The Exiled (7 page)

THE DAY HAD WARMED QUICKLY.
The temperature was already almost thirty degrees. Anna took off her jumper and tied it round her hips by the sleeves. She bought a large bunch of yellow gerberas from the florist on the main street, exchanging a few words with the stall keeper, who seemed to know her and her mother but whom Anna couldn’t remember at all.

The cemetery was on the other side of town, about a kilometre from the town centre. Anna walked through the streets carrying the bunch of flowers, enjoying the tingle of the sun on her face and arms. Bicycles creaked past her, mostly old women with large backsides, their shopping bags dangling from the handlebars. A group of children ran across the road shouting. A horse-drawn cart rattled along the street, the clatter of its hooves calming and age-old. A group of exhausted-looking men walked towards her, black hair, black beards, black, angry eyes. Refugees. This was the first time she’d seen any in Kanizsa, if she didn’t count the Serbian refugees that came here during the war in Bosnia – old men and women who had been relocated here in the north, far away from the conflict.

Anna arrived at the railway station, which had once been a busy hub of activity; nowadays though, the only train that stopped here was the rickety old, silver-grey, single carriage, which passed once or twice a day on the way to Szabadka and back. At this time of day the station was empty.

Anna crossed the tracks, where thick grass sprouted from between the lines. She could already see the high wall surrounding the cemetery and the massive iron gates at the front. The thick trunks and leafy branches of the enormous chestnut and lime trees stood tall along the edge of the wall, forming a shady corridor. Anna slipped through the gate. There was no movement in the cemetery. The place was so empty it felt almost ghostly. The gravestones had been erected one flush to the other, with no space for grass to grow between them.
Even the graves themselves were covered in large stones, which made the cemetery look bleak. In Finland, cemeteries were beautiful, there were trees and the grounds looked almost like national parks. This place was stripped of all vegetation. The bunches of garish flowers on the stony graves only served to heighten the unnatural atmosphere.

Beyond the rows of graves, someone was sweeping the path. Anna couldn’t make out whether it was a man or a woman. She headed towards the path that cut straight through the cemetery and passed a large brass bell that the warden sometimes rang. Anna didn’t know when, though. Perhaps it was for funerals. She tried to think back to her father’s funeral, Áron’s funeral, but she didn’t recall hearing the tolling of a bell.

Take a left here, then forwards ten metres, Anna thought, remembering the way. She came here every time she visited Kanizsa, yet every time she still had to spend a moment looking for the right spot. The graves all looked so similar, there were no landmarks, and she could never remember the names of the people buried near Áron and her father. But she always found their grave eventually; and here it was. This time another name had been carved into the gravestone.

‘Hello, Grandma,’ said Anna and put the flowers in a vase standing by the grave. ‘Hello, Dad. Hello, Áron.’

An emptiness filled her. She didn’t want to cry, didn’t feel anxious. She couldn’t think of anything, couldn’t remember anything. All she could do was stare at the names on the gravestones; the sun warmed her neck, a bee buzzed round the gerberas, the sound of birdsong in the distance. Later she would feel a sense of guilt at her own lack of emotion. It would happen later that evening, just as she was going to bed, just as she was supposed to shut her eyes and let sleep overwhelm her. Perhaps she would cry a little, but even then she wouldn’t be sure whether she was crying for her lost relatives or because she was unable to bring herself to cry at their graves. Now she pressed a finger against her stomach, just beneath the jumper tied round her waist, and read out the names engraved into the stone as though they belonged to people she had never met. Through the numbness, she felt an intense
desire to drink – lots, any liquor she could get her hands on – to go straight to the nearest bar and drink until she couldn’t remember anything. There was a terrible dive just across from the railway station, she recalled, though she’d never been in there.

‘Good afternoon.’

Anna gasped out loud and turned round. A strange woman was standing behind her with a child, a little boy.

‘Afternoon,’ said Anna and realised this was the same woman she had woken up the night she was searching for the thieves. The woman’s eyes were red from crying, but she smiled.

