The Cost of Mercy
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At thirty-four, Máté Nádasdy had already lived a full and conflicted life during the time the Habsburgs ruled Hungary. After a troubled childhood, he served his country in battle, lived abroad in Paris, and now finds himself the owner of a popular coffeehouse on the Champs-Élysées of Budapest, Andrássy Avenue, where he hopes to live out a peaceful, if mundane, life as a coffeehouse proprietor. Despite his efforts to leave the past behind, he’s drawn to helping others with their problems and setting things right.
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1888. 25 September. Monday. Budapest.
12:40 a.m.
The parish church of St. Teresa of Ávila stood just two blocks from my café on Andrássy Avenue, at the corner of Király and Nagymező Streets. The building was a lesson in a more restrained Baroque style. I hated the excesses of the Baroque, and that might be why I loved that church—a simple, even classical interior, except for the main altar. Many nights after we’d finished our cleaning at the coffeehouse, I’d find myself wandering down Nagymező Street toward the church. The sacristan left the side door open at night for the burdened cleric or the soul in need of escape. I was one of the latter.
Tonight, it was well after midnight, and I sat in the last row of the church, my eyes opening and closing slowly, adjusting to the dim candelabras flanking the main altar. Small votives blinked a slow, mesmerizing lament from the side altars. But beneath the calm, my mind still raced with the frenetic motion of the day—customers, vendors, waiters rushing about, and heated debates about the young Austrian composer taking over our opera house in October. Mahler—I think that was his name—was coming from Leipzig to save our stagnant Royal Hungarian Opera.
There was not a sound in the church, and I turned my attention inward, trying to interrupt my agitated thoughts. Finally, I found the tune I was searching for, something from my childhood, and I sang in my head.
Erdő mellett estvéledtem, Subám fejem alá tattem.
Összetettem két kezemet, Úgy kértem jó Istenemet:
Nearby the forest night found me, I lay my head upon my cloak.
I folded my hands together, And so I asked my gracious God:
Something stirred, a sound at the front, but it seemed far away, far from my ears and my concerns. Nothing moved in the church, and I sank even more willingly into the beauty of the silence.
Én Istenem, adjál szállást! Már meguntam a járkálást;
A járkálást, a bujdosást, Az idegen földön lakást.
My God, give me a dwelling! I've gotten tired of roaming;
Of roaming and hiding, In an unknown land abiding.
My eyes were heavy, and I allowed the weight of the day to close them, thankful for the peace of the night.
A crash from the right of the altar.
My eyes snapped open, and something like electricity surged through my body, so suddenly was I awakened. I was in the shadows in the back, and I was careful not to move, a skill I’d perfected during reconnaissance missions in the Honvéd.
There—by the candelabra on the right—a woman in black, a nun. She had knocked over a prie-dieu on the side of the main altar. Strange, for it was well lit. She bent and straightened the prie-dieu, looking about the altar. She feared discovery for some reason.
The many nights I’d come to St. Teresa’s, I’d seen priests, monks, and even the devout layman praying silently from the pews, but never a woman. Nuns, in particular, had a strict protocol describing how they were to interact with the world. One would never come to a church alone, especially at this time of night. The convent doors would have been locked hours earlier.
She kneeled as though searching for something on the marble floor, and then she pushed the prie-dieu half a meter, causing it to rumble across the stones like a crypt door being opened. So, she had knocked it over by accident in her search.
I rose silently and began moving to the front along one wall, staying to the shadows. I wanted to see what brought this sister to St. Teresa’s in the middle of the night. And then I stopped for there was another, someone coming from the sacristy—no sound, only movement.
But the nun was still on her knees searching and didn’t notice the dark form move across the altar.
I put my hand to the Laguiole hidden in my trousers, afraid to remove it until I knew it was needed. The form wore the habit of a monk—a Franciscan, with his distinctive white rope about his waist.
He stood over the nun, yet still she didn’t see him. I withdrew my knife and used my other hand to open the blade silently.
He reached out and touched her shoulder.
She screamed.
I fought an overpowering urge to run to her aid, but still I waited, sensing something other than malice.
She stood, startled, and faced the Franciscan. His face was covered by a hood. Hers was wrapped in her wimple, but her youth and beauty were obvious in the candlelight. She smiled at him. They spoke in whispers. Then he was on the floor with her, searching.
Still, I waited.
They stood again. Both were frantic now. The monk was searching the shelf of the prie-dieu, then under the kneeler, while the nun had moved to begin searching among the chairs in the nave. Both seemed desperate, yet their search had run out of momentum. Whatever they were looking for wasn’t where it was expected to be.
“Excuse me. Perhaps I can help you find it.” I stepped from my hiding place along the wall into the center aisle and returned my knife to its pocket.
