by Joseph Kanon
He stood for a minute, not sure what to do. The soldier was still looking at him. Play it out. The story was everything now. He’d wait for her. He arranged his face, concerned and annoyed, as if he still expected to see someone walk through the hall. He stood against the wall, giving it a few minutes, waiting for the soldier to move away. Then he picked up the canvas bag and headed toward the door, away from the ticket windows. His father would never be late. Something had happened again. For a second Nick was angry-why put him through this? Was he supposed to go back to the hotel, wait for the next plan? But all this was just pushing away the dread. He saw his father’s face outside the concert hall, tense with worry.
Outside, he got into a taxi. If something was wrong, he should avoid him, wait for the right time. But he couldn’t.
“ Namesti sovetskych tankistu,” he said, almost blurting it out. The driver looked at him-had he mispronounced it, or was it too unlikely a destination? — but put the car in gear. Nick lit a cigarette, trying to calm his shakiness, and watched the streets as they started down the hill. Red street nameplates on building corners, indecipherable. Bouncing across the embedded tram rails, fast, as if the driver felt Nick’s urgency. The river. Finally the tank at the foot of Holeckova, the empty traffic circle. He paid the driver and got out, unfolding his map and pretending to read it, part of the story. Then the taxi was gone and he was running up the long hill. No one ran in Prague. A workman coming down the hill scuttled to the side, avoiding him, flattening himself against the park wall. But Nick was running from his own demons now, not caring, the sound of ragged breathing in his ears.
The hill was steep and he stopped once, gulping, then started again, out of time. The apartment buildings appeared now, rising up against the park slope, set back from the sidewalk behind patches of banked lawns. White concrete balconies with their city views. He’d been lucky to get one. There was a black metal gate in the wall and Nick hung on it, jiggling the latch, then sprinted up the row of concrete steps leading to the building. Hell in the winter, slippery for old people. The entrance was in the back, at the end of the pavement. He raced up another series of steps, past some shrubs, the steep apron of lawn, a clump of pale blue shrub on the grass.
He stopped. Not a shrub. Pajamas. He walked across the lawn in slow motion, his chest heaving. The legs were twisted, probably broken by the fall, the face lying on its side, blood underneath, a dried streak at the corner of his mouth. Nick sank to his knees, staring. He reached out to feel for a pulse in the neck, but the skin was already cold. Then, without thinking, he moved his hand up, brushing back the thin hair, stroking the side of his head, smoothing away the lines of his skin so that the face seemed to him again the one he’d always known, not old, the same high forehead and wavy hair. With his other hand he lifted the head into his lap, still stroking it, rocking back and forth a little in a silent wail. His eyes swam. How could it hurt this much?
He looked up. Everything quiet. Was there no one to help? The balcony above them. Had no one heard? Or had there only been a thud, a dull thump onto the grass cushion? He rocked harder, cradling the head, heavy in his lap, oblivious to the dampness of the blood. When he glanced at the pajamas and saw the dark stain on the pants where his father had soiled himself, a final embarrassment, he held the head closer, comforting a child, telling him it didn’t matter. The quiet was unbearable, death itself, and he saw why people keened, made any sound to break the stillness so they weren’t swallowed up in it too. But a part of you went anyway, seeping out like blood. He stared down again at the face, smooth, irretrievable, somewhere else. The only thing he had ever wanted.
He didn’t know how long he knelt there, out of the world, but when he came back all his senses were there at once — the sound of a car passing in the street, the stickiness on his pants, the tingling surge of adrenalin fear. He should call somebody. Weren’t there neighbors? Gently he moved his father’s head, laying it back on the grass, and stood up. Maybe he shouldn’t be seen at all. But now what did it matter? He walked over to the sidewalk and followed it around the building to the door.
A jumble of nameplates, two apartments to a floor, Kotlar on the top. He ignored the small elevator, afraid of being enclosed, and climbed the stairs, the landings bright through a wall of glass brick. Moderne. Instinctively he raised his hand to knock on the door, but who would be there? Then he saw that it was already ajar, as if someone hadn’t closed it properly. Who? He pushed it quietly and stepped into the chilly apartment.
