Cafe Europa (7 page)

Bertalan Pór bit his tongue. “Yes, we are.” Deadly serious.

Pór then enthusiastically showed us his work, an elaborate narration in a chaotic blend of Hungarian, German, English and, I swear, a trace of bungled French. He pointed to one painting—
The Sermon on the Mount
—that he said had been the subject of an attack on him a few years back. “A man cursed me in the street.”

“A badge of honor, sir.”

Pór bowed to Harold. Thank you. “
Köszönöm.
”

Harold's eyes popped. “Maybe
this
is what I should be writing about. The Hungarian artists who strike out at moribund Habsburg inertia with a paintbrush.”

At that moment Winifred, gazing out the front window, started, and we followed her gaze. For a brief moment I caught the eye of the mysterious American from the Café Europa, that bearded man in the shadows, who sat with Zsuzsa Kos and János Szabó. The rich American from Boston—or so Harold suggested.

“Jonathan Wolf,” Harold announced.

The man, peering in through the dusty windows, jerked back quickly, and disappeared.

“I'm being followed,” Harold said, his voice unusually quiet. His head flicked back and forth nervously, and he bit a fingernail. “Yeah. There's a story there.”

“But what?” I asked.

“I don't feel good about this. Not one bit.” His eyes flashed with anger.

Chapter Five

The next morning, later than I'd planned, I entered the Café Europa to find Winifred already at a table, her hands circling a cup of black coffee. Markov, hovering nearby, signaled to one of the waiters who placed a cup in front of me, bowed, and asked in stilted English what else I wanted. I waved him off. Dark, bone-tingling coffee with frothy whipped cream, a concoction I'd become fond of and knew I'd demand in every American restaurant till the end of my days. I sipped the tangy brew, smacked my lips.

Winifred smiled. “The Hungarians call black coffee ‘black soup.'”

“More like black mud.”

Harold, sitting nearby at a table, had glanced up as I entered, nodding through narrowed eyes. He was scribbling on a pad, biting the end of a pencil with the dedication of a beaver on a log.

“So you've exiled dear Harold?” I smiled at Winifred.

She didn't smile back. “I didn't say a word, but my steely eye sent a message to the man.”

“Sooner or later he'll be sitting with us.”

“That's because he knows you favor him.” She twisted her mouth. “Something I'll never understand.”

“A character, I admit, but amusing in the way the family pet satisfies its owner.”

She shook her head. “And I thought I'd mastered the cruel jibe.”

I shrugged. “I meant my words to be kind.”

“Edna, I travel with you because you don't suffer fools. You're a young woman, but somehow you've learned that lesson early on. It took me a lot of years to learn that—and time spent on a cold jail floor, held down by rapacious men.”

“I'm so sorry.” I shivered. “I can't imagine that.”

She reached over to pat my wrist. “Don't feel sorry for me, Edna. Friendships fail when pity enters the picture.”

Harold was sitting back now, arms folded against his chest, glaring at us, perhaps catching some of the conversation about him. Then, inspired, he scribbled furiously on his pad, then looked up to survey the quiet room. A few tables were occupied, one unfortunately burdened by the sour-looking poet, István Nagy. A snake-like man, dandyish in his fuchsia scarves and undulating
belle-époque
softness. Only his piercing eyes betrayed a petty character: hard, unforgiving. He caught me watching him and his face stiffened. Idly, I compared him with the two artists, Bertalan Pór and Lajos Tihanyi, who, despite their quirkiness and bizarre canvases, were welcome breaths of fresh air, vital young men in a hurry, racing to the horizon, spirited, robust.

Out of the blue, Harold announced to the room, “The topic of the day: the Serbian Question. My day, of course.”

Winifred grumbled, “Madness in a young man is particularly alarming.”

I addressed Harold. “What are you talking about?”

“The Austrian-Hungarian Empire doesn't know how to deal with little crazy Serbia, spreading venom, throwing stink bombs, assassinating aristocrats—as if that'll take care of things. Bosnia and Herzegovina be damned. Serbia, that Balkan powder keg, the streets filled with anarchists sailing merrily through the cobbled streets, looking for someone—sometimes I think anyone—to kill.

“I've been there—in Belgrade. Unlike the emperor who has no clue what is happening in his empire's far corners. Mud and pigs in the streets, ladies lifting their skirts to avoid the muck. King Peter Karageorgevich, a corrupt man, happy only in the brothels of Paris. Afraid of the Black Hand that put him in power. Young Bosnia—hungry for vengeance against the tyrant Austria. What to do if you're Austrian?
Alle Serben müssen sterben!
All Serbs must die.”

Pleased with this insane oration, Harold stood and bowed, and somehow didn't look foolish doing so.

