Editorial offices of 555.hu, 2 Jozsef Boulevard, 12.00 p.m.
A brisk ten-minute walk south of Keleti Station, in a high-ceilinged, five-roomed flat of faded art nouveau grandeur, Zsuzsa Barcsy marched across the 555.hu newsroom and stopped in front of Eniko Szalay’s desk, iPhone in hand. ‘You’re famous,’ she exclaimed. ‘Even more famous.’
‘Thanks, but I’m also busy, Zsuzsa,’ said Eniko, keeping her eyes on her computer monitor. She had three browser windows open and an email half-written. One window showed the 555. hu website. Her story on the refugees dressed as Gypsies was still the lead, with 687 comments and more than a thousand shares, a high feedback rate for a country whose population was barely ten million. The second, the in-house website tracker, showed the hits on her page, which were running at several thousand an hour. She was way out ahead of her colleagues. Her nearest rival, the football correspondent, had barely half as many. The third window showed the results of her Google news search for her article. Her story, she was pleased to see, had been picked up by the local correspondents for the Associated Press, Reuters and the BBC, which in turn had triggered a second wave of mentions around the world.
Eniko quickly wrote an email to all three, thanking them for the mention and offering to help if they needed more information. One question remained unanswered. Who was her source? An email had arrived three days earlier, tipping Eniko off. She searched her inbox now:
From: keletiwatcher@freemail.hu
To: szalay.eniko@555.hu
Who was keletiwatcher? Clearly, someone who spent a lot of time at the station. The text of the email was long and comparatively detailed, outlining how the people-smugglers operated from the nearby cafés and kebab houses and a particular set of benches in the centre of Republic Square, in front of the children’s playground. Eniko had spent most of a day checking the locations, spending several hours simply walking around Keleti and its environs, people-watching, getting a sense of the place and its rhythms. All the details, she soon discovered, checked out. Without the email she would not have been able to write the story – or at least write it so quickly. Most intriguing of all, the sender knew enough to use a free email service that did not demand any personal details – but not enough to disguise the email’s IP address. It traced back to the free Wi-Fi at Keleti that the volunteers had set up.
A hand holding an iPhone appeared in front of Eniko’s screen. She looked up from the email to see Zsuzsa standing behind the monitor, her right arm extended forward. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she exclaimed, now waving her telephone excitedly. ‘This is much more important. You’re Date of the Day on Szilky. You and Tamas Nemeth.’
Szilky.hu was the country’s most popular celebrity gossip website. It provided multiple updates every day on the doings of Nemeth, the best-known actor in Hungary. He had just won the lead role in a lavish new production of a play about King Stephen, the eleventh-century monarch who brought Christianity to Hungary, soon to be staged at the National Theatre. News of the production had caused uproar in Budapest’s cash-strapped artistic world. The playwright was a former press officer for the prime minister, not known for his dramatic talent. The director had previously made campaign videos for the ruling Social Democratic Party, the successor to the Communists. The play was heavily subsidised by the Ministry of Culture and sponsored by several companies known to be close to the government. None of the actors, hired at great expense, had seen the script. There were rumours it had not been written yet.
Eniko ignored her friend’s telephone and continued typing. ‘I’m a reporter. I write about the news. I don’t make it.’
Zsuzsa laughed. ‘Ooooh, pompous. Well, you are this morning. So you might as well listen.’
Eniko stopped typing. ‘I’m all ears,’ she said, dryly.
Zsuzsa’s eyes dropped to her screen. ‘You were more than ears last night, apparently. Szilky says you were wrapped in a black minidress, topped with a gauzy black chiffon wrap that that showcased your slim but curvaceous figure.’
Zsuzsa continued reading, ‘The stylish couple were ensconced at a discreet corner table at Arigato, the city’s newest and hottest Sushi eatery, where the star reporter shared a set meal for two, including the signature grilled octopus, with Budapest’s hunkiest star of the stage and screen.’
Eniko was horrified to see that at least two other reporters had stopped working to listen to Zsuzsa, clearly enjoying the show- She turned pink and looked down, suddenly intensely interested in her keyboard, and started typing again, even more rapidly. ‘Stop, Zsuzsi. And I really need to finish this email.’
