paper.

Dear Annie and Will,

We are concerned about the heat you are having. Please go to our flat, no. 2F at 647 Károly utca. A man named Edward Weiss is living there. Edward is in his seventies and not in good health. He has diabetes and a heart condition. We are worried about him.

It was true. Temperatures had turned lethal these past weeks. The summer of 1995 was breaking records for the longest stretch of days over ninety degrees, according to Radio Free Europe, the station she listened to every morning since coming here eight months ago. Already a dozen elderly had died. More deaths expected, no end in sight, the announcer had warned in that Euro-British broadcaster’s accent she’d grown accustomed to.

“Ready?” Will said. He stood next to her, a good half foot taller than she, blocking a ray of sun poking through the trees. He wore his usual summer attire: madras shorts, collared shirt, tennis sneakers.

“Wait. Her instructions are very specific,” Annie said. She reread them aloud: “ ‘This is important. You must not tell anyone that he is living there. We are trusting you. The buzzer to the apartment is broken, but the front door to the building will be open. It is never locked. Go to the second floor. Knock loudly. Tell him we sent you. He will not like this. Call right away if you find a problem. Hugs and kisses to Leo.’ ”

Rose’s handwritten consonants curled in the same Hungarian style of script Annie had seen on store receipts here.

“It’s odd Rose never mentioned this Edward Weiss,” she said. She hoisted Leo from the jogger to her hip.

“I know. Let’s go.” Will easily lifted the aluminum baby jogger and carried it through the doorway.

She loved entering buildings for the first time. She attributed this pleasure in part to her father who owned a real-estate company in Portland, Maine, where she grew up. He taught her that buildings were meant to be inspected, surveyed, and assessed. But for Annie, it was more than that. Unknown buildings held secrets, possibilities, surprises—a peek into other people’s hidden lives.

A center staircase greeted them.

“There’s an elevator,” Will said, pointing to a dark corner behind the stairs.

“Let’s walk up.”

The open stairway turned three times around a shaft shimmering with dust and sun from a skylight above. Leo grasped strands of her short hair. He tightened his plump legs around her waist, the sweat on his soft skin indistinguishable from hers. On the second-floor landing, they found the apartment midway down a dark hall, the last name, SZABO, on a tag beneath a peephole.

She knocked, then looked into the peephole, but it was covered up and she could only see black. Leo reached out to touch it.

They waited.

She knocked again. Louder.

“Mr. Weiss?”

She pressed her ear against the door. “I hear something.”

The peephole lightened and after some jostling the door was unlocked. An elderly man with a large forehead stood in the doorway. He eyed the jogger without the usual surprise that Hungarians exhibited.

“Yes? What is it?”

He spoke perfect American English and wore a pajama set: thin navy-colored pants and matching short-sleeve shirt hanging loosely, as if he’d lost a lot of weight. The dark material accentuated his pale liver-spotted skin. Annie took a step back, struck by his bedraggled appearance. The old man’s eyes followed her, two dark lights quivering with nervous energy. She wondered if he were feverish.

Will said, “I’m Will Gordon. Our old neighbors in the US, Rose and Josef Szabo, asked us to come by. This is my wife, Annie. We used to live across the street from Rose and Josef.”

“In Massachusetts,” Annie said.

“Yes. Yes. I know about you. What are you doing here?”

Annie looked at Will, then said, “Rose was concerned about the heat. She asked us to stop by.”

“Why didn’t you ring the buzzer? What were you planning, a break-in?” He looked behind her, his dark, burning eyes scurrying up and down the length of the hall.

“She told us not to use the buzzer,” Annie said. “She told us to knock.” She shifted Leo on her hip. The baby was focused on the old man, taking in his appearance and behavior.

“Thank you. I’m fine. Is that it?”

“Rose was concerned about the heat,” Will said.

“What about it? It’s hotter than hell.”

The old man’s gray hair, matted from sweat and grease, gave off an odor like burned toast.

“That’s all,” Annie said. “We didn’t mean to disturb you. Rose was concerned. We can come back another time.” She turned toward the stairs. He reminded her of men she’d served at the homeless shelter in Boston. Sometimes it was better to feign disinterest.

“Door,” Leo said, pointing at Mr. Weiss. The baby squirmed in her arms, wanting to get down and walk.

Mr. Weiss swatted the air. “Hold on. Don’t get dramatic on me. I’ve had enough of that in my life. Never mind. Come on. Bring your child in.” He patted Leo’s arm, and in that moment of contact, she saw something soften inside him.