“Good Lord, Mr. Gibbon. Stop! So early in the day.” I chuckled. “Politics is a bore this time of day.”

“Politics pay my bills.”

“But you talk of assassination and mayhem.”

“A day of reckoning that's coming round the bend. Welcome to the Old World.”

Too bombastic, his words sailing across the quiet café, doubtless his day's copy to be wired to Hearst. From his table István Nagy looked up from his desultory versifying, and grunted too loudly. An unhappy man.

Now, deliberately, Harold pointed at him. “The spy in the house of Magyar. The apologist for the cruel double-eagled monarchy.”

Vladimir Markov, signaled by Harold, rushed to the table and placed a bottle of spring water on the table.

“Mr. Markov,” Harold began, “a moment of your time.”

Markov didn't look happy but moved closer and leaned in. “Of course.” A thick English accent.
Ov corz.

“You hear everything here, my good man. Perhaps you can shed some light on the question of the day. Franz Josef, when he's not dying and shunning Franz Ferdinand's unroyal wife Sophie, spends his days hating Serbia. What do you think?”

Flushed, Markov looked back to the kitchen door, as though seeking escape. He fumbled with a button on his black vest, and then checked to see whether his cravat was still knotted. For a moment he was silent. Then, stuttering, he answered, “I no discuss the empire.”

Harold guffawed. “I love it. ‘The empire.' That rumbling over-bloated entity, bursting with bile and pus and sewage, unhappy with the heir to the crown—aloof Franz Ferdinand, hidden away in his castle in Bohemia with that
hausfrau
no one likes. He hates Hungary, doesn't he? Good old Franz, tooling through Budapest in his Lohner-Porsche, scattering the chickens and calling the city a hotbed of dangerous men. And so the old Magyars despise him.”

Markov flinched. “Sir, I am a foreigner living in this glorious city. A guest worker, I think you say.” He slipped into German. “
Un arbeider
. A worker. Budapest is my home. Me and my wife who comes—flees—the mountains of Russia. The village there. A wonderful life here.” He smiled uncomfortably. “Here—electric lights, the underground train. I love Budapest.”

Harold flipped his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I get the message. We all love Budapest. That is, everyone but good old Franz Ferdinand. What happens to the Croats, Serbs, Bulgarians, Gypsies, Jews when he takes over for his uncle, who at this moment, I understand, is gasping for a final undeserved breath?”

Markov looked around him, locking eyes with István Nagy, who was listening closely. “Such talk is…dangerous, sir. I have a simple job…”

Harold looked at Winifred and me. “See? Everyone is afraid here. Everyone kisses your hand, bows like
you're
the king and queen, but first looks to see if you've got a bomb in the other hand.” He roared at his own remarks.

Markov backed off, but not before catching István Nagy's eye. A low hiss escaped from the poet's throat. Finally, swiveling around so quickly he bumped a chair, Markov fled into the kitchen. Voices from inside: a woman's frantic voice, maybe his wife, quivering, questioning. Markov's own voice, laced with fear. The crash of glass dropped onto the tiled floor. A curse in Russian.

“You like to endanger that poor man's job?” I said to Harold.

He waved his hand in the air. “Really, Miss Ferber. I'm just doing my job.”

“He has nothing to offer you.”

“The man in the street—my take on things. The fact that he's scared to talk of how much everyone hates Franz Joseph is a topic unto itself. And so I report it.” He stopped to jot something down, his face contorted with concentration. “The old pensioner sitting in City Park is a gold mine of juicy tidbits.”

“A weasel,” Winifred said too loudly.

“Someday you'll like me, Miss Moss.”

“Not in the usual lifespan of any intelligent woman living in 1914.”

An amused flick of his head as he tore off the page, crumpled it, and blithely tossed it to the edge of the table. A passing waiter deftly removed it, and bowed.

Winifred picked at a piece of the cherry strudel and twisted her chair so that her back was to Harold. “Our Soon-to-be-Countess Cassandra, that delightful young American, woke me up last night,” Winifred began.

“Where?”

“You know that she and Mrs. Pelham, her dreadful duenna, have that suite of rooms at the end of my floor. Her mother and father are safely ensconced on the above floor, the entire floor. Their servants stomp a little too loudly late at night, by the way. Anyway, I was readying for bed, perhaps eleven last night, putting down my book, when I heard Cassandra passing my door. Despite Mrs. Pelham's pleading for quiet, Cassandra was retelling some joke someone had told her at supper. Laughing like a hyena, that girl, disturbing the quiet corridor.”

“Well, she
is
spirited.”

“I'd use a different word, dear Edna.”

“Did you say anything?”

“No, of course not. With Mrs. Pelham grumbling—her rumbling was strangely more annoying than Cassandra's cackle—the two managed to enter their rooms without waking the entire floor.”

