We couldn’t have been much more than an hour out of Budapest when Maria came back to the compartment to announce that lunch was being served in the dining car and that she was hungry. Strakhov said he didn’t care much about eating. I said I thought lunch was a fine idea, so then the major quickly agreed he’d like it after all. Maria said she’d run into the steward in the corridor and had taken tickets and she gave us each one. We went through the train in single file, pushing our way through half a dozen third-class coaches, the corridors jammed with peasants on their way to market, live geese and chickens and quacking ducks under their arms, the odor of garlic and sour red wine on everything, the cars strung with red banners proclaiming: Long live the People’s Democracy.
We were met at the door of the diner by a smiling, bowing waiter. I thought the effusive welcome somewhat unusual, even allowing for Maria’s beauty, and I put it down to the fact that Strakhov was in uniform. Most porters and dining-car stewards in the Iron Curtain countries are police informers. They know enough to be polite to Russian officials if they want to keep their jobs.
The little waiter bowed us up the aisle to the end of the car.
“May I have your tickets, please, your excellencies,” he said, halting in front of a table for four, already occupied by a man and a woman. “Ah, yes, Madame is here.” He seated Maria with a grand flourish. “Monsieur here.” He put me across from Maria. “And Excellency Major, this way, if you please.” Strakhov looked as if he would choke. His eyes nearly closed under those bushy black eyebrows but he shrugged his shoulders and followed the steward down the aisle, getting a seat with his back to us. I think he failed to put up a row because he figured we couldn’t leave the diner without passing him; our end of the car was coupled to the electric locomotive, and there was a Russian guard plainly visible on the platform.
At that moment I didn’t care whether the others at the table spoke French or not.
“Some luck,” I said to Maria. “I couldn’t figure out how we were ever going to shake that guy.”
Maria’s black eyes flashed. “Luck, nothing,” she said. “I like your nerve. When I got the tickets from the waiter, I gave him a big fat tip. I told him we were newlyweds and we wanted to be alone.”
“And you’re right, too,” said the man who sat next to Maria—in French, but with an American accent if I’d ever heard one. “What Europe needs these days is more romance. Isn’t that what Europe needs, Teensy?”
“Oui,” said the woman who sat next to me. “Uh, oui.”
I was so intent on getting to Marcel Blaye’s Manila envelope, now that we’d escaped Strakhov for the moment, that I was hardly prepared to have two strangers butt into our conversation.
“Romance is the thing,” said the man. Then he spoke American: “By the way, do you folks speak any English? I’m afraid I’m not too good at this frog talk myself.”
I said I spoke English. I couldn’t see any reason why a Swiss businessman shouldn’t know English. I said it before I realized I was opening the way to complications while the Manila envelope was burning a hole in my pocket. Maria said she spoke some English, too. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask her.
The man grinned. “I think you both speak English real good. Don’t you think they speak English real good, Teensy?”
“Yes,” said Teensy. “Uh, yes.”
“Folks, my name is Hiram Carr—Hiram G. Carr, to be exact. I’d like you to shake hands with Mrs. Carr.” Teensy had a grip like a stevedore. “Married twenty years next February, folks. More in love than ever. Hope you young folks’ll be as happy as we are. Isn’t that right, Teensy?”
“Uh-huh,” Teensy said.
Hiram Carr reminded me of a well-groomed sparrow. He looked to be somewhere in his early fifties. His high-pitched voice came from an incredibly small body. A good foot shorter than I, Carr had a round, pink baby face. Twinkling blue eyes shone through pince-nez, the first I’d seen in years that carried a thin gold chain hooked over one ear. His sparse gray hair, parted in the middle, looked as if it might have been barbered by Teensy, an extraordinary exhibit herself. Nearly six feet tall and big all over, she must have been a good ten years younger than her husband. Her abundant yellow hair, obviously dyed, was swept on top of her square head and held more or less in place with big black hairpins. Her expressionless face might have been made of granite with a bright dab of orange rouge on each cheek.
“What’s your name if I may inquire?” Hiram Carr said.
“Blaye,” I said, “Marcel Blaye.” Maria bit her lip.
“Morris Blaine?” Hiram said. “Why that’s an American name, Blaine. We had a fellow run for president once named Blaine. Didn’t make the grade, though. Isn’t that so, Teensy?”
“Uh-huh,” Teensy said. She seemed a good deal more interested in the scenery.
“I’m Swiss,” I said. Maria dropped her fork. I looked at the Carrs and thought They’ll arrive at the Budapest station when we do. They’ll see us meet the Countess Orlovska. They’ll be in at the beginning of the end of this nightmare and they’ll still tell the neighbors back in Ohio about the nice, carefree Swiss newlyweds they met in the train, the ones who spoke real good English.
The waiter brought the soup, but Hiram G. Carr went right on talking.
“What’s your line if I may ask, Mr. Blaine?”
I looked at Maria. “Watches and clocks,” I said. “What’s yours, Mr. Carr?”
“That’s a good business,” Hiram said. “I almost forgot all you Swiss are in clocks or cheese.” He enjoyed a small chuckle. “Well now, Mr. Blaine, I’m a diplomat you might say. Oh, I’m not one of those fellows goes to tea parties in striped pants. Fact is, Mr. Blaine, I’m the agricultural man at the American legation in Budapest. Been a practical farmer all my life and my father and grandfather before me. Isn’t that right, Teensy?”
“Uh-huh,” said Teensy, her mouth half full of bread.
“Where you folks putting up in Budapest?” Hiram asked.
“The Bristol,” I said. I knew it was the only hotel on the Corso that hadn’t been destroyed in the siege.
The meat course succeeded the soup, then fruit and cheese and coffee, but Hiram Carr twittered through it all. He talked about the Hungarian wheat crop, told us how apricots are made into barack, discussed the manufacture of paprika, tokay wines, and potato brandy, and the correct way to cook a fogash. At least it kept my mind off the catastrophe impending in Budapest until I looked at my watch and saw we were within half an hour of the city. I called the waiter and had him bring me a newspaper.
“You won’t mind if I attend to a little business?” I said to Hiram. “We’re combining business with pleasure on this trip.”
Although I could see the back of Strakhov’s thin neck from where I sat, I wanted the newspaper handy in case he should come to our table. I figured I could hide the contents of Marcel Blaye’s Manila envelope by quickly folding over the paper.
I held the newspaper in front of me with my left hand, broke the seals, and slit open the envelope with the table knife. I lifted out a thick wad of typewritten sheets and placed them on the unfolded newspaper. At that moment, Strakhov left the dining car.
My hands were trembling, and I couldn’t have lifted a glass of water to my lips without spilling it; but Maria was telling the Carrs about life in Geneva, and nobody seemed to notice my nervousness. I knew there had to be some vital information in that envelope, some clue to the mess we were in, something that would give me a defensive weapon in dealing with Countess Orlovska. I don’t know just what I expected to find. But I wasn’t prepared for what was on the typewritten sheets in front of me. Names and addresses in alphabetical order: