Nikoletta
A Nádasdy Short
At thirty-three, 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 found 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’s drawn to helping others with their problems and set things right. His friend Róbert, who owned the clothier’s next door, often helped, though he struggled to keep up with Máté’s quick mind.
1888. 26 September. Wednesday. Budapest.
12:45 p.m.
Róbert was lingering near a fruit stand, feigning interest in a sack of figs, while I was rapt in an intense negotiation for some apples. “I need two bushels of the húsvéti rozmaring, delivered to the café. And use the back door.”
The Easter Rosemary apple was my favorite because it delivered a satisfactory balance of sweet and sour, perfect for our almás pite, a traditional Hungarian apple tart. But the din of the market made it impossible to understand the apple monger. He was nodding as he spoke, so I took that as a “yes.” But I was jostled by someone moving behind me, and I almost toppled into the cart of apples. I turned to see the back of a large woman bustling down the aisle between the stalls, ignorant of who or what she was bumping along the way. The apple seller smiled and gave an apologetic shrug.
“I need to return to the shop, Máté.” Róbert was back at my side, pulling on my arm. My café and his clothier shop shared a wall, and we’d become inseparable friends over the past few years. A brisk five-minute stroll from our businesses on Andrássy Avenue, Hunyadi Square was flourishing as an open-air market. But the vendors hated the rain in the spring, the heat in the summer, and so on, so the city was planning a large market hall to be built across the street.
It was then I heard the scream. I stopped and looked around. And then, again. A woman’s scream. A cry for help.
“Over there!” Róbert pointed across the dense clot of people in an area clear of stalls. Children were running and playing there. Adults were chatting in small groups, oblivious to the screams.
“She’s gone!” she cried, and now I saw a woman with a pram. She was frantic, turning left and right in the chaos.
I rushed between the stalls, pushing people aside as I hurried toward her.
She saw me and started shouting, “Someone took my baby!”
My heart was already pounding in my ears, my eyes moving fast around the crowd. “Your child! What was she wearing?”
She reached out and grabbed my coat sleeve. “I only turned a second and she was gone. She was wrapped in a white blanket.”
Then I realized she was but a girl, not even twenty years old.
“You go, Máté. I’ll stay with her and summon the police.” Róbert had arrived just as I caught sight of a commotion on the far side of the square, a ripple of movement, voices calling out.
I darted through the crowd. People shouted and swore as I pushed them aside. A man tried to grab me, but I pulled away and pushed harder through the press of people.
Near the commotion, a vendor stood with his cart upset. Potatoes spilled onto the ground, and he was shooing people away while collecting his goods. When he saw me, he took off his cap and waved south across Kemniczi Street.
I saw him then. A young man. No, a boy. A full head shorter than me. He dashed down the walk carrying a bundle. It was the baby, for she shifted in his arms as he ran, and he had a dagger in his hand, its blade catching the sun.
I knew if he made it away, we’d never find the little girl. The kidnapper glanced back and turned south, down Vörösmarty Street. I sprinted across the street and through another clot of people, following him around the corner. Despite the coolness, sweat soaked my shirt.
He was a block ahead now. Running straight south, staying on Kemniczi Street. He intended to outrun me, a grave miscalculation, for I could run mint a szél, like the wind.
I pushed myself, my legs burning with effort, my breath coming in gasps. And in another block, I was upon him. I fell forward and tackled the boy, pulling him to the ground. The knife skidded across the walk, and the bundle flew from his arms. And then the soft thud of its impact. A jolt of fear shot through my veins. And I heard crying.
But it was the boy. He wasn’t over twelve. “I’m sorry, mister. We was hungry is all.” He’d turned over, and I looked into his dirty face streaked with tears. His chin had scraped the walk and was bleeding.
And there, spread across the ground next to him were a dozen potatoes. The blanket, nothing but an old flower sack, lay next to them. My heart sank. Máté, your haste led you to chase a boy and rescue . . . a sack of potatoes!
✧ ✧ ✧
12:55 p.m.
