"Where did you get these?" I said. He looked at me blankly.
"Barlang?" I asked.
"Igen," he said. "Barlang." Yes, they had been found in a cave.
There was so much I wanted to ask him, and it was terribly frustrating not to be able to do so. We just looked at each other for a minute, and then he beckoned me behind the counter, and into a back room which was even weirder than the first, where he pointed at a glass case.
I was dumbfounded. "What is that?" I exclaimed.
"Sztalin," he said, laughing.
"Stalin?" I said. He just kept laughing.
"How much for Stalin?" I said. He didn't understand me. I got out my wallet, and pulled out a few forint. A few thousand, actually, forint being one of those currencies that requires hundreds if not thousands of them for relatively small purchases. He named a sum, which I couldn't understand, so he wrote it down. I couldn't afford Stalin.
"Nem, nem," I said, pointing to my head.
"Igen," he agreed, sadly. We bargained, me pointing to my head and saying nem, no, over and over, and eventually I parted with rather a lot of forint, plus some of my U.S. currency, and my new friend Gyula Nadasdi put the wooden box with its clear plastic top that slid in to protect the contents, in the trunk of my rental car. Whereupon, Stalin and I headed for Budapest.
I spent half of the drive trying to figure out how to get Stalin into my hotel room without anybody seeing him, and the other half wondering if I was truly out of my mind. I stopped at a little town just off the M3 before I got to Budapest, and spent my remaining few forint on a blanket, which I wrapped around my purchase. When I got to the hotel, I had a quick look around the lobby to make sure none of the Divas were about, and then, spurning several offers of assistance, I carried the box, which was rather heavy, up to the room myself.
I double-locked the door, and, setting Stalin on the bed, carefully unwrapped him. What Nadasdi rather humorously—a little communist in-joke, perhaps?—had named Stalin, was a skeleton, minus the head, a deficiency that had enabled me to get the price down to something I was prepared to pay. In place of the skull, some wag, probably Nadasdi himself, given his rather immature sense of humor, had placed a Soviet military cap. The skeleton also came adorned with a gun, an old pistol. I had bought it, hat, gun, and all, not because this was my idea of funny, but because the skeleton itself was obviously very, very old, crumbling away even under glass. He or she—I didn't know enough about bones to say—had been decorated in shells, bracelets, and necklaces, thousands of them. The rib cage had collapsed, but I could see a piece of stone there, one that had been worked to a point. Stalin, who minus the hat and gun matched the description of Piper's bones just about perfectly except that he was missing his skull, had been in the possession of a man by the name of Nadasdi, which just happened to be the name of Piper's landlord in both Budapest and Lillafiired, and indeed the name of one of Piper's excavation team members.
As I stood there staring at this thing, there was a tap at the door.
"Who is it?" I called out.
"Karoly," the voice said.
"Just a, minute," I said, looking desperately about the room. Stalin was way too big to put in a drawer or the cupboard. In an instant, I hefted the box, and stuffed it under the bed.
"Aren't you a bit early?" I said. "I haven't even showered yet."
"Perhaps I'll have one with you," he said.
"The Divas will see you," I said. "I thought we were going to meet at the restaurant."
"I don't care if the Divas see me," he said, wrapping his arms around me, and guiding me in the general direction of the bed. "Although I suppose it might be a problem if you are sharing a room with one of them. I'm going to assume from the double bed that you aren't, unless you tell me otherwise."
From there it all went about the way you would expect it to, except for the moment when he stubbed his toe on something protruding very slightly from under the bed. "Ouch," he exclaimed. "Do you have something hidden under the bed?"
"Just a body," I said.
"No problem, then," he said.
I suppose that was one for the record books, la grande horizontale over what might well prove to be a twenty-five-thousand-year-old man. It was not entirely lost on me that while I was more than a little besotted with Karoly, I did not trust him sufficiently to tell him about the bodies, either of them, that I had encountered in the last day or two, including the fact that one of them was in the room with us. Karoly knew Kovacs; he'd purchased the Venus from him after all. And he would surely, given he'd edited Piper's diaries, understand why I'd spent a lot of money on Stalin.
We spent a very pleasant evening with Laurie^ and Jim. We went to the Muzeum Kavehaz, a beautifully restored nineteenth-century coffee house and had a great meal, with terrific wines, piano music, and conversation. Karoly was charming, as were Laurie and Jim. I felt almost happy sitting there, for the first time in many months.
It didn't even bother me when the conversation turned to the article in the Toronto paper that had hinted that the Venus might be a fake. Apparently Jim stayed in touch with home through the Internet.
"I am firmly convinced the Venus is authentic," Karoly told them.
"Who wrote the article?" Jim asked. "Was it an expert of some kind? I don't think I remember the name."
"Dr. Thalia Lajeunesse," Karoly said. "Nobody knows who it is. Nobody, that is, except me, which is the way it is supposed to be."
"So who is it?" I said.
"Someone who knows nothing about paleolithic Venuses, I can assure you. Somebody with an ax to grind."
I guess I looked baffled. "You'll have to delve back into Greek mythology," he said. "Then you'll know."
"Very mysterious," Laurie said.
Karoly looked a little bothered for a moment, but then suddenly he laughed, and put his arm around my shoulder for a quick hug. Laurie gave me a little knowing smile, and the conversation moved on to happier topics.
But later, back at the Hilton, I spent the dark hours of the night awash in anxiety as to whether or not the next morning might be the day the housekeeping staff at my hotel cleaned under the bed, and puzzling my way through a series of questions. Assuming Stalin was Piper's skeleton—and this was a very risky assumption, I knew—what was it doing in Lillafiired? It had been found there, yes, but I thought the diaries made it pretty clear that the bones were going to England for study, and certainly England was where Piper gave his presentation. Had it been sent back, then? And if so, why?
And more to the point, if the body was in Lillafiired, where was the skull?
CHAPTERTEN
October 1
I believe I must admit to myself that the analysis of this find is beyond my capabilities. All of us are amateurs really, and I feel keenly the need of some expert guidance. The Nadasdi family, as enthralled as I am by the discovery and its implications, has offered to ensure that the bones make it safely back to England in the care of one of their most trusted servants. I will send it to the Bramley Museum where the distinguished scholars there will assuredly be able to instruct me as to its age. I have completed drawings of the site from my sketches, as well as a detailed description of the excavation which I will send with the bones. Together I believe they will assist the experts who have promised to study our work, carefully. I would take the precious cargo there myself, and indeed will follow it to England, perhaps later this year, but I have word from T that he will be in Budapest soon, and I am therefore hastening to my lodgings in the Lipotvdros to await him.