Traffyck (24 page)

“There is,” said Janos. “Tomorrow you could call orphanages and see if you can get through to someone who has a record of Viktor. If you do, ask if they remember him having nightmares or talking in his sleep. Find out whatever you can about his past.”

Mariya thought of Viktor for a moment. “I should have known him better. He wanted to marry immediately, but I made him wait until his birthday. Imagine knowing so little about a man’s past, and I made him wait until his birthday.”

“How long did you wait?”

“Only a matter of weeks,” said Mariya. “I made a joke at the time, saying I wanted to be able to claim I was only two years older. There, I’ve told you my age. Now you must tell me your age. It is Hungarian tradition.”

“But I already know your age from our first interview.”

“I had forgotten. But now, what about the age of Janos?”

“I am five years older than you. I was your age when I quit the militia.”

“Tell me, Janos. If you could live life over, would you become a priest instead of this?”

“I don’t think so.” Janos looked around the room. “Do you have a CD player?”

“In the cabinet. What does a CD player have to do with reliving one’s life?”

“I’ll show you,” said Janos, putting on his jacket. “I have a CD in the car.”

When Janos walked out, Mariya stood and looked at his pistol in its holster where he’d left it in the chair. If she owned a pistol and had a way to carry it on her bicycle, would she have used it when the man stepped out of the van and asked her to stop?

Mariya went to the window and looked down into the parking lot. Janos left his car, waved to the militiamen, and then ran back to the apartment like a boy, his prize in his hand.

It was violin music she recalled from long ago. Music played for her on a small record player at a nursing home in Uzhgorod before she was lured to Kiev.

“My grandfather had records like this.”

“It is Sandor Lakatos, the world famous Gypsy violinist. He learned the violin from his father, and his father from his father … Five generations of Gypsy violinists.” Janos held his hands up and cocked his chin as if holding a violin. “This is what I would be if I had life to live again.”

The solo violin began slowly, almost weeping, exactly the way it was on her grandfather’s record player in the nursing home. The tune slowly increased in momentum but still maintained the haunting feeling as each note faded in and out.

“He has a wonderful touch,” said Janos, standing on the other side of the coffee table, playing his imaginary violin, swaying from side to side as he stared at her with dark eyes that seemed larger at a distance.

The tempo increased as other instruments joined in. Janos kept playing, smiling at her, laughing when the music became so fast he could not keep up. When the song ended, they both laughed and, following Janos’ lead, Mariya drank down her wine.

The next song was slow, at first seeming very sad, but there was an unexplainable pleasure to the anguish, the music soothing like a sad film. Janos also played this song, swaying as he bowed the phantom violin, alternately staring at her and closing his eyes. As the music played, Mariya recalled Janos telling her he was a melancholy person.

Perhaps she would become like him, melancholy for the remainder of her life. Perhaps they would make a good pair. Even her pragmatic Viktor would have to agree. While he was still alive, Viktor had insisted she had shown him the need for a partner. He insisted she should find someone if he was gone, and he would do the same.

She was going insane. Imagining her love for Viktor pushing her forward. But Viktor was part of the air, part of the light of the room, part of her, and now, part of Janos Nagy.
“Mariya, think of your own future. If something ever happens to me, think of yourself.”

Mariya emptied the wine bottle into their glasses. She stood and took the wine to Janos, who paused as if still holding the violin. He held out his glass and said, “To life.”

They drank the wine down, put the glasses on the table.

Mariya turned and looked toward the window. “I should not do this.”

“What?” asked Janos.

“Even though Viktor is still here … I want to dance. He would want me to.”

And so, they danced.

At first Janos stood away from her as they danced. But as the music grew louder and tears came to her eyes, she held Janos tightly and he held her tightly. His arms were strong; his legs pressed against hers; his breath at her ear reminded her of Viktor, became her link to the world.

Janos lifted her chin, and when she opened her eyes she could see his smile through her tears.

“It is all right,” said Janos. “We can stop now. I’m sorry if—-”

“No … Don’t stop. Life is too short to stop. Viktor said this. Life is too short. Somehow he knew life would be short for him … He knew.”

When the tempo of the music increased, they continued holding one another and danced faster.

“This is the
czardas
!” said Janos.

“I remember my grandfather dancing it with me at a wedding!”

“How old were you?”

“Very small! He had to bend down!”

“Did you weep then, when you danced?”

“No. I was too young to know what life had planned for me.”

The music began to flow like a river, and they danced out of the small living room and bumped into the kitchen table. When the
czardas
ended, another slow song began. Mariya spoke softly, mimicking the music, thinking out loud. “I danced when I was a little girl, and I danced when I was a teenager. I danced for men, I married a man, and now I am dancing again. Perhaps I will never stop.”

But suddenly she did stop. She let go of his hands and stepped back, staring at him. “I have danced my way through life. My dancing is dangerous. I am dangerous. In one Kiev strip club I danced to Russian versions of American rock songs.” She continued staring at him. “One of them I especially remember was from The Rolling Stones. A techno Russian group had pirated the song. Although they did a terrible job, something in the words—the manager, who spoke English, said the Russian group messed up the translation—’Do not play with me, because I am fire.’“

The Gypsy music from the CD continued sadly and quietly. Janos moved closer to Mariya. “Warmth is not fire, Mariya.”

“But … I don’t want you … I am dangerous, Janos!”

Janos pulled her back into his arms. “And, likewise, I am dangerous.”