555.hu operated out of flat number I on the corner of Jozsef Boulevard and Rakoczi Way. The windows shook in their wooden frames when the number 4 or 6 tram trundled by below. The ornate plaster cornices, once bone-white, were chipped and grey. The black marble fireplace was cracked but still imposing, its shelf crowded with trophies and prizes. There was no air-conditioning and all the windows were open. Stand-up i930s-style metal fans were positioned all around the newsroom, sweeping back and forth to little effect. A large poster of the famous American reporter H. L. Mencken took up much of one wall, together with his most famous quote: The relationship between the journalist and the politician should mirror that of the dog and the lamp post.’ ‘Especially in Hungary,’ someone had added by hand underneath. But the shabby, bohemian decor perfectly suited the site’s irreverent reporting, and the room crackled with energy.
The news department, home to half a dozen reporters and two editors, occupied the biggest of the five rooms. The commercial and advertising departments all had their own spaces, as did the editor, Roland Horvath, and the newly appointed news editor, Kriszta Matyas. The website had launched a couple of years before and its lively style had proved an immediate hit with Budapest’s hipsters. But Bohemian urbanites, retweets, an army of Instagram followers, and Facebook shares of article links were a poor substitute for a proper business plan, adequate start-up capital and advertising. For now, the fifth room stood empty, waiting, so far in vain, for the massive expansion of advertising personnel that would drive new websites and other digital publishing operations.
The website had recently been bought out by Sandor Kaplan, a former business partner of the prime minister. Like Pal Palkovics, Kaplan had been a leader of the Communist youth organisation during the 1980s. Both men had made a fortune in the early 1990s, a period known as vadkapitalisz-musz, wild capitalism, when state-owned assets and property were sold off for a fraction of their actual value to well-connected insiders. Kaplan had immediately appointed Roland Horvath editor of 555.hu. A paunchy, balding divorcee in his late forties, he had previously worked as a political reporter for the state news channel. He had excellent access to government politicians, and always seemed to be able to get ministers to answer a few questions – mostly, Eniko thought, because they were such soft questions.
Eniko finished her email, pressed send and glanced upwards. Zsuzsa was still standing behind her computer monitor. She grinned and raised her eyebrows. ‘You really don’t want to know what the rest of it says?’
Eniko said, ‘No. It’s hideous. Full of cliches.’
‘What’s full of cliches?’ asked a third female voice.
Zsuzsa turned to see the news editor approaching. Kriszta Matyas was ten years older than Eniko, recently arrived from the state news agency, where she had worked on the foreign desk, much of whose coverage consisted of rote accounts of state visits and international cooperation agreements. A skinny brunette who was married to a senior official in the Foreign Ministry, she seemed to have little understanding of twenty-first century digital media and had provoked nervous laughter by asking what Instagram was. Her expensive business wardrobe and heavy make-up did not sit well with 555’s bohemian image. Nor did her deference to authority. Her main contribution to the editing process seemed to be demanding ever longer quotes from spokesmen for the government or the ruling party whenever 555.hu exposed another scandal.
Zsuzsa said, ‘Just some gossip on Szilky. Nothing important.’
‘Then why are you spending office time on it?’ Matyas looked Zsuzsa up and down. ‘What are you working on now, Zsuzsika?’
Family and friends often added the ‘ka’ or ‘ke’ diminutive to names. It meant ‘little’ or ‘small’ and was a term of endearment. In a work or business environment it was extremely patronising. Zsuzsa blushed and stuttered.
‘Zsuzsa,’ said Eniko, ‘is helping me out with my Keleti story. I have a lot to follow up.’
‘Is there nothing else happening apart from the chaos at Keleti?’ said Matyas, her voice arched. ‘Can you please come and see me this afternoon, Eniko? There are some things I would like to discuss with you. Say two o’clock?’
Eniko nodded. ‘Sure.’ She and Zsuzsa watched the news editor walk away, her heels clacking on the worn parquet floor. Zsuzsa glanced at Eniko. ‘Thanks. What was that about?’ Eniko squeezed her arm. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Why is she here? She’s completely out of place.’
‘I know. What worries me is that maybe soon she won’t be. Kaplan isn’t a philanthropist. He must have an agenda. I bet she knows what it is.’ Eniko lifted her head towards the French doors. ‘Let’s go outside. You can tell me about the rest of the Szilky article. But keep your voice down.’
The two women walked out onto the apartment’s balcony, and stood looking out over Blaha Lujza Square. Eniko watched the afternoon bustle as she listened to her friend finish reading the article. She could see all the way down to the Astoria Hotel and the Elizabeth Bridge that spanned the Danube. The traffic was locked solid but the number 4 tram trundled steadily along the main boulevard. Pedestrians hurried across the square, rushing to catch the 8E bus north along Rakoczi Way. A harried-looking mother walked quickly towards the metro entrance, a toddler in each hand. An elderly lady was in her usual place, selling bunches of bluebells for 300 forints.
