Karoly shrugged. ‘I did. The woman said they changed their name. They were chaotic times. Who knew if the story was real? Everyone was hustling for something. If we did help them, it would never end. We would be admitting guilt. They could have hired lawyers, come after us. Why are you digging this up now? What do you care?’
She stepped forward, her voice rising. ‘Because I lived in their house. I ate in their kitchen. I slept in Eva’s bedroom. I played in their garden. I walked on their grave.’ She stared at Karoly, the anger rising inside her. ‘And nobody told me the truth. But now I know it. The whole story. There’s a lot more as well in the article, about Nationwide now, the tax tricks, the river of money flowing into your private bank account. I told you, Uncle, it’s over.’
Reka closed her eyes for a moment, brought herself under control. She reached into her handbag, took out a photocopy of a typewritten sheet of paper and handed it to Karoly.
He read it once, then again, slowly. ‘What is this? An old piece of paper in German? Anyone could write this and claim it was genuine.’
‘That paper is a record of a telephone call to the headquarters of the Gestapo, at 8.32 a.m. on 20 March 1944. It was a very short conversation. The caller gave the address where Miklos and Rahel Berger were hiding. In the cellar of a house on Gellert Hill.’
Karoly shrugged. ‘And? What is this to do with me? I was two years old then.’
‘Only one other person knew where the Bergers were hiding. Tamas Bardossy. Your father. My grandfather.’
He looked down at the paper, his hand trembling slightly. ‘Hearsay. Conjecture. You can’t prove anything.’
Reka handed Karoly another piece of paper. He glanced down at it, crumpled it up and threw it into a nearby bush.
She glanced at Antal, who bent down, picked up the paper, straightened it out and handed it to her. Reka said, ‘I don’t need to read it out to you. You’ve seen what it says. The Gestapo traced the call. The number was tapped. It was a male voice, speaking from the private line in Tamas’s office.’
Karoly blustered. ‘It could have been anyone. Lots of people had access to his office.’
‘No they didn’t. He was a very secretive man, as you know. He didn’t even let his secretary in there. He was the only one who could use that number.’
‘So what if it was him? The Bergers would have died anyway. The Nazis were after them. They were on the VIP wanted list.’
‘Maybe they would have. Maybe not. Half the Jews of Budapest survived. The Bergers had money, contacts, friends; they might have made it. Especially if we had helped them.’
‘But we didn’t. Nor did most people. They were lining up to denounce their neighbours all over the country, then empty out their homes once they were gone.’
Reka stepped closer. ‘Not everyone. Some people helped. They hid people, like we could have hidden the Bergers. But we didn’t. So now our family’s debt will finally be paid. You are going to resign all your positions at Nationwide, Uncle. You are going to donate your money, your house, your land, your property to a new charitable foundation.’
Bardossy guffawed. ‘This is a joke, yes?’
‘No. It is not.’
‘Ridiculous. Step down, give everything away? Because of something that happened seventy years ago. Why should I? I have no intention of doing that. Where did you get this from, anyway?’
Reka stared at her uncle. His bluster was fading, his blue eyes darting from side to side. ‘Admit it, Uncle. It’s a relief. All these years you have been carrying the family guilt. Now you can cast it aside. You’ve had a copy of both of these papers for many years. You got them from the same place that I did. From the Librarian.’
She stepped closer. ‘That’s how he kept you and Nationwide under control. That’s how you built the firm, not because you are such a smart businessman, but because you were his lackey. He gamed you, like he gamed everyone, and you followed his orders. He lusted for power, you hungered for money. You both got what you wanted. Then he died and you knew that I was poking around, trying to find out what really happened. That’s why you bought 555.hu, to use it to release the video of me on Castle Hill, to bring me down. That’s why you were planning to kidnap the Israeli historian. That’s why you funded your ridiculous new parties, the Workers’ whatever and the far-right hoodlums. But it didn’t work. You are not much use without the Librarian, are you?’
Karoly stared at Reka with fury. ‘Why are you doing this? Why don’t you just leave things be? Everything was fine until you started asking all these questions.’
‘Because it festers. It’s like a slow poison. And we have to drain it.’
‘I told you. I was two years old in 1944.’
She stepped closer, so close she could smell the coffee on his breath. ‘Yes, but you were born long before 17 February 1991. You were forty-nine years old.’
Karoly became quite still. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘You know what day that is?’
‘Yes. A very sad day. The day Hunor died. Your father, my beloved brother. A tragic accident.’
‘Beloved. How can you even say that word? It wasn’t an accident. And now I know why.’
Karoly frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I think you do, Uncle. You understand very well. My father knew about all of this. It all came out after the change of system in 1990. The dark secrets from the war, what we did to the Bergers, how we betrayed them, sat on their wealth and assets, built our economic empire on their ashes.’
She swallowed for a moment, looked down. ‘Dad wanted to release the information. Make a clean start. A new company for a new regime, Reka, that’s what he told me. Let it all out, then start again with a clean slate. That’s why you arranged that accident for him. A specialist team came in from Moscow. My father was a superb skier, but he never went off-piste and he never drank while he was on the slopes. I found the papers in the Librarian’s records. It’s all recorded. Your request, the dates, the result. How you killed your brother. My father.’ Her face crumpled for a moment. ‘How could you do that? Your own brother. I was just a child.’
Karoly’s face twisted in guilt and anger. ‘My brother was a fool. He would have wrecked everything, just because he had a fit of conscience,’ he said, almost shouting now. ‘I told him, leave it for now, we’ll deal with it later. Let’s focus on the business, history can wait. But no, no, he would not listen. After all these years, he discovered his conscience. He told me that he had found the Bergers’ daughter, that she was alive. That we could compensate her.’
‘He found her? He found Eva?’
‘Yes. He found her as well. He was going to tell you. But I knew once we paid her, it would never end. The reporters would be all over us. The Jewish organisations, the Americans. We would have lost the house, the company, everything.’
‘So you admit it? You, Karoly Bardossy, arranged the murder of my father, your brother Hunor, because he wanted to reveal the truth about how Tamas Bardossy, your father, denounced Miklos and Rahel Berger in 1944 to the Gestapo so he could steal their assets and wealth?’
‘Yes. It’s true. I did that,’ said Karoly, his voice dull.
Reka glanced at Antal, moved her head slightly to the side. He stepped closer to Karoly. Reka said, ‘I can’t hear you, Uncle.’
Karoly looked skywards, as though help might come from the heavens, his face twisted in anguish. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, his voice shrill. ‘I did all that. I had my brother killed because he wanted to tell the world how we set the Gestapo onto our family’s Jewish friends so we could steal everything they had. In March 1944.’ He stood back, panting, his breath white plumes in the air. ‘That’s it, Reka. My confession. After all these years. Happy now? Did I say enough? You got what you wanted?’
‘Yes.’ Reka wiped her eyes. ‘You will resign all your positions in the company by the end of the day. You will give up the house. You will turn over all your assets. You will never work again. If you do that, I will arrange a pension for you of 300,000 forints a month.’
