Virrasztás (Vigil)
At thirty-four, Máté Nádasdy has already lived a full and conflicted life during the time the Habsburgs rule 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 café proprietor. Despite his efforts to leave the past behind, he is drawn to helping others with their problems and setting things right. Flórián, an old acquaintance with ties to the nefarious elements of Budapest, often supplies Máté with secrets from the city’s dark side.
1890. 14 January. Tuesday. Budapest.
12:26 a.m.
Blistering cold. Snow falling. I fought the drifting of the flakes from the dark sky, trying to keep my awareness, to retain the reflexes that might be the separation between life and death tonight.
He wasn’t coming.
Jószef Square was abandoned. Named for the beloved archduke, the Hungarian-hearted Habsburg. Yet, a Habsburg he was, as many were wont to forget. I now leaned against a large chestnut, thick and gray, and topped by a gnarl of knotted branches and twigs. The tree hadn’t given up all its leaves, and clumps of brown hung like sad corpses from the limbs. The more mottled the better. An adversary can easily spot someone against a consistent color, but a patchwork can hide most anything.
The gas lamp on the corner flickered ever so, and the shadows on the street seemed to flit in the wavering light. The snow was falling (as I thought it might), and the shadows were softened, filtered now by the bluish glow from the flame.
An hour had passed.
Breath steaming from my nose and mouth.
Hands stiff.
Face burning with cold.
Toes numb.
Yet, alert.
He wasn’t coming.
The apartment buildings west across the square were dark, except for one—third floor. A candle shone in the window. Someone had left it open a crack.
Curtain moving ever so.
Invitingly.
Expectant.
The frigid wind picked up for a moment, and I had to close my eyes to keep them from tearing. I gripped the bark on the tree with my gloved hand, willing sensation back into my fingers. Despite the cold, my body felt electric with anticipation, something I’d come to expect during this type of vigil.
He would come from the north, so Flórián said. His name, László Váradi. Captain in the Hungarian political police. A powerful man, rumor had it he report directly to the interior minister. His crackdowns jailed scores of Hungarians with independence in their hearts.
And she? His lover. The lit candle. Flórián’s informant believed Váradi would be assassinated tonight—by the woman. I wasn’t supposed to be here, for no one cared if Váradi died. The Budapest police were amused at my assertions but were unconcerned. Perhaps Váradi had outlived his usefulness, and an assassination would be convenient for them. But someone had to stop it. However heinous the man’s acts, he deserved fair process, not summary execution.
But the billowing snow made it almost impossible now to detect movement. And the wind was enough to cover any sound.
A sudden glow dissolved into darkness. Twenty meters north, across from the northwest corner of the square. A cigarette, shielded from the wind, cupped in a man’s bare hands, I presumed. Not for the habit of it; I knew no agents who could entertain the luxury of cigarettes. They stole too much of your time, a distraction from the life-preserving vigilance. Even so, he needed their warmth, despite the risk of being observed.
A prick of apprehension.
A tingling—in defiance of the cold, for I relished the idea of surveilling a man, something I’d not done since my Honvéd days. Now I seemed always the hunted, not the hunter.
Moving just within the park, I stayed in the cover of trees until I stood opposite him. His form was clearer now, a few centimeters taller than me, and a few years younger. His Kossuth hat was pulled down, almost covering his eyes, but I saw his brow and lashes, thick and dark, his chin sharp and clean. A military man. Too young to be Váradi. Not even thirty.
He flicked his cigarette into the snow and straightened, folding his arms across his broad chest.
He was waiting for something, watching the street, then the window.
I checked my watch. Something should be happening.
He turned his head in my direction, not fully, but enough. His face showed no expression, smooth and unnerving in its calm.
I remained motionless, hidden in the tangle of an ancient and scarred acacia, but I clutched a branch with my gloved hand, feeling my whole body poised. Ready—for what?
He was still as well, but his breath plumed in surging clouds, his tension palpable but confident.
He knew I was here.
Breathe, Máté, but slowly.
He tightened his thick arms about his chest.
The streetlamp flickered again.
Snow still falling.
Then he turned to face me and leaned back against the post.
Another moment passed.
“Talpra, magyar,” he called, just above a whisper. On your feet, Hungarian. Sándor Petőfi. From the 1848 Revolution. This young man was a nationalist. There were many passionate Hungarians in the Honvéd, but more than passionate, many were latent resisters.
I made him wait, for I took a full minute before I responded. “Talpra, magyar.”
He looked left, right, and then crossed the avenue to stand less than a meter from me. His presence was potent, challenging, and I had to fight my instinct to step back a pace.
“Honvéd,” he said.
“Ludovika.”
“Yes. I remember. But you wouldn’t remember me. I’m a few years younger.”
I leaned back against the tree, forcing an inauthentic casualness that he instantly read, for he smiled.
