Géza Márton was not particularly surprised to hear that János Krestin had been killed. There were dozens of people who would gladly have murdered the man and felt no remorse, he thought. The news made him feel light on his feet, as if he had been carrying Krestin on his back since 1945. Just knowing that Krestin was thriving had deprived him of sleep. Tonight would be his first peaceful night since before Vorkuta, and he told his wife, Klara, that he was going to bed early to make the most of it.
“I suppose Nagy couldn’t have done it?” he had asked Helena when she called with the good news. “You said he is frail, didn’t you? But that son of a bitch broke his fingers. He must have wanted to get even, didn’t he?”
“He is no longer interested in getting even. And even if he still longs for revenge, he is too old to exact it. And I am pretty sure it was not Krestin who broke his fingers, but a man called Bika.”
“Bika. He had the other prisoners beat me. But it was Krestin who ordered Bika to break Gábor’s fingers.” Géza took a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about him. Nagy told you Krestin used to be in state security, didn’t he? In the ÁVO? Those guys were as bad as the Nazis. They may have killed fewer people, but I think they enjoyed it more. I told you that Krestin had my father jailed, had him condemned to death. For no reason at all. He accused my father of shooting ÁVO men during the ’56 Revolution.”
“Perhaps he had your father jailed because of your relationship with Gertrude?”
Géza was quiet for a while, then he said, “I really doubt that. I don’t think Gertrude met him till after my father’s trial. Late ’57. I was long gone by then.”
“Did you talk with Gertrude after you left?”
“Back in ’57? She would have been in trouble if she heard from me. Even if she didn’t reply, she would still have paid a price. My letters would have been opened, and if I’d still been trying to persuade her to come west, she would have been under suspicion. I was sure her phone was tapped. You must understand, it was a police state. People simply disappeared if the state chose to have them vanish. No formal charges, no trials, just whoosh.” He took some shallow breaths before he resumed. “I sent her a postcard from Salzburg with a picture of some baroque towers. They were a great tourist attraction even then, but they’re much prettier now. Klara and I visited Austria a couple of years ago. Back then, I was in the refugee camp outside town, so I never saw any baroque towers. The Austrians were kind enough, but they didn’t want us contaminating their town. Mozart’s birthplace, did you know?”
“There was something she said that made me think Krestin was jealous of you.”
There was another long silence before Géza said, “She could have come with me when I left. I asked her to come. She chose not to. But, like I said, he didn’t even know her then. Once I found out she’d married him, I never gave her another thought. Of all the people she could have chosen . . . How did he die?”
“He was garroted,” Helena said. “That would take a great deal more strength than Mr. Nagy has. Even you would find it difficult.” She didn’t believe him when he said he hadn’t given Gertrude another thought. Or that they’d never seen each other again. He had visited Budapest in 1977. He had been to Slovakia. Jenci had said he had met Géza more than once, although he didn’t want his mother to know.
“You didn’t do it, did you?”
Helena laughed. “I am reasonably good, but not that fond of killing, and I had no reason to want him dead. And he denied he was in Vorkuta. How can you be sure he was the man you sold the painting to . . .”
“I didn’t sell it, not in the usual sense,” Géza said. “Any one of us would have sold our souls for a crust of bread. A few of us did sell our souls. And what did a painting matter to me when I was dying of hunger? You have to believe me that he was in Vorkuta.”
“You said he was in the state security police after Vorkuta. That he forced you to sell.”
“Did I? Have you any idea how humiliating it is to talk about being an inmate in a camp? Can you imagine the cold, the lice, the misery, and, above all, the hunger? None of us can bear to think about what we became in those years. How utterly devoid of pride, humanity . . .”
“All along, didn’t you wonder whether you had the right man? How could you be sure? Even after I sent you the photograph. Did he look anything like the person you remembered?”
“People change,” Géza said. “I have changed a lot since then. The picture you sent me of Gábor Nagy doesn’t look much like the Nagy I spent four years of my life with either. Back then, I knew every pore on his body, every rag he wore, every bit of potato peel he ate. I cleaned up his shit when he got dysentery. I slept next to him in the barracks. In the winter, we held each other to keep warm. But now, I wouldn’t know him if we passed each other on the street. He was never a big guy, but he was strong, not the ancient troll in your photograph. I saw him only once after we came home, in ’55 or ’56, before the Revolution. He was still the same then. But I never met Krestin again after I came back from the Gulag. Did you ask Gertrude about him and Vorkuta?”
“I did. He never talked to her about being there or in any other Soviet labour camp. Why have you never asked her? Haven’t you ever wondered?”
“No. I had no reason to wonder. I knew he was a guard. What did she say about the Titian?” he asked.
“She remembered seeing the painting in their apartment and then their house. He kept it in the library, she said, but I doubt there was ever enough wall space in that library. She thought it was an odd picture for him to have at all, since he wasn’t religious. He had a Communist’s disdain for religion.”
“We’ve been over all that,” he said impatiently. “I hope you are satisfied with its provenance, and why I would like you to buy it for me. You have read the documents. You know my family has owned it for more than a hundred years. The money will be transferred to your German account. You can draw on it when the deal is done. Now, you must come to Toronto. We have a lot to talk about, and there are some things best discussed in person. The telephone is not suitable for all subjects. How soon can you get here?”
“About the painting,” she said, “I think I may be able to bring it out of the country when the police are done investigating Krestin’s murder. I told you it has been de-attributed, so the state cannot now claim it is a national treasure. The paperwork shouldn’t take longer than a week. I may need a second payment to draw on, but I doubt it will be more than a few thousand to grease palms. The minister or his deputy will try to shake us down, but he will be reasonable now that we are no longer talking about a Titian.”
She told him she would come for only a day, while the painting was being examined by local authenticators and while the police tried to determine who had killed Krestin. She also told him that she doubted anyone would be charged because whoever was behind the murder was likely to be a foreign national, and the locals were more inclined to go for a friendly shakedown than the bother of an extradition, years of delays, and perhaps a long trial.