The Kvas Conspiracy
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. 10 July. Tuesday. Budapest.
12:45 p.m.
Róbert and I were relaxing in our usual spot for a summer day, en terrace, seated outside at my coffeehouse on Andrássy Avenue. We sat completely still, hoping for even the slightest breeze to break through the heavy air.
“Your observation skills just aren’t sharp, Róbert.” It was true. He was far too vain to notice much beyond clothing and shoes, but I suppose that was his business. He owned the clothier shop next door.
“Máté, we all don’t have your intellectual charm. You need to get out of your brain. Your thinking will be the death of you, or at least dampen any prospect for a spouse.”
Again with my courtship, or lack thereof, and at thirty-three, I was beginning to worry as well. “A challenge then. Let’s both look about the street from where we now sit, and the first one to observe a crime buys the other a meal at his favorite restaurant.”
Róbert reached his thin tailor’s hand across the table, and I grasped it in mine, sealing the bet.
“You know, Henrik Kugler has hired a new pastry chef from Paris. I think Gerbeaud is his name. So, we’ll be at Kugler’s for cakes and palinka. I hope that suits you.” Róbert’s false confidence didn’t diminish the delight in his grin. Even a hopeless fantasy of winning could brighten his day, at least for a moment.
I suppressed a laugh. He knew well he only saw the surface of things. Yes, he could focus when he needed, but his mind was never quite curious enough to see beyond the mundane.
For now, I pushed thoughts of Róbert from my mind and let my eyes roam among the carriages, pedestrians, and diners at the sidewalk coffeehouses. Such a mélange could hold my interest for hours, my mind and senses turning about one another, seeing connections, revealing the invisible. My brain tingled with the anticipation of discovering something.
Directly across from us was Rosenfeld Kávéház. I knew the owner well, an aged gentleman from Vienna who did everything the old way. He spent each day sitting on a stool at the bar, nose deep in Die Presse, one of a handful of Austrian newspapers now available in Budapest. And he was there today, or it appeared to be him, for his face was obscured by pages of newsprint, there but not there simultaneously. Smoke from his pipe drifted above him in a wavering line before dissolving into a blue haze that hung in the still air.
Rosenfeld’s décor exuded an air of grandeur with its bold black and gold color scheme, paying tribute to the Habsburgs, which filled him with immense pride. His sidewalk tables were packed so tightly one had to almost crawl over the laps of other patrons to be seated. And today, despite the heat, there wasn’t an empty table. The waiters maneuvered through the chairs with expert caution, determined to serve their coffee without any tragic drips.
“Look across the way. What do you see?” I asked. Time to begin our experiment. Perhaps today Róbert would surprise me.
“At Rosenfeld’s?” He drew a breath as though beginning a recitation. “People. Noisy people. A young woman at the table near the street. She’s with a man. A suitor. He’s smiling at her, charmed by her. She’s laughing, loud, fanning herself. Other people are turning toward her with stares to silence her.”
Not bad. Maybe he’s getting the hang of this, and it was true. She was noisy, more so than any of my customers. Her voice carried even above the clamor of the avenue. But, I had to push him a bit. “Yes, you hear her, but who do you see?”
“Máté, this is infuriating. There are so many, all talking, some moving, I don’t know who I see.”
“But who would be the one no one would see? Perhaps the most obvious or perhaps not.” I waited another minute but then lost my patience. “Do you see the man at the third table from the left? Large. Uncomfortable from the heat.”
“Yes. He’s giving something to the waiter, something in a jar, a liquid. Odd.” Yet, Róbert turned and started looking down the street, already losing interest.
“Watch the waiter,” I said, trying to hide my irritation.
“Okay, now the waiter is back. The big man is having soup.” The man looked as though he might suffocate, such as he was wedged between his table and a quartet of men in military uniform behind him. Apparently unnoticed by Róbert, the soup man dabbed at his lips with the black napkin, revealing a white blotch.
“Yes. And the waiter?”