At that moment Mrs. Pelham appeared in the doorway, one foot tapping angrily. She glanced behind her, impatient, and said something to a slow-moving Cassandra. Ever vigilant, Markov scurried to greet them, ushering the pair to the same table they'd occupied the day before.

Mrs. Pelham snapped her fingers, ordering tea for both, but Cassandra was shaking her head. “Nothing for me.”

“Now, dear…”

An icy voice, cutting. “I
said
nothing for me.”

Mrs. Pelham sat back, narrowed her eyes, and kept still. She addressed Markov, waiting by the table. “
Two
teas, sir. Acacia honey with tea.” A long pause. “I have a spring cold.”

Cassandra was dressed in a blue satin morning dress, her hair dressed in a pompadour with an abundance of ivory and silver hair combs. But there was something wrong with her face—yes, she'd powdered her cheeks, gently rouged her cheekbones, but unevenly, haphazardly.

Mrs. Pelham, drawing attention to her incomplete toilette, hinted that Cassandra had best return to her rooms—“Do I need to tell you again?”

Cassandra shrugged her shoulders and took in the room. The crowded café was staring, mesmerized by her entrance.

At that moment her eyes caught mine, and I saw curiosity there. She held eye contact with me. I didn't know how to interpret her startled look. There was irritation, yes, but hesitancy, fear, anger, a welter of flashing emotions the untutored girl entertained. Something was wrong. In that second I felt a jolt of electricity. It was as though she'd been given a secret she found baffling and was asking me for an answer. But that was impossible. Her lips trembled. My pulse quickened. What was going on here?

Winifred whispered, “Our spring daffodil is losing her petals.”

Intrigued, Harold had put down his pencil, folded his arms across his chest, and blatantly stared at the young girl. He cleared his throat. “Ah, Miss…?”

I broke in. “Harold, no.”

“What?”

“You're going to say something
I'll
regret.”

He chuckled. “God, you're no fun, Miss Ferber.”

“Allow someone her privacy.”

“Then I'd be out of work.”

“Maybe you should be,” Winifred sniped.

He winked at me. “See? She's thawing already.”

Winifred growled and stuck her fork into the cherry strudel.

But at that moment the skittish György emerged from the kitchen with a tray, a pot of hot tea, cups, a basket of breads and biscuits. On his face that foolish country-bumpkin boy smile. He was nervous approaching the beautiful girl. His hands shook, and the teapot shifted. He began bowing before he approached her table, not the wisest behavior for a scattered young man toting a tray. Mrs. Pelham nodded at him as he placed it on a side table and lifted the teapot.

Cassandra cried, “I told you I
don't
want tea.”

Mrs. Pelham breathed in. “I requested…”

“I don't care what you requested. Didn't you hear me say…”

The boy twitched, swung around, as though looking for Markov. He held the teapot in the air, suspended, hands shaking, uncertain what to do.

Mrs. Pelham tapped his arm emphatically. “Here, child.”

György jumped as if slapped, and hot tea sloshed from the decanter, mostly onto the table and floor, but a few drops landed on Cassandra's sleeve. She screamed and threw out her arm.

The boy backed away.

Again, Mrs. Pelham touched his arm. “Leave it, young man. Do you hear me?”

Cassandra glared. “Speak English.”

Unintelligible language seeped from his mouth—probably no language, this amalgam of Slavic, German, and English. The boy froze, his face crimson, his eyes blinking madly. I thought he might break down sobbing.

“This is unacceptable,” I declared.

“Well, that'll end that boy's infantile infatuation,” Winifred added.

Mrs. Pelham glanced our way. Harold frowned, tipping his chair so two of the legs were in the air.

Vladimir Markov rushed in from the kitchen. “What? What?
Was ist los
?” His glance took in the petrified boy and the by-now hysterical Cassandra who was waving her arm in the air as though it had caught fire.

“Him,” she cried. “This…this child is allowed to dump boiling water on the guests. Is this how things are here?”

Mrs. Pelham reached out to stop her flow of words, but Cassandra pushed on. “I want him fired.”

Markov said softly, “So sorry, dear madam. He is a boy. In training. My wife's…” He stopped. “My apologies, please.” He swung around and gripped György's arm tightly. “Leave now.”

But György was stuck to the spot, though he'd begun swaying back and forth like an unstable toy. Finally Markov shoved him, smacking him across his skinny chest, and the boy grunted. Stunned, hurt, he walked away slowly, and my heart went out to him, an adolescent boy who found himself mired in muck. As the kitchen door slammed behind him, I heard a woman's voice, soothing, comforting, a run of Slavic words that ended in what sounded like a sob. The boy's or hers—I didn't know.