‘Are you listening, Eni?’ asked Zsuzsa.
‘Yes. Sure,’ she replied, focused on the scene on Blaha. ‘Look at him,’ said Eniko, pointing at a tall man in his early twenties, wearing blue shorts and a black polo top, who was walking back and forth, handing out leaflets. Two large pieces of red cardboard covered his chest and back, advertising the Bella Roma pizzeria.
‘What about him?’ asked Zsuzsa.
‘What’s he so happy about?’
The walking advertisement smiled at every passer-by, which among often glum-faced Hungarians marked him out as a potential lunatic.
‘I dunno. Whatever. Don’t worry about him. There’s a photo of you and Tamas,’ said Zsuzsa.
‘Give me that.’ Eniko snatched the telephone from her friend’s hand. She stared at the screen. ‘Oh, God, how did they get that?’ The picture showed Nemeth, a very handsome man in his early thirties, with brown eyes and black hair, leaning forward as he offered Eniko a piece of octopus on chopsticks.
Eniko handed the telephone back to Zsuzsa. Her friend enlarged the shot, looked closer at Eniko. ‘Considering that half of Budapest would kill to be sitting where you were, you don’t look like you are having much fun.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Eni, he’s handsome, single, intelligent, straight, not mad or a druggie. What more do you want?’
‘Yes. All boxes ticked. But he is kind of... boring. All he wanted to talk about was himself.’
‘He is an actor. What did you expect? What did you want to talk about?’
‘I was interested in who was backing the play. Where the money was coming from. The company sponsors. The government subsidies. How did the playwright get the commission? And had Tamas read the script?’
Zsuzsa’s cornflower-blue eyes opened wider. ‘You are joking? You had a dinner date with Tamas Nemeth and you wanted to know about government subsidies?’ She stared at the photograph again. ‘Where are your glasses?’
Eniko wore loose cream-coloured cotton trousers and a fitted pale-blue T-shirt. She took off her round brown-tortoiseshell spectacles and began to polish the lenses with the edge of her T-shirt. ‘I didn’t wear them. I don’t on dates.’ ‘OK, I get that. How was the octopus?’
Eniko polished harder, rubbing at a non-existent spot. ‘I don’t know.’
‘How? It was right there in front of you.’
‘He missed.’
‘He what?’
Eniko put her glasses back on and turned to Zsuzsa. ‘I can’t judge distances very well without my glasses. I leaned forward. The octopus went past my ear.’
Zsuzsa tried to stop herself laughing. ‘Did he try again?’
‘No. He was too embarrassed. Almost as much as I was.’
‘Did he ask you to go on somewhere?’
‘No. He called for the bill soon after.’
‘Will you see him again?’
‘On stage, maybe. Nah, Zsuzsika, I have to work. Have you seen the photo editor? I’m going back to Keleti this afternoon and we need some fresh pictures.’
Eniko gathered her long dark-brown hair into a ponytail, swept it back off her face, and wrapped it in a plain black hair band. The style made her feel professional and businesslike, but also accentuated her almost Slavic cheekbones, a remnant of a Tartar ancestor, and eyes the colour of sapphires. She wore no make-up and her only jewellery was a tiny silver hoop in the top of her left ear.
‘No, I have not seen the photo editor,’ said Zsuzsa. ‘Stop changing the subject.’
Eniko smiled. ‘I can give you Tamas’s number if you like. He wants to have lots of children. And a good, old-fashioned Hungarian stay-at-home wife.’ Eniko turned to Zsuzsa. ‘Do you want to be a stay-at-home wife?’
Zsuzsa lightly poked her friend in the arm. ‘If he walks through the door every night, then maybe, yes.’ Zsuzsa Barcsy was pale and pretty with long auburn hair, but self-conscious about her curves. She wore a long, flowery Indian-style skirt, a baggy pink cotton top and two dangly silver earrings.
For a moment Zsuzsa looked exasperated. ‘Eni, you have to move on. You’re nudging thirty. You can’t keep mooning over a month-long affair that happened half a year ago. And made you run away to London.’
Eniko looked down into the square again. The Bella Roma man stared upwards at the balcony for several seconds then turned away. Was she being watched? She was certainly stirring things up, and annoying some powerful and not very nice people, that much she knew. Everyone was on edge nowadays, especially after the threats and the video of her colleague. Or was she just paranoid? It was hard to judge. She would think about that later. ‘I did not run away anywhere. It was a career opportunity.’