‘Orsós Judit vagyok.’

‘Fekete Anna.’

They shook hands. The woman’s hand was warm and her handshake firm.

‘Are these your relatives?’ asked Judit and nodded at the gravestone. The child stood silently beside his mother and stared at Anna.

‘Yes,’ Anna replied, deciding not to go into detail.

‘My condolences. One of them seems to have passed away only recently.’

‘Thank you. That was my grandmother.’

They stood for a moment, silently staring at the gravestone. To her surprise, Anna felt a lump in her throat.

‘We’ve met before,’ said the woman and looked at Anna as though she could see right through her.

‘That’s right. It was Friday night; I was looking for a young man and a girl,’ said Anna. She swallowed back the sobs rising to the surface and turned to look at the little boy, who stood gripping the woman’s hand. The boy’s hair was pitch black and cropped short. He was wearing blue tracksuit bottoms and a patterned T-shirt. He didn’t avert his eyes when she looked at him.

‘Yes, that’s what you said. Why were you looking for them?’

‘They stole my handbag at the wine fair.’

‘That’s rotten luck. What made you think they were down our way?’

For a moment Anna wondered what to say. ‘I followed the man, and I thought I saw him heading towards your house. The dog in your yard started barking just when the man disappeared.’

Judit laughed. ‘He barks every now and then for no good reason. So the thieves were gypsies then?’

‘I think so,’ Anna replied. She immediately felt compelled to explain that she certainly didn’t think ill of all Romanies, that she really was a tolerant, broad-minded person and that she knew that, despite conventional wisdom, most Romanies were decent, upstanding people.

‘You don’t need to explain anything,’ said Judit before Anna had said a word. ‘I understand why you thought to come and look for gypsy thieves down our way, no matter what you think of us in general.’

‘How did you…?’ Anna stammered, but Judit cut her short again.

‘Do you live abroad?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘It’s obvious,’ said Judit with a cheerful laugh, and Anna glanced at her clothes. An average pair of jeans and a top, the same clothes as everyone else.

‘Where? Germany?’

‘No, Finland.’

‘Finland! Isn’t it terribly cold there? Did you hear that, Benedek? This lady lives in Finland, the land of Father Christmas.’

The boy gave a wary smile.

‘It’s cold during the winter, yes, and sometimes in the summer too. But you get used to it,’ said Anna. ‘Almost.’

‘My husband is in Belgium. He works there.’

‘Really? What does he do?’

‘All sorts of things. He left at the beginning of May and he’ll be back some time in the autumn. Benedek misses him terribly, don’t you?’

The boy started wriggling and pulling his mother by the hand.

‘Mummy, let’s go,’ he said.

‘Soon, my dear, soon,’ Judit told her son, then turned to Anna. ‘You should come and visit us some day. It would be nice to chat with you.’

‘Sure. What about?’ Anna asked.

‘I don’t really know yet. This might sound strange to you, but I have a feeling about it. I’ll have a think and tell you when I see you. Come round sometime – after midday. You know where we live. Right, Benedek, off we go,’ said Judit and without another word set off towards the cemetery gates.

Anna stood bemused for a moment. What had just happened? Then a thought occurred to her.

‘Why did you shout something about
tiszavirág
on Friday?’ she called after them.

Judit stopped and turned to look at Anna, her expression serious.

‘I have premonitions sometimes. When I saw you on Friday night I thought that something will happen when the Tisza comes into bloom. Something bad maybe.’

Judit looked pensive for a moment, then smiled in farewell and continued on her way. The boy had wrenched his hand free of his mother’s grip and was now skipping happily along the path. At the gate he turned and gave Anna a shy wave. Anna waved back.

Judit seemed pleasant and friendly, though Anna suddenly felt as chilled and sombre as the gravestones standing in front of her. The woman had read her thoughts, it was as if she’d seen inside her. A shiver ran down Anna’s back and arms. She took her jumper from round her waist and pulled it over her head, and started walking briskly through the eerie cemetery, where time and the air seemed to stand still, forming an invisible dome around her. But her steps were slow and heavy; it was as though the cemetery didn’t want to let her go, as though the edge of the dome reached the top of the wall, leaving her trapped here for ever, buried alive.

