Viktor had given Nika three-weeks, but circumstances compelled him to order Nika back to Budapest after two. As the car made its way back to Budapest, Nika believed a new life for her had begun. There were certainly obstacles, apart from the obvious ones, beyond her control, the principal impediment being Hungary’s ever closer relationship with Hitler’s Germany. Even Hungary’s Polish ally appeared to be coming around to the idea of a German alliance after their plan to dismantle Germany had been scuppered by the French and British. Control of Danzig remained a problem between Warsaw and Berlin, yet the seemingly ever-jovial Reichsstatthalter of Prussia, Hermann Goring, whom Nika discovered Abrienda counted within her second tier of friends, spent his holidays in Poland shooting game in the Bialowieza Forest with the Polish president. Nevertheless, the Czechoslovaks continued to put their faith in the word of France and its Romanian and Yugoslav allies, all sworn enemies of Hungary. The future for the homeland of the woman she loved appeared dim indeed. Mercifully, Sergei interrupted Nika’s dreary train of thought.
“I enjoyed myself in Prague.”
“Did you?” Nika replied. “With Captain Dementyev and your Kappelevtsy comrades?”
“Yes. Sometimes I felt I was the only one who survived. It was good to remember that time, only I don’t care to lose to those bastards again.”
“Everything’s falling apart… the army, the regiment… maybe Holy Russia, too.”
Captain Andreev dropped the remains of his cigarette on the ground and snuffed it out with the toe of his boot. “That is why we’re leaving. Me, Captain Orlov, Lieutenants Sokolov and Voronin, and many others.”
Sergei considered them all good men, as he did the captain, but it was too much for him to take in all at once. “You mean, your honor, you are going to,”
Sergei searched for the word, “desert the army?”
The captain shook his head. “What army is that? There is no army anymore, just a mob. That’s why we’re leaving. We’re going to join the Whites in the Kuban and fight the Bolsheviks. They want to turn our Russia into Hell on earth.” He put his hands on Sergei’s shoulders.
“I want you to come with us, Sergei Arkadievich, as sergeant in the new company. What do you think?”
What Sergei thought was he wanted to go home. After almost four years, he did not want to fight anymore. Or at least not for a while, not until after he had seen his family.
“I am grateful, your honor—a sergeant! My mother—my sister—would be so proud! But… forgive me… you want to fight these people, these ‘Bolsheviks,’ only I don’t know them. I trust you when you say they need fighting, but I need to go home. It’s been too long, your Honor.”
The captain looked at the ground and nodded. “I understand.” He reached into his coat, took out a revolver and handed it to Sergei. “It’s for you. A parting gift from one comrade to another. You may need it.” He then handed him a slip of official-looking paper. “This is also for you… it will get you home safely. Just shove it under the nose of anyone in authority who asks where you’re going.”
Sergei starred at the Austrian revolver. “I… I want to say…”
The words would not come. He stepped back, pulled himself erect and saluted. “Thank you, your honor! May God and St. George be with you always,”
The captain embraced him, stepped back and returned the salute.
“Goodbye, Sergei. You’re a good man.” he said and quickly strode away.
Sergei wandered aimlessly about the disorderly camp, gazing at his new possession. “The captain is a brave and good man, start to finish!” he said to himself. “If he’s joining those Whites to fight those Bolsheviks—whatever they are—maybe it’s right I fight them, too!” He decided once he had been home long enough, he would join the captain and fight the Bolsheviks, should they still be around causing trouble.
When he reached his tent, he sat on his cot and took out the slip of paper the captain gave him along with the gun. As Sergei could not read he found a comrade who could and discovered it was a pass bearing the captain’s signature releasing Sergei from the army to visit his family and allowing him to requisition a horse for that purpose.
Next morning, Sergei decided he would go with the captain to the Kuban, become a sergeant, and fight the Bolsheviks.
When he arrived at the captain’s quarters, he was gone.
Desolated, Sergei returned to his tent. A soldier, dishevelled, dirty, shoved a leaflet into his hand. “Read this, comrade!” he said, and thrust leaflets at the other soldiers. Sergei could not read, but the words on the pamphlet encircled a garish illustration of a young man holding a pitchfork, looking at a distant sunrise, terrified men dressed in robes wearing crowns and religious mitres grovelling at his feet.
Sergei studied the face of the man holding the pitchfork. “Looks like a Jew.” He crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it on the ground.
That evening Sergei brought four bottles of vodka to the tent of his comrade Arkady Sokoloff to celebrate his release from the army. Arkady was considerably older than Sergei and considerably more experienced. Along with getting drunk, Sergei wanted to ask him what he knew about the Bolsheviks the captain had gone to fight. He found the tent empty, save for his friend.
“Come in, come in, Sergei! Everyone else deserted. We have it all to ourselves.”
After finishing off the first bottle, Sergei showed Arkady the pistol and told him about the captain’s offer.
“A sergeant? That is nothing to spit at!” He threw back a glass of vodka. “But fight the Bolsheviks? That would be me, I guess.”
Sergei was shocked. “You’re a Bolshevik? I was told they were all Jews and Freemasons, whatever those last are.”
“I know nothing about that,” Arkady replied. “All I know is that we had a revolution because the people were ill-treated and oppressed. Now we are free, but are still ignorant and uneducated.”
He threw back another glass and coughed.
