The Exiled (4 page)

The chief of police sat next to Gábor and nodded. So you understand Hungarian after all, thought Anna, again swallowing her irritation. She gave her official statement about the events of the previous night, took her bag and its plastic cover from the table, put her things back inside it and turned to leave. The policemen stood up, hurried to open the door for her, and asked Ernő and
Tibor to stay behind to give their own statements about what they had seen.

‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ Anna told them.

‘Give your mother and Ákos my greetings,’ said Gábor.

‘Remember, I want to see the body or at least the photographs from the scene,’ Anna told the chief in Serbian, though she wasn’t entirely sure whether the word
body
was masculine or feminine. To hell with the grammar, Anna thought, indignant. I want this man to realise I understand his language too. Though not nearly well enough.

The chief of police nodded.

‘Why don’t we schedule a time now?’ Anna continued.

‘I’ll do my best to make it happen,’ the chief responded but looked as though he wasn’t planning on lifting a finger to do anything of the sort, and that he’d had enough of Anna’s nagging. ‘The detective will contact you if we have any further questions,’ he continued and closed the door.

Anna stood in the corridor and tried to listen through the door to the men’s discussion, straining to hear what Ernő and Tibor were saying about the event. But the door was thick and the noise from the adjacent staffroom smothered everything else.

Less than five minutes later the men stepped out of the room. That was thorough, thought Anna derisively.

Anna, Tibor and Ernő took the stairs down to the foyer, where a handful of people were sitting around, queuing with papers and documents, just like they would at any police station in the world. The young police officer was still sitting in his booth, but had been joined by a colleague – an attractive female officer in uniform, her dark hair tied in a tight plait and an officious but friendly expression on her face.

On the spur of the moment Anna walked up to the hatch and began playing the ignorant tourist, asking what to do now that she had lost her passport. The man – Vajda Péter, Anna read on the small metallic badge on his jacket – smiled contentedly as he looked up
the contact details for the Finnish Embassy in Belgrade and handed Anna the information on a post-it note. He then filled out a form officially registering the loss of the passport and encouraged Anna to take this with her to Belgrade. Anna thanked him, a little too enthusiastically, perhaps, gave him the most charming smile she could muster and almost imperceptibly winked at him as she turned away from the hatch. The officer stood staring at Anna. If Anna had eyes in the back of her head, she would have seen the female officer poke the man teasingly in the ribs.

Once they were outside, Ernő and Tibor lit cigarettes. Anna had to fight the desire to ask for one.

‘What was that all about?’ asked Tibor as he drew the Marlboro smoke into his lungs.

‘What was what?’

‘That ridiculous flirting.’

‘Hah. Jealous, are you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ said Anna. ‘I’m a bit of a restless soul, but you’re still the only one for me.’

‘Good. For a moment there I was worried,’ said Tibor.

‘Let’s see what those guys come up with,’ said Anna nodding back at the police station. ‘There’s something funny about all this.’

‘You’ve been trained to think like that.’

‘You bet I was, and that’s precisely why I know something’s not quite right.’

‘The guy drowned by accident.’

‘Probably,’ Anna admitted. ‘But the matter still deserves to be investigated thoroughly. That’s what would happen in Finland. What did they ask you?’

‘Nothing much. What time the theft happened, who else might have seen it, that kind of stuff.’

‘Did you tell them we paid a visit to the house in the Romani quarter?’

Ernő hesitated for a moment.

‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I mean, I told them we ran after the thief and looked around Kőrös for him. The guy with the medals asked if we’d seen anything in the gypsy quarter. I told him we were there but we didn’t see anything in particular.’

Anna thought about this. There was something very strange going on.

‘Hey, let’s grab a cup of coffee,’ said Tibor.

‘I need a beer,’ said Ernő and seemed to perk up. ‘But I have to be home for lunch at two. Véra will throw a fit if the food gets cold.’

‘You two go. I’m meeting Réka. We’ll talk soon!’ said Anna and walked off briskly towards her mother’s house. Réka, her oldest and closest friend, might be waiting there already.

Anna smiled. For the first time in a long while something approaching happiness flickered in her chest.

