“You’re not about to move yourself and Gustav to France?” Irén asked anxiously. “I don’t think he would like the food there. Too precious for a Hungarian dog, don’t you think?”
Attila admitted to having had similar reservations for himself about the idea of his settling in France. But, he said, he had rented a dog-friendly Airbnb and would, if his assignment lasted, bring Gustav over.
He arrived early at Fou d’Café on Rue des Moulins. There was a lineup for takeout coffee and croissants. When he indicated that he wanted a table, the waitress reassured him that he would be served ahead of the line and showed him to a table with a view of the river. It was a reassuringly warm day, though thousands of leaves bobbed up and down with the waves and the wind coming off the mountains carried specks of rain. He hoped to be home by the end of October. He enjoyed being part of the October Revolution commemorations: not the ones sponsored by the government, but the ones his father’s old friends joined — those who were still alive.
He ordered a café au lait and unfurled the local paper. He made a valiant effort to read the front page and reassured himself that his French seemed to be improving. One headline was about a new hate-crime investigation by the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights and another about the Roma of Gyöngyöspata. The Magoci murder had dropped off the news cycle.
Monique Audet arrived ten minutes late, perfect timing for a European lady who wished neither to offend by being too late nor to appear overly keen. She wore a red coat with large buttons over a short black skirt and the same high-heeled pumps that Attila had admired the last time they had met. Again, he was impressed by her ability to walk quickly and stay upright in shoes that would tilt someone else into a dive. She had piled her hair up into a sort of bird’s nest that bounced as she walked. He had to admit it suited her face, as did the heavily accentuated eyebrows she seemed to have developed overnight. What, he wondered, had happened in the past couple of years that made some women want to look so furry? He was trying to remember Helena’s early morning face, before she put on her makeup, the face she had turned to him when they woke up in his apartment. Soft light brown eyebrows, translucent eyelids, hair mussed up around her forehead.
What had he led her into? This job with the Vaszarys’ painting had become dangerous, and he now suspected that he had innocently lured her here under false pretences. That she had come only because he had asked, and the person who wanted him appointed to Vaszary chose him specifically because he could be counted on to bring Helena to Strasbourg.
“C’est formidable de vous voir ici, Monsieur,” Monique said as she stretched out her hand for a languid shake.
“Indeed,” Attila said. He stood as she positioned herself to sit , then pushed the chair in under her bum as she sat down again. An old-fashioned gesture but he thought she would like it.
“Café au lait,” she said to the waitress, “et un petit gateau. Non, l’autre,” pointing at a cake next to the one the waitress had selected. “Only last night, I was dreaming about that café in Paris, you know, Les Deux Magots, where Karl Lagerfeld used to go. You know, the fashion designer and many other famous people.”
“Picasso,” Attila suggested.
“Yes, Picasso.” She took a sip of her coffee. “So,” she said. “You have now talked with your boss, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yesterday,” Attila said. “And he is interested. But you understand that it’s hard for him to be convinced that you have valuable information unless you give us an idea of what exactly you are selling.”
She had stopped with her fork in the air, just as she was about to place a small portion of cake into her mouth. “He said that?”
“Not his exact words but that is what he is thinking.”
“And you have explained to him that I have records of all his conversations with Monsieur Magoci.”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Did you inform Monsieur Vaszary that I have recordings of all his meetings with Monsieur Magoci?”
“Every one of them?” Another shot in the dark, but Vaszary hadn’t been clear about what he had to fear from the mademoiselle.
“C’est ça, monsieur. Exactly how did you think I could transcribe what went on in the meetings if I didn’t have the recordings?”
“I thought,” Attila said, “you had kept his notes of the meetings.”
“No, Monsieur. I have tous les enregistrements audio — that is, recordings, in your language. I told you it was the only way Monsieur Magoci could be sure to remember exactly what had been said. And it was important to remember what was said because he had to follow very complicated instructions from your Monsieur Vaszary. Obviously, no simple matter.” She steepled her hands over the tiny cake and knitted her lush eyebrows at Attila. “Your Monsieur Vaszary speaks French tout à fait affreux and his English is, well, a little infantile, n’est-ce pas?”
“In particular,” Attila said, “Mr. Vaszary may be interested in his . . . discussions about the painting.”
“Surely he remembers that all the discussions were about the painting?”
“Well, yes,” Attila said, still guessing, “about the sale?”
“Particularly about the auction. Monsieur Magoci had to contact all the possible buyers, send colour photos of the painting . . .”
“The buyers? You mean Piotr Grigoriev and Vladimir Azarov?”
“And the Pole, Waclaw something. A big scene, his shouting that the painting belonged to him. He wouldn’t pay for it. Then Monsieur Magoci showed him some