“What’s your child’s name?”

“This is Leo.”

“He’s the one who matters. Come on. Bring in that stroller or whatever you call that thing.” He waved them inside.

Sensing they had passed some kind of test, Annie looked at Will, then stepped across the threshold into the apartment and put Leo down. Edward shut the door behind them and locked it. A standing fan rattled the air in the living room, making unflattering noises.

“You’ve been here since January, have you not?” Edward said.

“That’s right.” She was stunned to learn that he knew this. Did this mean he had been here all this time? The apartment didn’t look lived in. It lacked furniture except for an orange couch parked in the middle of a large living area, another standing fan next to an easel, and a small television propped on a suitcase.

“When did you arrive?” Will asked.

“Not important. Listen closely, please,” Edward said, raising his voice and facing them. “If you care about an old man, and I believe that you will, based on what Josef and Rose told me about you, you’ll honor the understanding I have with them. I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. If you violate this confidence, we’re done. Understand?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Annie nodded but didn’t understand at all. She kept her eye on Leo as he wandered toward the windows on the opposite wall.

“Don’t mention to anyone that I live here. Not one person. Not your babysitter. Not your American friends, or your family back home, or the taxi driver, or the person who cleans your apartment. Understand?”

“Sure,” Will said, nodding.

Leo blew air, imitating the sound of the fan. The room smelled of oil paint. On the easel by the windows, Annie saw a small unfinished painting of a mountain scene. Leo was heading toward the easel but had stopped to inspect a scratch on the wood floor. Still bewildered, she tried to reason out the facts. Until this morning, Rose and Josef had not mentioned anyone living in this apartment. All those times Josef referred to his flat, he bragged only about its real-estate value, heightening its importance with jabs of his stubby hands. Not a peep about an old man living here.

“We thought the apartment was empty,” Will said.

“It was.”

Annie looked down at the wooden parquet floor and noted the same herringbone design she had seen throughout Budapest, including the flat they rented. This zigzagging floor pattern had lost its shine long ago, worn down to an unvarnished layer. But the room was spacious—she guesstimated twelve hundred square feet, enormous by Budapest standards—and in that way she understood why Josef raved about it. It would have worked well for the three of them had Josef rented it to them. But he hadn’t. Perhaps this Mr. Weiss was the reason why.

Leo came back and tugged on Annie’s hand.

“What else did Rose and Josef say about us?” Will asked.

“Josef thinks you’re a nice couple searching for something. Doesn’t know what for. Says you had more than enough to satisfy you in Boston. Big house, yes? Nice neighborhood in the suburbs. Good jobs. Americans are never satisfied. We always want more, am I right?”

“I suppose so,” Annie said, wanting to be agreeable, though she wasn’t sure what she wanted at this point. This friend of Rose and Josef’s did not look well. She allowed Leo to steer her back toward the door. She was hungry and hot, and it was obvious that Edward, as Rose had warned in the fax, wasn’t thrilled about this unexpected visit. “We’re sorry we disturbed you,” she said. “Rose and Josef were worried.”

“Worry. What a waste of time. What does it get you? Nothing. I assure you.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. On a table next to the couch, she saw an empty glass and a small framed picture of a woman in a wheelchair. The photo in the frame had been torn in half. “You have a lot of room here,” she said in an effort to be friendly. “Josef often talked about this apartment. It’s nice.”

“Come on. You’re thinking why doesn’t he fix this place up, put it on the market, and turn a good profit. Am I right? They don’t live here anymore. It would make sense. What are you trying to accomplish in this godforsaken place?”

“I’m here on business,” Will said.

“Yes. But for what? The big killing. The big deal?”

“We’re hoping to build communication networks in outlying towns.”

Annie was proud of Will. Though Hungary was not the slam-dunk moneymaking opportunity her husband had imagined it would be, he had a philosophy. She took a step closer to Will, hooking her free arm around his.

“Will has a theory that communication networks can prevent wars.”

“Theories.” Mr. Weiss snorted. He held up his hand to stop her from saying any more. “Don’t talk to me about theories or war. Good luck to you both. Hungarians have been traders for a thousand years. Traitors, too, if you know your history.”

Annie wanted to protest. Dismissing an entire country was harsh, but she kept silent. Instead, she nodded to let Mr. Weiss know she knew her history. She knew that Hungarians supported Hitler, had decimated a million Jews. She knew the country had been taken over by Russia following the war and had only officially freed itself four years ago, in 1991, when the last of the Russian troops finally vacated the country. It was a new day here, a new era. Communist statues had literally been toppled. Now Russian watches decorated with communist symbols were sold as mementos on street corners to tourists. It was a new time of hope, wasn’t it? Couldn’t people and countries change?

