by Reevik, Carl
There had just been a short message from her father, sent in the afternoon.
My dear Anneli, I will not ask for your help anymore. They think it was your dead colleague, please let’s keep it that way. You know nothing, and the donors will not use my services anymore either. Kisses to you and the boys. Goodbye.
She had smiled in disbelief, spat out the toothpaste foam into the kitchen sink, turned off the laptop and hurried to join her husband. The laptop had powered down for the rest of the night, to sit idly on the kitchen table next to a pile of papers. The topmost sheet had been the letter she’d received only that morning.
Dear Ms Villefranche, It is my pleasure to inform you that, on the basis of your application file and your interview, your candidacy has been accepted. You will be employed at the European Commission’s department for communication with the citizens as of 1 June. Please contact me to arrange for a visit before that date, so we can choose an office for you at our building in the Luxembourg-Kirchberg district. Kind regards, Louise Chevalier, Head of Unit.
Anneli had e-mailed her father about the letter right away, then she hadn’t heard from him all day, and now he’d written her that long-awaited e-mail of his own.
What a day. And what a week. Tomorrow she would call her father to seal their agreement that it was finally all over. That the burden was gone. And what comforted her even more than the relief itself was the fact that she hadn’t just abandoned her father. It had turned out that he had managed to end it from his side, too. She would leave her post at atomic energy with a clear conscience, while her father had apparently reached some kind of understanding with his associates. Some agreement. Some last compromise. Tomorrow she would call him to find out what exactly it was.
Anneli closed her eyes again, embracing her son with one arm. She grinned a little, not in a smirk but in a mute giggle. Stavros Theodorakis will hang himself when he’ll hear the news on Monday, she thought. In less than two months from now he’ll be presiding over a unit with only two out of six posts actually filled.
She heard her husband whisper to her son, ‘Hey Matti, come over here in the middle.’
The boy heard it, moved over Anneli’s body and squeezed into the narrow gap between his parents. Anneli made some space by moving closer to the bed’s edge again. She turned around to face her husband and her son, who was now lying on his back, trying to cuddle with both his parents simultaneously.
Her husband’s eyes were open. ‘Good night, Anneli,’ he whispered.
She smiled, reached over and raked her fingers through his hair.
‘I love you,’ she whispered back. He took her hand and gently kissed her palm.
‘I love you, too.’ He smiled and closed his eyes.
Their son was breathing calmly.
She looked at both of them for a few more moments in the gloom. Then she closed her eyes as well.
Berlin, Germany
Pavel walked down the spacious avenue in the bright morning sun. It was the main thoroughfare running in a perfectly straight line from the west, through the lush parkland of the Tiergarten, through the Brandenburg gate and, after a bend, up to Alexanderplatz in the east. He passed a crowd of tourists who were just getting off their coach to take pictures. He checked for reflections in its windshield. He kept walking past the trees of the Tiergarten to his right until he had reached the granite plaza and turned right, slowly taking the steps up to the monument. There were about fifteen people on the plaza, most were taking pictures.
‘Good morning Mister Hoffmann,’ Pavel said as he stopped next to the man who was looking up to the statue. He himself looked up as well.
It was the old Soviet monument to the unknown soldier. A towering granite pedestal flanked by a pair of tanks and a pair of artillery pieces. A giant bronze soldier stood on top of the pedestal, his face partly obscured by the shadow from his helmet, his hand extended down as if trying to reach out to the living. A monument installed by a victorious nation to remind Berliners of the millions who had been shot and crushed and blown to pieces during the great bloodshed. When they had built the Wall to divide the city, the monument had been effectively a patch of East Berlin protruding into the West. The wreaths at the base of the monument were still fresh. They were from the German government and the Russian embassy, laid there in a joint ceremony to mark the anniversary of the end of the war. With early May came the remembrance, and the hope.
‘Good morning Pavel.’
They said nothing for a while. They were both looking up, facing the monument and the clear blue sky. The soldier was lit by the sunlight, although his face and helmet and heavy coat remained the same dark bronze they always were.
Pavel said, ‘Thank you for taking the Estonian’s phone. And for helping me out in Luxembourg.’
‘Who is the real Zayek?’
Pavel waited for a moment. ‘He was a man from Bulgaria who had passed a European job competition five years ago.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘You saw the so-called spy in Luxembourg,’ Pavel said. ‘Would you kill anybody to install a man like that?’ He paused. ‘No, the real Boris Zayek just died in something unfortunate that had nothing to do with Luxembourg. But his identity and his place on the reserve list were still fine. We just needed to find someone very quickly at the time. Also to see whether it would work at all.’
‘What was the unfortunate thing that killed the real one in Bulgaria?’
‘One of our embassy cars in Sofia ran him over. He died on the spot. An accident, but we used it. Our people put him in the boot, drove him for three hours to the Danube, chopped his head and his hands off, and dumped him in the river.’
Hoffmann let out some air through his mouth, the thin stream of air formed into a little melody by his lips, not strong enough for an actual whistle.
He asked, ‘So why did you do the Luxembourg thing now?’
‘Romanian police dug him out last month. We had to assume it’s him. At some point someone will make the connection. A DNA test matched to samples from missing persons or from their blood relatives. First in Romania, then in other countries. Our useless guy in the Commission would have been lost anyway, but that way at least we could scare them all a little. And I think we did. You and I, we did.’
They stood in silence for a while. A pigeon had sat down on the soldier’s helmet.
Pavel turned away to face Hoffmann, and asked, ‘Did this Commission man Tienhoven really die of a heart attack?’
‘Yes he did.’
Pavel looked back up to the soldier. The pigeon had flown away.
He asked, ‘Do you want to work for us, Hoffmann?’
Hoffmann lowered his eyes. Below the soldier, on the granite pedestal, shone the golden emblem of the old Soviet Union. A star, oars of wheat, a sun rising. A hammer and sickle imposed on a globe. ‘No. Do you want to work for us?’
Pavel took a breath, relaxing his lips. ‘The world hasn’t changed much, has it?’
Hoffmann didn’t reply.
‘Goodbye Hoffmann.’
Pavel walked away, turning into the avenue and heading back the way he’d come.
***
Hoffmann kept standing right where he was, looking up to the bronze soldier. ‘Did you hear it?’
‘Yes Frank, I did.’ Hans came to stand next to Hoffmann, taking a wireless earphone out of his left ear. ‘The real Zayek has parents in Bulgaria. For five years they had no idea where he was. Not dead, not alive.’
‘You want to let them know?’ Hoffmann already knew the answer.
‘Let the German embassy in Sofia request the Romanian police file and give it to the Bulgarian authorities. Thank you.’
Hoffmann nodded. Then he looked at him. ‘See you, Hans.’
‘See you.’
Hoffmann turned around and walked away. Hans didn’t move, and looked up to the statue.
Beyond the monument, beyond the green treetops, the mighty glass cupola of the German parliament buildi
ng was shining in the bright glow. The German colours and the blue European flag with its golden stars were flying at the entrance. Families, tourists, business travellers and visiting students from abroad were queuing to get a chance to walk around the cupola, and to see the city from above. To see the streets, the landmarks, and the countryside somewhere in the far distance.
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The author
Carl Reevik is the pen name of a Brussels insider who wrote several books on EU law and policy. The Last Compromise is his debut novel.
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The author