“I am a Bolshevik, but I don’t know what Bolshevism is, as I cannot read nor write; I just accept what the last speaker says. Our soldier’s committee is Bolshevik, so now I am one, too. If it were anything else, I would be that. So, I’m guessing it would be a lot of dumb oxen like me you’d be fighting with the captain.”
Sergei shrugged. “That wasn’t very helpful. Let’s just drink.”
Early the next morning, Sergei left before someone changed his mind about letting him go. He requisitioned a horse; a sorry-looking creature Sergei was unsure could take him out of the camp, let alone to his village.
“But it’s alright,” he said, speaking gently to his new companion and stroking his throat latch.
“You’re just tired. I’ll be kind but firm, and in exchange, you’ll take me home.” He walked away, and when the horse followed him, knew they could be on their way.
Sergei decided to avoid cities and towns and travel through the countryside. He had money in silver, not the now useless paper notes, and the smallest amount got him food and a place to sleep. Everywhere he went, the villagers asked about the war or what was happening in Moscow or St. Petersburg, the people still using the old name for Tsar Peter’s city, not Petrograd.
“It’s wrong to replace a saint’s name with that of a mere man, no matter how great he was!” a babushka told Sergei, she being uneducated and simple. People asked him about places he had never been and knew about as much as they did, or about people and things he also didn’t know and cared even less about, names like “Lenin”, “Kornilov”, “Social Democrat”, “Soviet” and “Communist” which were absent as yet of any meaning in their daily life.
Sergei encountered his first real Bolsheviks in the village of Kuzneversk, near his own village of Rozniki. They manifested themselves in the form of two young students, a boy, and a girl not much younger than himself. The boy wore glasses and had a huge mop of unruly black hair that fell into his eyes when he spoke with emotion, which was often and made people laugh. His companion was a pale, thin girl with short, black hair wearing a leather coat and black cap, A red star was sewn on the front of the cap.
Sergei found her eyes fascinating. They were the cold, dark eyes of an executioner.
The pair stood on the back of a cart protected by several armed men. A lot of what they said seemed not to make much impression one way or another on the people gathered around the cart to hear it. In frustration the girl with the murderous eyes pointed a long, thin finger at Sergei.
“You, tovarishchvoyennyy! You must know better than us about the fat, perfumed officers, the pet poodles of the Tsar, and the bourgeoisie who hid behind the lines while sending you and your comrades to die on the German wire! You can confirm what we say!”
A villager in front of Sergei asked his neighbor wearing a battered treukh fur cap with the ear flaps tied over his head. “What’s a poodle?”
The man shrugged and shook his head.
“It’s an ugly kind of dog from France,” Sergei informed him.
“Ah-ha! A scholar!” the man replied in a slightly sarcastic tone.
“No. I am just a man who know what a poodle is, glupets.”
The man held up his hands in mock surrender. “No offense meant, friend.”
The girl again pointed at Sergei. “So, comrade, will you tell us or not? The truth, comrade, the truth! We want only the truth!”
“I always speak the truth; I don’t need to be told by you.”
A ripple of laughter came from the crowd. Sergei was now the center of attention and he didn’t care for it one bit.
“Yes, soldier!” cried a woman standing nearest the cart. “My son went to fight the Germans and never came back to me. Tell me if what they say is true and I will believe you and give you food after!”
The crowd was becoming animated, and the girl wore a look of triumph on her face.
“You see, Fyodor?” she said to her bespeckled partner. “This is the way to handle these cattle… get the biggest, stupidest looking ox among them do your work for you. Now watch how I take control!”
The girl assumed a military pose, hands on her hips. “Again, comrade soldier, I say the people need to know the truth! Tell them the truth!“
“I am about to. The truth is our officers died as easily as we did, and my captain was the best and bravest man I have ever known. He would fight and die for me. I fight and die for him, even now.”
Sergei removed his cap and faced the woman. “I am sorry for your loss, little mother… but this girl doesn’t know what she is talking about. Soldier or officer, we were all covered in the same mud and blood.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. “Yes, comradka, I watched,” Fyodor said under his breath. “A very stupid ox—who just gored us! Now tell me what the…” but his voice was drowned out.
“Liars!” hissed the mother at the girl wearing the black cap. “Tell me my boy died for nothing! Get out of here!”
“Yes, go!” shouted another man. “Who invited you? We have enough problems without two brats from the city coming here to look down on us while talking nonsense!”
“They aren’t even Russian!” shouted another. “Hear their accents? Who sounds like that around here? They’re probably the ones who beat Father Simeon and burnt down the church!”
He pointed at the girl with a stick he used as a crutch because one leg was shorter than the other. “Get out of here—church burners! —before worse than what happened to Father Simeon happens to you!”
The villagers began pelting the cart and those in it with rocks and clods of manure, and soon both were hurtling down the road out of the village.
The villagers returned to their business, save the woman whose son was killed in the war who they left alone on her knees on the road.
“If you can tell me how you think my son died… it would be better for me,” she told Sergei.
“I saw many men die,” answered Sergei, helping the woman to her feet. “And all of them were braver than me. That would have been true of your son, I think.” The woman sighed and pointed to a house near the end of the road. “Come. I promised you dinner. You must be hungry. Soldiers are always hungry.”
Sergei put his arms around her shoulders for support. “That is so true! I remember in Poland once, there was this farmer. He had a very nice…”
“So, what was the point of it all, Sergei Arkadievich?” the woman asked and handed him a plate of boiled potatoes. “I never met a German… how did fighting them make Russia or my life better? And why did God allow it?”