She passed the brass bell and noticed that the figure with the broom had disappeared. Was it Judit who had been sweeping the path? Whose grave had she been visiting? Anna felt afraid. Was Judit
really able to read my thoughts? Was she a real person at all, or just a figment of my imagination?

Don’t be silly, thought Anna as she stepped out of the gate without being stopped by a dome or anything else. The sun warmed her again, the leaves rustled in the gentle breeze, a fancy, gleaming car drove past the cemetery and headed towards the town, two children sitting in the back seat. A woman dressed in black was packing her broom and watering can into the boot of a car parked outside the cemetery. Anna greeted her with a nod. What on earth were you thinking? Anna asked herself. Don’t let yourself turn into a paranoid old fool.

There were plenty of interesting things to rummage through in the attic, a world full of the history of the Fekete family, neatly archived and labelled in boxes and bags. Many of the boxes bore the words ‘István’s Papers’. Anna felt a mysterious attraction to attics and basements and the dark, fusty things stashed away within them. As a child she had built herself a den of old cardboard boxes in the basement of their apartment block in Koivuharju. She had taken a blanket, a pillow and a torch down there and imagined she was a queen hiding away from bloodthirsty relatives vying for her crown. The elves and fairies had brought her food and taken good care of her. Years later her headmaster had been especially interested in this game and tried to draw conclusions from it that Anna found far more imaginative than her own silly games. But this time Anna had no desire to dig up the past. She needed a paintbrush. After looking for a while she found a plastic basket full of painting tools. The brush she picked out wasn’t made of ostrich feathers and wasn’t particularly well suited to her needs, but it would have to do. After returning from the cemetery she had popped into the pharmacy, looking for some iron oxide, and thanked her lucky stars that, even in a small town like Kanizsa, the shops were open every day of the week. She’d found potato flour in her mother’s kitchen.

Returning to her room with the brush, Anna locked the door behind her and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. She carefully took her handbag out of the cupboard, where she’d hidden it, wrapped in the plastic bag. You don’t need a lab to take fingerprints, she thought, satisfied.

ANNA WOKE TO THE RING
of her alarm clock. She heard her mother getting out of bed with a sigh in the room next door and going downstairs, jangling a set of keys, opening the front door and going out to the gate. The gate creaked as it opened. Before long she heard her mother calling up to her.

‘Anna, are you still asleep? Can you come downstairs?’

Anna pulled on a dressing gown over her thin nightgown, slid her feet into her
papucsok
and went down to the kitchen, where her mother was already pouring glasses of
pálinka
for herself and an early guest – Nagy Béla. It was still dark outside.

‘Would you like some?’ asked her mother.

‘
Jézus Mária
, not at this time of the morning,’ Anna replied. ‘Are you crazy?’

Anna’s mother glowered at her. Guests should always be welcomed politely and you should always serve them a little something to drink, no matter what time of day it was.

‘How are you keeping?’ her mother asked Nagy Béla and tried to stifle a yawn.

‘Very well, thank you. And yourself?’

‘Yes, very well. It’s nice to have both my children at home. I see Anna so rarely these days.’

‘I saw Ákos down by the Tisza last week. He wanted to go for a swim.’

‘Ákos has been here for over a month now. Can you swim in the Tisza yet?’

‘Not yet. The banks are still flooded and the water is cold.’

‘Have you heard any predictions about the
tiszavirág
?’

‘There’s supposed to be a record-breaking flowering this year,’
the fisherman replied and downed his glass of
pálinka
in a single gulp. Anna’s mother immediately raised the bottle to pour him some more, but Béla raised his hand to show he’d had enough.

‘In fact, it’s your daughter I’ve come to see.’

‘Really? What’s she been up to this time?’ her mother asked, though she knew perfectly well what this was about.