“May I ask what kind of business you were in?” Will said, crossing his arms.

“Sales. Medical equipment. Sold large expensive machines to hospitals and clinics. Did it for thirty-five years. The truth is, it was a racket in the guise of helping, like so many things—and people.”

“I’m sure your machines helped people,” Annie said, thinking of Tracy, her older sister. She wished someone would invent a machine that could eliminate Tracy’s seizures. But no. So far, nothing had worked. Tracy had undergone surgery after her brain injury, but the seizures hadn’t stopped. Now she took pills and wore a special helmet, and used the latest electronic wheelchair to help mitigate her deteriorating circumstances.

“What about early detection?” Will said. “MRIs have been a great service.”

Edward shrugged. “Sure. It’s old information in new, fancy packages, telling people what they already know or don’t want to hear. Is that helping?”

Annie wanted to ask him what his machines revealed about his own obviously deteriorating health. But the room was stuffy and the fan next to her wasn’t doing much of anything except tossing around hot air and making noise. She wondered about the picture of the woman in the wheelchair, but Leo had wandered back across the room and found Mr. Weiss’s tubes of paints and was trying to unscrew the top of one of them. Annie hurried over and gently took his hand. He protested, squealing.

“Come over here, sweetie.”

“He’s a curious child,” Mr. Weiss said, nodding.

He didn’t seem to mind Leo’s shrieks, and for that she was grateful.

“Does your boy want something to drink?”

“Thank you. We’re fine,” Annie said.

The old man grunted and started toward a tiny kitchen area, an alcove off the living room. He turned on the tap, poured himself a glass of water and drank it in one gulp. He was gruff, rude, then polite. What was going on here, she wondered.

Will called to their son. “Leo, come over here.”

Annie scooped him up. On the easel, the picture of a mountain on a canvas the size of a book charmed her and revealed an able hand. On the floor, a small stack of similar-size canvases caught her eye. “Beautiful paintings,” she said, but she wondered how could he paint in this low light. The living-room windows, tall and wide, needed cleaning. Street grit dulled the sun pressing through. A set of old-fashioned velvet curtains framed the windows. She didn’t want to imagine how old they were. The part of her that liked things neat and in order wanted to dust and clean up this place.

She turned to Will. “We should go.” It was time for lunch and Leo’s afternoon nap, but Leo pulled away from her again, wanting to touch the paintings.

Edward shuffled toward her. Despite a slight stoop, he was nearly Will’s height.

“Let the boy look. He’s fine. He can’t hurt them. Go on. Pick one up.”

Leo grinned as he slid from her grasp and plopped down on the floor. The canvases were small enough to manipulate with his chubby thumbs.

“They are lovely,” she said.

Edward almost smiled. Encouraged by this, she said, “Are you from Boston, too? Do you have family here?”

As soon as she asked, she regretted it. The old man’s body locked up. His eyes flogged her as if she had insulted him.

“No. No family here.”

“Pains,” Leo said, picking up a brush.

Mr. Weiss turned to Leo and the burning in his eyes cooled down. How sudden these changes, she thought. She’d seen this sort of thing at the shelter: emotional squalls in grown men, erratic behavior flip-flopping, the way Leo acted when he needed something. She’d seen it with her brother, Greg, when he started drinking in high school.

“You have a nice boy,” Edward said, his voice tender. “You trust your babysitter? I assume you hired a Hungarian. You trust her?”

“Yes. She’s wonderful,” Annie said.

“You did a background check?”

“Yes, another American family referred her to us,” Annie said.

“People can fool you.”

He looked stricken again, as if a sharp object had stabbed his stomach. He leaned over and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Mr. Weiss?” She reached toward him.

“Sir, why don’t you sit down?” Will put his hand on Edward’s elbow. “Is it your stomach?”

She wondered if they should call a doctor.

“No. Look. Please. You’ll have to excuse me now.” The old man started for the door, his body tilting as if his legs were not the same length. “I’m going to have to cut this visit short.”

Annie picked up Leo and settled him on her hip, but he resisted, reaching out first toward the easel, then Edward.

“Honey, no. It’s time for lunch.”

“Sorry for the trouble,” Will said.

“Everything in life is trouble, haven’t you learned that yet?” Edward said, breathing hard.