Back at the market, it seemed the crowd had already forgotten the disturbance, for people were bustling about like before, perhaps even more so. I found Róbert and the girl sitting on a bench next to a stand that sold pickled vegetables. The pram sat sadly at their side. A crumpled white blanket lay inside with a small white bonnet.
“Where’s the police?” I asked.
“I fetched an officer, and she sent him away. Said a relative must have taken the baby for the afternoon.” Róbert avoided my eyes, such was his disgust with the matter.
“Are you afraid of the police? There’s little hope of finding the child without them.” My voice sounded sterner than I intended. I didn’t want to frighten the girl, but why would she refuse the police’s help?
“We can’t,” she said, not meeting my eyes, and she started to hold out a piece of paper, but pulled it back, hesitating, then finally handed it to me. She looked more impatient than frightened.
“She found it in the pram.” Róbert slouched back on the bench, looking weary.
I unfolded the note.
Baby is going to a safe place. No police or she dies. The Vérfüst Szövetség.
“The Bloodsmoke Pact. Their reputation is vile,” I said and feared the worst for the child. Criminal organizations had only recently begun to flourish, a symptom of Budapest’s rapid growth, and the police struggled to control them.
“Please don’t call the police. Mr. Takács, the baby’s father, he wouldn’t want that,” she pleaded. Still, she never raised her eyes to mine.
The baby’s father? An odd way to put it, and I looked at Róbert.
He cleared his throat. “She’s not the mother. She’s the nursemaid.” He was still looking off into the crowd, pretending distraction, which he did when he thought a situation hopeless.
“What do you make of this, ‘Baby is going to a safe place’?” I asked her.
“I don’t know, but I’ll lose my job, and I’ve only just started in their employ.” The girl’s ink-black hair framed her thin face. Her eyes, the color of absinthe, were wide and bright, but not with fear, with something more complex.
Yet, I would not be put off. I folded the note, thrust it into my pocket, and took her hands in mine. Finally catching her eyes, I asked, “What’s your name?”
“Laura.”
“Laura. You will take us to the child’s parents, but first we must enlist some help.”
✧ ✧ ✧
1:30 p.m.
At Andrássy Avenue, I caught a newsboy, and for a few zehner, he agreed to deliver a message to Flórián asking for his help in finding the child. Flórián and I had served together in the Hungarian national army, the Honvéd, but our lives took different paths from there. He prided himself on having risen to the top of the petty criminal hierarchy, and more pertinent now, he had an unmatched familiarity with Budapest’s nefarious elements.
North, across the avenue, Budapest had swelled, and apartment blocks grew up like crops in a field, neat row upon neat row, occupied by the new elite, not those born with money or title. This was the decade when men made fortunes in business, speculation, and construction. It seemed one’s investments were doubling and tripling every year.
The family lived in one of these new buildings, their apartment sprawling across the second floor of a structure that occupied an entire block. A doorman in green livery opened the door for us, and we entered a foyer; its only role to introduce a grand staircase leading up to the double doors of their apartment suite. The building itself had several more floors above, but the poorer tenants entered through a less grand staircase in the back.
Inside, Laura began blurting out bits and pieces of the story to a woman in a housekeeper’s uniform. “Oh, Anja, a horrible thing has happened! Nikoletta’s been taken.”
The housekeeper’s face distorted in shock, clutching her hands to her chest.
“I’m Máté Nádasdy and this is my friend Róbert Nagy. We need to speak to the baby’s parents immediately.”
The woman looked at us, shocked by the news, and not sure what to make of the two strange men at her doorstep. She took a breath to compose herself. “I’ll show you to the parlor. You can wait there for Mrs. Takács.”
Once in the parlor, the housekeeper departed, sliding the pocket doors closed with a thunk. Róbert and I stood in the center of the room, awkward with the suddenness of the women’s departure. The room was decorated with new things, new art, new furniture, new rug, all signs of newly acquired wealth.
I walked to the window and looked down to the street in time to see the doorman rush away, no doubt to summon someone. The alarm had been sounded. Good.
“What’s going on here, Máté?” Róbert asked.