Sergei shook his head as memories swept past his eyes. “I don’t know…I am not an educated man. One day, an officer above my own captain came to our battalion to try and answer that question. He started out strong and we thought, ‘Well, now we’ll finally get to know what’s really what!’ but a few moments later he stopped. He started again, stopped, and looked confused. Some of the men in the back started to jeer, so finally he said, ‘Fuck my bald skull, boys! All I can say about this whole thing is the Germans are over there!’ and pointed at a bunch of trees. ‘Just remember—Russians always beat Prussians!’ Well, we liked and understood that, so we attacked and got to watch the Germans run for their lives!”
He dipped a potato in a bowl of salt. “We lost some fine fellows. Our officers were very brave. They wore their white summer smocks and medals pinned to their breasts. They fell like stocks of wheat. My captain was the bravest of them all—first into the woods, our company at his heels!”
Sergei shook his head. “We were feeling pretty good about ourselves until, just before nightfall, we were told the Germans had beaten us badly everywhere else and that the army was retreating. Our captain read the order, tore it into small pieces and let them fall to the ground. We were very surprised, I can tell you, but the captain just shrugged and said to a young lieutenant in a language I didn’t understand. Anyway, we packed up and left. We marched for a long time, and when we finally stopped, Poland was behind us and we were in Ukraine.”
She poured tea from a samovar, put a cube of sugar between her teeth, and drank.
“People said the Tsarina was a German spy; that she passed messages to them through that evil man, Rasputin… why would she do such a thing? I may be simple but not simple-minded, yet I try to make sense of it and I can’t. The world has gone mad.”
“Maybe Christ will return soon?” Sergei offered.
The woman sighed again. “Maybe. You’re welcome to sleep in the shed where I keep the cow. If He returns tonight, I’ll wake you.”
Rozniki was but a two-day ride. When he arrived and saw his village the first time in four years, it was burnt to the ground and strewn with the corpses of its people.
At his house, he found the bodies of his father, mother and sister sprawled in front of the doorway. His mother and father had been shot point blank in the face. As he knelt beside the ravaged body of his sister Nina, her eyes were wide open and clutched in her hand strands of black hair too fine to be from the head of a man. Sergei looked deeply into her eyes for several minutes, believing as did most Russians the eyes of the murdered captured the image of whoever killed them.
He saw nothing.
It hardly mattered. Sergei already knew the killer’s face. He tried to determine if the look in his sister’s still eyes was one of terror or anger. He could not and closed them for good.
Having buried the bodies of his family, Sergei wandered through the village, trying to discover what sparked this calamity until he heard a soft, feeble voice say his name. He drew his new pistol and quickly turned towards the sound.
“Good God, Sergei, don’t kill me!” the man whimpered. An army cap partly hid his face, but Sergei immediately recognized him.
“Yakov!” Sergei shouted. “Idiot! I nearly shot you! What happened here?”
“Men came… we didn’t know them. They said they brought good news— that our village was to help fight for the Revolution. We said we didn’t want to fight for Tsar Revolution, whoever he was and should go away and leave us in peace! Then the men with guns started shooting, so we fought back, but this made them even angrier. They killed everyone and set the buildings on fire.”
He grabbed his cap and threw it on the ground. Sergei picked it up. It was black with a red star sown on front.
“Where did you get this?”
“One of them left it. It’s mine now… still, you can have it!” Yakov answered, suddenly calm.
“Who else was with the men doing the shooting?”
“Eh?” he said. “What others?”
“Yakov, listen to me. Was there a young man and a girl with the men who did the shooting?”
“All the men looked young… what does it matter?” Yakov replied. “I am asking if there was a young woman with them, with black hair?” Yakov started drawing crosses in the dirt.
“There was a girl,” he answered at last. “She told the men to shoot us. She was with a boy wearing glasses. She wore a cap with a red star on the front… that one!” and pointed at the cap Sergi held. “She had black hair. It wasn’t long, but your sister grabbed her by it when they went into your house and the girl shot her.” He mimicked the firing of a pistol with his fist and finger.
“Three times.”
Sergei took off his cap, put a silver coin in it and handed it to Yakov. “Here… I’ll buy your cap, and you can have mine.”
Yakov took the cap and the coin without speaking. Sergei turned to leave when he saw Yakov take a postcard out of his tunic pocket and stare at it.
“You found that inside my house, didn’t you, Yakov?” Sergei asked.
“I didn’t steal it! Everyone at your house was dead, and it looked nice, so I took it. But you are right… it’s yours. Yakov Utkin is no thief!”
Sergei took the postcard, handed Yakov another silver coin, and left him sitting alone in the middle of the dead village.
Sergei hunted for the girl with the executioner’s eyes. His search took him further and further east until one day he ran into a platoon of cavalry. The men wore white gymnastiorkas and their officer shoulder boards like those of the former Imperial Army. A trooper pulled out his carbine and aimed it at Sergei.
“Hey there, fellow!” the officer called to him. “Seen any Reds?” Sergei shook his head.
“No. If I do, I will surely kill them.”
The officer laughed.
“So why you are wearing that?” he asked, pointing at Sergei’s cap.
“I’ve been trying to find thes owner.” He pulled the cap off and tossed it to the ground.
“I didn’t.”
“Well, don’t worry, friend. We’ll help you find plenty wearing those and you can help us kill them instead.”
