Deceptions by Anna Porter (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📗

There was a neat stack of mail, a local newspaper, a brown paper package, and some flyers on a side table.

“Has he lived here a long time?” Helena asked.

“About a year, I think. We hardly ever see him. He doesn’t have guests. Doesn’t entertain. We asked him once what he did for a living.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t. And I thought he disliked my asking. He is very . . . how you say . . . reserved. We try to be friendly,” Zsuzsa said. “He thought my asking him was intrusive. Did you say you were friends?”

“Yes,” Helena said with as much gusto as she could manage.

“Here he seems to have no friends. As I said, no visitors. Twice we saw a car stop, he came out, and it picked him up, but we didn’t see the driver. The car had those tinted windows. One of those big black cars. Mercedes, maybe. We wondered if there was something going on with him.”

“Why?”

“Well, the car that came that time had government licence plates. We thought he was in some trouble with customs, since he travels so much, and they were taking him in to ask questions. He came back the same day.”

“Kind of you to worry about him,” Helena said. She thought it was interesting that Zsuzsa had kept an eye on Berkowitz’s movements. Obviously, there was something about him that concerned her.

“I wasn’t really worried,” Zsuzsa said with a smile. “He doesn’t seem like someone you need to worry about, you know what I mean. Always elegant. Fine suits, good shoes.”

Helena agreed with her, but she could hardly say so. What little she had seen of Magoci’s killer did not suggest vulnerability. Even when he was running from her, it was more like a challenge than fear.

“Well, since he is your friend, what does he do for a living?” Zsuzsa asked.

“He said he worked for the government.”

“That would explain the car picking him up.”

They talked a little about the weather, about U.S. politics, about the elderly American ambassador (Zsuzsa thought he may be senile), and, as Zsuzsa ushered her out of the apartment, she mentioned that she had some relatives in New York. Their parents had left before the war. “Lucky for them,” she added. “Maybe you would like to come back to my place for coffee?”

Perhaps it was because the two apartments were next to each other and because Helena had spent fifteen minutes looking for something — anything — personal in Berkowitz’s apartment that Zsuzsa’s place seemed such a glaring contrast. The walls were painted warm reds and light browns, there were worn Persian carpets covering the parquet floors, hundreds of books on packed shelves and overflowing onto low wooden tables where they shared space with a couple of calico cats that blended in with their surroundings. There were family photographs on a large sea chest in the corner; potted plants that had begun to invade the corners by the windows; and on the walls, two framed pastel Bonnard prints, a couple of Monet reproductions, an unframed print of a Turner seascape, a Hungarian National Gallery poster with Bruegel and a Kunsthistorisches Museum poster with Klimt’s The Kiss for a major exhibition. She had seen that show.

Near the kitchen, there was a poster of the Titian exhibition she, herself, had curated at the Kunsthistorisches almost ten years ago.

The smell of browned onions and red wine cooking wafted from the kitchen.

“Delicious,” Helena said, sniffing the air appreciatively. “What are you making?”

“Goulash, with a bit of wine. Have you ever had goulash?”

“If I have, it didn’t smell remotely like this.”

Zsuzsa laughed. “Come in the kitchen. I’ll make us coffee and maybe let you try a little. It needs to sit for a while before it’s done, but it should still taste okay.”

The kitchen was warm and bright. A loaf of bread sat on the table with a dish of soft butter next to it. There were four chairs and four table settings with flowered plates, wood-handled cutlery, and tall glasses. Zsuzsa poured water and spooned coffee into a percolator, and pushed one of the plates aside to make room for Helena. “You know, in all that time that Berkowitz has lived next door, he has never even come over for a coffee,” she said. “I invited him for dinner once, but he was, he said, too busy, and I never had a chance to ask him again. He is barely here. You said you met him in the U.S.?”

“No. I met him in France. I have just come from New York to visit.”

“You came to visit him?” Zsuzsa said.

“No,” Helena said. “I came for business and wanted to look him up while I was here.”

“Where in France did you meet?”

“Strasbourg.”

Zsuzsa wrinkled her nose. “Those guys,” she said. She busied herself drying a few dishes in the kitchen and then turned around to face Helena. “Are you sure you know Berkowitz?” she asked.

“Gyuszi? Of course,” Helena said.

Zsuzsa kept looking at her.

“I love your pictures,” Helena said, deflecting Zsuzsa’s scrutiny. “You’ve been to the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna?”

“Yes. And the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, The National Gallery and the Tate in London, and the one in Warsaw . . . I love the art, but all I can afford are the posters. My grandfather loved art,” she said. “He took my father to galleries when my father was just a little boy. My father took me later to the same places.”

“Was he a collector?”

“My father? No. But my grandfather had been. He used to travel a lot, and, my father said, he bought paintings on his travels. Lost them all when the Arrow Cross came. All stolen.”

“1945?”

Zsuzsa nodded. “He drowned in the Danube. They were running short of ammunition, tied people up so they couldn’t move and threw them into the river. It was cold. I hope he died quickly.”

“Did you get some of his art back?”

“No. My father tried, but there was no record of where they