“I’m not sure, but there’s something awry. If Nikoletta wasn’t taken for ransom, then why? Merely to hurt the family? And why the comment about a safe place? Was Nikoletta in danger here and she was taken away to safety? We need to find the pieces of this puzzle fast. Children can disappear to vapor in this city. I’ve seen it before.”
Róbert began fidgeting with his cufflinks, a habit he had when his mind was working. “There is something about Laura, something that doesn’t set right.”
“I sensed it as well.”
“Her grief seems somehow contrived, but I shouldn’t speculate since I can’t say why I feel that way.”
“Trust your instincts, but also be careful, for the facts we tend to see often confirm our notions while obscuring what might tell another story.” Despite my advice to Róbert, I berated myself for my impetuosity. And though I could reason as well as anyone, I felt most alive when I allowed my instincts to drive me into the fray.
The doors slid open.
“Mrs. Takács will see you, but only briefly. I’ve sent for Mr. Takács at the courts.” A young woman in a nurse’s uniform pushed a wheelchair into the room.
The mother’s face was pale and drawn, her skin thin and dry. In other days, she would have been beautiful. The structure of her face, her nose, her chin, maintained the balance one sees in Raphael’s portraits. Her hair shone dark and thick, drawing out her mahogany eyes shrouded by drooping lids, but her face showed little emotion. Only her eyes moved, watching Róbert and me as the nurse wheeled her into the sun by the window. It was difficult, even in the light, to set her age, but she couldn’t be older than thirty.
“I can speak, sir. My infirmity hasn’t yet destroyed my mind. Tell me what has happened.” Her voice sounded thin, her words slurred, the consonants flattened to mere flutters between her vowels.
Between the market and the apartment, I’d prepared myself to deliver terrible news to Nikoletta’s mother, but I hadn’t prepared for the woman to be so infirm. How could I crush the heart of someone already so burdened with illness?
“Since she was married five years ago, Mrs. Takács has been afflicted with paralysis.” The nurse folded her arms across her chest, as if nothing more need be said.
“I implore you. Speak.” Mrs. Takacs’s eyes, weak and wet, never left my face.
“I’m afraid your child has been taken,” I said. Despite her immobility, the pain visibly crushed her and her head fell forward, her eyes closing.
The sobs began in waves and her chest heaved at each breath, but her arms, her legs never moved. The nurse was at her side, kneeling, taking her limp hand. “There, ma’am, they’ll find her. Lieutenant Nádasdy finds things, he has. They talk of him all about town.”
“It is hopeless. I shall die now the light has passed from my life.” Mrs. Takács finally moved her arms, wrapping them about her chest. “I shall never hold her again, smell the scent of her hair, hear her coo.”
Laura came into the room, and I told the story with the help of the girl, suppressing my empathy. How else can anyone endure the pain of others in moments like this? It would tear me apart, and it has, so I retreated to my place of usefulness, the curious mind.
“Laura, do you and the child go to the market often.”
She seemed startled by the question. “Yes. Every Wednesday and Friday.”
“Did you notice anyone following you today?”
She paused and thought, turning her head ever so. “No, but I wouldn’t even think to notice. I’ve always felt safe there.”
Mrs. Takács was silent now, but her breathing rasped, labored from her crying. “Why would someone take her, an innocent baby?” she asked, her eyes imploring me for an answer.
“That’s what we must find out. It’s the only way we’ll find Nikoletta.” I paused, removed the note from my pocket and read it to her. “We found it in the pram. What did the kidnapper mean, ‘Baby is going to a safe place’?”
Mrs. Takács didn’t have the energy to even shake her head, instead she closed her eyes again and said, “Leave me to my grief, Lieutenant. I don’t wish to hear more.”
“I think that’s enough, sir. You should wait for Mr. Takács.” The nurse rose and went to stand by the door, intending us to step into the foyer.
I walked over to the wheelchair and got down on one knee to find Mrs. Takács’s eyes. After taking her hand, I asked, “Was Nikoletta’s life here difficult?”
“I—I am not a mother.” Her face looked tired, depleted.
“But her life was happy. You have help here.” It was a question as much as a statement.
