Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,47
by the village tailor. It was her favorite dress at this moment. Her bandaged hand made it difficult to eat (Katya had helped her get dressed that morning), and Miklós cut her crêpe into smaller pieces. Later, in a shopping arcade, Natalia went into a jeweler’s shop and chose a small crystal horse for Rozalia and, impulsively, a tiepin set with a tiny garnet for Miklós. At vendors’ stalls in the arcade, she found an embroidered tablecloth for Magdolna and a doll in Hungarian costume for Katya. They drove across the Chain Bridge to Buda and rode the funicular up to Buda Castle and the Royal Palace. They could see the city of Pest across the Danube and in the distance the Great Hungarian Plain. At the Fisherman’s Bastion, a man offered to take their picture. “Put your arm around your sweetheart,” he said. “It’s good,” he said, handing the camera back to Miklós. “Someday I would like to own a Leica.”
They walked in a park, watched children feeding bread crumbs to ducks on a pond, and then sought refuge from the heat in an art salon exhibiting the work of avant-garde artists from 1900 to the present. Natalia studied a group of three paintings, three scenes of people at sidewalk cafés. Men in fedoras and double-breasted summer suits, patent leather shoes, wide gold rings on slender hands; women in pastel dresses, their faces long and narrow, big-eyed, with pointed chins. Their smiles seemed contemptuous. Or distrustful. Vigilant. Interspersed, a few misfits: dour characters; crafty, suspicious eyes, hands that seemed to grasp at the air. The artist’s name, printed on a card pinned to the wall, was Julius Schaeffer. He had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at an academy in Prague, where he’d lived since 1919. A coincidence? Could the artist Julius Schaeffer be related to Dr. Schaefferová and the little boy, Franz, on the train?
They had lemonade at a café and then sat on the steps of Saint Matthias Church, and Miklós told her about living in Budapest when he and his brother, László, were students at the university, and how before that, when they were children, they had come to Budapest with their parents and had stayed at the New York Palace Hotel. Even as a child he had loved hotels, while László had always wanted to know how long until they were going home. Once, while their parents lingered over dinner, he and László had run races in the corridor, and he, trying desperately to beat his older brother, had run headlong into a marble pillar and knocked himself out. When he opened his eyes, he believed for a moment that he had killed himself and was in heaven, which had long, gleaming corridors, gilded ceilings, and lavish chandeliers, just like the New York Palace Hotel. But, he said, that beautiful establishment had been damaged in the war and was closed for repairs. Instead, they went to his second-favorite café in Budapest, where there were red tablecloths on the tables and waiters in short black jackets and a piano player wearing a flesh-colored sequined gown and ballet slippers. They ate steamed Lake Balaton trout and a creamy risotto with parsley and mushrooms, followed by coffee, dark chocolate, sugared almonds, and fresh fruit. While they were talking, Miklós reached over and wiped chocolate from the corner of her mouth with his napkin.
They left Budapest after sunset, as stars were appearing in a sky of mauve, violet, and indigo. The air smelled of warm, freshly tilled earth and summer foliage. Natalia took off her hat and let the wind blow her hair around. Miklós stopped for a farmer herding sheep across the road with his dog. “What kind of dog is that?” Natalia said. “It looks more sheeplike than the sheep.”
It was a puli, Miklós said, a Hungarian sheepdog. He and László had once had a puli named Georg, a ferocious animal with an aggressive streak. It had savaged a man’s dog in the village and had had to be put down. After that, he and his brother had not wanted another dog.
Something was wrong with the motorcar; steam was pouring out from under the hood. Miklós pulled over. He got out and walked once around the car. He opened the hood. Then he said it was a blown head gasket or a faulty radiator hose. He would walk into the village and borrow a pail of water. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said. When he