Woman in the Fifth

I couldn’t argue with that.

‘I’m sorry you’re in such bad shape,’ I said.

‘As soon as I feel better, I’m planning to beat him to death.’

It was five forty by the time I reached Margit’s apartment. She was not pleased.

‘You cannot be late like this,’ she said as soon as she opened the door. She was wearing a black silk robe. It was half-open.

‘I can explain.’

‘Don’t explain,’ she said, pulling me inside. ‘Fuck me.’

‘I can’t do that,’ I said, dodging her grasp.

‘Playing hard to get?’ she said, reaching for me and thrusting her crotch against mine.

‘It’s not that …’

‘Shut up then,’ she said, pulling her head toward mine and trying to kiss me. But I broke free.

‘I just can’t,’ I said.

‘Yes, you can,’ she said, reaching for my crotch.

‘Will you stop!’

My tone made her freeze. Then she shrugged and walked away from me, past her bed and on to the sofa in her living room. She lit up a cigarette and said, ‘Let me guess: you’re in love …’

‘I have a sexually transmitted disease.’

She considered that for a moment, puffing away on her cigarette.

‘The fatal kind?’ she finally asked.

‘Chlamydia.’

‘Just that?’

‘I’m sorry …’

‘For what?’

‘I might have infected you.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because … I just doubt it. Anyway, chlamydia is not the end of civilization as we know it.’

‘I’m aware of that. Still …’

‘Ah yes. Guilt, guilt and more guilt. It’s nothing, Harry.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because I’ve had chlamydia myself. Courtesy of my husband. He gave it to me around a week before he was killed. Picked it up from some Sorbonne hottie he was fucking. I was rather aggrieved at the time — mainly because it hurt like hell every time I peed. In fact, on the night he and Judit were killed, our fight started with me telling him I now understood why he wasn’t that interested in sex with me … courtesy of his little girlfriend. He became outraged that I would mention this in front of Judit. He stormed out with her. And that’s the last time I ever saw them alive …’

She poured herself a whisky and sipped it.

‘So, to tell the truth,’ she said, ‘chlamydia is no big deal for me.’

‘That’s a terrible story,’ I said.

‘All stories are fundamentally terrible,’ she said. ‘But you’re not just worried about a sexually transmitted disease, Harry. It’s more than that, isn’t it?’

‘I’m in a lot of trouble,’ I said, and the entire story came pouring out. When I finished she was stubbing out her second cigarette.

‘This Monsieur Sezer … you think he set you up?’

‘Think? I’m sure of it.’

‘So he murdered Omar?’

‘Sezer would never grubby his hands like that. But he does have this resident thug who probably does all his dirty work for him.’

‘Any thoughts on why he wanted Omar dead?’

‘Everyone hated Omar.’

‘You especially.’

‘I didn’t want him dead.’

‘True. But you did intimate you wanted him out of your life. Now he’s out of your life. The problem is, Sezer is now in your life …’

‘Not just that — he’s having me tailed everywhere.’

‘I think he wants you to think that.’

‘If he knows where I eat lunch, if he knows I come here every three days …’

‘True, maybe he has a couple of flunkies who have tailed you. But all the time? That’s a bit labor-intensive, don’t you think? He’s relying on his powers of intimidation to keep you in place. Anyway, if he wanted you dead … you’d probably be dead by now.’

‘It’s Yanna’s husband who will probably beat me to death with a hammer if Sezer gives him the go- ahead.’

‘But Sezer evidently wants you alive …’

‘For the time being.’

‘How badly was Yanna beaten?’

I gave her the full picture. Her face tightened as I explained the extent of the injuries inflicted on Yanna.

‘Bastards,’ she said. ‘That’s what they did to my mother.’

‘Sorry?’ I said.

‘The secret police … when they came to kill my father, they also beat the shit out of my mother. Actually beat her around the face.’

‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

‘May 11, 1957. I was seven years old. My father was a newspaper editor — a one-time Party member who turned very anti-Communist after the 1956 Uprising was crushed by Russian tanks. Since martial law was declared, he had gone underground and was publishing a samizdat newspaper — very anti-Kadar and his regime — which was being run from a variety of safe houses around Budapest. Father was never at home — he was essentially on the run all the time — but I remember these men in suits or leather jackets frequently waking us up in the middle of the night, and sometimes ransacking the apartment and even pulling me from bed to see if Father was hiding underneath it.

‘This went on for months. I kept asking Mother, “Why are these men after Papa? When do I get to see Papa again? ” Mother simply told me to be patient … that we would be reunited with Papa soon … but that I should stop asking questions about his whereabouts and that, if anyone at school asked me where he was, I was to say that I had absolutely no idea.

‘Then, one Friday, Mother said, “I have a nice surprise. We’re going away for the weekend.” But she wouldn’t tell me where exactly where we were heading. So we got into our little car and drove off after dark. Hours later — I had no idea how long we’d been on the road, as I’d fallen asleep in the back — we turned off down a dirt road and eventually stopped at this tiny cottage in the woods. There, inside the cottage, was Papa. I ran into his arms and wouldn’t let go of him … even when Mother, who was crying with happiness to see him, tried to hug him. Papa was mine … until I got tired and they put me to bed on the lumpy sofa in the front room. I remembered waking once or twice in the middle of the night when I heard groans from the bedroom — not knowing what they were doing at the time — but then falling back to sleep again … until, suddenly, there was this loud pounding at the door. The next thing I knew, there were loud voices and Mother came running out of the bedroom and I turned around and saw Papa trying to scramble out of the bedroom window. Then the front door burst open, and several policemen and two men in suits came marching in. One of the cops went running into the bedroom and pulled Papa back from the window and started beating him with his stick. My mother began to scream — and a plainclothes officer grabbed her while his colleague repeatedly punched her in the face. Now I started to scream, but the other cop held me down while his colleague dragged my father outside. The officer who was beating Mother stopped, and pushed her on to the sofa. Her face was a bloody pulp and she was evidently unconscious. Now he started shouting orders and dashed to join the cop who pulled Papa outside, then ducked back