Then I heard the front door open and a young man of perhaps thirty-five years rushed into the room. He was wearing the black robe of a prosecutor, accented with the red and gold of the Habsburg empire. His brow was drenched in sweat and his eyes were frantic with fear.
“I came right from court. What has happened, my love?”
I explained the situation to Takács and read him the note, and he collapsed into an armchair and dropped his face into his hands.
After a moment, he lifted his head. “The Vérfüsts, one of their leaders was sentenced today. I directed the prosecution.”
“You believe they would take your daughter?”
“Oh, yes. I know they would seek to harm me.” He stood and turned to the empty fireplace, wringing his hands. “What a horrid thing! My vocation has brought this on us. Their leader murdered his own sister-in-law and her child as retribution, so to kill a baby is nothing to them.”
I remembered the case. An article appeared in the dailies a few months ago. A mother was pushing her pram through the gardens at the Városliget when she and her baby were shot and killed under the noonday sun, a horrific act.
Mrs. Takács stirred in her chair and looked at the prosecutor. “We spoke of the risks with your profession. But you said it would never come back to us, that our lives here were private, unassailable. How wrong we were!” Her voice had grown quiet with anger.
I turned back to Mr. Takács. “But why take the girl without making a demand, a ransom, or even the release of their leader? And the promise of the child’s safety. Something is not right about it. I insist we involve the police.”
“No! They will murder her. They said so, and they will. You cannot fully grasp the heinous potential of these people, but I know them. We cannot involve the police.” Takács walked to the mantel to stare at a framed picture of Nikoletta, his eyes vacant, his face defeated. “We’re trapped, unable to do what we know we must. So, we must do what we can.”
Mrs. Takács lifted her chin and looked at her husband. “I agree. If there is hope, we must try. But why are we to trust this lieutenant? You are part of our justice system, and you’re suggesting we forego the resources they could bring to finding Nikoletta.”
I interrupted, “As soon as we have her safe, we’ll bring the full power of the law to hold them accountable.” Then I paused, considering my next words. “I have a friend I’ve asked for help. Not the police. He’s well connected to criminal elements in the city, and he’ll learn the whereabouts of your daughter without risking her safety.”
Takács turned to me. His eyes seemed expectant, his grief arrested for the moment. “You sound so certain, believing a street hoodlum can help! Don’t play with us, Lieutenant. I won’t have you give us a fool’s hope.”
“I wouldn’t do that. But I must ask some questions. I’m still struggling to understand the motive of the kidnappers. If, indeed, you are correct, and their motive is to inflict emotional pain, then we must move with haste, for I fear their promise to keep Nikoletta safe is but a ruse to keep you away.”
Of course, there was another question in the air, one I needed to ask, but sometimes a well-worded statement makes the best query. “Nikoletta is only a year old, and I’m to understand your wife has been ill for some time.”
Takács looked to his wife, then down at the floor. When he lifted his eyes, his voice was direct, simple, unashamed. “Nikoletta is adopted.”
“I suspected that.” I thought it unlikely Mrs. Takács could bear a child, but I hoped for the opposite, for I was an orphan as well, yet unadopted. Now the case became personal, unearthing emotions I’d kept buried deep inside. Even Róbert was unaware of the specifics of my childhood, only that it was a source of pain and not to be discussed.
“Yes, Lieutenant. I cannot have children, yet we longed for a family, and we arranged it to be so.” For the first time, Mrs. Takács showed the intense resolve that must have been a daily part of her existence.
“From where did the child come?”
“From one of the municipal orphanages. I forget the details. The point is she has every comfort now, and a life of which every child would dream.”
“I don’t doubt your love for the child or your ability to—”
“Lieutenant, isn’t there someplace we should be looking right now? Something else we could do besides talk?” Takács’s impatience was testing me, his overbearing manner triggering my longstanding difficulties with authority figures which stemmed from my time in the Honvéd. Then I felt Róbert on my arm, a gentle reminder to keep my temper in check. I couldn’t forget our goal: finding Nikoletta.
“May I take that photograph of her?” I asked.
He took the frame from the mantle and handed it to me.
“She’s beautiful,” I said. “Her hair seems golden, like flax.”