Mariya stared at him seriously but finally smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and rested her head on his shoulder. As the music kept to its melancholy journey, Mariya led, waltzing them slowly, very slowly, to her bedroom.

“You make me feel young,” said Janos. “If you wish, I will leave now.”

“It is too late,” said Mariya. “The fire has been ignited.”

They fell onto the bed, in the dark, side by side, Janos’ arm across her breasts. After a moment, Mariya stood and turned on the light. Janos looked up at her, sat up. The music from the living room sad, and Janos’ eyes sad, and she sad she had not met him twenty years earlier.

“My grandfather would have liked you,” she said as she unbuttoned her blouse. “Viktor would have liked you.”

When she had removed her blouse and hung it on the doorknob, she kept her back to Janos and said words she knew she had once said to Viktor. “It was always Russian techno in the clubs. The Mafia manager hated Russian techno, but it brought in young men who had trouble holding onto their money.”

“This music is much more sensual than techno,” said Janos. “Don’t you agree?”

“Yes.”

When Janos came to her, his breathing was so loud at her ear it became the music, the rhythm to which they danced.

Janos was a welcome feeling, a cleansing. For a long time, she breathed into him and he breathed into her. The ending was unclear. Then there was silence and sleep.

She awoke from a dream in which she rode her bicycle downhill through a forest. Cool, calm, always downhill, the rear sprocket on her bicycle
click-click-clicking
as she coasted.

She opened her eyes. The room was dark. She reached out and … he was gone.

But there was a shadow in the room, against the wall. And
clicking, clicking
like…

Janos turned on the light as he sat awkwardly on her bicycle. He was naked and smiling. He pushed off the wall and coasted around the bed, the front wheel jerking back and forth as he struggled to maintain his balance in the narrow space between bed and dresser. He got off the bicycle and leaned it against the dresser, his back to her.

When she stopped laughing, she saw red marks on his back where she had held him. Then she saw redder marks on his buttocks. She reached out and touched him gently.

He looked into the dresser mirror, smiled at her. “I was going to ride your bicycle back to my apartment, but I thought I would get a chill. So it seems I will need to stay here.”

“I must say something,” she said.

He came to bed, and they lay on their backs staring at the ceiling. “Confession?”

“No,” said Mariya. “I need to speak about time. I need to speak about how little time has passed since Viktor’s death. Love is a double-edged sword. After the fire, I thought it would have been better if we had never married. But it was too late. Now I worry you and I move too quickly. I want to say your name right now, but I cannot because Viktor’s name is still with me. Does this make sense?”

“Yes,” said Janos, who continued staring at the ceiling. “I have also thought about time. But mostly, I am preparing to kick myself in the head for taking advantage of you.”

He turned toward her, reached down to pull the blanket up, but did not touch her. He simply stared at her, his eyes as wet as hers.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

At sunrise, after crawling from beneath thick, warm eiderdowns to gather around rekindled fires, Gypsies often speak of the past: great leaders, especially harsh winters, or certain horses which served them well. Because Gypsy history is not written, recalling the past is routine.

During breakfast that morning, Janos told Mariya the story of the Gypsy dancer. He described in great detail her costume, the dance itself, the violinists, the kiss on the cheek of a naïve boy having great meaning, and the coins thrown into her basket. He told Mariya the event was responsible for his having taken up the violin years later and falling in love with its power and uniqueness. Instead of banging away on keys or blowing through a hole, one played a violin as if making love. Perhaps he exaggerated when he told these things to Mariya during breakfast; perhaps not. What mattered to him was that he made her smile.

After breakfast, Janos described his recent excursion via camper van to the Carpathians. The details of various campsites unearthed memories of family picnics from long ago. Mariya said her father built huge fires for cooking bacon so grease could be dripped onto bread, creating a concoction called “dirty bread.” When Mariya recalled picnic fires from long ago, Janos saw sadness in her face and realized it was caused not by nostalgia but by her recent experience with the fire that killed her husband and Aleksandr Shved. When she finished speaking sadly of past picnic fires, Mariya was silent for a time before the spell was broken.

“Do you think my phone could be tapped?”

Mariya had begun clearing the breakfast dishes from the table, and Janos watched her. She had on a robe, her hair was disheveled, and she wore no makeup. She looked wonderful.

“It is possible,” said Janos, “if your kidnappers are organized.”

Mariya went to the kitchen counter and took a wireless phone from its charger. “Perhaps I should use only the plug-in phone in my bedroom. Wireless phones can be picked up by wideband receivers.”

“I’m surprised you know of such things,” said Janos.

Mariya put the phone back in its charger. She came back to the table and sat across from him. “I have read about wideband receivers, the way they can scan all frequencies looking for nearby signals. What about my apartment being bugged?”

“If so, they’ll know both of us are ignoring their warning.”

“You said we have a militia guard until the end of the week. What will we do after that?”

“We need a plan,” said Janos, wondering if Mariya had one.

“Should I still use the phone to inquire about orphanages Viktor might have lived at?”

“Yes. If you discover something, they most likely already know about it.”

“What will you do today?”

“I have people to call on.”

Mariya stood, walked behind him, and rubbed his shoulders. “Will you be back tonight?”

“Do you want me to come back?”

She put her arms around his chest and bent close, whispering in his ear. “You must. What I said last night about time … I feel time collapsing, and there will not be much left.”

When Janos left the apartment, when he breathed in the cool morning air, he still felt the warmth of Mariya’s kiss. He waved to the two replacement militiamen on duty and went to his car feeling like a newly married man. Mariya was at the window when he drove off.