Tanner’s Twelve Swingers

Chapter 9

Butec slept for twelve hours, just twice as long as he had assured me was his usual custom. I didn’t attempt to wake him. He would travel better for being well rested, and I myself was in no great hurry to move on. While Eva slept I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading a rather excessively heroic biography of Lajos Kossuth, Hungary ’s national hero who led the Revolution of 1848. The book was back on the shelf, and I was back in bed by the time Eva awoke. She made little mewing and purring sounds and came to me, soft and sweet and sleep-warm. After an hour or so she padded contentedly from the bedroom and went to cook breakfast.

I did a few helpful things, chopped a basket of firewood with a heavy double-bitted axe, brought up a bucket of water from the pump, built up the fire on the hearth. Eva’s daughter breakfasted with us, then hurried off to the road to wait for the school bus.

“Every day she goes to school,” Eva said, “and every night I have to teach her that almost everything they have taught her is untrue. But she is bright and learns quickly to separate the true from the false. It would be easier, though, if I could keep her out of school and educate her at home. The law does not permit this, however.”

We talked of music and literature and politics, and we talked not at all of the pleasure we had given one another in that narrow bed. I thought of my son, Todor, and I wondered idly if I might have gifted Eva with a permanent souvenir of our night of love.

A disquieting thought, that. I was not entirely pleased with the image of myself as a happy wanderer contributing to the global population explosion by leaving a trail of precious bastards in my wake. Yet not entirely displeased, either – children are rather good things to have and no less enjoyable simply because one doesn’t have them underfoot all the time.

I mused over this, and it must have shown in my face because Eva asked me what I was thinking about. “Only that you are very lovely,” I said, at which she blushed furiously and found something to do in another room.

Butec emerged, dressed and fresh-looking, not long after. While Eva fed him I returned to my room and scribbled a brief note in Hungarian: In the unlikely event that our love bears fruit, I wrote, I should like to know of it. You may always reach me through Ferenc Mihalyi. I added his Budapest address and left the note where she would certainly find it.

By noon we were on our way to Debrecen.

Sandor Kodaly had the body of a wrestler and the face of a medieval philosopher, with long, flowing hair, deep-set eyes, and finely chiseled features. He was in his early fifties, a widower with three unmarried sons. He and his sons ran a sizable farm outside Debrecen and made it prosper in spite of the frequent annoyance of five-year plans and new economic policies. I had never met him before, yet everything about him and his household was instantly familiar, an extraordinary incidence of déjà vu. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, and then I realized what it was. He and his sons and his farm were a Central European version of the Cartwright family, the Bonanza television program translated into Hungarian.

“So you are Evan Tanner,” he said. “And your companion is-”

“A man with temporary amnesia,” I said. “He has forgotten his name, and so, for that matter, have I.”

“Ah.” Kodaly nodded wisely. “That is sensible enough. There are times when men do well to be nameless. No man can reveal what he does not know, is it not so? And I cannot easily betray your companion without knowing who he is.”

“I do not fear betrayal at your hands.”

“Why not?”

“Because I trust you.”

“Oh? That may be foolish. I, on the other hand, am not that much of a fool. I do not trust you.”

Milan, on my right, remained heroically calm. So did I, though perhaps less heroically. There was nothing I could think of to say, so I waited for Kodaly to explain.

“What you require,” he said, “is simple enough. Entry to Czechoslovakia across the eastern frontier. No problem at all. I have business and personal interests that necessitate my crossing that particular border at will. Thus it is well within my power to assist you. The question is” – he paused dramatically – “whether it is in my interest.”

“How do you mean?”

He got to his feet. “There are some points I must be certain of. You say that you are Evan Tanner, but Evan Tanner I know only through correspondence. From what I know through this correspondence, Evan Tanner is on the side of the angels. But I would prefer a bit more assurance – that you are truly you and that you are a man I would wish to help. Who in my country knows you? Who has met you face to face and would be able to identify you? Who, that is, who would also be a man I know and can rely upon?”

“There is a young man in Budapest named Ferenc Mihalyi. He knows me. As a matter of fact, he helped me across the southern border once.”

