Read Budapest Noir for Free Online Page A

her palm and went to the attic door.
    In the dark he could barely make out the door, it blended in so much with the wall. At some point it had been painted terra-cotta red, like the building’s bricks, but now both it and the wall were grimy. He knocked. No answer. Again. Still no answer. He pounded. Nothing.
    Gordon was just about to leave when a skinny girl with alarmingly white skin stepped out from the darkness. Her thin strands of greasy hair were woven in a knot, and her big eyes shone of fear. Even her pleated skirt was not enough to hide her spindly legs and bony hips. Her white blouse with its worn embroidery hung loosely on her frame, but even so, Gordon could see her sunken chest, her flat breasts. With a long finger she anxiously fiddled with a stray lock of hair.
    “Please don’t make noise,” she requested.
    “And who are you?”
    “I’m . . . Mr. Skublics’s . . . cleaning woman,” came the girl’s faltering reply.
    “Then what are you doing out here?”
    “I came early,” she explained. “Mr. Skublics is never home in the morning, sir. He’s always at the thermal bath, and I got here early.”
    “When did your train get in?”
    “Six,” the girl blurted out without thinking, but then it hit her, and wringing her hands, she continued: “Oh, please don’t tell anyone, sir! There’s no work to be had in Debrecen, which is why I’m here. And I don’t even have a servant’s license.”
    “You don’t need a servant’s license for what you’re preparing to do,” said Gordon, looking her square in the eye.
    “You sure do need one for cleaning!” the girl protested.
    “All right, kid. For that you do. But take it from me, this sort of cleaning doesn’t lead to any good.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Forget it, kid. I’m not going to the police.”
    The girl dropped to her knees and clutched Gordon’s left hand, which she proceeded to smother with kisses. “God bless you, sir! May the grace of the good Lord be with you! There are six of us siblings, I’m the oldest, and . . .”
    “Don’t go explaining it to me,” said Gordon, pulling his hand away. “I’ll be back later. After lunch. Will Skublics get home by then?”
    “The others said he would.”
    G ordon reached the Circle in a couple of minutes. He saw that his grandfather’s balcony door was now open. Every morning the old man would roam about the neighborhood markets—come rain, sleet, or snow—looking for fruit he was ever determined to turn into jam.
    The building entrance was open, and so Gordon walked up to the second floor and opened the apartment door. Mór couldn’t get it through his head that he no longer lived in the provinces, that locking the door was a good idea. From the sounds coming from the kitchen, Gordon could tell he was pottering about in there even now. The clatter of pots and pans mingled with the sound of the old man’s cheerful cursing.
    “Wonderful, wonderful!” he said, his face lighting up on seeing Gordon. He wiped his hands on the blazer that was buttoned askew over his round belly. Gordon had bought him at least three aprons, but the old man wouldn’t hear of using them. He was like those veterans of the Great War who proudly wore their injuries. He wanted everyone to know that he was cooking jam. Not that he could have denied this had he wanted to: bits of fruit skin were stuck to his gray beard, and the jam of the day had even found its way to his bushy eyebrows. Opa was willing to make one concession only: although he didn’t remove his blazer, he did roll up the sleeves along with those of his shirt. Of course, even if his shirt cuffs came away clean—he wore a clean shirt every day—the sleeves of his blazer provided a fairly accurate picture of his recent culinary experimentations.
    “Son, I bought some marvelous grapes on Lövölde Square, I did!” He smiled broadly. “Simply dazzling. And just thirty-eight fillérs for a kilo. For the rhubarb I had to