pfft.”
“Any news of home?”
“It’s what you passed along to me, when you came back from Antwerp. And worse.”
“Another Austria?”
“Not the same way, certainly. We are not
“You believe it?”
“No.” He took a sip of tea. “I’ll amend that. To ‘maybe.’ Hitler is intimidated by Horthy, because Horthy is everything Hitler always wanted to be. Old nobility, aide-de-camp to Franz Josef, war hero, polo player, married into the cream of society. And they both paint. In fact, Horthy has now lasted longer than any other leader in Europe. That has to count for something, Nicholas, right?”
Polanyi’s face showed exactly what it counted for.
“So the current unrest … will be dealt with?”
“Not easily, and maybe not at all. We’re facing insurrection. Conservatives out, fascists in, liberals
Morath was surprised. In Budapest, when the Arrow Cross men dressed up in their uniforms and strutted about the city, the police forced them to strip and sent them home in their underwear. “What about the police? The army?”
“Uncertain.”
“Then what?”
“If Daranyi means to stay in as premier, he’ll have to give them something. Or there will be blood in the streets. So, at the moment, we find ourselves negotiating. And we will be forced, among other things, to do favors.”
“For who?”
“Important people.”
Morath felt it coming. Polanyi, no doubt, meant him to feel it. He set his cup and saucer on a table, reached in his pocket, took a cigarette from a tortoiseshell case and lit it with a silver lighter.
The last nights of April, but no sign of spring. The weather blew hard across the Metro staircase, wind and rain and fog with a taste of factory smoke. Morath held his overcoat closed and walked next to the buildings. Down a dark street, down another, then a sharp left and a blinking blue neon sign,
The doorman growled good evening, Russian accent thick and melodramatic. “Welcome, sir, to Balalaika, the show is now just starting.”
Inside, thick air; cigarettes glowed in the darkness. Red plush walls and a stunning hatcheck girl. Morath gave her a generous tip and kept his coat. Here, too, they wore their decorations. The maitre d’, six and a half feet tall with a sash and high boots, had a bronze medal pinned to his blouse, earned in service as mercenary and palace guardsman to King Zog of Albania.
Morath went to the bar and sat at the far end. From there he caught a glimpse of the stage. The Gypsy trio was sawing away in sentimental agonies, a dancer in sheer pantaloons and halter showed, in the blue klieg lights, just exactly what her faithless lover was giving up, while her partner stood to one side, hands clasped in fruitless longing, a red lightbulb in his pants going on and off in time to the music.
The barman came over, Morath ordered a Polish vodka, and, when it arrived, offered the barman a cigarette and lit it for him. He was a short, compact man with narrow eyes deeply lined at the corners, from laughing, maybe, or squinting into the distance. Beneath his red jacket he wore a shirt washed so often it was the pastel of an unknown color.
“Are you Boris?” Morath said.
“Now and then.”
“Well, Boris, I have a friend …” A little cloud of irony hung over the phrase and the barman smiled appreciatively. “He was in trouble, he came to you for help.”
“When was that?”
“Last year, around this time. His girlfriend needed a doctor.”
The barman shrugged. A thousand customers, a thousand stories. “I can’t say I remember.”
Morath understood, a bad memory was a good idea. “Now, it’s another friend. A different kind of problem.”
“Yes?”
“A passport problem.”
The barman used his rag to wipe down the zinc surface, then paused, and had a good look at Morath. “Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Budapest.”
“Emigre?”
“Not really. I came here after the war. I’m in business here.”
“You were in the war?”
“Yes.”
“Where was that?”
“Galicia. Up into Volhynia for a time …”
“Then back to Galicia.” The barman was laughing as he finished Morath’s sentence. “Oh yes,” he said, “
“You were there?”
“Mm. Likely we shot at each other. Then, fall of ‘17, my regiment took a walk. Same again?”
“Please.”
The clear liquor came exactly to the rim.
“Will you join me?”
The barman poured himself a vodka and raised his glass. “To poor shooting, I guess.” He drank in the Russian manner-with grace, but all gone.
From the nightclub tables, rhythmic clapping, growing louder as the patrons grew bolder, some of them yelling “Hey!” on the beat. The male dancer, squatting on the stage with his arms folded across his chest, was kicking his legs out.
“Passports,” the barman said, suddenly gloomy. “You can get into real trouble, fooling with that. They lock you up, here, if they catch you. It goes on, of course, mostly among the refugees, the Jews and the political exiles. Once you get run out of Germany, you aren’t legal anywhere, unless you’ve got a visa. That takes time, and money-you can’t afford to be in a hurry. But you are-with the Gestapo after you, you have to do whatever it takes. So you sneak out. Now, you’re a ‘Stateless Person.’ You slip into Czechoslovakia or Switzerland, hide out for a week if you know the right rooming house, then they catch you and send you across the Austrian border. After a week or two in jail, the customs officers walk you back across the frontier, at night, in the woods, and the whole thing starts again. Here it’s a little better. If you stay out of trouble, the
“How did you manage?”
“Nansen. We were lucky. Because we were the first wave, we got the League of Nations passports, we got the work permits, we got the jobs the French didn’t want. That was 1920 or so. Revolution over, civil war winding down, then the Cheka comes around-‘We hear you were a friend of Ivanov.’ So, time to run. Next, when Mussolini’s boys got to work, came the Italians. Their luck was pretty much the same as ours-you used to be a professor of theoretical physics, now you’re a real waiter. Now,
