Invisible Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hungary would that be?” she asked. “A Hungary clinically scrubbed of all diversity? A Hungary where you can be arrested just because your skin is a different color? A Hungary where it’s totally okay for Romas to have a life expectancy that’s fifteen years shorter than the rest of the population?”
    “If they want to live longer, they can quit drinking themselves to death,” the driver said. “And spreading diseases to the rest of us.”
    “Where do you get that rubbish from? HIR TV?”
    “Well, someone has to tell the truth if the government’s not going to,” the driver said. “I’d like to see you try driving a taxi in Budapest at night—the whole place is controlled by Gypsy gangs. They’ll stab you if you so much as blink. They’re worse than animals.”
    Lujza yanked a handful of ten thousand forint bills out of her purse and tossed them on the seat. “Here,” she said. “We’re getting out right now!”
    The driver obviously agreed. The power locks clicked pointedly open.
    “Bitch,” he snarled. “Get out of my cab, and take your dirty Gypsy dog with you.”
    Lujza flung the door open and jumped out. Sándor remained paralyzed for a few seconds, his skin tingling as though the driver’s words had struck him physically. His throat had closed up, and in any case, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “Come
on
, Sándor,” snapped Lujza.
    He fumbled his door open and climbed out into the middle of the street, into a throng of people pushing their way toward the police barricade.
    “But your shoes,” he managed to say. “Your heels.…”
    “I’d rather walk the whole way to Tavaszmezö in my bare feet,” Lujza hissed. And then she burst into tears. He had to inch his way through the crowd around the now re-locked cab to reach her. He just wanted to get away—away from the yelling and drumming and red-and-white striped banners that were approaching. The shouts rumbled over their heads, from the demonstrators as well as from the scratchy loudspeaker mounted on a car in the demonstration:
    “Save Hungary now! Save Hungary now!”
    Lujza was obviously planning to follow through on her threat. She was standing on one leg, pulling her high-heeled shoe off her other foot. She looked so small and vulnerable in her sleeveless, cream-colored summer dress. Her white silk shawl had slipped down over one shoulder, and her neck looked strangely exposed because she was wearing her long, light-brown hair up with a couple of white silk flowers in honor of the day’s festivities. Sándor wanted to stop her. He couldn’t bear the thought of her small, naked feet among all the stomping, trampling boots and shoes. She had no idea how dangerous this was, and her fearlessness frightened him.
    “Goddamn fascists!” she said, tears streaming down her lightly powdered cheeks. “It’s unbearable that there are so many of them.” She leaned on him as she angrily tugged off her second shoe.
    “Put them back on,” he begged. “What if you step on a piece of glass?”
    She seemed not to hear him.
    “Narrow-minded idiots who get their so-called information from nationalist TV propaganda. How can we let them march in our streets wearing their silly uniforms? Haven’t we learned anything?”
    “Shhh,” he hushed her instinctively.
    “You’re
shushing
me?” She shot him an indignant look.
    “You never know.…” he began, and then stopped himself. It would only serve to enrage her even further.
    “Are you scared?” she asked. “Are you scared of them?”
    Well, yes, he was.
    “He called you a dirty Gypsy.” She pointed angrily at the cab driver, who luckily had stayed in his cab, entrenched behind the green Mercedes doors. “Just because you have dark hair! You don’t even
look
like a Roma.”
    He just mumbled, “No.”
    “Well, you can’t let them get away with that kind of thing.”
    “No,” he mumbled, hoping his lack of opposition would end the discussion.
    Suddenly the crowd