Written in the Blood (24 page)

C
HAPTER
22

Budapest, Hungary

A
t ten o’clock in the morning, as the sun crept higher behind the clouds, the frost on the grass of Budapest’s Memento Park was finally beginning to recede.

Anton Golias, coat buttoned against the cold, walked the figure-of-eight path, looking for his
tanács
colleague, Oliver Lebeau, and nursing the Styrofoam cup of coffee he had bought on his way here. The coffee was dreadful, the beans burned and bitter, and it did nothing to improve Anton’s mood. He had always found the park an oddly melancholic place, but he could think of nowhere better suited to this meeting.

Built on an area of scrubland on the edge of a spartan residential district, Memento Park’s skyline was dominated by the stark metal skeletons of electricity pylons linked by endless loops of cable. It was not a place of landscaped gardens, exotic plants and flowers. The air was softened neither with the delicate scent of blossom, nor by the music of water spouting into fountains.

When Hungary’s Communist rule collapsed in ’eighty-nine, its Budapest populace, free for the first time in over forty years, woke to a city still dominated by the statues and monuments of its servitude. Almost immediately they were taken down, but for a while, nobody knew where to put them. Most of them ended up here, where Anton now stood. Memento Park existed not as a tribute to the old totalitarian state, but as a celebration of its demise.

He found his friend standing in front of an enormous bronze depicting a flag-waving Red Army soldier raising a clenched fist.

Oliver turned as Anton approached, greeting him with a tired smile. ‘Remember this one?’

‘Of course. It used to stand on top of Gellért Hill. The Soviets stuck him up there to celebrate our liberation from the Nazis.’ Anton laughed sourly. ‘By Stalin and his dogs.’

‘Perhaps they should have melted it down.’

‘No. Better that it ended up here. People should remember.’

Oliver shrugged. ‘Are you ready?’

‘I suppose. Have they arrived?’

‘Waiting over there.’

He saw the
tanács
adversaries they’d come to meet – Ivan Tóth and Krištof Joó – standing at the steps to Stalin’s Grandstand. ‘Come on, then,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s find out what this is about.’

Tóth thrust out a hand in greeting and Anton shook it with a grimace. He had come to dislike the man intensely over the past few years, but at least Tóth’s smile – wide, welcoming and utterly false – seemed appropriate for their surroundings.

‘Morning, Anton, morning!’ he cried. ‘Good of you to come. Interesting choice of venue. The point isn’t lost on me, I assure you.’

Anton grunted, then greeted Tóth’s sidekick with a nod. If Tóth was the natural diplomat – eloquent, loquacious and seemingly eager to find common ground – then Joó was his firebrand counterpart. The man was hardline, and habitually distrustful. Anton had not decided which of the two represented the greater threat.

A gust of wind snatched at the leaves at the side of the path, and for a moment he thought he smelled something rancid on the air, as if some creature had crawled into the undergrowth and died. ‘Well,’ he said, feigning a smile of his own. ‘We may have our disagreements, but I’m always willing to talk.’

‘That’s good, that’s good.’ Tóth placed a hand on his shoulder, and Anton allowed himself to be pivoted and steered back along the path. ‘So how are things going? Generally?’

He frowned. ‘What exactly are you asking?’

‘Well, I suppose I’m asking you, first, for an update on this fertility programme our
Főnök
has established. Is it continuing to bear fruit?’

‘It’s not the
Főnök
’s programme, as you well know. It belongs to everyone. We voted it through.’

‘Not all of us.’

Fifteen years earlier, after hearing Hannah and Gabriel’s proposal to arrest the
hosszú életek
’s decline, the eight member
tanács
found themselves split. Anton and Oliver supported the plan, along with two other modernisers. Tóth and Joó, strict observers of traditional
Vének Könyve
doctrine, were its most outspoken opponents. With the
tanács
at an impasse, the
Főnök
cast the deciding vote, and the project was born.

‘Is that why you asked me here?’ he asked. ‘To debate a decision reached over a decade ago?’