THE SUN WAS LIKE AN ENORMOUS,
glowing eye looking down omnisciently on the
járás
. Somewhere in the distance came the mooing of cows. During the daytime the cows roamed freely across the
járás
, nibbling at the sparse nourishment they could find – thin, yellowed hay and chewy flowers – as the shepherd and dogs followed behind them, keeping them in check and guarding the herd. In the evenings the cows wandered home across the fields in long, lowing lines, to their barns and shelters to be milked and fed; they knew their own farms, slipping in through the gates and into their own stalls just as they had done the previous evening, and waiting for someone to relieve the pressure they could already feel in their udders. The sheep spent the night outdoors, their freedom guarded only by the dogs.

The sun would soon set behind the shimmering horizon. White speckled butterflies danced around tiny flowers; the terrain was rough, dotted with struggling grass, clusters of wild mint here and there. Réka plucked bunches of mint that hadn’t yet flowered. It makes good tea, she said. Anna knew this. As children they had picked mint when their families had gone on picnics together. Anna’s mother had dried the herbs on clothes pegs and boiled them to make tea on winter evenings.

Anna took another sandwich. Réka had brought wine too, but because she didn’t want to drink any, Anna poured herself some juice and they decided not to open the bottle. They had already caught up on all of each other’s news; at least, almost all of it. There were some things Anna didn’t want to talk about, not even to Réka. The kilometres and the years between them were like a river without a bridge. They were like Bácska and Bánát, the regions between which the dark waters of the Tisza flowed. Yet, despite all of that, this was her best friend. Anna took a closer look at Réka. She looked tired; she’d aged. People down here seem to age more quickly, thought Anna.
Was it to do with the sun? Réka had put on weight too. Her cheeks were rounder and her breasts, which had been full before, looked swollen. Yet Réka seemed happy, just as full of smiles as she always had been. She had finally found a boyfriend. Anna told herself that she didn’t feel a single pang of jealousy at this. She was genuinely thrilled at her friend’s happiness. At least, she wanted to be.

The western sky had started to swallow the sun now and the air was cooling quickly. Apart from the bottle of wine, their picnic basket was empty.

‘Should we be getting back?’ asked Anna.

‘Yes, let’s go.’

‘That visit to the police station is really bugging me,’ said Anna as they walked back to the car parked at the side of the narrow, bumpy country lane.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t really know. There’s something about it I can’t put my finger on.’

‘Maybe it’s just that the police do things differently round here,’ Réka suggested.

‘Maybe. But they didn’t seem at all interested in the little girl. They completely dismissed the idea. It’s odd, because the girl must know the identity of the dead thief.’

‘They’ll talk to the Romanies. Everything will work out.’

‘What use will that be if the thieves weren’t from round here or if they weren’t even Romanies? That’s what the police kept repeating: they’re not from round here, not from Kanizsa.’

‘Surely they must have a reason for saying that? They probably know the local pickpockets better than they do their own families.’

‘If the man wasn’t a local, how on earth did he ever find that spot down by the Tisza that even the locals don’t know exists?’

‘I don’t know. I imagine he was looking for a hiding place.’

‘Maybe, but it stills seems odd.’

‘Just forget about it.’

‘I asked to see the body, but they clearly don’t want me to see it.
They should have automatically asked me to identify the thief. Why didn’t they?’

‘Because you didn’t get a proper look at him.’

‘I saw what size he was, saw his clothes, the colour of his hair.’

‘Anna, dear!’

‘That’s what my father’s former colleague kept calling me. Damn chauvinists.’

‘That’s what it’s like round here. No point letting it get to you.’

‘It’s as if the whole incident is dangling in front of my eyes like a piece of thread crying out for me to grab it and start winding it in. I just want some answers.’

‘It’s only natural the whole thing is bugging you. Your belongings have been stolen and it looks like the thief is now dead. It would be weird if it didn’t affect you. But it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something fishy going on. I think you’re letting your emotions cloud your professional judgement. Have you ever had to deal with something like this as a civilian? As yourself?’

‘No.’

‘There you go.’

Réka was right, but her words only served to confuse Anna all the more. What was she as a civilian other than a police officer? Was there such a thing as an off-duty Anna? Perhaps she should follow Réka’s advice, forget all about it and enjoy what was left of her holiday. I might even find the person hiding within this police officer’s body, she thought. Is finding the real Anna the thing I’m trying so hard to escape?

‘Give the bottle of wine to your mum,’ said Réka, as she opened the boot of her car and put the picnic basket and blanket inside.

‘Okay, thanks.’

‘Why didn’t you have any? You’re not pregnant, are you?’ Réka laughed and tapped her stomach.

And before Anna could think of a way to reply, Réka continued. ‘Anna, I’ve got to tell you: I am.’

She looked at Anna, radiant.

