Cafe Europa Read Free

you’ll both have a story to tell me.” A heartbeat. He tapped his foot nervously. “The Hotel Árpád may have electric lights that sputter, windows that rattle in the night, mice scurrying in the old walls, and a hiccoughing telephone that goes dead when you need it, but it’s a hotbed of gossip and intrigue and”—he pointed to Cassandra, who was frowning at her guardian—“front-page news back in the States.”
    â€œYou never answered my question, Mr. Gibbon. Why have you been exiled here?” I stared into his eager, bony face. A ferret, I thought, some jittery little forest creature, all buck teeth and watery eyes. But I saw something else there: a cunning little boy, Tom Sawyer whitewashing a picket fence perhaps, the unloved boy of the village who could be funny and charming—and wanted the world to look at him. That crooked smile under so emphatic a moustache and outsized beak nose. The flashing hazel eyes, unblinking, or blinking too rapidly, the sense of absolute wonder there. Wily, this reporter, and not to be cavalierly dismissed.
    Harold was nodding at a portly man sitting nearby. “Simpson of the New York Tribune ,” he whispered. We watched as Mr. Simpson was joined by another man who was dapper in a summer Prince Albert coat, a pince-nez, an enormous cigar clutched in his fingertips.
    â€œImportant, that man.” Harold smirked. “Or at least he thinks he is. Jamison. The New York Times .”
    Winifred sighed. “You visit Budapest and you are surrounded by Americans.”
    Harold grinned. “Sooner or later anyone hungry for English-speaking folks finds his way to the Café Europa.” He pointed to a rack of international newspapers. “Sixty papers, mostly English, but also German, French. The Morning Post from London, three days late. Even”—a shocked look on his face—“the Hungarian and Austrian papers. Budapesti Hirlap . The Vienna Reichspost . The Berlin Vorworts .” A heartbeat. “I’ve been here over a year now.”
    â€œSo you said. But, once again, why are you here?” I probed. “Certainly that scoundrel Hearst didn’t send you here to cover the morganatic marriage of Cassandra Blaine and Count Frederic von Erhlich.”
    He chuckled. “That’s a bonus, really, though such marriages are stale news now.” He carefully rolled another cigarette, taking his time, peering closely at the tobacco. “I’m here to chronicle the end of it all.”
    Winifred, impatient, rolled her eyes. “The end of what?”
    He waved his hand toward the bank of windows overlooking the Danube. “The final days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The end of Franz Josef’s long and awful sixty-something-year reign. Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. The Serbian Question. Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed in 1908 by Austria without so much as a by-your-leave, an insult to the Serbians living there. The Serbians hungry for vengeance. War. Serbia, a thorn in Austria’s side. The rabble-rousers in the streets, the anarchists, the stink bombs, assassination of local officials, the—”
    â€œAnd you’re convinced it’s ending?” I interrupted.
    â€œThe empire is a crumbling massive weight, the most un-talked-about secret. Franz Josef recently had a bout of pneumonia, probably dying soon, and this…this Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a nasty piece of snobbery, ready to reign over its decline and fall. Read Gibbon— Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire .” A foolish grin. “Another inquisitive Gibbon. I plan to write my own Decline and Fall of the Austrian Empire .”
    Raising his head, he sniffed the air. “You can smell the decay.”
    I smiled. “That’s just this hotel crumbling around us.”
    â€œYou seem so sure of things,” said Winifred.
    â€œI smell war now. Hearst smells war.”
    â€œWell,” I