“Is that so?” He turned to the doorway. “Erno!” His youngest son, as tall as his father but slim as a reed, stepped quickly into the room. “You know Ferenc Mihalyi in Budapest, do you not? Study this man here, the younger one. Fix his face in your mind. Then go to Budapest and ask Mihalyi if this man is Evan Tanner and what he knows of Evan Tanner.”

Erno fixed clear blue eyes on me. I had the feeling that I was having my picture taken, that after ten seconds he would open his mouth to dispense a perfect Polaroid photograph of me. I, in turn, studied him, while Milan Bulec fidgeted quietly at my side.

“You have a phrase or two that might help identify you to Mihalyi?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “You might tell him that the man who was not my uncle is presently burning in Hell.”

“He will understand what this means?”

“Yes, and he’ll be glad to know it.” The last time I had seen Ferenc, he had helped me smuggle a Slovak Nazi to safety, a task he had not at all relished. He would be pleased to know that my nonuncle had joined his ancestors.

“Repeat, please.”

I did.

“Erno, repeat what this man has said and fix it in your memory.”

Erno got the message right, word for word, and asked his father if that would be all. It would, Kodaly said, and he should now drive to Budapest and return as speedily as possible.

Erno left us. Milan asked me, in Slovenian, how long it would be before we could get away from these crazy people. I told him I had no idea. Could I speed the process? I told him I doubted it.

“Tanner? While Erno goes to Budapest, you and your companion are my guests. In a sense you are my prisoners as well. My sons and I are armed, you see. It would be unwise of you to attempt to leave this house.”

“I had no such intention.”

“Very good. Meanwhile, there is food, there is drink, there are beds if you are tired. Books if you wish to read. Do you play chess? Or your friend?”

I play but not very well. Milan said that he played, and Kodaly asked if he would care to have a game. I watched with savage delight while Milan beat him six games straight.

Erno Kodaly had a fast car that he evidently enjoyed driving at an excessive rate of speed. He was back in time for dinner, he had seen Ferenc, and all was well.

“This man is definitely Evan Tanner,” he reported to his father, “and Evan Tanner is definitely to be trusted and assisted.”

“I thought as much,” Kodaly said. He turned to me. “Of course you will not hold against me the fact that I am by nature a cautious man.”

“Certainly not.”

“Then let us have dinner, and in an hour’s time you will be in Czechoslovakia.”

“Papa, there’s more,” Erno approached me. “Ferenc introduced me to another man who said that he knew you, that you had met. His name is Lajos.” I remembered a tall man with a broad forehead and a neatly trimmed gray moustache, an official in the Ministry of Transportation and Communication. “Lajos told me to give you this,” he added, handing me a thick manila folder. “He said that you might know what it is and what to do with it.”

I took the folder, mystified. I opened it. It was crammed full of a variety of official-looking documents. I leafed through them. They were all in Chinese.

“These are Chinese,” I said cleverly.

“That is what Lajos suspected.”

“Well, score one for Lajos. What are they?”

“He does not know.”

“Where did he get them? And when?”

“He did not say. He thought perhaps you could read them. He thought perhaps they might be important.”

“They might be very important,” I said. “Or they might be old laundry tickets.”

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing.” I can speak enough Chinese to know when I’m being insulted by a waiter or a laundryman but not much more than that. And I’ve never taken the time to learn to read it. I’ve always had the feeling that no one can really read Chinese, not even the Chinese people themselves. I waded through this miasma of documents and wondered just how Lajos had acquired this particular albatross and why he had felt compelled to drape it around my particular neck.

I wanted to chuck the whole mess into the fireplace, but that wouldn’t do. It might be important. Things do tend to happen for a reason, and evidently one of my hitherto unsuspected roles in the game of life was to carry this little bundle of chicken tracks from Point A to Point B.

And I had wanted to travel light…

“Can you read it, Mr. Tanner?”

“No.”

“Is it important?”

“I don’t know.”

“What will you do with it all?”