‘Réka, that’s wonderful,’ said Anna and hugged her friend, trying to force a note of happiness into her voice.

‘I’m still only in the early stages, but I’ve already put on a few kilos.
Jebiga
, I’m hungry all the time!’

‘When’s it due?’

‘At the beginning of December. József and I are going to have a Christmas baby.’

‘From now on, I’m going to call you Mary.’

Again Réka chuckled. Her laugh sounded just as it had when she was a little girl. All of a sudden Anna thought of the rooms in their nursery school, the noise, the laughter, the large windows covered with paper flowers the children had made. Réka had stopped at Anna’s house every morning and they had walked to the nursery hand in hand. How small could they have been? Four or five, maybe. It’s a wonder we were allowed to walk all that distance by ourselves, thought Anna.

‘Did we ever have an adult with us when we walked to nursery?’

‘What? I’ll never get used to the way your thoughts bounce around. What made you think of that?’

‘But did we?’

‘When we were really small, our home help used to come with us. If I remember right, we were allowed to go by ourselves when we were about five.’

‘Five? Goodness.’

‘Anna, we lived right next to the nursery.’

‘Still. Would you let your Christmas baby out alone at the age of five?’

‘We were always together. And Kanizsa is a safe place. You’re right, though, I don’t know how to answer that. We’ll see when the time comes.’

‘How’s it been going, the pregnancy?’

‘Fine, except that I felt like being sick all day yesterday. But it’s all right. It’s wonderful.’

‘I’m really happy for you,’ said Anna.

I am happy, I really am, Anna tried to convince herself.

‘Thank you, you really are a good friend. You’ve got to meet József as soon as possible. Let’s go to Szabadka together.’

‘Sounds good. I want to meet the lucky man.’

Réka smiled. Then she hugged Anna again.

‘It’s so nice you’re here. I’ve missed you terribly. I hope you come again over Christmas; you’ll get to meet our baby. I wonder whether it’s a boy or a girl. Mum wants a boy, but József and I really don’t care. As long as it’s healthy. Even that doesn’t really matter. As long as it’s … a baby.’

Anna stared at the shimmering sun as it dipped beneath the horizon. She didn’t want to continue this conversation. Not now. Not yet.

‘I wonder who the fisherman was. The one that found the body,’ she said.

‘There you go again, your mind won’t let up. It could have been anyone. You can’t buy fish in the supermarkets, so everybody fishes for their own.’

‘The police said it was an elderly man, a former professional fisherman.’

‘Ah, in that case it must be Nagy Béla.’

‘Should I speak to him?’

‘Absolutely not. I want to spend as much time with you as possible. I don’t want you to spend the whole of June crawling around in the bushes, investigating something that doesn’t even really concern you. Forget all about it; promise me?’

Anna hesitated but acquiesced. ‘Okay.’

‘Good. Let’s go, it’s getting late,’ said Réka.

They drove back into town in Réka’s old Zastrava, thick, stinking smoke sputtering from the exhaust pipe. There were always spare parts for these cars and people knew how to repair them without looking things up online. Réka liked that sort of thing. She liked everything to be old-fashioned, collected antiques and old furniture.
She wanted to buy an old house that she and József could renovate in the traditional style. Nobody else understood why she would want to do such a thing, but Réka didn’t care. She had always gone her own way – studied journalism in Belgrade and dreamed of working abroad, or as a conflict correspondent at a large newspaper. She’d lived by herself for a long time too. We’ve got a lot in common, thought Anna. And still it feels as though we’ve become strangers to one another.

Darkness descended quickly, revealing a star-lit sky, the lights of the local farmsteads too few to ruin it. As they approached the town the amount of light increased and the twinkle of the stars faded away. Yet Anna liked the moderate lighting in Kanizsa; it was as though the town respected the night. The Finnish summer nights, when you could sit outside and read a book without the lights on, had a special atmosphere all of their own, but Anna loved the dark, warm summer nights in the south, the chirping of the crickets and the gurgling of the frogs, the thunderstorms that lit up the dark night sky after the heat of the afternoon.

Réka dropped Anna off at the gate of her mother’s house and sped off in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

A clamour of loud voices drifted over from the beer garden outside the Gong. Anna delicately pulled her keys out of her bag. This bag, her very own handbag, now hanging on her shoulder as innocent and innocuous as it had before, had only yesterday been with a man who was now dead. The thought made her shudder. She would need to be very careful how she handled it from now on.