The Exiled (5 page)

‘
ANYU
!
’ Anna called to her mother, who was busying herself in the kitchen.

‘Are you up already, child? Come into the kitchen, I’ve baked a walnut pie.’

Anna pulled a dressing gown over her nightdress and put on her
papucsok
, the pair of slippers she’d picked from the basket beneath the coat rail as soon as she’d arrived. She took her mother’s green leather gloves, which she’d used to take her handbag to her room upstairs the previous night, went downstairs, put the gloves back in their place and went into the kitchen.

Ákos was there. He looked happy, healthy and content. Anna felt an overwhelming sense of joy spreading through her body, the same sensation she’d experienced as a child when Ákos had picked her up from school and her classmates had stared, envious and maybe a little afraid, at her big brother with the Mohican and two safety pins through his cheek. Nobody else had a brother as cool as hers. The riskiest their brothers got was a leather jacket and a pair of army boots, but nobody else had a Mohican or safety pins. Now there were only scars on Ákos’s cheeks. Someone had ripped the safety pins out without opening them. He might even have done it himself.

‘Hiya,’ Anna said to her brother in Finnish and gave him a hug. Ákos smelled good.

‘Hi there. How’s my little sister doing?’

‘You’ve probably already heard.’

‘Yes, Mum told me. Shit, that was bad luck. You’ll need to call the consulate about a new passport.’

‘No, I’ll have to go to the embassy in Belgrade.
A kurva életbe
. I was at the police station yesterday.’

Ákos started to laugh. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you? Even on holiday you can’t keep away.’

‘Tell me about it,
saatana
,’ Anna said in Finnish.

‘Watch your language,’ her mother snapped but didn’t sound all that shocked.

‘Where have you been?’ Anna asked her brother.

‘I’ve been in Szeged for a few days visiting János and Berci. Do you remember them?’

‘No.’

‘We were all in the same class at school. They both live and work in Hungary these days. Have you seen Réka yet?’

‘We went out to the
járás
yesterday for a picnic. It’s so beautiful out there.’

‘I know, it’s nice. We should go out there fishing some day, in the canal. You know the place?’

Anna’s mother put water in the
dzsezva
to boil for the coffee and set the table with plates, cups and spoons. The morning sun shining into the kitchen was so warm that Ákos opened the door leading out to the patio.

‘I got the impression the police weren’t interested in investigating the theft properly,’ Anna said. ‘It’s odd – surely they can’t just turn a blind eye when a body turns up?’

‘Did they say they didn’t want to investigate it?’ her mother asked, her voice tight. Anna knew that her mother couldn’t bear hearing anything that might be interpreted as criticism of Kanizsa. And if that criticism touched on something with which her husband had once been involved – be it how to brew proper
pálinka
, how to look after the fruit trees or how the police conducted themselves – she had a tendency to get really angry. So it was as though Anna’s comment was intended as a reproach aimed directly at Kanizsa, her father and, indirectly, at her mother.

‘They didn’t say as much, but they don’t want me to see the body.
They wouldn’t even tell me where they found it. And they returned a very important piece of evidence to me straight away – my handbag. I wonder if I should fingerprint it myself.’

‘Good idea,’ Ákos said in a teasing voice.

Anna gave him a smirk. ‘It’s probably far too late, but I’ve got to do something.’

‘If they didn’t say they
weren’t
going to investigate it, then sure enough they
will
investigate it,’ scolded her mother. ‘You’ll just have to trust that the police round here know how to do their job too.’

‘It’s not that, Mum. I know the police here are as good at their job as police anywhere else.’

‘Who found the body?’ asked Ákos.

‘Some fisherman. Réka said she thought it might be Nagy Béla.’

‘He’s an old family friend,’ said her mother.

‘You should call him,’ Ákos suggested.

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ said her mother, shocked.

‘Give him a call. He’ll tell you where he found the man and your bag,’ said Ákos.

Anna stood up to fetch the old Kanizsa phone book from the cupboard beneath the phone.

Her mother followed her into the hallway. ‘Let this go,’ she said in a pained voice.

‘Why?’

‘Dear child. This is a different world from the one you’re used to. There are some situations to which the normal rules don’t apply. Thank God, you don’t know anything about this kind of place.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I mean that, if you got the impression the police don’t want to investigate this properly, they probably have a good reason.’

