Ouyang had a gift for foreign languages, or so I heard. For my part, never did I hear him speak a well-formed, complete sentence, not in English, French, Italian, or anything. His Cantonese was “funny” too, reputedly, but no one ever told me how. “Just funny,” Ksenja said, “I can’t explain it.” Nonetheless, at every conference, dinner, meeting, anything, he always looked attentive, both to us and to our guests, in English, Russian, what-have-you, and even in our native Magyar tongue. His notes—those notes!—were in some godforsaken chicken scratch, I couldn’t name the script; I’d ask his thoughts from time to time, and he’d just say, “Igen.”

I don’t know why I picked him when I had to leave. I knew that Ksenja had the hots for me, the way she leaned in close and looked up with a piercing glare, but she was finishing her thesis, looking forward to a future in diplomacy. To drag her in would be unfair. I thought of making love to her before I left, but time was short, and anyway, did I deserve a woman? No, I’d fucked up hard this time, and anyone I took or even talked to had to be expendable.

I tiptoed to his dorm room in the night and tapped as lightly as I could. I found him at his desk, awake and dressed. He smelled like he’d been smoking. “Auf,” I said, “wir gehen.” All he did was nod and shove his papers in his bag. I handed him a pistol.

I still remember every detail, as if it was yesterday. It seemed too easy. Never had I seen the streets of Pest so still, no lingerers or drunks, as if for once the people of Belváros had agreed upon a reasonable bedtime. Mist across the Danube. Buda peaking through the fog. And for a moment I was sorry to be leaving. “Go,” said Ouyang, “gyorsan, gyorsan.” He was right. Too late now for regrets.

Our train was just on time. I knew some guys in Novi Sad, Zadar, and Cyprus: uncles, cousins, uncles’ friends, in any case, good Magyars, and in times like these, I trusted him for that alone. “How stupid,” Ouyang grumbled as the unmarked car pulled in. I looked askance. “What do you mean?” I asked, but he just shook his head.

The inside of the train was blacker than the night. I lit a cigarette by instinct: Ouyang grabbed and crushed it with his thumb. I let him drink my flask of Pálinka. The ride stretched on for hours. Slowly, slits of daylight pierced the car. We ducked beneath them.

And then a halt. Some shouting. Serbian. I didn’t get a word. Then flashlights through the slits and right into my eyes. Shit, shit. Now banging on the walls. I clutched my pistol through my coat. But Ouyang clasped my wrist, got up, and stepped right out. The daylight flooded in. Some mumbling: who was speaking? Ouyang or the guards? In either case, he flashed some papers—God knows what—and within minutes, we were off again. My heart kept racing hours after. Finally, my voice came back from underneath a lump in my throat, and I whispered, “Thank you. What’d you tell them?” Ouyang shook his head.

The hours stretched on. So much left unresolved. We were so young, and yet we’d seen so many faces for the last time, probably. I thought of colleagues back in Pest. I thought of friends, professors, co-conspirators.
I tried to picture Ksenja’s sex. All flowery and full, or probably. The way she pulled me close that time: it made sense that her sex would be the fuller sort. I’d never know.

I must have lost myself, because my memory picks up with Ouyang snapping in my face. The train had stopped now, sure enough. The daylight filled the car. It seemed that God or Satan could be waiting in the station, one or both.

Ouyang went first again, ducking under the slats and dropping into the open air. I heard boots on gravel, murmurs in a Slavic tongue—Croat, maybe? My nerves pricked like needles. A single misstep would undo us.

But Ouyang—Ouyang bowed his head, let his arms hang loose, and stepped forward as if he were nothing more than a courier late for supper. He did not raise his voice, did not lower it either. His words were a hum, like bees pressed into the rhythm of their language, uncanny in their naturalness. He had no accent now. I swear he did not. They chuckled. The guards chuckled! One of them slapped him on the back, too hard, and Ouyang rocked like a reed in a river current. But he smiled, toothless, servile. A shuffle of boots, a bark of laughter, and then they turned away.

When he came back, I wanted to ask. I wanted to know what tongue he had borrowed, what lie he had woven, but I saw the lines around his eyes, the tension in his jaw, and said nothing. He simply gestured for me to follow, and we slipped into the station’s shadow until the train wheezed to life again.

The next stop was not so kind.

I knew, even before the brakes screeched, that something had shifted. Perhaps it was the way Ouyang stiffened beside me, or the way the air felt suddenly thinner, harder to draw into my lungs. Soldiers, real ones this time, boarded with rifles slung loose but hands too near the triggers. Their boots struck the metal floor like hammers.

Ouyang rose again, calm as before. But now their eyes pinned him, and their words were fast, clipped, angry. He reached into his coat. My heart failed me. The pounding in my chest was louder than their voices. I thought he was too slow. I thought they were about to shoot.

So I stood, I pulled the pistol, and I barked a word I barely understood in their tongue. It came out mangled, nasal, a parody of command. One of them laughed—laughed—and the other swung his rifle up.

The gun went off. Mine or his, I couldn’t tell. Then the whole car erupted—shouts, glass, echoes of metal striking metal. Ouyang shouted something, I think to me, but I couldn’t hear. His hands were out, open, or maybe reaching. Another shot. Blood sprayed—not mine, not his? I couldn’t tell.

I ducked. I fired again, maybe twice. Someone screamed.

Then silence, except for the train’s engine coughing like a dying beast. Smoke hung low. I could not see the soldiers. I could not see Ouyang. Only the light, blinding through the slats, waiting for me to step into it.