Kingdom of Shadows

to go back over it. Because she liked to make love in every possible way and shivered with excitement. He was nineteen, he thought that women did such things as favors, maybe, when they loved you, on your birthday, or you paid whores a special rate.

There was a thump above him. A sack of flour thrown on the floor. Cara had no particular interest in choses affreuses. She would have done them-would have done anything, to be sophisticated and chic, that’s what excited Cara. Did she do it with Francesca? She liked to tease him that she did, because she knew it interested him. Another sack of flour. This one cried out when it hit the floor.

Fuck you, he told them.

He’d thought about seeing Eva Zameny in Budapest, his former fiancee, who’d left her husband. Jesus, she’d been so beautiful. No other country made women who looked like that. Not much of a film of Eva-passionate kisses in the vestibule of her house. Once he had unbuttoned her blouse. She had wanted, she told him, to become a nun. Went to Mass twice a day because it gave her peace, she said, and nothing else did.

Married to Eva, two children, three, four. To work as a lawyer, spend his days with wills and contracts. Friday-night dinner at his mother’s house, Sunday lunch at hers. Make love on Saturday night under a feather quilt in the Hungarian winter. Summer cabin on Lake Balaton. He’d have a coffeehouse, a gentlemen’s club, a tailor. Why had he not lived his life in this way?

Really, why?

He wouldn’t be in a Roumanian dungeon if he had. Who’d sold him, he wondered. And would he-God grant! — have a chance to square that account? Was it somebody at Hrubal’s house? Duchazy?

Stop it. Here is Frieda: curly hair, broad hips, sweet laugh.

“Bad luck, Monsieur Morath. For you and for us. God only knows how we are going to get this straightened out. What, in the name of heaven, were you thinking of?”

This one was also from the Siguranza, Morath thought, but much higher up. Well shaven, well pomaded, and well spoken, in French.

The man rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. Told Morath he was guilty of technical crimes, no question, but who really cared. He didn’t. Still, what the hell was he doing with all that money? Playing Hungarian-minority-politics? In Roumania? “Couldn’t you have murdered somebody? Robbed a bank? Burned down a church? No. You had to make my life complicated, on Saturday morning, when I’m supposed to play golf with my father-in-law.” Yes, it was Roumania, douce decadence, Byzance apres Byzance, it was all too true. Still, they had laws.

Morath nodded, he knew. But what law, exactly, had he broken?

Overwhelmed, the Siguranza officer barely knew what to say-too many, too few, old ones, new ones, some we’re just now making up. “Let’s talk about Paris. I’ve told them to bring you coffee and a brioche.” He looked at his watch. “They’ve gone to the cafe across the square.”

Now here he really envied Morath, he might as well admit it. A man of his class and connection, taking the pleasures of this delightful city. One would know, don’t bother denying it, the most stimulating people. French generals, Russian emigres, diplomats. Had he met Monsieur X, Herr Y, Senor Z? What about, Colonel Something at the British embassy. Don’t know him? Well, really you ought to meet him. He is, one hears, an amusing fellow.

No, Morath told him.

No? Well, why not? Morath was certainly the sort of gentleman who could meet anybody he liked. What could be-oh, was it money? Not to be indelicate, but the bills did pile up. Annoying people sent annoying letters. Being in debt could be a full-time occupation.

A lifelong hobby. But Morath didn’t say it.

Life didn’t have to be so hard, the officer told him. He himself had, for example, friends in Paris, businessmen, who were always seeking the advice and counsel of somebody like Morath. “And for them, believe me, money is no problem.”

A policeman brought in a tray with two cups, a zinc coffeepot, and a large brioche. Morath tore a strip off the fluted brioche, yellow and sweet. “I’ll bet you have this every morning, at home,” the officer said.

Morath smiled. “I am traveling, as you know, on a Hungarian diplomatic passport.”

The officer nodded, brushing a crumb off his lapel.

“They will want to know what’s become of me.”

“No doubt. They will send us a note. So we will send them one. Then they will send us one. And so on. A deliberate sort of process, diplomacy. Quite drawn out.”

Morath thought it over. “Still, my friends will worry. They’ll want to help.”

The officer stared at him, made it clear he had a bad, violent temper. Morath had offered him a bribe, and he didn’t like it. “We have been very good to you, you know.” So far.

“Thank you for the coffee,” Morath said.

The officer was again his affable self. “My pleasure,” he said. “We’re not in a hurry to lock you up. Twenty years in a Roumanian prison won’t do you any good. And it doesn’t help us. Much better, put you over the border at Oradea. Good-bye, good luck, good riddance. But, it’s up to you.”

Morath indicated he understood. “Perhaps I need to think it over.”

“You must do what’s best for you,” the officer said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

In the room above him, the pacing never stopped. Outside, a storm. He heard the thunder and the drumming of the rain. A slow seep of water covered the floor, rose an inch, then stopped. Morath lay on the straw mattress and stared at the ceiling. They didn’t kill me and take the money. For the Siguranza thugs who’d arrested him it was a fortune, a life on the French Riviera. But this was Roumania, “kiss the hand you cannot bite,” and they had done what they’d been told to do.

He slept, sometimes. The cold woke him, and bad dreams. Even when he woke up, bad dreams.

In the morning, they took him to a small room on the top floor, likely the office, he thought, of the chief of the Bistrita police. There was a calendar on the wall, scenic views of Constanta on the Black Sea coast. A framed photograph on the desk, a smiling woman with dark hair and dark eyes. And an official photograph of King Carol, in white army uniform with sash and medals, hung on the wall.

Out the window, Morath could see life in the square. At the stalls of the marketplace, women were buying bread, carrying string bags of vegetables. In front of the fountain there was a Hungarian street singer. A rather comic fat man who sang like an opera tenor, arms thrown wide. An old song of the Budapest nachtlokals:

Wait for me, please wait for me,

even when the nights are long,

my sweet, my only dove,

oh please, wait for me.

When somebody dropped a coin in the battered hat on the ground in front of him, he smiled and nodded gracefully and somehow never missed a beat.

It was Colonel Sombor who entered the office, pulling the door shut behind him. Sombor, with glossy black hair like a hat and slanted eyebrows, in a sharp green suit and a tie with a gold crown on it. Very tight-lipped and serious, he greeted Morath and shook his head-Now look what you’ve done. He took the swivel chair at the police chief’s desk, Morath sat across from him. “I flew right over when I heard about it,” Sombor said. “Are you, all right?”

Morath was filthy, unshaven, and barefoot. “As you see.”

“But they haven’t done anything.”

“No.”

Sombor took a pack of Chesterfields from his pocket, laid it on the desk, put a box of matches on top. Morath tore the foil open, extracted a cigarette, and lit it, blowing out a long, grateful stream of smoke.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I was in Budapest. I came over to Roumania to see a friend, and they arrested me.”

“The police?”

“Siguranza.”

Sombor looked grim. “Well, I’ll have you out in a day or two, don’t worry about that.”

“I would certainly appreciate it.”