‘Of course not.
Te jó ég
, you’re prickly this morning. It must be these old relics. Oppressive, aren’t they?’

‘Relics of an oppressive regime usually are.’

The flecks of silver in Tóth’s eyes betrayed his irritation. This time, when he smiled, his lips were tight against his teeth.

Gotcha
, Anton thought.

‘But is it going well?’ the man pressed. ‘Surely that’s a reasonable question?’

‘I understand they’ve had a number of recent successes.’

‘I’ve heard differently.’

He shrugged. Perhaps the
Főnök
’s greatest coup, all those years earlier, had been not the creation of the centre, but her insistence on its secrecy. The location would not be revealed to the eight members of the
tanács
. Nor would any detailed news be communicated of the programme’s performance, nor the names of its volunteers or associates. The political situation was tense enough, but there were darker threats to guard against.

Tóth appeared to realise he would receive no answers to his probing. His arm fell away from Anton’s shoulder. ‘I’ve heard that some of the women are dying.’

Now he felt a coldness in his stomach, radiating outwards. If Tóth had learned of the centre’s problems, the situation was graver than he had imagined. Still he said nothing. He recalled Hannah Wilde’s words back in Calw.

We’re fighting a war here, in that building behind me. Fighting a grim, backs-to-the-wall last stand: against nature, against the consequences of the Eleni outrages all those years ago. It’s messy and it’s horrific, and believe me if you stayed here a week and watched what we do you’d see how we suffer – and how we rejoice – with every inch of ground we advance or retreat. Do you think we don’t grieve for each volunteer we lose? Do you think we don’t live with their loss every day? Tell me a better way and I’ll listen.

That was just it. There was no better way. He had pushed Hannah hard that day, had needed to hear for himself how she viewed their situation. And he had walked away from that meeting with his opinion cemented that what she was doing was the right thing; the only thing.

And now this.

Tóth came to a halt. ‘We have a duty, do we not, to protect those who appoint us?’

‘I couldn’t agree more. And what greater obligation could we have than to avoid our own extinction?’

‘Extinction? A rather dramatic choice of words, don’t you think?’

‘Would you deny that’s what we face?’

‘I certainly don’t deny that if these reports of the programme’s failings are true, then we’re marching ourselves far closer to that kind of outcome.’

‘Please. I know what your objections are, and they aren’t that.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Tóth replied. ‘It’s difficult to form an objection to anything these days, when the truth is kept hidden like this. I remember a time when the
tanács
was empowered to debate issues openly, with all the facts in clear sight. I remember when the
Főnök
observed the tenets of the
Vének Könyve
and relied on her
tanács
for guidance, rather than shrouding herself in secrecy and ploughing her own course.’

‘Ah. So that’s what this is about.’

‘We made a mistake with Catharina’s appointment. You know that, I’m sure. In our grief over Éva’s passing, we acted with our hearts instead of our heads. We appointed the daughter without questioning ourselves hard enough, and now we’re witnessing the result. She takes her brother’s counsel over our own, and she’s far too invested in this Hannah Wilde to remain impartial. Catharina was the wrong choice, Anton. You can’t refute it.’

‘Of course I refute it. I’ll grant you she made a few missteps in the early days, but—’

‘
Missteps?
’

‘But every
F
ő
nök
needs time to carve out her role.’

‘Yet time is exactly what you suggest we lack. And on that point, at least, I agree. Look, I know you’re fond of her. We all are. But that must not cloud our judgement of what is required.’

‘What exactly
is
required?’

‘A change,’ Tóth said, his eyes gleaming. ‘Now’s the time to force it. The
tanács
has been split for too long, and the
F
ő
nök
has failed to bring unity. With new leadership . . .’

Anton’s mouth dropped open. ‘What are you saying?’

His colleague took a breath, drew himself together. ‘I already speak for half the
tanács
. With one more vote we could end this disunity. Elect a new leader: someone with the strength to forge change, yet with the humility to listen to reason.’