Sergei was now a trooper in the second sotnia of the 11th Orenburg Cossack Regiment under the command of A. T. Sukin of the Siberian Army of Admiral Kolchak, Supreme Leader of Russia. Ultimately, the regiment was caught up in the White Army’s catastrophic defeat in the winter of 1919. Sergei’s escape across frozen Lake Baikal to Chita did nothing to cool his desire for vengeance and when the self-styled “Ataman of the Transbaikal Cossack Host” Grigory Semenov, was forced to retreat from Chita further east Sergei went with him. By that time the Ataman’s troops were more interested in robbing peasants and killing Jews than fighting Bolsheviks and Sergei deserted. He made his way to Vladivostok and found a berth aboard a ship bound for Constantinople.
By the time Sergei arrived in Constantinople, the city had become a haven for thousands of former White Russian soldiers fleeing the Bolsheviks and was sent to one of the refugee camps set up for them. As France was footing much of the bill for the camps, permission was given the French Foreign Legion to set up shop in the refugee camps to recruit men to fight against the harkas of Abd El Krim in Morocco. With nowhere else to go, Sergei joined. The Legion obtained Sergei a Nansen passport and sent him along with several hundred fellow others to North Africa. After El Krim surrendered Sergei remained in the Legion and was transferred to the 1st Legion Saharan Motorized Company. He became a caporal and hoped the Legion would provide him a purpose in life and a substitute for the family he had lost. It didn’t, and after completing three “contacts” he resigned. He took ship to Marseilles and wandered aimlessly through Europe, eventually found himself in Belgrade, capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, fell in with a gang of cat burglars and a year later was arrested for nearly killing a man in a fight. When released from prison, two decidedly unsympathetic gendarmes escorted him to the Hungarian frontier.
“That way, asshole!” said one, pointing to the border crossing. “And don’t look back! Visit Yugoslavia again and we’ll see to it you find out how truly bad a bad decision can be!”
When Sergei arrived in Budapest, he was 35 years old with his Legionnaire’s pension and nothing else. He found lodging with a Russian émigré and spent his time wandering about the city in the hopes of finding something worthwhile to do with his life. He fell into the habit of walking the streets late at night and during his ambles Sergei discovered the Hungarian temperament included a curious proclivity towards suicide. A year or so after the Depression struck, the Hungarians became enraptured by a style of music collectively known as “suicide songs” with plaintive melodies and morose lyrics about love unrequited, lost, or betrayed, thought by the authorities to lead an even greater number of Hungarians than usual to give counsel to despair and commit self-murder. The most lethal of these songs was entitled “Gloomy Sunday”, its mawkish lyrics lamenting the death of a beloved:
Gloomy is Sunday,
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all,
Let them know that I’m glad to go…
For in death, I’m caressing you
With the last breath of my soul
I’ll be blessing you…
Sergei thought the songs sentimental nonsense written by people who knew as much about real suffering and death as a flea knew about Sunday. Sadly, an impressive number of Hungarians disagreed with him and the song inspired dozens to end their lives in style by leaping from one of Budapest’s glorious bridges into the Danube, with winter being the preferred season. This became so frequent the mayor of Budapest detailed a flotilla of police boats on patrol beneath the bridges connecting Buda with Pest to rescue would-be suicides or recover their bodies. Sergei watched this happen twice in one evening, first a man and then a woman hurling themselves from the Chain Bridge into the river.
One night Sergei chose to cut his nocturnal stroll short and was returning to his flat when he heard angry voices coming from a narrow street behind him and didn’t engage his interest until he heard a woman shout “Take your filthy lies elsewhere!” soon followed by that expression of pain a man only gives when kicked in his testicles. There was a loud smack, a stifled cry, and the sound of cloth tearing. Sergei strode back down the street, turned left, and saw a man grinning as he held a black-haired woman from behind while a second tore at her clothing. Large pieces of black and white paper littered the pavement, the remains of a cartoonish poster featuring a repellent, crooked-nosed man in a suit clutching a linen bag so full of money and jewels they fell out as he ran past a war veteran sitting on the pavement with a wooden leg and an empty begging bowl the crocked-nosed man had kicked over on his flight. The caption beneath this grotesque tableau read “Everything is OURS!”
The man holding the woman saw Sergei and stopped grinning.
“And who the fuck are you?” he asked. “Golem?” and his partner laughed.
“Let her go and get out of here,” Sergei said evenly.
“Your pimp’s arrived just in time to save you, eh?” the man holding the woman said just as she freed one of her hands and racked her fingernails across his face.
“Fucking kike slut!” he screamed and threw her into the street. He kicked out at her but she rolled to one side and his partner came at Sergei with a shiv.
Sergei almost laughed. He had seen and been in more knife fights in the Legion than he could ever count. His attacker lunged at Sergei who sidestepped the way a Legionnaire who had been a bullfighter in Arles taught him and punched his attacker on the right side of the head as he stumbled past with such force that it sounded like a ball kicked in a football stadium. The man swayed unsteadily on his feet for a moment, eyes glassy, mouth open and arm’s slack at his side before his knees buckled and he dropped to the pavement like an anvil.
Sergei picked up the knife, realized he had been slightly nicked, then walked slowly towards the other man standing petrified beside the girl. He jabbed his thumb behind him.
“Your boyfriend had a good sense of humor. Thing is, he doesn’t need it anymore.”
With a flick of his wrist, Sergei tossed the knife at the man’s feet.