‘Anna? It was your sons that were always up to no good. Who’d have thought they were the children of a policeman? Anna is a little angel.’

Anna’s mother poured herself another draught of fruit liquor. A tight knot had appeared at the corner of her mouth.

‘If only she’d find herself a decent man and start a family—’

‘Mum!’ snapped Anna.

Her mother cast her a judgemental look. ‘You’re over thirty. Soon nobody will look twice at you.’

Anna could feel her forehead tingling with anger. How dare her mother say something like that? And in front of a guest!

Béla lit a cigarette and looked at Anna with a note of pity in his eyes, or at least that’s how Anna interpreted it. Her mother stood up and fetched an ashtray from the cupboard.

‘It’s actually a private matter I need to discuss with Anna,’ said the fisherman.

‘Of course it is,’ said her mother, sounding slightly offended. ‘I warned you, Anna. Why do you never listen to what I say?’

‘Mum, I do listen to you, but I just couldn’t let this matter go.’

‘No, I’m sure you couldn’t. Do as you please then, and don’t bother thinking about how I feel. It’s not as if you’ve cared about it in the past.’

Her mother placed her glass of
pálinka
on the table and left the room. Anna heard her going up the staircase and slamming her bedroom door shut. Anna sighed.

‘I’m sorry I came here so early. And I’m sorry for taking you away from the river so quickly yesterday,’ said Béla. ‘I know you’d have liked to examine the spot more closely.’

‘Yes, I would. There were footprints in the mud.’

‘I’ve brought you a map. If you follow this route you’ll be able to get there by foot.’

The fisherman took the map from his pocket, spread it out on the kitchen table. Then he drew his finger along the route he had marked on the flaking surface of the map with a ballpoint pen.

‘Go there as soon as possible, as soon as it’s a bit lighter. It’s best if nobody sees you.’

‘Why?’

‘When you said the chief of police had told you the body had become tangled in tree roots, the alarm bells started ringing in my head. Ding dong. That and the fact that they called me specifically to tell me not to take anyone down there. A voice in my head told me there’s something not right going on. And at times like that it’s best to be careful.’

‘Okay,’ said Anna as a shiver ran the length of her arms.

‘And there’s something else you might be interested in.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘I’ve got a photograph, too.’

‘A photograph? Of what?’

‘Of the dead guy.’

‘What on earth…?’

‘Even an old man like me knows how to use new technology,’ said the fisherman. He gave her a satisfied smile and took a top-of-the-range smart phone out of his pocket.

‘Excellent,’ Anna gasped.

‘I’ll send you the photograph now.’

The fisherman tapped his phone and Anna heard a ping from her own phone as the message arrived.

‘There you go.’

Anna opened the message. A young man, late twenties to early thirties, was lying on his back by the waterline, his head almost in the water. His eyes were wide open, his lips slightly parted. His clothes were wet and dirty, and looked as though they were glued to his
body. Clumps of clay were caught in his black hair, and dried leaves had snagged on his coat. Anna couldn’t estimate the man’s size just from the photograph, but it certainly seemed to be the same man who had run off with Anna’s handbag at the wine fair. The clothes were the same, dark. Anna tried to zoom in on his face but the image became pixelated and out of focus. Was that a bloody scratch on the man’s face? Or was it just a shadow?

‘Thank you for this,’ said Anna.

‘No problem. If you need anything, just come round to the house. Your mother knows where I live.’

‘Mum doesn’t want me to start digging around this case.’

‘That’s probably wise,’ said Béla and stepped towards the door. ‘You promise you’ll be careful?’

‘Of course. Remember, I’m a police officer too. I know what I’m doing.’

The fisherman said nothing, but Anna could read his thoughts in his expression. Police officer or not, it didn’t matter round here.

Grey smoke hung in the kitchen air after Nagy Béla had left. Anna opened the window and cool air fluttered inside. Outside everything was quiet. Even along the busy Szabadka út, which brought traffic in or out of the town, she couldn’t hear the sound of cars. It was best to set off straight away, thought Anna. Before the town wakes up.