Kerepesi cemetery, 2 p.m.
A light drizzle began to fall as Balthazar watched Karoly Bardossy open his eulogy for the man known as the Librarian.
It was a chilly afternoon and the thin winter sun was already fading behind a heavy grey sky. Karoly wore an elegant black Italian suit, a white shirt and a black tie under a long black wool topcoat. His grey-silver hair was carefully barbered, swept back from his high forehead, and his blue eyes scanned the crowd as he spoke. ‘Janos Toth was a patriot and a public servant. He devoted his life to safeguarding the security of our beloved homeland. He never enriched himself or surrounded himself with luxury even in the 1990s, and the terrible years of vadkapitalizmus.’
A wave of nodding passed through the mourners, as though he was dispensing great, unarguable wisdom. A tall man with short grey hair and a military bearing, also dressed in a black suit but with a less elegant topcoat, opened an oversized black umbrella and stood at Karoly’s side, sheltering him from the rain as he continued speaking. ‘While too many plundered the wealth and riches of our homeland, simply taking whatever they wanted in those dark times of chaos, Janos Toth lived a modest existence. No, there were no riches, no fancy cars or foreign holidays for him. Instead Janos stayed at his desk at the Ministry of the Interior, quietly and diligently working in the background, ensuring all of our safety.’
‘Are you listening to this loszar, horseshit?’ Balthazar whispered to Sandor Takacs, his voice incredulous. ‘“The terrible years of vadkapitalizmus”. The years when Nationwide gobbled up half the country.’
The two men were standing a few yards away from the main gathering of mourners. Sandor looked at Balthazar, half amused, half impressed. ‘I’m almost clapping. A fantastic performance by Karoly bacsi, especially here.’
Kerepesi cemetery was Hungary’s most prestigious burial place, home to the graves of Hungary’s national heroes. Not far from where Balthazar stood watching the funeral with Sandor Takacs lay the tomb where Count Lajos Batthyany, Hungary’s first prime minister of a parliamentary government, executed by the Austrians after the failed 1848 revolution, was interred. Nearby was the even grander tomb of Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the 1848 revolution, whose multi-floor mausoleum was the grandest piece of funereal architecture in Hungary. Scattered all around were memorials for now-vanished noble families, adorned with marble columns, elaborate roofs and carved cornices, and statues of lachrymose mourners.
The Librarian’s funeral was taking place at a section of the cemetery known as the Pantheon of the Workers’ Movement. Built during the 1950s, its modernist architecture was a direct challenge to the grandees of the old bourgeois, monarchist order interred nearby. A plain path of granite tiles led the mourners between six giant standing stone blocks, three on either side, each adorned with reliefs of heroic workers and peasants.
Bardossy and his bodyguard stood at the far end, in front of a giant socialist realist statue of three rough-hewn figures: a male worker in the centre, holding hands with a woman next to him while also propping up another comrade. Behind them a slogan declared A Kommunizmusert a Nepert Eltek – They lived for Communism and the People. The Librarian had been cremated and his ashes placed in a small urn that stood on a nearby table.
Balthazar kept his voice low as he asked Sandor, ‘Are you sure that Karoly bacsi is living for Communism and the People, boss?’
Sandor shot him a mock stern look. ‘Shhh. If it wasn’t for communism, I would still be living in a house with no heating and a toilet in the garden and running palinka across the border into Serbia.’
Balthazar looked around the small crowd of mourners. The numbers were not impressive, but much of Hungary’s political and business elite were here, come to pay their respects – willing or not – to the man who knew so much about how they had risen up their respective ladders.
Balthazar spotted several MPs from the upper echelons of the ruling Social Democrats, the foreign and interior ministers, opposition politicians from the right and centre parties, the editor of Magyar Vilag and the two best-known newsreaders on state television. On the edge of the small crowd stood Reka Bardossy, her ministerial limousine parked not far away. Next to her stood Akos Feher, her chief of staff, while Antal Kondor, her bodyguard and fixer since her earliest days in politics, kept a watchful eye as he scanned the crowd and the surrounds.
Reka too was dressed in mourning clothes, in a well-tailored black wool coat and large black scarf. She saw Balthazar watching her and nodded at him and Sandor Takacs, shooting a quick smile as she rolled her eyes, while her uncle came to the end of his eulogy.
‘Did you know Janos Toth?’ asked Balthazar.