“You also seem a man who likes a good laugh, so now it’s your turn, mon ami!“
The man was terrified. “No please! I’m sorry! I… I mean, we didn’t know she was your… here, let me help her!” He leaned over to help the woman the woman up, but she grabbed the shiv Sergei had tossed onto the street, threw her arm back and drove it deep into his groin. The intense pain made her attacker’s scream catch in his throat and Sergei came up from behind and broke his neck.
The woman was on her hands and knees retching in the street and Sergei knelt to help her up. When he did, his breath caught in his chest and his eyes misted over. “Nina? Nina! Is it you?”
“What? You know me?” Nika asked, not hearing that he had mispronounced her name.
Sergei held Nika’s flushed and slightly bruised face in his hands, stared at her in the dim streetlight, and shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Nika’s coat had been pulled off and her dress torn open, but she was otherwise alright.
“You’re safe now,” he said. “Goodbye.”
“Now you’re the one with the sense of humor!” and Nika grabbed her coat and handbag off the pavement. “You’re cut… you can’t go around bleeding all over Budapest. I live nearby. C’mon.”
Her rescuer walked off.
“Hey you! Wait!” she shouted but he turned the corner and was gone.
In the following weeks, Nika’s landlady noticed a giant of a man across the street every Sunday, either pacing the sidewalk or standing motionless, watching the entrance. He made no attempt to enter the building, but the moment Nika came out, would follow her from a distance.
Nika recognized the man as her rescuer from several nights before—no great feat, she thought, since the great brute was unmistakable. When she went to church or indeed anywhere else, he was always nearby. He seemed to be acting as her protector, not so much watching her as watching around her.
After this went on for several weeks, Nika decided to find out what it was all about. She had been learning spy craft from Viktor, had become a good shot and adept at using knives or any other bladed weapon. She also revealed an aptitude for concealment, a gift Nika was about to display to her would-be guardian.
Sergei saw Nika turn right, rounded the corner, but could not see her. He quickened his pace, hoping to find her up ahead, but she seemed to have vanished. Disgusted, he stepped away from the sidewalk, stood beside one of the shops, and lit a cigarette.
“Why do you follow me every Sunday?”
Sergei turned around and saw Nika, arms folded, facing him.
“How did you do that?” Sergei asked, looking left, then right. “No… never mind.” He crushed the life out of his half-smoked cigarette under the toe of his boot and looked away.
“I feel very foolish.”
Cruel by nature, Nika wanted to laugh, but suppressed the urge and merely shook her head.
“Don’t. It is part of my training.”
“Training?” he said. Nika stamped her feet.
“Look, it’s cold, and I want to talk to you. There’s a café up ahead—there’s always a café ‘up ahead’ in Budapest—where we can continue this conversation without my freezing to death.”
For the second time, Sergei starred at Nika as if she were a figment of his imagination. Or a ghost.
“Well?” Nika asked, nearly running in place.
“Agreed,” he said. “But I must pay.”
“Suit yourself, only let’s go!” she said and took off walking.
The café Nika chose was small but popular, serving small cakes and sandwiches. She found a table near the heater.
“We need to introduce ourselves,” Nika said. “You first.”
They introduced each other, and Nika waited until the coffee arrived before asking in a steady tone, “I want to know why you called me ‘Nina’ that night and why you are following me now?”
“Nina was my sister. She died in Russia. I mean, she was murdered by the Reds. I always protected and looked after her but wasn’t there the day she needed me most. I think about her a lot.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Nika demanded.
“Like I said, I think about her a lot. I would have come that night anyway when I heard you scream, but after I took care of those two and helped you up it was… you just look so much like her.”
Sergei downed his coffee and stood up abruptly. “For a moment I thought you were her. That’s all.” He put on his coat and dropped some money on the table. “I won’t bother you again. Goodbye,” he said and lumbered out of the café.
Sergei no longer shadowed Nika. For the past few weeks, his life had strangely seemed to have purpose again. To rescue a girl who, for a moment at least, looked like his beloved sister, had been something approaching redemption. That now seemed both silly and irretrievably lost.
Sergei continued his night time walks around the city, spent money, drank, got into fights and lived his life from day to day without hope of anything better coming from it. A month later, Sergei gave in to temptation and walked past Nika’s apartment building. The woman he always saw sitting outside the doorway waved at him to stop and gestured for him to wait. She disappeared inside the building and quickly came out holding a folded slip of paper.
“I was told if I saw you to give you this!”
Sergei thanked her and went to a nearby café. He ordered tea, drank it like a with a cube of sugar between his teeth and unfolded the note:
“I wish to see you. You know where I live. Meet me there this Sunday at 11 o’clock. Nika.”
The inside of Sergei’s head spun like a gyroscope. He could think of no reason why she would want to see him. As he returned home, he took the note out of his coat pocket to read again and again. He stopped when he began to fear he might lose it, jamming the note deep into his coat pocket, then checked from time to time to see if it was still there.
Today was Friday. In two days, he would see her again.
“Yes, he’s out there, standing across the street for an hour, the Luftmensch!“
“It’s business,” Nika answered as she put on her coat in the vestibule.
“Oy? Oy? Bist meshugeh?” her landlady woman said, incredulously, but Nika had by now learned a fair amount of Yiddish and just glanced over her shoulder and laughed as she walked out the door.
Nika saw Sergei waiting patiently for her and skipped across the street. “Good morning, Sergei.”
He was pleasantly surprised that she used his given name. “Your landlady gave me your message… Nika.”
“So it appears!” Nika said and laughed. “I’m sorry. Don’t mind me… I want to talk to you about something important, if you have the time.”