“Anna?” he called out, hearing nothing but the sound of a clock. He looked around the room-low Scandinavian furniture, bookcases, everything in order. The sliding door to the balcony was closed. He opened it, stepped out, and looked down. The body was still there, slightly to the right. He saw then that the balcony extended along to the next room and that the door there was open. He moved toward it, stopping when he saw the marks on the painted rail. Here? But his father had been barefoot, in pajamas, nothing to scrape against.
The bedroom was a mess, covers flung back, pillows scattered, as if he’d got up in a hurry. The night table was upright but at an angle, some pill vials and a book knocked to the floor, the lamp pushed near the edge. The desk chair was pulled back, out of place, where someone would bump into it in the dark. The desk wasn’t ransacked, the drawers still in place, but somehow disheveled, at odds with the neat living room.
He stood for a minute, imagining how it might have been. The sudden impulse in bed, knocking against the night table as he got up, staggering (drunk?), bumping against the desk, yanking the chair out of the way, the rush to the balcony, and over. Soiling himself in the terror of the plunge. None of that happened. It would have been deliberate, planned out like everything else. A note. Nick looked on the desk, moving some of the papers aside, and then stopped. You weren’t supposed to disturb the scene of the crime. The phrase struck him, another adrenalin surge. That’s what it was, wasn’t it? He looked at the room again. Another phrase: signs of struggle. Someone pulling him off the bed, dragging him, knocking against the furniture. Had he screamed? Nick leaned against the desk, lightheaded. Had he begged them to stop, fought back, one final swing, knowing his luck had run out? But no one had heard. The body was still lying there, unreported. Nick imagined instead a hand clamped over his mouth, muffling him, his arms thrashing as they forced him out, an old man, so terrified that he went in his pants.
No note. The papers were bills, scattered now from what must have been a neat pile, making sure everything was paid before he got on the train. Nick opened a drawer. Was there really a list? There seemed to have been no effort to find it, no search. The inside of the desk was untouched, folders of letters and bills and what seemed to be official documents with his name, the paper trail of socialist life.
Nick heard a noise in the hall, the whirring of the elevator. One of the neighbors would see the body now, glance across the lawn as he went out, curious, then cry out and run back for the telephone. Should he do it first? But the idea of calling the police in Czech defeated him. Let someone else do it. Maybe instead he should slip down the stairs, go back to the hotel and his own life. Call Anna later. What more could he do here? All this paper, receipts and letters, some in Russian, the desk of a foreigner. Only on the grass, strangely young again, had he been his father.
In the top drawer he brushed aside pens and paper clips. A passport, Russian, his father’s. He drew out a manila envelope dark with age. Newspaper clippings, in English. His disappearance, his press conference, a loose scrapbook of disinformation. Why had he saved them? Then Nick saw that each of the clippings had family photographs-the three of them in front of the house on 2nd Street; the old wedding picture, blurred on newsprint; his parents shaking Truman’s hand at a reception. Their tabloid life. At the bottom of the pile were two real photographs, worn at the edges. His mother, young, maybe during the war, shoulder pads and short skirt, a vivid lipstick smile, her mouth open with the beginning of a laugh. The other was a
boy in hockey gear at Lasker Rink, a wintry Central Park in the background, the boy unaware that he was being photographed by a spy. Nick looked at himself. He wished now that he had been smiling, that every time his father had looked at it he’d seen what he wanted to see, his happy boy, not somebody caught from behind a tree. Too late. His eyes filled, and he wanted to make a noise again. The photographs were like the stillness of death. If you gave in to them, you drifted away to another place. Nothing ever came back.
