Invisible Murder (Nina Borg #2) (4 page)

From the state of the waiting room, it was painfully clear that her and Magnus’s absence during the week-long trial had left gaps in the clinic’s defenses against chaos. Marie and Berit, the secretary and the other nurse, were both capable people, but running things on their own was an uphill job. Clearing away magazines, candy wrappers, and other debris came a poor second to registering complaints, monitoring sore throats and distressed mental states, and generally stemming the incoming tide of would-be patients, many of whom still had to leave dissatisfied because “the Doctor”—Magnus—wasn’t there to see them.

The door to the clinic itself was locked, so both Berit and Marie must have left already. There was a yellow Post-it note on the doorframe, written in a hurried, nearly illegible scrawl that didn’t seem to belong to either of them. Nina peered at the jumbled letters. It would seem that the family in Room 42 had asked for a doctor or a nurse to stop by.

She checked her watch again. 4:07 P.M. She had promised to buy Anton new soccer shoes on the way home. But if she scrapped any idea of catching
up on her paperwork today, she could just fit in this one visit. She remembered Room 42 quite clearly. The family had arrived from Iran three months ago—the mother was a doctor herself, but at the Coal-House Camp that meant nothing. The past was erased, along with any pretense at skill, confidence, and independence. Nina had seen it happen many times before. Eventually, people could barely tie their own shoelaces.

The door to Room 42 was already ajar when she got there. A loud game show was flickering from the farthest corner of the dark room. Two pre-teens were glued to the screen, but the mother was sitting on the edge of the family’s bed, stroking her husband’s forehead. She looked up with a worried frown when she saw Nina standing in the doorway.

“Headache again,” she said, pointing at her husband who was lying down with his eyes closed, panting dramatically. “I think maybe meningitis.”

Nina pulled a chair over next to the husband and placed a hand on his forehead. Still no fever. The man’s wife had also summoned her the week before. That time she thought it was a brain tumor, but Magnus had said it was more likely a migraine.

Nina shook her head and cautiously took the woman’s hand. “It’s nothing serious. Please, don’t worry.”

The woman shook her head skeptically.

“Do you have the pills the doctor gave you? Did you take them?” Nina asked.

“Yes,” the man mumbled despondently. “I take them.”

Nina sat there for a bit. She could get a new job, she thought suddenly. A job that didn’t make her feel the way she felt right now. Mortal fear. That was what was wrong with him. Chronic anxiety that was turning into permanent state of panic. How could she be expected to treat that with a few platitudes and a couple of aspirins? It was wrong. No, it was more than wrong—it was reprehensible.

Nina forced a reassuring smile. “See you tomorrow, okay? Don’t worry. Everything is just fine.”

The woman didn’t respond, and Nina knew perfectly well why not. Her husband probably didn’t have meningitis, but apart from that, nothing was fine, or even remotely okay. While Nina went to buy soccer shoes for her son, night would soon be falling over the Coal-House Camp.

Nina tilted her head in a nod and shut the door a little too firmly behind her as she left.

HEN THEY ASKED
to be driven to Tavaszmezö Street in Budapest’s Eighth District, the cab driver locked all the doors. Sándor could clearly hear the click, and he noticed the look the driver flashed him in the rearview mirror—questioning, sizing him up. Good thing Lujza was with him. In spite of her penchant for weird shawls and flea-market finds—Boho chic, she called it—there was a down-to-earth, Hungarian middle-class respectability in her mousy-haired genes and sit-up-straight manners. For his part, even though he tied a perfect knot in his tie, polished his shoes, and ironed his shirts immaculately, somehow there would always be a question mark hanging over him: the doubt that he saw in the cab driver’s eyes.

“Good thing you’re here,” he said aloud. But on the other hand, if it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t be sitting here. He never took cabs.

She looked at him in surprise—probably hadn’t even noticed the doors being locked and the driver’s suspicious looks.

“Why?” she asked.