“I do. Shall we go to the same place as before?” he replied. “It was nice, no?”
“It was nice, yes. Let’s go there.” Nika waited for Sergei to offer his arm, and when he didn’t began walking briskly to the café, Sergei beside her.
They sat at the same table as before and Nika ordered coffee with milk. “I never got the chance to thank you for saving my life that night.”
“They may not have killed you,” Sergei answered.
“No… but may have done something worse.” Nika replied.
“You never need to thank me,” he said, staring at his cup. “What I did, I did for you and for myself. I really didn’t mean to kill the first one.”
“Umm… but I meant to kill the second one,” Nika replied, smiling. “And only wish I had.”
“Your note said you wanted to talk to me about something important… and thank you for writing it in Russian. You have fine handwriting.”
Nika had gotten a secretary in Special Branch to write it, her Russian linguistic skills being practically non-existent but having been given the compliment saw no reason to disabuse him.
Sergei drank his coffee, wishing it was tea. “Is it the police? About that night?”
“Oh no. It didn’t even make the papers,” she said, taking out a cigarette. “There are killings every night in Budapest. This one didn’t appear unusual to the police.” Nika lit her cigarette.
“I have a job that requires a lot of travelling and might sometimes be a little dangerous. I need a bodyguard—someone who knows how to drive a car. Most importantly, I need someone I can trust.”
“And you think that might be me?” Sergei asked.
“If you know how to drive a car and don’t have something better to do.” Nika motioned to the waiter.
“I’m still very cold and want another coffee, if that’s alright?”
“Of course,” Sergei replied. “My answer is ‘yes’.”
“Yes?” Nika responded in surprise. “Don’t you want to ask me anything more about the job?”
Sergei waved to the waiter.
“No.”
The phonograph was playing when Nika entered Viktor’s office and found him sitting behind his desk, head back and eyes shut, listening to the “Au fond du temple saint” duet from the first act of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. He opened his eyes to acknowledged her.
“Congratulations, Nika… again,” Viktor said and pointed at the dossier on his desk without opening his eyes. “I must also congratulate you on your writing style. It’s captivating, worthy of another Molnar all Hungary knew and loved.”
He closed his eyes again. “Caruso and Ancona. I only wish I could find a version in French. I wished I’d thought to ask you to find me one when you were in France cavorting with the Hooded Ones.”
Eyes still closed, Viktor pointed to a large floral arrangement of red roses set incongruously by the widow. “Those are for you.”
Nika looked at him askance. “From you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I only buy flowers for my wife. There’s a card attached.”
Nika plucked the card from the center of the arrangement. It read, simply, “En attendant de nous revoir… Eugène.”
“‘Till we meet again…?’ Unlikely,” she said and dropped the card into the wastepaper basket.
“A trifle ostentatious for my taste. Apparently, Monsieur Cagoule seeks to make an impression.”
“He already did… by aping the manners of Al Capone. He is one of the most repulsive individuals I’ve ever met, the first Frenchman I’ve seen wearing a badly tailored suit with a face made for radio… a faux Fascist who wants others to do his beatings and killing for him.”
“Apparently you hid your disgust well. You helped establish a firm relationship between us and the Cagoule. That will prove useful if they ever gain power in France. Along with the flowers came a request we permit you to do a job for them soon. Seems they also appreciate a woman of your peculiar talents.”
“Bunch of thugs,” Nika said and took out a cigar.
“We make friends where and when we can,” he said, smiling mischievously and leaning forward to light her cigar. “When did you start smoking those?”
“Maybe I always did but you failed to notice.” Nika replied and offered him one which he accepted.
“Perhaps,” Viktor replied.
Nika had learned everything about her chosen profession from Viktor. She had been a quick study and when Hungary’s spymaster suspected Nika’s true métier would be the taking of lives in a good cause, introduced her to that dark art as well and found Nika capable of adding nuance and refinements on her own, as the murderer of her father recently discovered a few weeks earlier.
The Executioner of Debrecen was her third such assignment.
Nika loved Viktor as she would an older brother or an uncle possessed of infinite and ruthless knowledge and experience of the world. She also knew his mind and moods.
Something was coming.
Viktor inhaled and slowly breathed out the smoke. “These are very good.”
“I find them a bit strong myself… it’s an acquired taste, I suppose.” Nika replied.
“Oh, how true, how true!” Viktor crooned. “Does your other new friend, Miss Abrienda de Soza of Prague and various points East, also smoke cigars?” The ‘something’ had arrived.
“Should I have mentioned if she does or not in my report?” Nika replied evenly.
“Not necessarily,” Viktor replied.
“She is quite remarkable. But I wouldn’t say we were friends.”
Viktor loved these games cat and mouse games with Nika and been looking forward to it all morning.
“I begin to perceive.” He went to the phonograph and placed the stylus at the beginning of the record. “Did you fuck her?”
Nika raised her eyebrows in mock astonishment. “I’m very sorry? Did I fuck whom?”
“Whom?” Viktor replied, smiling. “Whom indeed!” He walked to the cabinet, withdrew a file of average size and dropped it on his desk next to her own report. She flipped open the file and saw a photo of Abrienda looking back at her.
“Perhaps this will help explain your new friend’s—where is it?” he said, rifling through her report. “Ah! Here it is—‘remarkably keen and impressive knowledge of foreign affairs.’ I confess to being intrigued when I came across such a distinctly Spanish name in your report, de Soza not being what one would call a classically Slavic name. I thought you were referring to someone you encountered in Spain but as you never make such mistakes, I contacted those dealing with Czechoslovak affairs. They loaned me this.”
