She opened the door with a key, then switched on the lights. We were in a long hallway, apparently running the depth of the house, with a stairway in the far right corner. There was a dining room through an archway to the left; to the right was a small sitting room with a larger living room beyond. After I’d hung up my hat and coat, Orlovska went into the sitting room. There was a long sofa facing a huge open fireplace with a freshly kindled blaze.
Orlovska spoke directly to me for the first time. She spoke excellent English.
“Make yourself at home. I’ll be down in a few minutes. You’ll find whisky and ice on the end table. I think there are some American cigarettes there, too.”
She left the room then, and I heard her climb the stairs.
I needed a whisky badly at that point but the first thing I did was to reach for my gun and knock off the safety catch before I replaced it in the shoulder holster.
Then I tiptoed to the hallway. There wasn’t a sound from upstairs. I went to the front door and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked.
I walked softly over to the clothes rack, put on my hat and coat. I went to the front door, opened it, and stepped out on the porch. There wasn’t a sound.
I started to pull the door shut behind me.
Where would I go once the door was closed? I was a good ten miles from the center of Budapest. I couldn’t risk thumbing a ride even assuming there was any traffic at that time of the morning. Even if some motorists hadn’t heard the broadcasts or seen the yellow posters, I couldn’t attempt to pass the roadblock. I’d have to walk but I couldn’t go cross-country because of the snow and the highway was out.
And where would I go? Hiram Carr’s? But he had said, “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to see this thing through with us.” He’d said, “You’d better make up your mind right now that there’s nothing you can do to save Mademoiselle Torres without our help.” Hiram Carr had sent me to the Arizona to meet Anna Orlovska. I’d met her and I had a chance to get the information Carr wanted. Maybe I’d have to use threats. There was a loaded gun inside my jacket.
Without the help of Hiram Carr, there wasn’t much I could do about finding Maria. And I knew that getting her out of the hands of Herr Doktor Wolfgang Schmidt had become more important to me than my original mission to Hungary to trace my brother Bob.
I went back inside and closed the door. I had just hung up my hat and coat again when I heard a door slam upstairs. I was pouring a drink when Orlovska entered the sitting room. She’d changed the white satin evening gown for a black lace negligee and she was something to look at.
I handed her my drink and mixed another.
“I must apologize again, Madame, for having been so inexcusably clumsy on the dance floor.” The speech sounded like something out of a Victorian novel. I spoke English. There wasn’t any reason why a Swiss shouldn’t speak English.
Orlovska curled up on one end of the sofa. I sat facing her at the other. I waited for her to start the conversation.
She said, “I always thought I was too tough to faint.”
“We must have caught you off balance,” I said. “Did you hit your head?”
Orlovska laughed.
“Off balance is right. And maybe I should have my head examined.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Stop it,” she said. “The Russians tap my telephone and they open my mail but they haven’t wired this place, not yet. We can talk frankly.”
I waited for her to go on. She lit a cigarette.
“You must have known how closely they watch me,” Orlovska said, “or you wouldn’t have dreamed up that bumping act.” She stared at the fire. “So,” she said slowly, “you’re really back from the grave?”
I’d thought perhaps I was crazy when I’d hopped in her car. Now I knew it.
“The grave?”
The flickering light from the fire made her face look hard. Now that I was close to her I could see she wasn’t as young as I’d thought. Or else she’d lived in a hurry.
“I told you we can talk. There’s nobody listening.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I haven’t the slightest notion of what you’re talking about.” What did she mean “back from the grave”? Did she know about the session at Dr. Schmidt’s warehouse? Or the encounter in the Keleti station yards?
“I know why you’ve come to Budapest,” she said, “although I can’t imagine how you got into the country.” Then she didn’t know about Marcel Blaye’s passport? “But I don’t blame you for coming. I’d do the same thing in your place.”
I poured myself another drink.
“Are you going to kill me?” Orlovska said.
“No,” I said. “I assure you I haven’t the slightest intention of killing you.”
“Then what do you want?”
I wanted to know who had Marcel Blaye’s Manila envelope and where, but it wasn’t the moment. First I’d have to discover where and when I’d met Orlovska.
“Listen,” she said when I didn’t answer, “I won’t try to kid you. The Russians don’t know anything about my past. Lavrentiev thinks I spent the war in Poland.”
Then we’d met during the war. But where? Orlovska wasn’t the kind I’d have forgotten. I tried to picture her with black hair or red hair but it wasn’t any good.
“I don’t want Lavrentiev to know what happened,” she said. She moved closer and put her hand on my arm. “Please,” she said. “I ditched Lavrentiev so I could follow you when you left the Arizona. When I told Lavrentiev to put you out, I hadn’t seen your face. Oh, he’s drunk enough so he won’t remember in the morning. But the gendarmes know I went after you because I asked them to shout to attract your attention. The cop who stopped you knows we’re together. So does my chauffeur. I’ve taken a great risk to bring you out here. I didn’t do it to play games.”
“Why did you do it?” I said.
“I want to know your price.”
“My price?”
“Don’t be a fool.” She stamped her foot. “The price of your silence.”
What was I supposed to know about her that she was willing to pay to suppress? Why was she so afraid of what I might tell Lavrentiev?
“How did you know I was in Budapest?” she said. She poured herself another whisky and drank it straight. Maybe if she drank enough whisky I’d get the truth.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. But it was all part of the war, wasn’t it? Everybody was twisted, weren’t they? Weren’t they?”
“Yes,” I said. “The whole world was pretty well upside down.”
“Have you ever tried to understand the position of a woman like me? It wasn’t easy to leave Warsaw and the life I’d always had. Oh, I know I can’t expect you to believe anything good of me. But they promised me I could go back home, they said I could have my property back if I’d tell them where you were.”
I handed her another drink.
“You can understand that, can’t you? Can’t you?”
“I don’t understand at all,” I said.
“You’ve got to understand. They’d have killed me if I hadn’t told them where you were. You weren’t in Budapest. You don’t know. They went crazy when the steel works was bombed out.”
“The what?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“I said the Germans went mad when the Americans destroyed the Csepel Island factories. You couldn’t talk to them. They knew you’d been shot down. They knew you were heading for Yugoslavia. I tell you it was my life or yours.”
I grabbed her by the wrist.
“Who do you think I am?” I said. “Tell me. Who do you think I am?”