He gave up without explaining. “It’s just nice,” he said.

She smiled, taking that as another compliment. “You’re sweet,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

They had been to a baptism—Lujza’s elder sister’s little boy, her parents’ first grandchild.

It was also the first time Sándor officially met the Szabó family. His nerves were still on edge, although it now felt more like fatigue than the tense stiffness he had experienced on the way there. He wanted to ask Lujza if it had gone okay, but he already knew the answer. It hadn’t. Everyone had been pleasant enough, even friendly. Mr. Szabó had greeted him with a firm handshake and had chatted with him about his
studies, about his upcoming exams and about what specialty he was going to choose—Lujza’s father was a lawyer himself and had given criminal law an enthusiastic plug. Mrs. Szabó had been far too preoccupied with her small, screaming, tulle-bundled heir to pay much attention to him, but she had given him an absent-minded smile when he was introduced to her. There was nothing wrong with the way he had been received; it was more his own performance he was dissatisfied with. He had felt his facial muscles freeze, fossilizing with every passing hour. And as so often happened when he felt that way, his voice dropped to a scarcely audible mumble, forcing his conversation partner to lean in and say, “Sorry …?” every other sentence.

He hadn’t made a good impression. And he didn’t understand how Lujza could sit there next to him, seemingly happy and content, and kiss him on the cheek.

They pulled onto Szív Street and suddenly had to slow down. A crowd of pedestrians was crossing without looking, as though normal traffic rules didn’t apply. The driver edged the cab forward through the crowd and tried to pull out onto Andrássy Avenue, but that proved impossible. The entrance to the wide boulevard was blocked by a handful of police officers and a temporary barricade, and there were people everywhere, both in the road and on the sidewalks. When the driver tried to back up, it was too late. The crowd had closed around the cab like a fist. The driver opened his door a little and got halfway out.

“Hey,” he called out to the closest officer manning the barricade. “What’s going on?”

The officer glanced over his shoulder. When he noticed the taxi sign on the cab’s roof, he raised his hand in a sort of semicollegial greeting between two professionals. “A demonstration,” the officer yelled back. “We’ll open up for traffic once it’s passed.”

The cab driver sank back into his seat again, shut his door, and re-locked it. “Sorry,” he said. “We have to wait.”

He rolled the windows down, just enough to let some air into the cab and then turned off the engine. “No point in wasting gas,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere for a bit.”

Through the open windows, Sándor could now hear the sound of drums and rhythmic chants. He couldn’t help speculating on how much the fare would be. Even though the engine was off, the meter was still running.

“Maybe we should just walk the rest of the way?” he suggested. “Or take the subway?”

“I’m wearing heels,” Lujza objected.

The sound of the drums got louder; the demonstration was approaching. It was coming down Andrássy Avenue from Heroes’ Square, he reckoned. He couldn’t see much from inside the cab, but now he could hear what they were yelling.

“Save Hungary now! Save Hungary now!”

Involuntarily, Sándor slid down a couple centimeters in his seat. Jobbik. It had to be Jobbik, taking to the streets again to protest the Jews, Communists, and Romas “ruining our proud nation.”

“Them,” said Lujza, pursing her lips as though she had found something disgusting on the bottom of her shoe. “God spare us from any more racist, goose-stepping idiots.”

The driver turned in his seat and gave Lujza the same suspicious look he had given Sándor at the beginning of the ride.

“Jobbik aren’t racists,” he said. “They’re just for Hungary.”

Oh no, Sándor thought. Please don’t make an issue of it.

It was a doomed hope. Lujza straightened herself up in her seat and stared daggers at the driver, 128 pounds of indignant humanism versus 260 pounds of overweight-but-muscular nationalism.

“And what kind of Hungary would that be?” she asked. “A Hungary clinically scrubbed of all diversity? A Hungary where you can be arrested just because your skin is a different color? A Hungary where it’s totally okay for Romas to have a life expectancy that’s fifteen years shorter than the rest of the population?”

