The Invisible Bridge Read Online Free PDF Page B

question of Hasz's name to a series of drunken revelers. After a labyrinthine tour of high-ceilinged rooms he found himself standing on a balcony with Hasz himself, a tall, loose-limbed young man in a velvet smoking jacket. Hasz's large gray eyes rested on Andras's in an expression of champagne-tinged bemusement, and he asked a question in French and raised his glass.

    Andras shook his head. "I'm afraid it's got to be Hungarian for now," he said.

    Jozsef squinted at him. "And which Hungarian are you, exactly?"

    "Andras Levi. The Hungarian from your mother's telegram."
    "What
    telegram?"

    "Didn't your mother send a telegram?"

    "Oh, God, that's right! Ingrid said there was a telegram." Jozsef put a hand on Andras's shoulder, then leaned in through the door of the balcony and shouted, "Ingrid!"

    A blond girl in a spangled leotard pushed out onto the balcony and stood with one hand on her hip. A rapid French exchange ensued, after which Ingrid produced from her bosom a folded telegram envelope. Jozsef extracted the slip, read it, looked at Andras, read it again, and fell into a paroxysm of laughter.

    "You poor man!" Jozsef said. "I was supposed to meet you at the station two hours ago!"

    "Yes, that was the idea."

    "You must have wanted to kill me!"

    "I might still," Andras said. His head was throbbing in time with the music, his eyes watering, his insides twisting with hunger. It was clear to him he couldn't stay at Jozsef Hasz's, but he could hardly imagine venturing out now to find another place to spend the night.

    "Well, you've done well enough without me so far," Jozsef said. "Here you are at my place, where there's enough champagne to last us all night, and plenty of whatever else you like, if you take my meaning."

    "All I need is a quiet corner to sleep in. Give me a blanket and put me anywhere."

    "I'm afraid there's no quiet corner here," Jozsef said. "You'll have to have a drink instead. Ingrid will get you one. Follow me." He pulled Andras into the apartment and placed him under the care of Ingrid, who produced what must have been the last clean champagne flute in the building and poured Andras a tall sparkling glassful. The bottle sufficed for Ingrid herself; she toasted Andras, gave him a long smoky kiss, and pulled him into the front room, where the pianist was faking his way through "Downtown Uproar" and the partygoers had just started to dance.

    In the morning he woke on a sofa beneath a window, his eyes draped in a silk chemise, his head a mass of cotton wool, his shirt unbuttoned, his jacket rolled beneath his head, his left arm stinging with pins and needles. Someone had put an eiderdown over him and opened the curtains; a block of sunlight fell across his chest. He stared up at the ceiling, where the floral froth of a plaster medallion curled around the fluted brass base of a light fixture. A knot of gold branches grew downward from the base, bearing small flame-shaped bulbs. Paris , he thought, and pushed himself up on his elbows. The room was littered with party detritus and smelled of spilled champagne and wilted roses. He had a vague recollection of a prolonged tete-a-tete with Ingrid, and then of a drinking contest with Jozsef and a broad-shouldered American; after that he could remember nothing at all. His luggage and the crate for Jozsef had been dragged inside and stacked beside the fireplace. Hasz himself was nowhere to be seen. Andras rolled from the sofa and wandered down the hall to a white-tiled bathroom, where he shaved at the basin and bathed in a lion-footed tub that dispensed hot water directly from the tap. Afterward he dressed in his only clean shirt and trousers and jacket. As he was searching for his shoes in the main room, he heard a key in the lock. It was Hasz, carrying a pastry-shop box and a newspaper. He tossed the box on a low table and said, "Up so soon?"

    "What's that?" Andras said, eyeing the ribbon-tied box.

    "The cure for your hangover."

    Andras opened the box to