“Auburn, actually,” he said, his face softening now.
I slid the photograph from the frame and put it inside my coat. “We’ll be back tonight with news.”
✧ ✧ ✧
7:35 p.m.
It was already dark when Róbert and I found Flórián waiting for us on a corner by the market, his foppish hat set at a jaunty angle.
I showed him the photograph in the streetlamp’s light, and he smiled and nodded.
“So you’ve seen her?”
“We have your babe in a safe location over in Erzsébet District. ”
The weight of the child’s safety lifted from me. It was as if I’d been carrying the burden alone, which was untrue. Many loved her and would be destroyed if she were hurt. Yet, I felt something for this child who I’d never met. “But the Vérfüsts? How did you negotiate her release?”
“It wasn’t the Vérfüsts. It was some young chap who sells leather goods at that market. We asked some questions and a witness gave him up for a few forints, which you now owe me.” He grinned, self-satisfied.
“But who’s this leathermonger?” I asked.
“He says he’s the girl’s father, and I have no reason to doubt him. He shrank away when we threatened the police, surrendering the child to be returned. Beautiful green eyes, she has.”
If the leathermonger was indeed Nikoletta’s father, then who was her mother? In that moment, the tumblers clicked into place and the answer was clear.
I looked at Róbert, but his eyes were still dull with confusion. “Come,” I said. “We have to hurry back to the Takács home to catch the other half of this ruse.”
✧ ✧ ✧
8 p.m.
Despite his protests, Mr. Takács had everyone assembled in the same parlor from earlier in the day. Mrs. Takács, her eyes puffy and drawn, sat in her chair now placed by the fire that blazed in the hearth. Her hands smoothed a small white bonnet she held in her lap. Mr. Takács stood next to her, his hand resting on her shoulder in a protective, almost paternal gesture. Laura and the nurse stood by the divan. The nurse wore a defiant expression, as if daring me to upset her ward again. Laura only stared at the carpet.
“Lieutenant. Enough theatrics. Tell us what you’ve learned!” Takács’s complexion was pale with fear.
I waited a moment until everyone was done shifting, then said, plainly, “Nikoletta is safe. She’s on her way here as we speak.”
The still room broke into a cacophony of voices. Sighs, tears, relief, guarded smiles. Except for Laura, whose face washed of color.
“Explain yourself. Where is she? Who kidnapped her?” Takács took a step toward me, but I held up my hand. His anger and frustration threatened to boil over.
“As I said, your daughter’s safe and she is on her way here. But first, Laura, may I see your cap?” She had exchanged the poke bonnet from the market for a simple uniform cap made of clean white linen, even better for my purposes.
When our eyes met, I saw fear there, and shame, and she dashed for the door. But I had asked the doorman to lock it once we were all inside, so she shook the handles in an impotent gesture, then fell to the floor sobbing.
“See here, Nádasdy. I’ll not have you upsetting a member of our household!” Takács moved again toward me, and again I held up my hand.
I said, “Just a little more patience, sir,” and to Laura, “Your cap, please.”
She held it out, and there inside the brim were the remnants of an oak gall dye, black as night, with the musty smell of a forest.
“Laura has a secret. She came to your employment under a false pretense. You see, she’s Nikoletta’s mother. She’s dyed her hair to conceal the resemblance, but the eyes. Her eyes gave her away. And while I don’t know the details, I can surmise much. She is unmarried and offered her baby for adoption, her only choice.”
The room was silent, and even Laura had stopped crying. Instead, she looked at me, her face showing the relief brought by the truth, and I couldn’t help but imagine my mother and the heartbreaking decisions she likely faced. Takács’s face turned scarlet with anger, but he held his words.
I walked to Laura. “But motherhood is a strong bond, and you missed Nikoletta dearly, so you somehow found who had adopted the baby, and you came to work here. A marvelous plan, really. You would be with Nikoletta every day. But it wasn’t enough. In fact, you found being near was even more heart breaking than knowing nothing of your child’s life.”
Laura looked to the floor again, but I offered my hand to her, and when she stood, her posture was taller, more resolved.