“If they want to live longer, they can quit drinking themselves to death,” the driver said. “And spreading diseases to the rest of us.”

“Where do you get that rubbish from? HIR TV?”

“Well, someone has to tell the truth if the government’s not going to,” the driver said. “I’d like to see you try driving a taxi in Budapest at night—the whole place is controlled by Gypsy gangs. They’ll stab you if you so much as blink. They’re worse than animals.”

Lujza yanked a handful of ten thousand forint bills out of her purse and tossed them on the seat. “Here,” she said. “We’re getting out right now!”

The driver obviously agreed. The power locks clicked pointedly open.

“Bitch,” he snarled. “Get out of my cab, and take your dirty Gypsy dog with you.”

Lujza flung the door open and jumped out. Sándor remained paralyzed for a few seconds, his skin tingling as though the driver’s words had struck him physically. His throat had closed up, and in any case, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Come
on
, Sándor,” snapped Lujza.

He fumbled his door open and climbed out into the middle of the street, into a throng of people pushing their way toward the police barricade.

“But your shoes,” he managed to say. “Your heels.…”

“I’d rather walk the whole way to Tavaszmezö in my bare feet,” Lujza hissed. And then she burst into tears. He had to inch his way through the crowd around the now re-locked cab to reach her. He just wanted to get away—away from the yelling and drumming and red-and-white striped banners that were approaching. The shouts rumbled over their heads, from the demonstrators as well as from the scratchy loudspeaker mounted on a car in the demonstration:

“Save Hungary now! Save Hungary now!”

Lujza was obviously planning to follow through on her threat. She was standing on one leg, pulling her high-heeled shoe off her other foot. She looked so small and vulnerable in her sleeveless, cream-colored summer dress. Her white silk shawl had slipped down over one shoulder, and her neck looked strangely exposed because she was wearing her long, light-brown hair up with a couple of white silk flowers in honor of the day’s festivities. Sándor wanted to stop her. He couldn’t bear the thought of her small, naked feet among all the stomping, trampling boots and shoes. She had no idea how dangerous this was, and her fearlessness frightened him.

“Goddamn fascists!” she said, tears streaming down her lightly powdered cheeks. “It’s unbearable that there are so many of them.” She leaned on him as she angrily tugged off her second shoe.

“Put them back on,” he begged. “What if you step on a piece of glass?”

She seemed not to hear him.

“Narrow-minded idiots who get their so-called information from nationalist TV propaganda. How can we let them march in our streets wearing their silly uniforms? Haven’t we learned anything?”

“Shhh,” he hushed her instinctively.

“You’re
shushing
me?” She shot him an indignant look.

“You never know.…” he began, and then stopped himself. It would only serve to enrage her even further.

“Are you scared?” she asked. “Are you scared of them?”

Well, yes, he was.

“He called you a dirty Gypsy.” She pointed angrily at the cab driver, who luckily had stayed in his cab, entrenched behind the green Mercedes doors. “Just because you have dark hair! You don’t even
look
like a Roma.”

He just mumbled, “No.”

“Well, you can’t let them get away with that kind of thing.”

“No,” he mumbled, hoping his lack of opposition would end the discussion.

Suddenly the crowd stumbled in unison—a wave of people falling, people trying not to fall, and people who just wanted to get out of the way. Sándor pulled Lujza in against him, struggling to keep them both upright. They were pushed back against the cab, and that was probably the only thing that saved them from falling. One of the barricades had tipped over, and there was some sort of scuffle up ahead between the police in their neon-green vests and black helmets and a small group of young people trying to get onto Andrássy Avenue. They looked like disaffected teenagers with punk hair, hooded jackets, and torn and saggy pants that revealed too much of their underwear. They were carrying a banner that said, “NO RACISM. FUCK FACISM.” Inside the O and the U, big round holes had been cut through the material.