Sandor looked at Balthazar for a moment as if deciding how much to tell him. ‘Yes, Tazi. I knew him very well. He was a couple of years older than me, another countryside boy, from Kecskemet, brought to the big city to make his fortune. We studied at the party academy together.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Actually it’s true what Karoly said. He did live modestly. He had no interest in clothes or money or luxury. All he cared about was information. He had a lot of that. One of his brothers is buried here as well.’
‘Where?’
Sandor gestured to the right. ‘Over there, with the other ’56ers.’ The ’56ers was the name given to the street fighters who had been executed by the communist regime after the failed 1956 uprising.
‘If the communists executed his brother, why did he join them?’
‘Janos Toth had three brothers. Gabor fought with the revolutionaries. He was wounded in the leg. They waited until he recovered, then they hanged him. Nandor, the youngest, joined the secret police when he was eighteen. He was at Republic Square when the crowd stormed the party headquarters. You know what happened next?’
‘Yes,’ said Balthazar. ‘I’ve seen the pictures.’
A British journalist had started photographing as a furious mob gathered outside the building, convinced that the secret police were torturing people inside. Nandor and the other young recruits had come out with their hands up, clearly terrified. Some of the photographs captured the moment when the bullets impacted and the way the boys’ faces contorted as they died in pain and terror. They were images that could not be unseen.
Sandor said, ‘There were some dark times here, Tazi, not only in the war. Times when you had to pick a side. And sometimes you find yourself on the wrong side of history.’ He nodded towards Karoly Bardossy. ‘Or you switch early enough, survive and prosper.’
‘And the third brother?’
Sandor smiled. ‘Csongor was the sensible one. He moved to Szeged and became the director of agriculture for the whole county. He’s retired now, spends his time in his vineyard and with his fruit trees.’ He scrabbled in his pocket, took out a hip flask, and offered it to Balthazar. ‘There’s some of his in here now. Fancy a drop?’
Balthazar shook his head. ‘No thanks, boss. What will happen to the Librarian’s archives? There must be a lot of very worried people.’
Information was power, especially in country with such a murky past as Hungary’s. The Librarian’s archive was priceless, its secrets able to make or break not just careers and companies but whole dynasties.
Sandor nodded. ‘That is the question everyone is asking. That’s why they have come. Do you think any of these people are actually here to mourn? They all sighed with relief and raised a glass once he had gone. That’s what they all want to know. Where are his files on me? And they don’t want to ask on the phone.’
For a moment Sandor was back on the windswept bench at the end of Margaret Island where he had sat with Balthazar the previous day. That was the same place where he had last seen the Librarian alive, the previous October. They had both known that the Librarian was slowly dying.
‘And Balthazar, and his boy?’ Sandor had asked. ‘They are safe? I have your word?’
The Librarian turned towards Sandor, his rheumy eyes locked on his. ‘Don’t worry, Sandor elvtars, comrade Sandor. I give you my word. Nothing will happen to them.’
Balthazar asked, ‘And what will happen to the archive?’
‘How would I know?’ asked Sandor, a smile playing on his face.
‘A little bird told me you might. Almost certainly would, in fact.’
Sandor took another slug from his hip flask. ‘Wait a few minutes. You may hear something interesting.’
Karoly Bardossy stepped back and another mourner took his place, a tall, silver-haired elderly lady in a fur coat that had seen better days, lavishing praise on the dead man in a similar vein. She was followed by Reka Bardossy.
Balthazar watched Reka as she nodded briskly at her uncle, then began to speak. He had spent quite some time with the prime minister over the past few months, dealing with the aftermath of the arrest and shooting of Mahmoud Hejazi, the terrorist known as the Gardener, and Pal Dezeffy’s failed attempt to pump poison gas through the sprinkler system on Kossuth Square. They had talked at length about her dreams of modernising Hungary, of fixing the health system, overhauling education, creating a transparent business environment. Balthazar believed her, but all that was much easier said than done, especially in a country as haunted by its past as Hungary – and where her plans threatened so many powerful vested interests. Reka, he thought, could barely manage to contain her distaste for the dead man, but still managed to mouth some platitudes about Janos Toth’s record of service to his country, before continuing.
‘As many of you know, Janos Toth left his archive in the charge of his lawyer, Andras Zsigmund.’ Reka nodded towards a portly, grey-haired man in a brown raincoat, standing among the mourners. ‘In his will, Janos ordered that this archive be destroyed. Zsigmund ur was of course ready to carry out his client’s wishes.’
Reka paused as a wave of almost physical relief washed through the mourners. Several turned to each other, smiling, as Reka continued speaking. ‘But before executing his plan, he contacted me.’
The mourners stopped smiling. Several glanced at each other.