He pulled the top sheet from the file.
“Abrienda de Soza. Born April 13, 1914, in Yokohama, Japan. Only child of Karol de Soza. Mother’s origin uncertain, possibly from a Japanese or Chinese noble family. Karol de Soza Manager of the East Asia Shipping Company based in the German colony of Tsingtao, China, a front for both K. u K. and Imperial German intelligence in the Far East during the last war… and so on and so on. Mother died at birth… defeat of Central Powers…winter 1919 arrives with daughter in Vladivostok, helps arrange ships to bring the vastly overrated Czechoslovak Legion back to Europe, during which he apparently conspired with General Radola Gajda to steal a portion of the Imperial Russian gold reserve the Czech Legion had itself stolen, separating from it over five million US dollars’ worth in bullion. Spent three years in Shanghai where he engaged in various lucrative enterprises with members of the New York Mafia deported from the United States. Returned to Europe in 1922. Czechoslovakia’s Consul in Krakow, Poland, 1924–1928, died in Hradec Kralove in 1930 of heart failure. Daughter assumed control of the family business – whatever that is – making her one of the richer women in Europe. Continued her father’s association with Gajda, which vicious tongues say she has been having an affair since she was sixteen.”
Viktor again raised his head from the folder. “Mentioned that to you, did she?” He continued reading.
“Financed Gajda defense when arrested and tried as instigator of the Zidenice Mutiny in 1933. Government considered indicting de Soza as co-conspirator, but demarche sent by Polish Prime Minister Beck made them think better of it. Gajda acquitted on all charges. Continued her father’s financial support of his National Fascist Community Party founded by the good general in return for the party renouncing anti-Semitism and reorienting itself towards a nationalist, anti-German agenda and calling for a military build-up and war with Germany if necessary to keep Czechoslovakia intact. Funded Gajda’s successful quest for a parliamentary seat in 1935. Recently become more closely associated with the views of General Prchala, who believes non-ethnic Czech communities within the Republic be given autonomy as precursor of the larger federation as advocated by her late father and our former and doubtless future prime minister the perennial morose Count Teleki. Has recently abandoned her Fascist sympathies and is now associated with various monarchist groups in Europe, including the Carlists of Spain.” He looked up at Nika again.
“A romantic,” he said. “Counts the insanely heroic paladin, Adrian Carton de Wiart, among her closest friends. Humm… recently became intime with the crass but well-dressed American divorcée Wallis Simpson and should be considered one of the latter’s few Continental friends.”
Viktor looked up from his reading. “Perhaps she can get us an invitation when her friend marries the King of England? Ahh…here’s something interesting…has Jewish godparents living in British Mandate Palestine where they emigrated in 1925 and provides financial support to Zionist groups, again following the practice of her late father.”
“So, Agent Molnar, you think your friend’s a secret zhid? Lots of them fled Spain after the Moors were finally beaten… they had to go somewhere.”
“I don’t know where they went, Viktor, and don’t much care,” a repost that earned Nika a short bark of laughter. “I was with her at the reconsecration of a Marian shrine she’d paid for after it was destroyed by vandals. Don’t see too many good Jewish girls doing that.” Nika observed.
“Maybe it’s a case of protesting too much or simply being cleverer than you thought possible. It’s the sort of deception she appears capable of practicing. Otherwise, she doesn’t appear to have a single original thought in her head.”
Viktor paused to light his cigarette. “By the way, I’ve long heard Jewish girls are veritable beasts in the bedroom. Do you happen to know anything about that?”
Nika smiled. “When she visits Budapest, I’ll ask her to stop by. You can then try and satisfy your curiosity on both counts.”
“So, you did fuck her!” Viktor said triumphantly. “How I adore being right about people. To continue… ‘no known romantic affairs aside from the alleged one with General Gajda—suppose we need to update that a bit, no? —and no confirmed vices.’ That needs updating, too, I think, as I discovered on my own the ugly rumor your girlfriend is a morphine addict like her friend Hermann Göring.”
Viktor noticed Nika’s surprise. “Oh, which is it? That she might be a morphine addict, friends with Hermann Göring, or both?” Viktor shook his head and clucked his tongue.
“Keeping secrets from each other already, are you? You two must be in love. To conclude, political sympathies of decidedly right-wing hue, motivated by anti-Communist, anti-German nationalism rather than by any social program, unless pining for the time of Louis IV and Maria Theresa qualifies as one.” He handed Nika the file, rose and slowly paced about the room.
“Nika, Nika, Nika… I brought you into this business and trained you myself. You are completely loyal, but you are one of my agents, so you must tell me everything when I ask. That means everything, including that which you feel is either too personal to share or unimportant to mention, which is something for me to determine, not you.”
He gave her a moment to let that sink in before continuing.
“Spies do not have a personal life per se. Instead, they have multiple ones, all of which are safe in my hands so long as they do not pose a threat to our operations, which case they must be ended.”
He sat down again in his desk chair, facing Nika, and gave a backhanded wave with his right hand. “Király. Now tell me everything.”
She told him.
Viktor jotted down a few notes. “So… it’s love, not lust.” he said, framed as a statement and not a question and she nodded.
“And you won’t give it up even if I order me to do so.”
“No,” Nika replied. “Not for anyone, not for any reason.”