He was still looking at the pictures when he heard the sound in the next room. He raised his head. Two policemen faced him, guns drawn, the small machine guns they held with two hands, more menacing than revolvers. One of them shouted in Czech, looking at the blood on his pants.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear-”
Another shout. He pointed Nick toward the wall with the gun and said something in Czech, brisk. Now the gun was being jerked up, a signal to raise his hands. When he did, staring at the gun, the other frisked him, patting up and down his sides.
“I was going to call-”
Then a storm of Czech, perhaps to each other, their voices rising in frustration when he didn’t answer.
“I don’t understand.” But then he did. When they snapped on the handcuffs and pushed him out of the room, the gun poking at his back, he understood, dazed, that he was being arrested.
Chapter 12
There were people on the lawn now, huddled over the body, some in uniform, one old lady standing behind, clutching at her winter coat-the neighbor, finally? — but they wouldn’t let him stop, pushing him with the guns down the path. He bumped his head against the car when they shoved him in, the sharp crack of pain the only thing real in what seemed to be a cartoon. His wrists, clamped behind him, were caught in the metal cuffs. One of the policemen in the front seat swiveled around, pointing the gun at him, and he watched the barrel bounce against the seat as the car took off down the rough road. A pothole could set it off. He closed his eyes. No siren, just the racing car, rumbling now over cobbles, taking a corner too fast, the speed itself official. He was pitched forward when they stopped, almost into the gun, then doors slammed and a hand pulled roughly at his arm.
The building was a blur, bulletin boards and clicking typewriters, heads looking up. They’d take him to a desk now, to someone who spoke English, so he could explain.
Instead he was thrown into a chair and photographed, the flash blinding him, then yanked down the hall to a bare room. Not a cell. A plain table, two chairs, a picture of Husak on the wall. They pushed him down into one of the chairs, hands still behind his back, delivered another volley of incomprehensible Czech, then left. The door slammed.
No one came. What should he do-kick the door, demand to see someone, to have his one telephone call? But there were no rights here. He was a foreigner with blood on his clothes. Maybe they were watching him. He looked around. No mirror, just blank walls, Husak looking down. The bump on his head throbbed. They couldn’t leave him here, throw away the key-a child’s fear. An interior room, one small window facing a wall, the light always the same, no way to tell the time until it was dark. The story was the important thing now, what to say. The truth would start another web, catching him, sticking to him like his pants. He looked down. Would it never dry? He felt his eyes fill again. You always brought me luck. But he hadn’t. Dancing, careless, while his father made a new plan, an emergency exit that hadn’t opened. Why the change? He sat back, still dazed, and waited to see what would happen.
It was at least an hour before they came, or had waiting distorted his sense of time? His hands were numb. The two policemen again, with another, not in uniform, his fat neck spilling over his collar. He gave an order, the cuffs were taken off, and while Nick rubbed his wrists, the new man leaned over the table, glaring and talking into his face. When Nick didn’t answer, signaling that he didn’t understand, he said, “Ach,” a sound of disgust, and sent one of the policemen out. Now they all waited, the big man in the suit pacing. Eventually there was a knock on the door and another man in a suit came in. This one was slight, with a moustache, and his eyes took Nick in like a jeweler. Then he listened to the big man grumble in Czech. He turned to Nick.
“This is Chief Novotny,” he said, pointing to the big man. “Criminal Investigation Department.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“He’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said formally, sidestepping it. “I will translate. My name is Zimmerman.” He caught Nick’s glance. “Sudeten,” he explained, “but Czech.” An unexpected courtesy, almost social.
Novotny snapped at him, evidently telling him to get on with it. He nodded. Good cop, bad cop. Novotny handed him Nick’s passport. What had happened to Molly’s?
“You are Nicholas Warren.”
“Yes.”
“And how do you come to be in Holeckova this morning? In Pan Kotlar’s flat. You were acquainted?”
“We met at a concert last night.”
“Concert?”
“Yes, Benny Goodman.” The sound of it absurd, even to him. Novotny grunted. “He invited me to come for coffee.”
“A kaffeeklatsch,” Zimmerman said. “Why?”
