I'd managed to order an egg sandwich and a coffee, and thus encouraged, decided to try to ask the waitress whether she knew a Mihaly Kovacs.
"Please?" she said. "More coffee for you?"
This is not going to be easy, I thought. I tried pointing at the name on the invoice.
"American Express?" she said. "Yes, here."
'Perhaps I could help," a very attractive woman a table or two away said.
"I'm supposed to be meeting someone here," I lied. "I don't know what this person looks like. I was just hoping the waitress would know him."
"Let me try," she said, and I pointed out the name. "It is pronounced Kovash," she said. "Despite what it looks like. That explains your problem."
She spoke to the waitress who shook her head. "She doesn't know him," the woman said.
"Thank you for your help," I said. "My name is Lara McClintoch, by the way. I'm an antique dealer from Toronto. As you have already guessed, I'm new to Budapest."
"Laurie Barrett," she said. "A lawyer, also from Toronto. I'm here keeping my husband company. He's in insurance."
"But you speak Hungarian," I said.
"Not particularly well anymore," she said. "But yes, a little. My mother is from Hungary, and I spoke it a bit when I was young. Her father's name is Lorand, and she found me an English name that was close. My father was British. It was only with my grandmother that I spoke Hungarian. My husband comes here regularly. He's opening an office here for his firm, and I often tag along. I take Hungarian lessons when I'm here, and it helps a little. I wouldn't bother trying to learn it unless you'll be here a great deal, by the way. More and more people speak English, now that the Soviets are gone. It's a difficult language, not related to any of the romance languages you might stand a chance of comprehending."
"My guidebook says it's related to Finnish in some obscure way."
"Apparently so."
"Do you still have relatives here?" I asked.
"No. I did try to find the family home. It wasn't there, bombed, I expect during one of the wars. Hungary has a bad habit of being on the wrong side of just about every war going. I was disappointed not to find the house, as was my mother to hear about it. We're so accustomed to moving all the time, in North America. You know, bigger and bigger houses as the family grows, then back to an apartment at retirement. But here people don't move as much. My mother's family had lived in the same house for several generations. That's the way it is, I guess. So are you here to buy antiques?"
"Yes," I lied again. "Well, sort of. This is really just a reconnaissance trip, I guess you'd call it. I've seen some really attractive antiques that have come from here, and given I had to be in Europe anyway, I thought I'd take a side trip to see what I could find."
"I love antiques," Laurie said. "Where are you going to look?"
"Umm, Falk Miksa," I said, naming the street on which Karoly claimed to have had a shop and where, as it turned out, the firm that had sold the Venus also did business.
"Where's that?" she said.
"The Pest side of the Margit Bridge," I said, trying to sound authoritative. This lying business takes a lot of energy. "Not that I know exactly where that might be from here."
She pointed over her shoulder. "That way," she said. "I could show you."
"That's very kind of you to offer, but you don't need to do that. I'll manage."
"Are you saying that because you don't want company? If so, that's fine. But to tell you the truth, I'm rather bored. My husband is at meetings much of the day, and it isn't as if I haven't been here many times before. I would be happy to show you around. If you are here alone, perhaps you would have dinner with my husband and me one evening, or perhaps we could go to the opera. We do that regularly while we're here. You really must see the Opera House."
"That is extremely kind of you," I said. "And I would appreciate being shown around. Right now, all I want to do is get to my hotel room, get cleaned up, and get some sleep. It's supposed to be ready at four."
"You've just arrived then?"
"I did."
"The overnight transatlantic nightmare. I'll give you one of our cards with our address and phone number on it. My husband and I stay in an apartment his company owns. I'll give you one of his business cards as well, in case you have a problem reaching me at the apartment. His name is Jim McLean, and you could always leave a message with his office. Just call when you would like a tour guide."
"Thank you," I said. "I will."
Despite what I'd told Laurie, sleep wasn't on the agenda.
As hard as I tried, I couldn't sleep more than a couple of hours that night, and spent most of it reading guidebooks, studying maps, and trying to figure out what approach I could possibly take to Mihaly Kovacs. Making an appointment was pretty much out of the question. If I told him what I wanted, he'd be sure to be on his guard. A surprise attack seemed the only answer, but I felt so out of my element, I couldn't figure out what to say.
What if he doesn't speak any English, I fretted. It was possible I could ask Laurie Barrett to accompany me to act as translator, if she'd be willing to do so, and with that thought in mind, I dug out her number and her husband's card. Then, just looking at it, I knew what I could do. J. R. McLean the card said, and he was a vice president at a very well-known international insurance company. It was a good card for my purposes, suitably vague as to the sex of its owner. I carefully copied out all the information on it, and early the next morning, headed for Falk Miksa.
Falk Miksa utca was right where Karoly said it was, at the Pest end of the Margit Bridge over the Danube. The little street, or utca, runs off the much larger Szent Istvan korut, and on that corner was a large BAV store, which I had learned from my guidebook was the government-run antique chain. The street itself was lined with private antique shops on both sides. The antiques on display were impressive to be sure, virtually acres of beautiful mahogany furniture, jade and ivory, huge crystal chandeliers, miles of Herend and Zsolnay porcelain, art deco everything, including some quite stunning jewelry. I was practically salivating by the time I'd walked a block or two.
The shops weren't open yet, so I had a cappuccino in a little coffee house called Da Capo, where the walls were lined with glass cases containing an extraordinary array of espresso cups, and where patrons sat on brown pseudo-leather banquets, and drank their coffee from mahogany tables.
At ten, I presented myself at Galleria Kovacs Mihaly and asked to speak to the proprietor. "Janet McLean," I said, holding up my card. "As you can see, I'm an insurance adjuster."
I believe he gave me his name, but I couldn't understand him. Fortunately he went back to his office to get his card. It was Hungarian on one side, and, praise be, English on the other. Kovacs Mihaly, proprietor, it said. Now wasn't that a break! I tried to hold on to McLean's card, but Kovacs insisted upon taking it and looking at it closely.
"How may I help you?" he said at last, in impeccable English.
"I'm here in regard to the insurance on an antiquity that I believe was purchased from you." I got out the copy Diana had made of the receipt from Karoly's expense claim, and waved it under his nose. "I'm sure you know it. It's called the Magyar Venus, and it's at the Cottingham Museum in Toronto."
"It hasn't been stolen?" Kovacs exclaimed.
"No, no, nothing like that," I said. "Now, first of all I will need to confirm the purchase price, which according to the receipt was six hundred thousand dollars. Correct?"
"Yes," he said.
"That's a very good price. I expect we'll be insuring it for considerably more than that, perhaps in the millions. Does that sound about right to you?"