Invisible Murder Read Online Free PDF

stumbled in unison—a wave of people falling, people trying not to fall, and people who just wanted to get out of the way. Sándor pulled Lujza in against him, struggling to keep them both upright. They were pushed back against the cab, and that was probably the only thing that saved them from falling. One of the barricades had tipped over, and there was some sort of scuffle up ahead between the police in their neon-green vests and black helmets and a small group of young people trying to get onto Andrássy Avenue. They looked like disaffected teenagers with punk hair, hooded jackets, and torn and saggy pants that revealed too much of their underwear. They were carrying a banner that said, “ NO RACISM. FUCK FACISM .” Inside the O and the U, big round holes had been cut through the material.
    Sándor could suddenly see the actual demonstration through the gap caused by the commotion. Long, straight lines of marching men and women dressed in white shirts, black pants and black vests, with red-and-white striped bandanas around their necks and garrison caps with red-and-white emblems on them. They looked oddly like folk dancers, harmlessly candy-striped and chubby-cheeked—not emaciated skinhead fanatics with brass knuckles and eyes brimming with hate.
    “They look so damn
normal
,” said Lujza, now standing so close to him that he could feel the warmth of her breath against his neck. “So orderly and law-abiding. But those Árpád stripes and double crosses.… Who do they think they’re kidding? Why don’t they just wear swastikas or arrow crosses and be done with it?”
    “That’s not just Jobbik,” he said, with a fresh spurt of foreboding. “That’s Magyar Gárda, and they train with weapons.”
    Maybe a little of his fear had rubbed off on Lujza. Her outraged aplomb subsided somewhat, and she stood there next to him, letting herself be held.
    “Let’s go home,” she said, finally.
    I T TOOK THEM almost an hour and a half. The subway station at Kodály Körönd was closed, presumably for fear the protestors would vandalize its beautiful, historic interior. They had to fight their way through the crowd down to Oktogon and take a tram from there to Rákóczi Square. Lujza put her high heels back on and was quiet and withdrawn the whole way. She didn’t say anything as they walked the last stretch, away from the wide József Boulevard and into the narrower streets of the Eighth District. The afternoon sun burned white against the cracked sidewalk slabs. A Roma family was arranged in their stiffest Sunday best on the stairs in front of Józsefváros Church on Horváth Mihály Street, ready to be photographed.
    “Look,” he said. “They just had a baptism, too.”
    She nodded but didn’t perk up noticeably. Not even when he suggested coffee and poppy-seed cake from the bakery on the corner.
    “I’m tired,” she said. “I just want to go home.”
    Lujza lived with three other students in an apartment on Tavaszmezö Street. He knew that didn’t exactly thrill Mr. and Mrs. Szabó, who would have preferred to keep her at home a little longer in the somewhat more upmarket Second District where she had grown up. “But Lujza does what Lujza wants to do,” Papa Szabó had said, resigned.
    She didn’t invite Sándor up, and he didn’t push. But after he kissed her on the cheek and was about to leave, she suddenly asked: “Don’t you ever get mad?”
    “About what?”
    “Them—those idiots—Magyar Gárda and all those other uniformed jerks.”
    “Of course. I can’t stand extremists either.”
    But he could tell that wasn’t enough. She felt betrayed. He had let her down, in a test that was far more important than making a good impression on her family.
    She unlocked the front door to her building and disappeared into the dark foyer.
    “See you later,” he called loudly as the door closed behind her. But as he stood there outside the dilapidated townhouse, in his best suit and his neatly polished