Eniko had recently returned to Budapest after a six-month internship at Newsweek, covering British politics. The House of Commons, with its bars, restaurants and long, alcove-filled corridors, and legions of male MPs who were flattered by the attentive interest of an attractive and occasionally flirtatious new reporter, had proved an excellent training ground. It was easy to extract information from male politicians, she soon learned. All you had to do was pretend to be utterly fascinated by what they had to say and occasionally brush off over-eager hands. There was no need to adopt different tactics in Budapest. Only seven of Hungary’s 200 MPs were women and of them, only the minister of justice had any real power. Until last week, few Hungarian politicians took Eniko seriously as a journalist. They did now.
Eniko had brought down Bela Balogh, the minister of the interior, by revealing he had set up an offshore company in the Cayman Islands to channel EU agricultural subsidies to plant apricot orchards on the puszta, the wide, flat plain in the east of the country. The orchards did not exist. The trees had not been purchased. In any case, the sandy soil of the puszta was completely unsuitable for growing fruit, although it seemed nobody in Brussels had bothered to check. The firm was registered in the name of Bela Balogh’s children’s nanny, with whom he was having an affair. The minister, she had since learned, had merely been the frontman for the scheme, easily persuaded to take part with several Nokia boxes of 10,000-forint notes. He had been instantly sacrificed and was now under house arrest, while the police investigation was underway. The story had arrived in her inbox one morning, complete with documentation, receipts and video footage of the minister and his nanny on the balcony of a boutique hotel deep in the countryside, one known for illicit assignations.
It was all far too easy, she knew. So easy that she knew she had been used in some kind of internecine government power struggle. She had asked a hacker friend of hers to take a look at the electronic communications. The email address was fake and the sender’s IP address, which logged its path through the internet, had been erased. But still, it was a story and had to be reported. Meanwhile, the refugee crisis had put Budapest on the international news map and hundreds of foreign journalists were in town. Eniko’s phone had barely stopped ringing since she broke the story yesterday about the fake Gypsies. And there was so much more to report: increasing rumours that enough money – tens of thousands of euros -would buy an actual Hungarian passport, a genuine one with a serial number. A corrupt network of government officials, collapsing borders, thousands of people coming in every day, the refugee crisis was the biggest story she had ever covered in her career.
Her phone buzzed: a message had arrived. She picked up the handset, peered at the screen, frowned for a moment. A WhatsApp message: a photograph of what seemed to be a man asleep on a building site and an address: 26 Republic Square. The old party headquarters. She looked harder. Eeeugh. The man’s eyes were open. He appeared to be dead. Eniko checked the number – not one that she knew and it was not registering as a contact in her telephone directory. Was this some of threat? The refugee crisis had unleashed all sorts of lunatics from the darker zones of Hungarian politics.
‘What is it? Show me,’ demanded Zsuzsa.
Eniko handed Zsuzsa her Nexus 6. The photograph seemed large on the oversized handset. Zsuzsa pulled a face. ‘That’s horrible. Poor man. He looks like he’s dead. Who sent it?’ Eniko shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There’s no name.’
Zsuzsa looked at the message again and sighed. ‘Look closer. A letter in the message field.’
Eniko checked again. She had been so unsettled by the photograph she had missed it. A single ‘B’. Eniko kissed Zsuzsa on the side of her face. ‘You are very sweet and a true friend. But now I have to go.’ She walked back into the newsroom and picked up her bag, a determined look on her face.
Bus 8E, Thokoly Way, 12.10 p.m.
Balthazar sat back down. The bus was still stationary as he bit into the apple, which was crisp and pleasantly sharp. He looked out of the grimy window. A new billboard was mounted on top of an apartment building. It showed the dates 1956, 1989 and the word ‘ ?’, ‘Now?’, above the same picture of the prime minister, his ministers and business allies linked together in a spider’s web that Balthazar had seen earlier that morning on Luther Street. Large letters proclaimed, ‘Fejezzuk be a munkat!’, ‘Let’s finish the job!’. The posters were unattributed but were widely believed to be the work of a new conservative opposition party, which claimed that the governing Social Democrats were still Communists in all but name and another change of system was needed. Balthazar’s eye wandered to a long queue of migrants which had formed nearby outside a pizza takeaway which offered a slice of margarita for 100 forints, around thirty pence. Next door, tables had been set up on the pavement outside a kebab restaurant. A large, overweight Gypsy male in his thirties was holding forth on his mobile phone. In front of him sat another man, dark, thin, hunched, a supplicant waiting. Balthazar did a double take. The obese man with the mobile phone looked familiar. Very familiar.
