Invisible Murder

REDERIK WASN’T TAKING any chances. There was no more pretense of civility left, no more armchairs and offers of beer—now Sándor was sitting on the floor next to the radiator, with his healthy hand strapped to the water pipe with two narrow black cable ties that reminded him of that paralyzing moment outside his dorm when he was arrested. He felt less dazed now, but also … more distant. As if he were standing on the other side of a border and looking back at a life he couldn’t get back into. His left hand throbbed heavily, like the bass line from a bad speaker, a rhythm he couldn’t ignore but also couldn’t quite accept as part of him. His own pulse. Which shouldn’t be there.

Frederik was leaning over the slightly too-low coffee table, working on a laptop, surrounded by folders that appeared to contain various corporate accounts. Now and then he would set down the computer and punch some numbers into an old-fashioned pocket calculator with rapid, practiced fingers.

“Could I have a little water?” Sándor asked.

Frederik lifted his eyes from the computer screen.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not until Tommi gets back.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Sorry. I’m not getting close to you. Not as long as we’re alone here.” He started typing again, but just for a few seconds. Then he glanced at Sándor and asked him, “Where did that come from?”

“What?”

“That … outburst. Most people, they’re sort of … you can sort of see it in them. They have to gear themselves up. There are signs. You seemed totally calm and laid back, right up until—boom. Like those pitbulls that just attack without any warning.” Frederik looked absurdly well-shaved and normal—today in a freshly pressed light-blue shirt, light linen pants and yet another Ralph Lauren sweater, which was now draped effortlessly over his rounded shoulders. Mr. Clean, thought Sándor. Respectability itself. But Mr. Clean had sat by and watched Tamás die.

Sándor didn’t reply. Frederik shrugged and pulled a plastic water bottle out of his computer bag.

“Here,” he said, and rolled it across the floor to Sándor.

Sándor looked down at the bottle. He could just reach it with his zip-tied right hand. But he couldn’t unscrew the plastic lid with his injured left hand.

“I can’t open it,” he said.

“Oh, right,” Frederik said. “I don’t suppose you can.” But he didn’t do anything to help.

Having a bottle of water in his hand without being able to drink it was worse than just sitting there being thirsty. Was that intentional on Frederik’s part? Sándor didn’t know. They sat there looking at each other for a bit, two quiet, respectable men who were both a lot less respectable under the surface.

AT THE ORPHANAGE they didn’t hit the kids. But they did believe in calm, cleanliness, order—and consistency. “They might as well learn it now” was the pervasive pedagogical principle. That was why they had the Yard.

It was actually just a glorified air shaft, about eight meters on each side, with a floor of frost-ravaged paving and a scrawny rowan tree in a concrete planter in the middle. The four-story orphanage buildings towered around it, but there were only windows from the second floor up. On the ground floor, the only openings were for the ventilation ducts from the kitchen and bathrooms, and one lone, solid door.

“Tell Miss Erszébet you’re sorry,” said the tall old gadjo who was apparently the Big Man here. But Sándor didn’t want to say he was sorry.

“You can’t take them,” Sándor yelled instead, as loudly as he could. “I’m their brother!”

“Look at me, Sándor,” the gadjos’ Big Man said. “You have to learn not to lose your temper. Here at the orphanage, we behave properly. You may come back inside when you are ready to apologize. Calmly, quietly, and politely.”

And then the door was shut and locked.

It was getting late. Sándor wasn’t afraid of being out in the open air; it wasn’t even dark yet. In Galbeno, people tended to be inside their houses only when it was time to go to bed or when the weather was bad. What else were you going to do in them?

But this wasn’t “the open air.” This was just a brick and concrete room without a roof.

He screamed and cried in rage and kicked the door, but there was already something half-hearted about his kicks. Some of the man’s calm relentlessness had stuck with him, a little it-won’t-do-any-good-anyway parasite that invaded his eight-year-old’s determination and sapped his strength.

Once the sun had disappeared from the courtyard and there was just a faint orange reflection in the uppermost windows, the Big Man came back. Sándor ran over to the door as soon as it opened and tried to push his way past the grown-up body. He was stopped by a strong arm, and when he tried to twist himself free, he was pushed back into the Yard again in a restrained, but firm, way. Another escape attempt was blocked in the same manner.

“I can see that you haven’t calmed down yet,” the man said. “Now I will slowly count to ten. While I do that, I ask that you take time to reflect. If we can’t speak properly to each other when I’m done, you’ll have to stay out here all night.”

The man started counting, slowly and deliberately. “One. Two. Three. Four.”

“I want to go home,” Sándor yelled.

“Five. Six.”

Sándor raised a fist in frustration, but he didn’t strike. He didn’t dare. “Seven. Eight. Nine.”

“We want to go home to our mother.” Sándor’s voice cracked, hoarse, and resigned.

“Unfortunately that is out of the question. Ten. Now. Are you ready to say you’re sorry?”

Sándor shook his head mutely.

“I’m their brother,” he repeated, somewhat less vehemently.

“Good night, Sándor.”

And then the man closed the door again.

It got cooler, but not freezing cold. After all, it was spring, the rowan tree was sporting delicate new leaves. Sándor discovered that there was a water spigot you could drink from even though the water had a very definite muddy and metallic taste. But he was alone. Sándor couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. There was always someone there. If his mother didn’t happen to be around, then his Grandma Éva was. Or one of the other grandmothers. Or Aunt Milla who lived four houses away. Or Tibor, or Feliszia, or Vanda, or … there was always someone.

Now there wasn’t. Just the darkness and the walls and the sky, those rough, cold pavers and the seeping steam issuing from the bathrooms’ ventilation ducts, although he didn’t know that then. That first night, he just huddled up next to the door and stared at the gray column of condensing vapors and hoped it wasn’t a mulo. At some point he started crying again. At some point he stopped. And when they came back the next morning, he told Miss Erszébet he was very sorry and began to learn the rules of the gadjo world. There was still trouble now and then, and he came to know the Yard well. But he never spent a whole night there again. It was like he once heard the Big Man tell one of the municipal inspectors: “Roma children are no more troublesome than other children. You just have to nip them in the bud.”

A CAR PULLED up outside. Frederik stiffened and reached into his computer bag. The gesture so much ressembled a movie cliché that Sándor wondered whether he had a weapon hidden there. Then a car door slammed, and Frederik let go of the bag and visibly relaxed. “He got her,”

he said. “He really got her.”

But it wasn’t the nurse Tommi shoved in the door a few seconds later. It was the girl from the apartment. She looked like a disfigured Pierrot, with her chalky white face and black eyes smeared from a mixture of tears and cheap mascara. The sight struck Sándor like a bludgeon.

“What the hell,” said Frederik, who obviously wasn’t pleased either. “Why did you take her?”

“Piece of cake,” Tommi said with a triumphant grin. “Just had to check the girl’s school timetable, right?”

Oh, that’s why, Sándor thought. That’s why he had snatched her school bag. Because he wanted to be able to find her again.

Frederik shook his head in disbelief. “You were supposed to get the goddamn mother, not the kid.”

“This,” said Tommi, “is even better. And more fun.…”