Anton could not hide his anger just then. He felt his blood surging in his arteries. ‘And who would you choose? You?’

The man’s lower lip curled back. ‘Despite what you might believe, I hold no thirst for power. Just a desire for the right leadership.’

‘Who, then? Gabriel?’

Tóth snorted. ‘He’d be my last choice. Gods, man, Gabriel would be his
own
last choice. No, if the
tanács
were to elect a new
F
ő
nök
, my choice would be you.’

Anton flinched, shocked. ‘Me?’

‘I can think of no one better. We’ve had our differences over the years, but I’d be the first to vouch for your integrity, your strength of vision. Even though the
tanács
might be split on the issue of Hannah Wilde, you have friends on our side. Oláh, Saári, they’d both support your appointment. I’ve already sounded them out.’

Anton halted in the middle of the path. He turned, studied Tóth’s face. And then he laughed. ‘You’ve been busy.’

His old adversary smiled, lizard-sly.

‘You’ve been busy,’ he continued, ‘and traitorous. While Catharina concentrates her efforts on saving our people, you slink around in the shadows, trying to unseat her. And why? Because she won’t share with you the finer details of a plan that might just save us all? Or because you’re unhappy with some of the smaller parts you’ve heard? You come here talking of duty, when what you’re really suggesting is a betrayal.’

‘How dare you!’

‘How dare
you
?’ Anton exploded. ‘There hasn’t been an insurrection in the
tanács
for more than five hundred years, and you would plot one now? You, Ivan Tóth, and your poisonous cabal of whisperers? I’ll mark this day, you’ll see I will. Our
F
ő
nök
has presided over the most difficult period we’ve ever faced, and she’s done it with grace, strength and conviction.’

Such was the nimbus of fury surrounding the two men that their colleagues began to back away.

Tóth’s eyes flared. ‘Our
F
ő
nök
is contravening the most fundamental laws that govern us. She’s allowed herself to become the puppet of Hannah Wilde and Gabriel Szöllösi—’

‘Hannah Wilde and Gabriel Szöllösi are doing something remarkable, you fool!’

‘The woman’s a
kirekesztett
.’

‘She is
not
kirekesztett
!’

‘Look at her blood! For a thousand years or more the purity of the great families was sacrosanct. And now we’re allowing Hannah Wilde’s tainted blood to—’

‘What about
your
blood?’ Anton shouted. ‘Is it pure? And what of your ethics, Ivan? Are they pure, too? You’ll make no devil’s pact with me. Nor with any I represent.’

Tóth’s eyes, livid, bulged in his skull like a frog’s. And yet somehow the man calmed himself. ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ he whispered. ‘Just remember, when the time comes, that I gave you a choice. Clearly you’ve fallen under this Wilde woman’s spell just as completely as the
F
ő
nök
.’

Anton stabbed his finger towards the park’s gates. ‘Go on. Get out of here.
Crawl
out of here. Your plan will fail, I assure you.’

Tóth stared. His chest rose and fell. Straight-backed, he turned and marched towards the exit. Joó followed, lips pressed tightly together.

Anton watched the two
tanács
leaders pass through the gates and puffed out his cheeks.

‘More coffee?’ Oliver asked him lightly.

‘I think I’ve had enough, don’t you?’

‘Perhaps. This changes things, I’d suggest.’

‘Does it?’

‘They only need one more name.’

‘Like yours?’

‘Of course not. But while we’re on the topic, you should know I’m not entirely comfortable with the way Catharina has—’

‘Enough, Oliver. Please. I don’t want to hear it. Not today.’ Anton raised his nose to the air. ‘Do you smell that?’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. Something. I can’t place it.’

‘I can smell your coffee.’

He sighed. ‘Yes, it’s not good.’ On their way out of the park, he threw the Styrofoam container into a rubbish bin and rubbed at the back of his neck. For some reason he could not dismiss, he felt as though he was being watched.