“The one in the waistcoat? He set something on the table. They’re not speaking, but the man having the soup passed him something.” The waiter had taken a piece of paper from the table, and the man returned a pen to his shirt pocket. The waiter slid the paper into his waistcoat, then went to the kitchen, almost colliding with another waiter who was carrying a tray of food balanced above his head. He turned a pirouette with the tray in a beautiful dance, like a polished performer, and a few of the patrons clapped and laughed.
Róbert continued, “The other waiter is delivering lunch to Honvéd officers. They’re having szalámi and some rolls. It’s a meeting of some sort. Very serious. They’re shouting at each other and they’re less than a meter apart.” As the soup man attempted to find more space to eat, an officer at the adjacent table was bumped and stood up to adjust his chair, which allowed me to catch a glimpse of the cherry-red velvet trim on his uniform. There was a leather tube hanging on the back of his chair, the kind used for drawings and plans. They were engineers. But Róbert was distracted by the spinning waiter and had lost the trail.
“Look back at the man with the soup,” I said. The waistcoat waiter returned and took his wallet out. The man was paying for his soup.
Róbert huffed. “There’s nothing there. He’s paying his bill.”
“Watch the forints, the money.” I couldn’t see the exact amount, but unless the man had paid with an absurdly large bill, he was getting back more than he gave. I suspected Róbert missed its significance, for his expression held not a hint of curiosity. The second waiter approached the first, and after a few muted words between them, I caught the dancing waiter’s tight scowl as he turned away.
Róbert was shaking his head and frowning. I imagined he was reconciling himself to the idea of buying me a cup of coffee at Ruszwurm’s.
“The waistcoat waiter. Where is he now?”
Róbert shook his head again. “A fenébe! I’ve lost him.”
I held out my hand as if holding him back. “Wait …”
And the waistcoat waiter reappeared from behind a curtain, red-faced and distressed. He sat on a stool next to Rosenfeld, wiping his forehead with a sail of a handkerchief. When he looked up, he seemed completely distracted by the cackling young woman, her eyes peeking above the fan in her hand.
There was a clatter from the table with the soup as the man struggled to adjust his position. He glanced at the waistcoat waiter and tried to rise but found himself pinned between his table and the men behind him. His soup slid from the table to the walk with a splintering crash that turned everyone’s head.
But the woman with the fan stole the scene when she screamed, as I expected she might, and rose from her table. She put the back of her hand to her forehead and began to swoon. The man dining with her rose to catch her, but too late. She collapsed to the ground in a heap, and the coffeehouse erupted in chaos, like an opera reaching its climax. The waistcoat waiter rushed to her side, helping her back into a chair while her companion fanned her flushed face.
“And the soup man?”
Róbert just shrugged.
I pointed down the street. “There he goes. He can move quickly when the need arises.”
I stood and took a sip of my coffee. Enough of our games. I couldn’t sit by while espionage unfolded before my eyes. “Summon the police. I’ll render aid to the lady. Then we’ll have a leisurely coffee at Ruszwurm’s.”
Róbert flopped his newspaper onto the table in exasperation. As much as to say, Máté, you’ve done it again.
✧ ✧ ✧
Rosenfeld was directing everything like a nervous conductor, pacifying his customers while the police took the woman, her partner, and the waistcoat waiter into custody. The dancing waiter had turned on his accomplices, sitting at the bar and singing the entire tale to a police detective. I suspected the waistcoat waiter had cheated him of his share of the earnings, and his confession was retribution.
As we walked back to our table across Andrássy Avenue, I felt the satisfaction that justice always brings my conscience, but Róbert was buzzing like a wasp. “You’ll need to explain all this to me. I wasn’t able to follow any of what you told the police.”
And, so I did.