Viktor crossed over to the roses sent by Deloncle. “I was going to have this sent to your flat, though his gesture now appears truly futile. Speaking of flats, why don’t you move out of that hovel you live and get yourself a decent place? Certainly, I pay you enough, while I suspect inviting your new best friend with her decidedly hedonistic impulses to spend a romantic weekend in a building a third of the Chosen People of Budapest appear to reside would not impress her very much.”
“If you are correct in supposing her background, she may be very impressed. Maybe if I introduce her to you and she sees what kind of sadistic monster I work for then take her to my flat she will take pity on me and carry me off to Prague, there to live happily ever after.”
Nika pointed her cigar at Viktor like the barrel of a gun.
“Then you’d be sorry.”
“If you ever did, I wouldn’t be the only sorry one. You wouldn’t enjoy living among the Czechs. Too bourgeois and phlegmatic for such a sanguine temperament as yours,” Viktor replied.
“I find Czechs most congenial,” answered Nika.
“Indeed? I guess it’s another acquired taste. Then again, your friend isn’t exactly Czech, is she?”
“No, she’s not,” Nika said coolly.
Viktor rose again and walked around the room.
“None of our agents could have gotten to that animal Sanko and returned to tell the tale. And as I said, you also established a valuable connection between us and the Hooded Ones in France. I cannot afford to lose you, even if I wanted to, and that will never happen. What’s more, your relationship with the miniature half-Nipponese, Jew-loving, ultra-Montaigne, morphine addict Abrienda de Soza could be very useful to us as well.”
He paused and looked out the window. “Our Regent Admiral Horthy is committed to regaining the ancient lands Hungary lost after the war. A good portion of those happen to be within the borders of the country your lover resides. It is possible our German friends will soon help us reclaim them, something our fraternal allies the Poles would support, having the Stonava massacre and various other scores to settle with Prague along with our mutual desire to share a common border.”
“And that means…?” Nika ventured cautiously.
“If Hitler tears up the Versailles Treaty and unites Germany and Austria without war, the three million or so Germans living along the Czechoslovak border with Germany will expect Hitler to get them what their brethren in the Rhineland and Austria have.”
Viktor returned to his chair.
“If so, this bizarre, hybrid state to our north will be faced with some hard choices. Will they fight? Will they compromise? Will they surrender? As of now, I can only guess, but it has always seemed to me the only people there willing to put up a fight are ex-Legionnaire Gajda, his followers, and your new lover. It appears from this file and more importantly from what you told me your friend and Gajda are very close. Will it upset you if I ask do you believe or know they are lovers?”
Nika smiled. “If you did ask it would not because they were not and are not.”
“Excellent. You have her all to yourself. Better for you, much better for us.”
Viktor began to furiously write in his notebook. “I have some slight tasks I need you to do in Croatia. Ever been?”
“No.” Nika sighed. “Is it nice?”
“The scenery, yes. The people, not so much. You are to meet with members of the Ustasha, the Croat separatist organization. Ever heard of them?”
Nika shook her head. “Should I have?”
“Bunch of murderous thugs. It’s been decided to establish some sort of relationship with them. They want an independent Croatia, we want the Vojvodina back. Neither can happen so long as Yugoslavia exists. Therefore, we have a mutual goal. When I was ordered to establish some sort of relationship with them, I naturally thought of you.”
“Naturally,” Nika replied ruefully.
“Consider yourself a victim of your own success, Agent Molnar,” and Viktor gestured towards the flower arrangement sent by Deloncle. “You’re meeting with the Hooded Ones revealed a talent previously undetected by me; that of wooing mentally unstable assassins and terrorists, one which I plan to take full advantage for the benefit of the country. However, to make up for what will likely be an unsavory assignment, when completed you are to return to Prague. Our intelligence concerning Czechoslovakia is not the best, so you are to cultivate your association, if I may describe it that way, with Miss de Soza to help solve that problem.”
He paused to study her. “Unless, of course, you believe you will find it impossible to keep the interests of our country separate from your personal feelings?”
Nika shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps not so easy as killing a man in an opera box in a foreign country the night before a civil war is about to start. Still, I’ll try my best.”
Viktor leaned back in his chair. “I finally put Sergei on the payroll under the ‘security’, which I suppose is fairly accurate.”
“I could not have gotten out of Spain without him. He’ll be pleased. Thank you, Viktor.”
“Have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.
“When do I return to Prague?”
Viktor considered for a moment. “Two weeks after you return from Croatia, I have something I want you to do in Romania. It’s a small thing.”
“Give the small thing in Romania to someone else, send me to Prague one week after I return from Croatia, let me choose the restaurant, and then of course I’d be happy to have dinner with you tonight.”
The captain clucked his tongue. “So eager to take up your new duties in Prague, are you? How wonderful is love.”
Nika smiled. “How would you know?”
“Choose the restaurant now, so long as it isn’t Kakukk Vendéglő. I’ll make a reservation, then you can give Yemelyan Pugachev the good news he’ll be taking you to Croatia then back to Prague where you’ll stay indefinitely. I’ll stop by at half past seven.”
Nika rose. “I’ll go tell Sergei what to expect,” and headed for the door.
“Your selfless dedication to the national interests of Hungary notwithstanding, it ought to be an interesting second meeting between you and she of the epicanthic fold,” Viktor called to her. “The mind boggles. I wish I could be there to see it.”
“When it happens, I’ll send you a cable and tell you all about it!” Nika replied and slammed the door behind her.