Was it him? Yes, it was. Viktor Lakatos. Eat Vik, as he was usually known. Second in command to Gaspar, Balthazar’s brother. Lately Fat Vik had been branching out from prostitutes and hostess bars. He was often to be found sitting on an armchair outside one of Budapest’s many BAV shops, the state antique emporiums, with several minions .Whenever someone walked towards the shop with a painting to sell, Fat Vik would send one of his guys to intercept them at the door and try to persuade them to sell to him instead. But there was only one thing being bought and sold in the streets around Keleti now – and it was not antiques. What, Balthazar asked himself, was his brother up to now?
The sirens finally faded but the bus, still stuck in traffic, did not move. Balthazar’s mind drifted back to his conversation with Sandor Takacs. There was a chance, he supposed, that the dead man might have been killed in a robbery that had gone wrong. It was well known among the muggers and pickpockets of District VIII that the migrants often carried large sums in cash or valuables. But then why had the Gendarmes been there? They had no interest in everyday crimes, unless they affected the prime minister or the political elite. And where had the body gone? This was no bungled robbery, he was sure.
Meanwhile, there were more personal considerations. He had blithely agreed to talk to his brother, but what if Gaspar was involved in the killing? Balthazar’s career had already cost him dear. His father, Laszlo, had been furious after Balthazar had joined the police. Balthazar’s mother, Marta, had refused point-blank to countenance his demands that her eldest son be ostracised. Laszlo had called a meeting of the Kris, the Gypsies’ communal court. This was a drastic step. The Kris was usually convened to resolve disputes between families, without the involvement of outside authorities, and not to mediate in intra-family feuds. Eventually, the Kris had handed down its judgement: Balthazar could see his brothers whenever he wanted, was allowed to return to the courtyard whenever he liked, but female relatives – including his mother living there – could only meet him with Laszlo’s permission. In addition, Balthazar was banned from all family events and from entering the actual family home without his father’s permission. Balthazar had to pledge that he would never, upon pain of full ostracism, divulge any information to the police concerning any criminal activity he knew about that was connected to any of his relatives. He had agreed.
Beyond family affairs, there was the whole business of the Gendarmerie. Takacs was right not to go to war with the Gendarmerie, at least for now. The ostentatious motorcade through the middle of the city was a message – that the Gendarmerie had the strongest and most solid roof: the prime minister’s office. The police’s roof, shared with the state security service, the Ministry of the Interior, was lacking several tiles nowadays, not least its minister, Bela Balogh. His downfall had been swift, too swift. Balthazar called up Eniko’s 555.hu story on his telephone and quickly reread it. It was detailed and accurate. The incriminating evidence was overwhelming. Balogh was guilty and deserved to go to prison. But a similar dossier, he knew, could be released about several government ministers, and numerous MPs and senior civil servants. Somebody had fed the dossier to Eniko. But who, and why bring down the minister of the interior in the middle of a refugee crisis?
His phone buzzed, interrupting his reverie. The text message instantly banished thoughts of migrants and refugees, murders, and threats from the Gendarmes: ‘Hallo, Daddy. I can’t wait to see you this weekend.’
Balthazar smiled with pleasure as he quickly tapped out a reply and sent it. But his smile faded as he remembered the rest of his conversation with Sandor Takacs.
If the ambassador makes a request to the PM’s office it will be heeded. Especially after you were officially...
Officially warned not to park outside the American school in a far-flung suburb of Buda, in an unmarked police car while off duty just to get a glimpse of Alex after his mother had cancelled two visits in a row, Takacs might have said. And doubly warned not to get out of the car when Alex saw his dad, run over with the world’s biggest smile, pick him up and promise to see him the next weekend. Which was anyway unfair on the twelve-year-old boy, as thanks to Balthazar’s lurking, that visit was quickly cancelled, and the next one after it. But then, Takacs was happily married with three grown-up children who still came home every Sunday for a family lunch, two of them with their own youngsters.