“You should leave, Máté. You don’t want to be involved in this.” He took a small step toward me, just a few centimeters, and shifted his weight, looking down at the snow. He met my eyes again. “You were one of the finest. This isn’t for you.”
A pistol was in his waist. How could I have missed it? My insides shrank at the realization I had been compromised—not seeing, not reading the situation. This young insurrectionist had disarmed me.
“I can’t let you.” Of course, he was my target. He was here to kill Váradi, not the lover in the window, and everything made sense, his motive, his plan, and how we both ended here on this corner in this moment, because I did remember him from Ludovika, as one remembers being observed, studied. And what, something more?
His expression changed. I expected defiance, resistance, even violence, but his face softened—sadness. “I watched you train, and I could kill you here, but I don’t want to do that. Please leave.”
I looked into his haunted eyes and knew he wouldn’t.
Another moment.
Only the steam of our breaths moving, merging in the air. He was waiting for me to say something—do something. Strangely, he seemed relaxed.
“Don’t make me,” he said, finally, and looked down, thrusting his bare hands into his coat pockets.
Movement on the street behind him. Keep him talking, Máté.
“I remember you.” The first words that sprang into my mind, and I did. He shifted in the snow and glanced up, his expression relieved, but also intense, searching.
A carriage turned onto the square and let a man out. Tall. Deliberate. Váradi. He stepped across the walk and entered the apartment building.
“What do you remember?” The assassin began kicking at the snow, but not in distraction. Waiting. He needed something from me. What?
He hadn’t seen the carriage or its passenger, but now it was coming down the street. In a moment it would be upon us, and he’d see he missed his target, forcing him to decide—forcing me to decide.
“I remember you as earnest,” I said. “The quickest in your studies. Brave. Formidable. Yet . . .”
He looked up suddenly.
I met his eyes. “You cared too much—about people—about things you couldn’t change.”
He gave a cynical snort.
The carriage.
He turned and saw.
A moment of recognition—what he’d missed—what I’d done.
I jumped upon him, knocking him to the ground. Desperate for the pistol.
But he overpowered me and rolled on top. The pistol came down across my face.
Bright lights, spinning, then darkness, then the snow falling on my face. The taste of blood in my mouth. Get up. Stop him.
I stood, staggered, then caught my balance and rushed down the snow-covered street. He was already entering the front of the building, his pistol drawn, only a few seconds behind Váradi.
I ran through the door, then climbed the stairs, two at a time. His boots above me thumped on the wooden steps as he raced upward.
But I caught up to him. Then I saw his back at a turn in the steps.
The flash of the pistol.
A deafening roar.
The bullet missed, high over my head. I moved back a few steps.
His name came to me. “Andris, don’t!”
But he was gone, leaping up the last steps. Wood smashing above.
At the top, the broken door hung from a single hinge.
The woman reclined on a chaise, almost indifferent.
Váradi at the French windows, looking for escape.
Andris, standing, pistol pointed.
I dove, hitting him low.
The pistol discharged.
Andris landed on his chest, the pistol skidding across the floor.
Váradi falling from the rail. Only a muted thump at the bottom, the snow deadening all.
Andris pushed himself up and walked slowly to the open window. He peered down into the street, his face expressionless again.
I ran to his side at the railing and looked down. Váradi lay face up in the snow, arms and legs spread, but a calm, even serene, countenance on his face. Dead. But I saw no blood. Good.
“I think your bullet missed,” I said. “Leave now. I’ll deal with the police.”
He turned to me, his face softening again. “No, Máté. I’ll not let you take the blame for this. Like I said, you’re too good for this mess.”
“There’s no blame. He fled when discovered with his lover and fell. The woman will attest.”
I turned back to her in the room. She stood now next to the chaise, holding the gun in a trembling hand.
The pistol roared—Andris stepped between us. I was on her, twisting the gun from her hand. She fell to the chaise and buried her face in a cushion.
I stood. No pain. The bullet hadn’t touched me.
But when I looked back, he sat propped against the window frame, his knees to his chest, his arms limp at his sides. A bright crimson stain bloomed on his chest.
I kneeled next to him.
“She had to.” His voice was weak, but certain. “Can’t have witnesses . . .”
I understood. She was the assassin, and he, merely the insurance, should anything go wrong. Like me. And now I was a loose end she needed to tie up. The bullet was meant for me.
“Shh. Easy, Andris.” I took his hand in a tight grip, but he gave nothing back. “All will be well.”
“I seem destined to disappoint.” His eyes saw me, then didn’t, his chest hardly moving now.
The woman had disappeared, vanished as though she had never been there. Let her go, Máté, back to some marginal existence from which she came.
When I looked back, his face was pale, his chest still, but his hand still warm, and I sensed an all-consuming emptiness that threatened my sanity again, that shouted from the blackest place in my soul there could be no justice in this world.
So, I left him there in the window, the snow falling on his lashes, because I had nowhere to take him.
✧ ✧ ✧
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.
VIRRASZTÁS (VIGIL). 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.
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