“I don’t know that either.” I hefted the file. “There’s so damned much of it.” I got to my feet. “You’ll have to help me, Milan. Sandor, is there a room we can use for a few moments? And I will need a scissors and a few yards of oilcloth.”

An hour or so later we crossed the border into Czechoslovakia in the false bottom of a half-ton panel truck. I had never before known that panel trucks could have false bottoms. Suitcases, yes. But panel trucks?

This one – Kodaly’s own – did. It was a sort of panlike arrangement that fitted between the bottom of the trunk compartment (or whatever the hell they call that part of the trunk where you put things) and the axles and such below. It was not quite as deep as a coffin and considerably less comfortable. In it Milan Butec and I rode in silence. There was no point in talking – one couldn’t hear anything but the road noise, which was quite deafening. There wasn’t enough room to breathe deeply or enough air to make it worthwhile anyway. There was no room to move around, or to scratch oneself, or to do much of anything, really, but lie there and wait for the interminable ride to terminate. The truck started, the truck stopped, the truck started, the truck stopped, the truck started, the truck stopped, and finally Sandor Kodaly let us out of that horrible dark hole.

I got out at once and did all the things I had been unable to do – yawned, took deep breaths, jumped around, scratched myself, and otherwise assured myself that I was still able to move. I looked for Milan and saw that he was still lying there in the false bottom of the truck. For a horrible moment I thought he had quietly and uncomplainingly died, but then I realized that he was simply too stiff to move by himself. I helped him out, and he moved very slowly and stiffly, like Robby the Robot, until at last his blood began circulating again and his muscles remembered their proper functions.

I asked Sandor where we were.

“Near Medzilaborce.”

I tried to remember where Medzilaborce was.

“But that’s in the north,” I said. “That’s just a few miles from the Polish border.”

“Perhaps fifteen kilometers.”

“I thought you were only taking us across the border.”

The fine, sensitive features relaxed in a smile. “So I drive an extra hour here and an extra hour back. I kept you several hours at my house while I checked on you. That was an indignity, albeit a necessary one. But perhaps I can even the tally by helping you a little further along on your journey, you see? Now you do not have all of Czechoslovakia to cross. An hour’s walk, and you will be in Poland.”

I started to say something, something appropriately grateful, but all at once Milan shouldered me aside and stepped in front of Kodaly.

“You drove us an extra hour,” he said.

“It was my pleasure-”

“You left us an extra unnecessary hour in that bouncing, dreary, cramped metal coffin. We were already across the border, we were already in Czechoslovakia, but you left us in there for an hour of bouncing and no breathing and no moving and-”

“It was uncomfortable?” Kodaly seemed honestly puzzled. “I have never been in there, it never occurred to me. It was bad for you in there? And to think, once we crossed the border, you could have been riding in the truck with me. But it never even occurred to me…”

Milan was unable to take any more of this. While I made our apologies and expressed our gratitude to Kodaly, he stalked sullenly down the road toward Poland. He walked stiffly, partly because he was trying to hold his temper in check, partly because his legs were still stiff from the long, cramped ride, and partly, too, because he had little oilcloth packets taped all over him, little packets filled with papers covered with chicken tracks.

I had to run to catch up with him. And it was ten minutes before he could relax enough to speak to me. He was that furious. The idea that anyone could have been so utterly insensitive to his comfort utterly maddened him.

“It’s an hour’s walk to the border,” I told him. “If you wish, we can wait until morning.”

“Why would we want to do that?”

“If you’re tired-”

“Tired? Angry, yes. Exhausted, yes. Tired I am not.”

“Then, you would rather cross the border tonight?”

“As soon as possible, Evan.” He heaved a sigh. “I have never been in Czechoslovakia before. I never intend to return. I wish to be out of Czechoslovakia as quickly as possible.”

“Actually it’s a beautiful country-”

“I do not doubt this for a moment, Evan. But I do not want to see it. I want to remember nothing whatsoever of Czechoslovakia but that horrible ride and a quick walk through the darkness. That and nothing more. And with only that unpleasant empty memory to dwell upon, I will thus soon forget the entire incident. And the sooner I forget that horrid ride, the happier I will be. That stupid man! That boor! That damned truck!”