I paid the amount. He seemed reluctant to take the bills.
“Can you tell me how this reached you?” I asked.
He gave me a long look, then called out toward the back of the store.
“Lukacs!”
A harried-looking teen scurried out from the back, pushing curls out of his eyes. Laszlo barked an order in Hungarian, handed Lukacs the register key, and came out from behind the counter.
“Apologies for my rudeness, Mr. Cage, but this has been a strange business altogether, and I have been uncertain as to how I should deal with you when the time came.” He held out his hand in greeting, an American sort of proffer. I shook it firmly. “We should go somewhere to talk, especially if you intend to meet with the Szondis. No one should do that unawares.”
“More trouble than they’re worth?”
“The older one, Ferenc, no longer has his wits about him. His son, Bela-well, that is not a topic to discuss here.”
Laszlo said something more in Hungarian to the younger man, then led me outdoors, where he again looked in both directions.
“You have come here alone?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Others have been inquiring about you. It started a few days ago. Three different men, each acting as if he was your friend. But…” He shrugged, uncertain.
“Three? Was one of them a scruffy-looking German, maybe a few years older than you? Floppy hat, carries a cane?”
“No. But if I didn’t know better I would say you are describing the book scout Lothar Heinemann. I am told he was once a regular at this store.”
“Once?”
“He was banned by the Szondis, but I do not know why. If you see him, you must tell him he is again welcome at Antikvarium Szondi.”
“I doubt he knows the store has changed hands. He certainly didn’t mention it to me.”
“You have seen him?”
“Just yesterday, in Prague. He sent me.”
Lazslo shook his head, more confused than ever. He said nothing further until we reached our destination a few blocks later, the elegant Cafe Central, with windows facing onto both sides of a fashionable corner. Its chandeliers, high ceilings, and L-shaped floor plan stirred a memory from a long-ago Saturday with my father-him with his coffee, me with hot chocolate, both of us sipping to a morning serenade of chuffing espresso machines and the rustle of foreign newspapers.
It was too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, and there were few customers. We took a corner table in the smaller wing.
“My dad used to bring me here, but I don’t remember it being this fancy.”
“They have done many things to make it look nicer. Some of the older customers do not like it as much now. It feels too prosperous, too safe.”
“Too safe?”
“Look around. You can tell the ones who came in the older days. See how they bend so low across the table that their heads nearly touch? This was where you would come to talk about things that could not be said in other places, as if you could hide the words in your cigarette smoke, or in the milk on top of your coffee. Secret policemen were here, of course, watching from behind their newspapers. They would be the only ones daring to read some banned periodical, hoping you might ask to borrow it so they could note your name and face. Maybe that is why I brought you here, because I am not yet certain I should help you. Not yet certain I should even be talking about these things.” He smiled uneasily. “Could it be that you are like those policeman, offering something I shouldn’t accept?”
“I hope not.”
A waiter took our order. When he’d gone, Lazslo fretted with his hands, as if unsure where to begin.
“You mentioned your father. Was his Christian name Warfield?”
“Yes. He lives in Vienna now. We were here from sixty-four to sixty-seven. We moved away when I was eleven.”
“I was nineteen then. My uncle used to talk about him. Your father, I mean.” He seemed to choose his next words with care. “He said your father was… a grand figure, a special man.”
“That’s kind of him.”
I wondered what Dad could have done to inspire such a description, but Lazslo didn’t elaborate. He again looked down at his hands, then put them in his lap.
“You were going to tell me about the Szondis,” I said. “Where would I find Bela?”
“They have a very fine house on Corvin Square, near where their shop used to be. It has an elevator, even from the old times. The house with blue trim. It will be easy to find.”
“I take it they’ve done well for themselves.”
“They are the kind of people who always do, no matter who is in power.”
“You don’t like them.”
He shrugged and took out a pack of cigarettes.
“It is not a matter of like or dislike. It is a matter of trust or mistrust. The transaction with the store, it seemed very regular. Friends advised me against it, but the price was fair, the terms reasonable. A week after I moved in I began noticing that many of the better items had been removed, including an entire locked bookcase that I am sure had been there during the sales inspection. I complained, of course, but what could I do? One can only deal with people like the Szondis from a position of advantage.”
“They’re well connected?”
He smiled grimly, cheeks puckering as he inhaled aggressively on his cigarette.
“Connections, money, muscle. You will see. Unless you approach them from a position of greater leverage, they will either shrug you off or find a way to make use of you. May I ask what your business is with them?”
“I’m not sure I know. I want to ask about things that took place a long time ago. Book deliveries, like this one.” I held up the wrapped parcel. “My father was an old customer.”
“From sixty-four to sixty-seven, you said?”
“Yes.”
He thought about this for a second, blowing smoke toward the ceiling.
“That’s when they began to make their fortune, or so I am told. I was only a boy, but my uncle was in the business. Perhaps I should explain how things worked for booksellers then, and how things worked for the Szondis.”
“I’d be grateful for that.”
“The mid-sixties was a time of reform, of hope. After fifty-six it sank in that the Americans were never going to come to our rescue, so people settled in as best they could. As people accepted this reality, production improved. So did the economy. We called it peaceful coexistence.”
“My father used to say Budapest was the best posting in the East Bloc. Americans from Warsaw and Bucharest used to come here to relax.”
“You still had to be careful here, but even in the arts things began to ease up. In literature, important works were finally being translated into Hungarian-Kafka, Sartre, Beckett. Of course, if you wanted to buy new books, there were only the state stores. But some antiquarian shops were still privately owned, like Ferenc Szondi’s shop on Corvin Square.
“People then were always looking for ways to raise cash, and he offered to buy their old books. His son Bela became an appraiser, and it was a gold mine for them. People had no choice but to take the prices they offered. They built up a huge private library. That is when they bought their house, with its elevator and rooftop terrace.”
“I gather they knew a lot of embassy people.”
Laszlo nodded.
“Ferenc took up the bourgeois sport of golf, so that he could meet the diplomats of all nations. They played