‘Such as what?’

‘How should I know? The first thing that comes to mind is that this might have something to do with the mafia, with politics, big money, something like that.’

‘And what if the reason is quite simply that the death of a Romani
or a refugee isn’t worth investigating because it’s not considered all that important?’

‘That might be the case, dear. And if they don’t consider it important, then it’s almost certainly linked in some way to politics or the mafia, and with them there’s always money at stake. Keep out of this. Please. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

Anna thought about this for a moment. She couldn’t dismiss her mother’s words all that easily. She knew that, more than anything, her mother was afraid of losing yet another family member. She put the phone book back in the cupboard, gave her mother a hug and went back into the kitchen. The coffee was ready and it smelled wonderful. Ákos had cut thick slices of walnut pie for everyone, put milk and sugar on the table and stood smiling.

‘Well, Ákos, aren’t you going to tell your sister about Kata?’

A chill gripped the bottom of Anna’s stomach. She tried to hide it in a look of curiosity but she saw that Ákos had noticed.

‘Ákos has been dating Kiss Katalin. Do you remember her?’

‘No. It seems I don’t remember anyone,’ said Anna and forced herself to smile. ‘Who is she?’

‘The Kiss family lives nearby. Katalin was a year behind Ákos at school. Nowadays she lives in Szeged and works as a nurse at a private clinic.’

‘Mum, wasn’t I supposed to tell her that?’ said Ákos with a smile.

Now Anna understood why Ákos hadn’t come back to Finland after their grandmother’s funeral and his spell at the rehab clinic. Katalin Kiss. Anna couldn’t think of anybody by that name. She had no memory of the girl at all.

‘We’ve been on a few dates. It’s nothing serious, not yet anyway,’ said Ákos. He looked as content and excited as only a young man in love can.

‘A few times! You almost live in Szeged these days,’ said her mother. She sounded every bit as enthralled as Ákos as she described his new girlfriend. ‘Kata has two children. She divorced three years ago. She’s a lovely, sweet girl.’

Anna had the impression that their mother had already accepted that her grandchildren might not be her own flesh and blood.

Should I tell her the truth about Ákos’s life in Finland? Anna thought, but rejected the idea as soon as it came to her. Her mother knew some of the truth. After all, it was her mother who had taken Ákos to rehab after their grandmother’s funeral. Anna thought she should ask him how things had gone at the clinic, but decided this was one subject about which it was best to keep quiet. Besides, Ákos looked radiant. Healthy, happy and upbeat, the complete opposite of the Ákos who lived in the filthy apartment in Koivuharju, who hung out with dodgy people and drank away his benefits as soon as they appeared in his bank account. A sense of panic seemed to clench Anna’s chest, a dull hum at the back of her head. She took a deep breath and tried to dispel the thought, but it was no good. Ákos and two children – Jesus Christ. Ákos and a normal, decent woman. A nurse.

But as she watched her handsome brother, who positively glowed as he sat eating his slice of pie, Anna began to calm down and almost felt guilty. Why couldn’t she allow her brother happiness like this? Surely nothing could be nicer than Ákos settling down with a family and a life worth living. Why did she always have to assume it would end in disaster? Was it because she was worried that her brother might decide to stay here and not come back to Finland after all? Because yet another of her relatives had succeeded in doing the one thing everyone expected of her – the one thing that she never seemed to get right? Settling down, having a meaningful relationship, a family life. A reason to exist.

‘Well, are you going to introduce your little sister to the wonderful Kata?’ asked Anna, forcing the bitter thoughts from her mind. She saw the look of nervousness disappear from Ákos’s eyes.

‘Sure. She’s got a few days off at the end of the week. She’s coming to visit. The children are going to their father’s place. She really wants to meet you too.’

SUNDAY WAS MARKET DAY
at the
piac
. The market square was busy long before six in the morning as the locals got together to buy and sell seasonal vegetables and a whole array of other products. Once they’d finished their morning coffee, Anna’s mother fetched her basket and asked Anna and Ákos to join her. Ákos said he was going to a friend’s place and Anna didn’t feel like going with her mother. She wanted to go swimming, but the water level was still high from the spring floods and the river was littered with trash, branches, and sometimes even the bodies of animals, which didn’t make the strong current any more appealing.

