The Exiled Read Free Page B

János crossroads Anna again had to make a snap decision about which direction to take. She listened to the silent streets for the space of a long, deep breath. For no logical reason she decided to run towards the Gong restaurant and took the first left on to Szőlö utca. All of a sudden a metallic gate gave a clatter right next to her, as though something was trying to clamber through it. Anna gave a startled shout, and on the other side of the fence a mongrel with a tangled coat ran alongside her barking wildly.
    ‘Quiet!’ Anna snapped at the dog, which stood at the corner ofthe garden barking after her. Now they’ll know for sure where I am, she sighed, and at the next crossroads slipped into Tvirnicka utca. She jogged up and down the streets. Small, sharp stones cut into her feet, tore a hole in one of her socks and scratched her heel, but still the thief was nowhere to be found.
    When she saw Ernő approaching her on Jesenska utca, Anna came to a halt.
    ‘That bag had my passport and credit cards in it. Everything, perkele ,’ she said, and noticed she was swearing in Finnish.
    ‘What about your phone?’ asked Ernő. He was so out of breath he could hardly speak. His cheeks were glowing red and his brow was covered in sweat. You should go for a run more often, Anna found herself thinking meanly.
    She tapped her jacket pocket, discovered that her phone was still there and showed it to Ernő with a look of feigned victory on her face.
    ‘Hah, at least they didn’t get away with everything.’
    ‘Damn tinkers,’ said Ernő.
    ‘How do you know that?’ asked Anna, somewhat taken aback. She hadn’t seen anything of the thief but the back of his jacket.
    ‘Well, the girl looked … you know. It’s obvious.’
    ‘Looked what?’
    ‘You know … untidy.’
    ‘How closely did you get a look at her? I didn’t really see the man at all. Height, one hundred and eighty centimetres; average build; dark jacket; but if someone asked me to describe him, I don’t think I could do it. I guess he’s probably fairly young, thirty at the most.’
    ‘So you didn’t get a look at him then? I don’t think I’d be able to say anything at all about the girl either.’
    ‘Height? Age?’
    ‘She couldn’t be very old because she was quite small. Nothing but a kid. I didn’t really see.’
    ‘But you said she looked untidy. In what way?’
    ‘I can’t say really. It must have been her hair. Long and tangled.’
    ‘And that automatically makes them Romani, does it?’
    Ernő couldn’t avoid the irritated tone in Anna’s voice.
    ‘Come on, you’d recognise them a mile off,’ he said, trying to defend himself.
    ‘The girl was wearing a red skirt,’ said Anna.
    ‘Was she?’
    Anna hadn’t paid the thieves’ ethnic background any attention. And if Ernő hadn’t noticed the girl’s red skirt, how could he possibly have seen whether her hair was untidy? His observation was nothing but prejudiced supposition, thought Anna. Was there a single place on earth where ‘gypsy’ wasn’t a synonym for ‘thief’? She swallowed her desire to give Ernő a piece of her mind. After all, he might be right. To Anna the average Romani looked exactly like the average Serb or Hungarian. Over here the Romani women didn’t wear frilly blouses and black velvet skirts, and the man didn’t wear straight trousers and a jacket like they did in Finland, where they clearly stood out from the crowd. Here they dressed just like everybody else. But still, people here seemed to know just by looking who was a Romani and who wasn’t. As if having a skill like that was in any way important.
    ‘They live nearby, don’t they?’ asked Anna.
    ‘I don’t think they were locals.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘This is such a small town, the locals have to go thieving elsewhere. Everybody knows everybody else. Almost.’
    ‘Shall we go and take a look?’
    ‘They won’t let us in, and we can hardly batter the door down. They’d