Takacs’s advice needed to be heeded. Sarah seemed to delight in torturing Balthazar, randomly cancelling his midweek visits and weekends with Alex, often with just a couple of hours’ notice, or even less. Three weeks earlier he had been standing outside the front door of her apartment building on Pozsonyi Way in District XIII, when the text arrived: ‘Sorry, Alex has a fever. We have to delay.’ It was all he could do to control his temper and not take the lift upstairs and force his way inside. He realised, of course, that nothing would have delighted Sarah more. Lately though, Balthazar had a new ally: Maria, Sarah’s cleaning lady. Maria was a Gypsy, possibly even a distant relative. She had grown up around the corner from Jozsef Street and fed Balthazar a stream of information about Sarah and Alex, sometimes even telephoning him when she was at the house. Sarah could not speak Hungarian, let alone the rapid-fire mix of Hungarian, Lovari, the main Gypsy dialect, and street slang that Maria spoke, so had no idea what she was talking about.
Balthazar had met Sarah at Central European University in downtown Budapest. Founded by the philanthropist George Soros, CEU was a small postgraduate college. Balthazar was the first in his family to enter higher education. As the eldest of three brothers and two sisters, he had been expected to leave school at fourteen, or sixteen at the latest, and eventually take over the family business, a position now filled by Gaspar. But Marta had other ideas, as did a sharpeyed teacher at his primary school. Marta had stubbornly insisted to Laszlo that her eldest son would not follow in his footsteps. Instead, he would go to university. Laszlo laughed, shouted, slapped her back and forth. But Marta also had her arsenal. After two weeks without conjugal rights, and the opportunity to cook his own meals, Laszlo surrendered.
The primary-school teacher arranged for Balthazar’s transfer to Fazekas, the country’s best high school. Despite Fazekas’s location in District VIII, Balthazar was the only Roma pupil in his year. He had graduated with the highest grades in his class and studied law and politics at Budapest’s Eotvos Lorand University. From there he had moved to Central European University where he and Sarah quickly fell in love. The Hungarian Roma and New York liberal intellectual had found each other exciting and exotic. They moved in together, sharing a studio flat in District VII, the old Jewish quarter. After a passionate few months, Sarah fell pregnant. They decided to get married in a quick civil ceremony with just a couple of friends as witnesses. Balthazar’s family had been furious. Partly because he had married a gadje, a nonGypsy, although Sarah was Jewish and Jews and Gypsies were traditional allies, but mainly because they had not been invited or allowed to hold the usual massive celebration.
After graduating with a Master’s degree in nationalism studies, Balthazar was deluged with job offers. A lucrative and not especially taxing world beckoned, he realised, where he could build a career as a professional Roma. Charitable foundations, international organisations, government departments, multinational corporations were all desperate to hire intelligent, presentable Roma people, especially when they were fluent in English as Balthazar now was, to burnish their liberal credentials. Balthazar had been a talented student and his professor at CEU had made it clear that there would be an easy path to a PhD, followed by a lecturer’s position, assistant professorship, then even on to department head. Balthazar started a doctorate, specialising in the Poray-mus, the Devouring, as Gypsies called their Holocaust.
After a couple of years, Balthazar had had enough of libraries and archives and extermination. He also realised that he had no desire to be a diszczigany, a decorative, token Gypsy. In a region convulsed by change, riddled with corruption, run by a political class interested mainly in self-enrichment, the law, he believed, offered the only guarantee of liberty. The law had failed him – and someone very close to him -once before. He would make sure it did not do so again. So, at the age of twenty-nine, he joined the police. In the politically correct, uber-liberal circles in which Sarah now moved, a policeman husband was beyond the pale. Sarah, by then an associate professor of gender studies, decided she was a lesbian and moved in with Amanda, a German student from Tubingen, taking Alex with her.
Balthazar read his son’s message once more and slid his telephone into his pocket. He stood up as the 8E bus reached the stop by Keleti Station, glancing at the scene at the side of the station, where several refugee families had set up an ad hoc camp. One elderly lady was even boiling water on a portable stove. A line of taxi drivers stood watching and smoking. One in particular caught Balthazar’s eye: a woman in her early thirties, tall, dark blonde, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. Where had he seen her before? The bus jolted to a halt. There were several flyers on the floor by the door and he picked one up before he got off, breaking his train of thought about the blonde taxi driver. He stood still for a moment, looking at the sheet of A5. The flyer was printed on heavy, glossy paper in full colour. A banner headline across the top declared ‘Defend our homeland’ on one line and ‘Magyar Nemzeti Front’ – ‘Hungarian National Front’ – underneath. A racist caricature of a black man groping a blonde, white young woman took up most of the rest of the page. ‘Stop the migrant flood: Join the patriots’ revolution’ was printed along the bottom edge, together with an email address: info@mnf.hu.
He folded the flyer into four and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans. The MNF. Here it was again, the third time today – and it was barely lunchtime. And who was paying for these glossy flyers?