Instead Anna ran a hot bath and had a long soak, then dried her hair, got dressed and left the house. Outside the morning was fresh. The cloudless sky and the still of the air hinted that the day would warm quickly. If at all possible, I’m going to take my holiday in July and August next year, thought Anna. I want to feel that infernally hot weather. I want to sweat and burn, take refuge in the merciful shade. I want to spend all day in an armchair under the plantain tree and drink ice-cold beer at night.

She walked to the beer garden at the Gong and sat down at a table in the corner, where she could watch the people arriving and nothing could happen behind her back. It was strange, primal behaviour – or was it perhaps the paranoia that came with her job that made her choose a seat like this whenever possible, watching her back even in safe places?

The stale smell of the previous evening’s thick tobacco smoke still clung to the cushions and tablecloths. A few years ago a Perspex screen had been built round the garden, and the opaque, wavy wall of plastic meant that fresh air no longer circulated through the terrace and you couldn’t watch people walking past. A few regular customers were sitting at the bar – men having their morning coffee. If men could give birth, all Balkan children would be born in cafés,
thought Anna. She didn’t look out of place, a young woman in a bar by herself, because younger women in particular could finally enjoy a coffee or a beer without the company of men – or without any company at all – but still she felt as though she had transgressed an unspoken law of etiquette. Not that she cared about breaking such rules. Even her mother had stopped nagging about her unashamedly independent behaviour, no longer telling Anna how unbecoming it was for a woman. Perhaps it was because her mother had lived in Finland too. Or maybe because, even in a place like Kanizsa, the world changed eventually.

The waiter arrived and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, asking how she was doing and seeming genuinely thrilled to see Anna for the first time in ages. For a brief moment Anna felt as though she had settled down in a warm, feather-soft nest, tucked away in the branches of the Kanizsa tree. She ordered a cappuccino and a glass of water. She felt like lighting up a cigarette, but thankfully she hadn’t bought any. She had packed her running gear, though. She would go for a jog along the banks of the Tisza that evening. She had planned a relaxed training programme to get her through the holiday, the kind that meant she wouldn’t get out of shape but didn’t take up too much time or energy. Perhaps she’d learnt something over the years. Perhaps this was even a sign that she might one day be able to treat herself with a little more mercy. Anna smiled. She still had a lot to learn about that.

The coffee was good. Serbia and coffee. The two were so tightly bound together that Anna wondered why the Finns were considered a nation of coffee-drinkers. Finns knocked back cup after cup of watery filtered coffee simply so they didn’t get headaches or feel tired. Here coffee was a pleasure, a way of life, one that was generally associated with smoking and good company. The best coffee of all was the Turkish stuff her mother brewed in the
dzsezva
. It was strong and bitter, and the fine grounds sank to the bottom of the cup if you were patient. If not, it left a grainy taste in the mouth.

Someone walked into the bar, greeted Anna and the Serbian man
sitting at the next table, ordered a beer and began chatting with the waiter. The Serbian man joined the conversation, shouting out comments of his own. Anna closed her eyes for a moment. The tension in her shoulders began to melt away, the annoyance at losing her passport faded into the piping-hot coffee and the buzz of Serbian chit-chat. The dead thief, the girl in the red skirt and the patronising police officers drifted from her mind, becoming nothing but small specks in the distance before disappearing altogether. I’m going to let the matter go, thought Anna. For once I’m going to be sensible and forget about it.

She opened her eyes and sipped her coffee. Then, from the black leather handbag she’d borrowed from her mother’s cupboard without asking, she took a scrap of paper and sighed. Why do I always lie to myself? she wondered.

She looked at the phone number she’d scribbled on the piece of paper. Nagy Béla, the man who had found the body. The man who knew exactly where the body had been lying. I must inspect the scene, thought Anna. I don’t want to, but I must. I must, even though my mother will have a fit. I must, even though Réka will tell me I’m silly. If that means I’m a police officer and nothing else, so be it. That’s good enough for me. Who says I have to get to know the Anna that’s hidden somewhere inside my uniform? What if there’s nobody there after all? I’ll inspect the scene and try to see the body. I want to make sure, if only for my own peace of mind, that he really is the man who stole my handbag and that he really did drown. Accidentally. That’s all I need to know. If I don’t find out, the matter will keep bugging me. It’s probably exactly as the police said, and it would be crazy to waste their precious resources on an unnecessary investigation.