Annie paused at the door.

“We’re happy to run an errand for you. We have a car. If you have a doctor’s appointment—anything. Please call us. Our cell phone number is on Will’s card. Did you bring a cell phone with you?” She quickly scanned the room for a landline, not expecting to see one. Very few Hungarians had phones in their homes. Or, if they did, it meant they had waited five, even ten, years for one and paid too much money or had some special connection to someone higher up in the food chain of favors. Only a select group had cell phones—the nouveau riche, state and city officials, politicians, and of course, Americans. She spotted Edward’s cell phone on the couch. “Please call us if you need anything,” Annie said.

Will handed him his business card.

“Look, I knew you’d show up eventually.”

“Call anytime,” Will said. “We don’t live far from here. We’re down by the river.”

“The river, you say?”

“Yes.”

Annie watched this information ricochet inside the old man’s throat. He swallowed and straightened his back, seeming to engage in something, then looked at her with new intent and interest.

“Any other Americans in your building?”

“No. No other Americans. Just us. The rest are Hungarians,” Annie said. She shifted Leo onto her other hip, but her son had become a body of twists and twirls. “Please, call us.”

“I will. I will do that.”

He nodded and opened the door, his surprisingly nimble fingers grabbing hold of the doorknob. “Keep an eye on your boy there. Watch out for thugs. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

Two

He needs a doctor,” Annie said as soon as they stepped outside. She let Will take the stroller so she could call Rose on their cell. “He is not okay.”

“Maybe not. We caught him off-guard. He wasn’t expecting us.”

“That’s true, but did you see how he walked?”

“Arthritis is my guess. He’s old.”

“How do they know him? Why is he here?”

Annie dialed Rose’s number and listened to the echoing wires connecting overseas to the States. It would be very early morning in Massachusetts. “You’ve reached the Szabo residence. Leave your name.” Click. Rose’s message made no attempt to sound friendly. In this way, her old neighbor’s Hungarian roots, despite nearly fifty years of living in America, revealed itself. Earnest, serious people, Hungarians didn’t put on cheerful pretenses or offer gratuitous smiles the way Americans did.

She spoke slowly into the phone in an effort to sound calm and clear. “It’s Annie. We’re fine. We just left your friend, Mr. Weiss. Honestly, he does not look well. Does he have a doctor here? Maybe it’s nothing, but I’ll feel better when I’ve talked to you. Call when you get this message. We miss you.”

As soon as Annie hung up, the cell rang.

“I was in the bathroom,” Rose said. “What happened?”

“Your friend doesn’t look well. He looks feverish.”

“He’s not well,” Rose said. “You are suffering terrible heat, yes?”

“Yes. I think he should see a doctor. He was in pain. His stomach or legs—he limps. How do you know him? Why is he here?”

“I can’t tell you, dear. You will have to trust me. He has a good doctor. I know this. There are good doctors in Budapest. Did he talk to you?”

“Yes. He let us in. We saw your apartment. It’s nice. He was sweet with Leo.”

“He’s a good man,” Rose said.

“He wasn’t happy about our visit.”

“No. But now you are friends?”

“I wouldn’t call it that, but he said he would call us.”

“Good. I knew he would like you.”

“When did he get here?”

“I can’t tell you. Maybe he will tell you. Listen. You know you can trust me, Annie. Remember what I used to do. You did the right thing. How is little Leo?”

Annie remembered quite well what Rose used to do, and she thought back to the first time she learned of Rose’s involvement in the Jewish underground during the war. “I know how to keep a secret,” Rose had said, sitting across from Annie in a booth at a neighborhood restaurant in a strip mall. Rose had sounded stern, but her hazel eyes had filled with tears. Annie didn’t press. At the time, she was just getting to know Rose and wanted to respect the older woman’s privacy and the memories that clearly and understandably upset her. From then on, Annie felt conscious of Rose’s role as a Jewish woman from Hungary who had managed to make it to the States after the war, and how Rose responded to life in general, as if everything mattered intensely—whether it was sharing a recipe for a chocolate cake or the name of a landscaper or her husband’s uncertain health. Now, with an ocean between them, in different time zones, Annie accepted Rose’s authority on keeping confidences and followed her lead by detailing the list of Leo’s new words. But after she hung up, she couldn’t shake her uneasiness around Rose’s insistence on secrecy. And, yes, she understood in an abstract way what Rose had done during the war. But that was fifty years ago. A half century had passed. What did that have to do with Mr. Edward Weiss right no. . .