“I wish we had known.” Takács appeared moved, his face softening. “I don’t know what we would have done, yet . . .”
Mrs. Takács’s tone turned almost maternal. “Oh, you poor dear! I knew you came to us from a difficult situation, and I even suspected you might have had a child, but why hurt us like this?”
“I don’t believe she intended to hurt you, at least not at first. Tell us, Laura.”
“We love each other, but we couldn’t marry. He’s Jewish and I’m Christian, and his family forbid it. They even insisted he wasn’t the father, so the baby went to the orphanage. But I couldn’t live without her, so I found out about the adoption and came to work here. And I would stroll with the baby at the market so her father could see her, and he fell in love with her, as I had, so we made a plan. He was to take Nikoletta during today’s market visit, and I would meet him later tonight at the train station. Then we’d be off to Vienna to a new life.”
I continued, “You wrote the note, using information you’d overheard from Mr. Takács, to dissuade us from summoning the police. Then you came back with us from the market to deflect suspicion, at least temporarily. But framing the Vérfüsts as the culprits seemed too convenient and too dangerous, the work of an amateur, and even more, the words in the note were confusing in their intent. Who would steal the baby, then promise to keep her safe? Not someone who wished evil.”
“Yes. But this afternoon, I understood the pain I’d caused, that they love her too, that this might even be a better home for her, and now I’m so ashamed I want to die.”
Then the doors opened, and two police officers strode in. One, a sergeant, was holding a tattered valise. “You left this in the alley, miss.”
“I took the liberty of summoning the police when we arrived,” I said. “And the leathermonger?”
The sergeant smiled and nodded. “Aye, we caught him at the train station, just as you said. He’s at headquarters now being questioned.”
Takács seemed shaken. “Wait, Officer. I’m a royal prosecutor. We have much to be settled in this situation.”
The sergeant clasped his hands behind his back and puffed his chest a bit. “Then you’ll understand better than any that we have our duties to perform. Now, let us do our jobs, then you can do yours.”
Mrs. Takács’s head straightened. “But this is a complicated affair without a simple resolution.”
The other officer began locking the girl in a pair of handcuffs. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Takács, we’ll treat her proper, and we’ll be getting all of your statements, so you’ll have your say.”
And then the door opened once more and Flórián entered with the baby, and the entire room, officers included, breathed an audible sigh.
✧ ✧ ✧
9:35 p.m.
Róbert and I strolled back to my coffeehouse down the bustle of Andrássy Avenue. The gaslights cast a cheerful glow on the evening diners still enjoying the fall weather.
“You are lucky this case didn’t end with you delivering another sack of potatoes,” Róbert said, his tone tired but his eyes sharp.
“Yes. My nature is to act, sometimes before the facts are known,” I admitted, running a hand over my face. “But in this case, haste served us well—though it could just as easily been a catastrophe. If we must wait for perfect proof, we might never act.”
“What will happen to Laura?” he asked.
“I suspect Mr. Takács will use his influence to obtain some clemency for her. Mrs. Takács appeared wholly sympathetic. I wouldn’t be surprised if Laura maintained some kind of relationship with the household. Now, the leathermonger? I wouldn’t speculate on his fate, but the prosecutor seems a fair man, and I think he’ll do what’s in his power to help him.”
“That’ll create an odd arrangement, a child with two mothers.” Róbert screwed up his face. He was never one for unconventionality.
“And two fathers. Life is seldom simple. When it appears so, there’s almost always something concealed.”
“Laura must learn to live with the consequences of her choices, even if it means she won’t have the time she deserves with her child.”
“Yes, they’ll all need to learn how to make their new family work.”
We walked in silence the rest of the way to the café, and despite the busyness of the avenue, our thoughts were heavy with the emotion of the day. And I thought, for a second time that day, about my mother who I never knew but condemned, and at times even hated. Indeed, I had nothing from my childhood, no blanket or bonnet, and no memories, as though they’d somehow been purged from my brain. Even so, I was struck by a more generous spirit in me, not love, but perhaps some peace, and that’s where I let my mind rest as we strolled the avenue that night.
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.
NIKOLETTA. 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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