“The man was having soup, unusual in such oppressive weather. I wondered how it was even on the menu today. No coffeehouse would serve hot soup in July. And indeed, it wasn’t. It was a cold white soup unknown to most Hungarians. Okroshka. It’s made with kvas, a vile Russian drink. The man was Russian, and I presume he frequented Rosenfeld’s, and the chef prepared it for him alone. It was the kvas he brought in the jar for his dish, since it's unavailable anywhere in Budapest. And since he seems to have known the waiters, the chef, perhaps even Rosenfeld, he was likely a Russian official, a diplomat.
“The Honvéd quartet were engineers, and there’s only one thing they love more than building things—blowing things up. I surmised they were discussing a new military technology for demolition, something that would be valuable to the Russian agent. Eavesdropping on the officers, he captured some defense secret on the slip of paper he passed to the waistcoat waiter.”
“I noticed the soldiers were shouting, even though they were seated close together,” Róbert reminded me.
“Exactly. Their hearing may have been compromised from a recent detonation.” I placed my hand on Róbert’s forearm in a gesture of reassurance. He’d never be a detective, but he was my dearest friend and never ran out of questions, probing or less so. And there was no one else I’d want with me through these intrigues.
“The waiters were both paid for their roles—one for carrying the secrets, the other for his distracting dance. The signal came when the man dumped his soup, cuing the woman to scream and faint. As planned, when the waistcoat waiter ran to her, he passed her the note as he helped her up. She would’ve passed it to another agent quite soon—maybe a doctor or nurse, or another agent on the street—if I hadn’t intervened. Every detail, from the soup spill to the scream, was carefully orchestrated.”
“And the fainting woman? How did you know she was in on the ruse?” Róbert’s expression was clouded with confusion.
“She played a perfect part, invisible because she was so obvious. And her big moment was overacted. Anyone could see that.” Despite my desire for Róbert to see what I saw, he seemed incapable of grasping the subtext of the situation.
“And Rosenfeld?” he asked.
“He’s a nationalist, for sure, but I hear he has Russian blood. Even so, he’s too crafty to leave any evidence if he was involved.”
Róbert shook his head in irritation. “But why all the fuss? The Russian could have taken the secrets with him without all the hubbub.”
“Well, he was smart. Diplomats are closely monitored by agents to prevent just this type of affair, and he would never risk losing his diplomatic immunity. Even more, there’s the possibility of causing a diplomatic crisis with Russia. Tzar Alexander has all the crises he needs at home right now, trying to suppress the will of the Russian people. No, the diplomat needed to commit the secrets to paper and pass them off before anyone could catch him.”
We took our seats back at Café Nádasdy, but my coffee had cooled to a tepid dullness, despite the noonday heat.
“The accomplices will be jailed for a long time, and the Russian—he’ll not try this again anytime soon. It was a clever plan, but the Russian didn’t count on us.” I allowed myself the smallest smile and tapped the side of my head with my finger. “Now, let’s find some of that new Brazilian brew at Ruszwurm’s.”
But then, Rosenfeld appeared in front of us. He tossed his newspaper onto our table with a dramatic flourish. “Gentlemen. I thank you profusely for your assistance with our strange situation.” His Hungarian was perfect, but with the characteristic chop the Austrians gave to our beautiful tongue. He took his pipe from his coat pocket and lit a match to ignite the tobacco.
“I’m glad we could help, and I’d ask you to join us for some coffee, but we’re off to settle a debt.” I stood so Rosenfeld wouldn’t take a seat.
“Ah, well, I just wanted to express my outrage. Russians! Pff!” He picked up his paper and turned to the street, but a currency note slid out and fluttered to the ground under our table. I caught it under my foot and returned it to him.
He tipped his hat and dashed across the street with a surprising lightness, the spicy scent of his pipe wafting behind him. As I watched him go, a suspicion lingered. He always played the blithering old man, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was pulling some of the strings from behind his newspaper.
“Generous of him, wasn’t it? Offering to compensate us for our trouble?” Róbert smiled at his own wit.
“Generous? Only if he mistook us for Russians. That was a ruble he dropped!”
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 KVAS CONSPIRACY. Text copyright © 2024 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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