“He used to be an American,” Nick said. Used to be. “I think he wanted-”
“News from home,” Zimmerman finished.
“Something like that.”
“So early. In the morning. Not the afternoon coffee.”
“I’m leaving Prague today. It was the only time. So I went. But he was-I found him on the grass. He was dead. He’d been dead for a while.”
Zimmerman looked at him sharply. “How do you know?”
“His skin was cold.”
“I see. You examined him?”
“To see if he was alive. That’s why the blood.”
Novotny interrupted in Czech; the other answered him, annoyed but polite. Then he turned back to Nick.
“But you went into his flat?”
“To call the police.”
“But you didn’t.”
Nick pointed to the policeman. “He got there before I had the chance. Someone else must have called.”
“Yes. You were there long?”
“A few minutes. Look, what’s this all about? He was dead. Do you think I killed him?”
“I don’t know, Mr Warren. I don’t know that anyone killed him,” he said carefully. “Do you have reason to believe someone did?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“No. Last night, at the concert, how did he seem to you? Was he upset in any way?”
Desperate, Nick wanted to say. But had he been, or did it just seem that way now? “I don’t know. I don’t know what he was usually like. He seemed all right to me.”
“So you were surprised, this morning.”
“Of course. It was-horrible.”
There was another exchange of Czech, then Novotny went to the door, said something, and came back with Nick’s canvas bag. By the body. Why had he forgotten? Novotny handed Zimmerman Molly’s passport and the tickets.
“You were going on from coffee? To the station?”
Caught. “Yes, later.”
He opened Nick’s passport. “Your visa includes an entry permit for a car. You are aware that it is illegal for you to sell a car to a Czech citizen?”
“I didn’t sell it.”
“A present, then, perhaps? You were not by any chance leaving it for Pan Kotlar?”
A hopeless tangle now. “No, why would I do that?”
“If you had just met. Yes, I agree. But you were traveling by train?”
Think. “It was acting up. I was going to have it fixed and come back for it.”
“You’re very trusting, Mr Warren. To leave a car.”
“The hotel would take care of it.”
“But you couldn’t wait.”
“No, I had to be in Vienna.”
“What is your business, Mr Warren? You’re a journalist?”
“No. I’m
at the London School of Economics.”
“A student?”
“A research assistant.”
“With business in Vienna.”
“I’m traveling with someone. She had to be there.”
He fingered Molly’s passport. “Miss Chisholm,” he said, pronouncing it correctly. “Your friend?”
“Yes.”
“She was not invited for coffee?”
“She had other things to do.”
“It’s a pity you did not join her, Mr Warren.”
He turned to Novotny and reported in Czech, a brief summary.
“You had better think of a better explanation for the car, Mr Warren,” he said, almost confiding. “He’s interested in the car. By the way, the next Vienna train doesn’t leave until late afternoon. I thought you should be aware of that.” Nick stared at him. “Now, quickly please, what did you see in the flat? Had anyone been there?”
“I think so. Furniture was pushed around, as if there had been some kind of fight. Chair moved out of the way. I suppose he might have done it himself, but why?”
“Anything else?”
“Scrape marks on the railing. But there was nothing on him to make a scrape with, so I assume it was someone else.”
Zimmerman nodded approvingly. “If it was made then. How long did you say he’d been dead?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. He wasn’t stiff, just cold.”
“All right. Thank you.” He stood up, talking again to Novotny. “Think about the car.”
“Can I go now?”
“Go? Mr Warren, I’m afraid you are in difficulties. Unless of course Pan Kotlar seemed-agitated to you last night. It might have been. Otherwise, the police will be interested in you.”
“I don’t understand. Aren’t you the police?”
He smiled. “Actually, I was chief of police. Until last year. A year can make a great difference here, you see. Today, Chief Novotny. He’s more comfortable with the regime, or perhaps they with him-it depends how you look at it. Now I help him.” Another tram driver. “A research assistant,” he said, his voice ironic. “But I’m glad of the work. It’s hard, you know, to break the habit.”