The nun gasped and ran to the Franciscan, who turned to face me. His hood had fallen away, revealing his face. He was young as well, and not a Franciscan. He had no tonsure and wore a handsome thick beard. “Leave us be. We have no money.”
“You’re looking for something. If I help, I could have you on your way promptly.”
“Who are you?”
“Perhaps I should be asking that question. She appears to be a Salvatorian sister, but a long way from St. Anna College. And you’re no Franciscan—any friar of St. Francis wears the three knots.”
“Please leave us in peace.” The woman stepped from behind the man, and I could see in her face, through her posture, the proximity of their bodies, that they were in love. And there could be only one reason for meeting late at night.
“Yes, she is with child.” The voice came from behind me. I turned and there in the nave’s rear stood the pastor of the church, the amaranth piping of his cassock blazing against the midnight black fabric.
“Monsignor,” I said and gave my head a bow.
“It’s good to see you, Máté, but leave this one to me.” Monsignor Révay had the tender heart of a shepherd, and I trusted the man, which I couldn’t say for most of the clergy in Budapest.
“Of course, Monsignor. They were looking around the altar in distress.”
Monsignor Révay took a few steps toward the couple. “On the side of the cushion on the prie-dieu—the seam is split.”
The man reached his fingers into the cushion and withdrew an envelope.
“Money for the escape,” I said.
“It won’t be missed.” His face was flat, almost cold. “It’s terrible what the sisters will do to her. I married them myself yesterday.”
But the money—he’d disappointed me. I’d thought I’d finally found a man who embodied the Christian ideal. But he wasn’t and maybe never had been.
“What will you do? How will you live?” I asked.
The man stepped forward, and I could see in his eyes the layers of his soul, one caught, one afraid, one of duty, and of course, the lover of the woman. “I’m a mason. I’ll find work in the north. I have family in Galicia, in Lemberg.”
I imagined they met while our young mason worked on some wall within the convent. It could have been the young sister was tasked with supplying him with water or his morning sustenance. First, embarrassed glances, then demure smiles, and then the touch of their fingers when a cup is passed.
“How many forints are there?” I asked.
“Máté, I asked you to leave this to me. It’s not your concern.” Monsignor Révay’s face crinkled with anger. Despite the darkness, I could see color come into his face.
I stepped back and dropped my eyes, a reflex from my days at the orphanage. We were taught to respect and obey the brothers, and that would never leave me.
“Go through the sacristy. You’ll find lay clothing in the chest in the back. If someone stops you, show them this.” He handed the young mason a paper. “Now, go.”
The man put his arm around the girl, and he looked at her with fear and wonder in his eyes, but her face showed only fear, the one that comes from a life turned upside down. They hurried past the altar and into the sacristy.
The Monsignor and I stood there for what felt like hours, then I walked to the back of the nave and sat again in the last row of chairs, closing my eyes.
So many thoughts now. I found myself clenching my jaw, hoping for the couple to make their way to safety.
“What troubles you, Máté?” Révay had seated himself in the chair in front of me. His back was to me, and I felt as though he was asking for my confession. The irony of the moment unsettled my mind.
“Máté?”
“How much did you give them? I’d like to make an offering to the church.” It was the only way to make it right. The couple deserved a chance, but not on the contributions of the faithful, many without the forints to buy a new pair of shoes or medicine for their baby.
Révay cleared his throat. “It wasn’t his child. He’s been quite selfless in this.”
And I imagined I grabbed his throat, screaming as I throttled him. But instead, I said nothing, did nothing, except for the tears on my face.
“You see, he loves her, and I never did. So this is best.” Révay’s silhouette was unflinching, but I felt my stomach tighten as I turned his words over in my head.
Then I reached forward and put my hand on the Monsignor’s shoulder, not a gesture of grace, no, for I started to squeeze until I felt my hand would break. Finally, he gasped in pain and stood. He turned and looked at me, his face contorting at the recognition of my hate.
The anger didn’t pass, and I stared at his eyes until he spun and rushed away into the darkness.
My mind searched for something solid to hold on to, and the song came again.
My God, give me a dwelling! I've gotten tired of roaming;
Of roaming and hiding, In an unknown land abiding.
I was tired of roaming—tired of hiding—first in Paris, and now in Budapest, for I’d settled myself here into my coffeehouse, my routine, a life of conventionality.
And despite my weariness, I was unable to face my apartment that night, and so I sat there, singing of that time when I wouldn’t need to hide.
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This story is a work of fiction. Except where explicitly identified in the afterword, the names, characters, and incidents herein are a product of the author’s creation and any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.
THE COST OF MERCY. Text copyright © 2025 by Mark Mrozinski LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
