by Joseph Kanon
“One more floor,” Leon said when they reached the landing.
“Who lives here?”
“University people. It’s nearby.”
“Students?”
“No, they couldn’t afford it.”
“So I’m a professor?”
“You’re not anything. You don’t go out. You’re not here.”
The flat was no more than functional, but a pleasant step up from the hotel.
“I stocked the fridge,” Leon said. “You should have everything you need. At least for the next few days.”
“Few days?”
“Or sooner. Depending on the plane.”
Alexei threw the duffel on the bed, then walked over to the bottle on a side chest. “So now the raki.”
“Not for me. I have to go.”
“We don’t talk tonight?” Alexei said, surprised, thinking Leon was Tommy, not just the babysitter. “No questions?”
“Later.”
“Well, join me anyway. A welcome toast.” Alexei poured the drinks, then raised his. “To safe journeys.”
“Safe journeys,” Leon said, feeling the heat as it slipped down, finally something real.
“You don’t stay here?” Alexei said. “The watchdog?”
“It’s safe.”
“Safe,” Alexei said, his voice neutral.
“No one followed us here.”
“I know. I worked in the field too. So, now the only risk is you.”
“Me?”
“When you come back. Or is someone else coming tomorrow? Either way, a visitor leaves a trail. Like Hansel and the pebbles. So perhaps it’s better to stay.” Again trying to be light. He poured more raki in his glass. “I haven’t talked to anybody in two days. Dominoes, it’s not the same thing. A game for simpletons. You see them in the mountains. Every village. Sitting in the cafés, click, clack. Two days of that.”
Leon smiled a little. “You’ll be all right now. Just stay put.”
“Where would I go?” He walked over to the window. “Where are we? What part?”
“The old city.”
“Constantinople,” Alexei said, playing with it for effect, a student reciting homework. “And that?” He pointed to a hulking shadow beyond the mosque.
“Valens Aqueduct.”
“Aqueduct? From Romans?”
“Byzantine. Fourth century.” A fact he’d picked up from Anna on one of their walks.
“Fourth?” Alexei said, genuinely impressed, a tourist. “They still use it?”
“Not anymore. Not for fifty years or so.”
“So nothing is forever.” He turned to Leon, a half smile. “But of course that’s why we’re here. The new order. Another one. Yours, this time.”
Leon drained his glass. “I have to go.”
“Let’s hope this one lasts for a while,” Alexei said, turning to glance again at the aqueduct. “I can’t change sides again. You’re the last.”
Leon looked at him for a moment. Not what he expected, not a rescue, one of ours, someone buying his life with betrayal.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. Do you need anything?”
“Something to read maybe,” Alexei said, nodding to the empty shelf. “Not even dominoes now. What should I do? Think about my sins? That’s what the priests used to recommend.”
“When was this?”
“When I was young.” He smiled. “Before I had any.”
“Lock up behind me,” Leon said, turning.
“One more thing? The gun?” He held out his hand.
“You’re safe here.”
“Then I’ll be safer. A precaution,” Alexei said, staring him down until Leon reached into his pocket and handed it over. “Thank you.” He looked at the gun, then around the room. “Very trusting, Americans. No guard.”
“You’re not a prisoner. You came to us, remember?” Leon said, improvising, a guess.
“What if I changed my mind?”
“Changed it to what?”
Alexei made a wry smile. “Not so many choices left, you mean. No,” he said to himself, then shrugged.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
Alexei raised his head. “I’ll look forward to that.”
Outside, Leon crossed the street heading toward Süleyman’s Mosque, then ducked suddenly into a doorway catty-corner from the building. A few minutes, just to be sure. No one in the streets. He felt the same tingling, the caffeine alertness he’d felt on the quay. He should have arranged for someone to watch the building. But there hadn’t been any reason for that. Not a few hours ago. A simple pickup, just slipping someone in and out of the country, a kind of card trick. Not shoot-outs, someone lying in a pool of blood. Or carried away by now, tossed into the Bosphorus, another secret in the water.
Leon looked up at the lighted window, remembering Alexei’s face, wary and then tired, gone to ground. But there must have been other times, eyes confident, standing tall in his uniform. Romanian, it turned out, not Wehrmacht, whatever that looked like. Probably the same peaked hat, padded shoulders. Fighting alongside the Germans, all the way to Stalingrad. And now in the Russians’ crosshairs, Mihai taking the bullet instead. Luck just a matter of turning a few inches, a hand on the duffel where his head should have been. He thought of himself, flat on the damp concrete of the quay, waiting, afraid to breathe.
He moved away from the doorway, through the dark streets around the mosque, then the even darker ones below the Grand Bazaar, just an occasional light through shutters or a radio playing, streets as dark as they must have been when Valens was building his aqueduct. The timeless city, houses with bay overhangs, cobbles slick with peels and rinds. Leon had never been afraid on the streets in Istanbul, not even in the back alleys of neighborhoods like Fatih, full of headscarves and long stares, but tonight every movement, every faint rustling, put him on edge. In one street, two dogs raised their heads to watch him pass, some of Istanbul’s roaming wild dogs, fed on scraps.
He kept going east, through Cağaloğlu, where all the newspaper offices were. Had they heard about the shooting yet? Pages being made up, lines of type. Murder in Bebek. Mysterious shooting on the Bosphorus. No witnesses. Never suspecting the witness was outside their windows right now. Not just a witness, the killer. And looking at the swirl of lights down at Sirkeci, he knew the sudden shortness of breath, doubling over, was about this, not about Alexei or Mihai, how the job had gone wrong, but about this, killing a man, a line he’d never expected to cross. The sound of the shot was still in his head, an echo. Life gone in a minute, that easy.
He caught a taxi at the station and took it to the Park. A few minutes just to establish his presence, pretending to look for someone in the big art deco dining room, waving at Mehmet in the bar, then using the men’s room off the lobby, spotted by regulars who would say, vaguely, that they’d seen him there that evening.
A few minutes later he was back out on Aya Paşa, past the now dark German Consulate, down to his building, sliding the key in the door, then freezing, the door already unlocked. He pushed at it gently, listening for sounds. No light, but the smell of tobacco, a cigarette burning, still here. He felt for the gun in his pocket, then remembered it wasn’t there. He took another step, a faint creaking. Not a burglar, something he knew without knowing why. Someone waiting for him.
“Turn on the light, for god’s sake.” Mihai’s voice in the living room. “It’s only me.”
Leon flicked on the hallway switch, then walked into the room. Mihai was sitting by the window smoking, the only light the glow of his cigarette tip.
“How did you get in?” Leon said.
“A child could get in.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Thinking.”
“About what?” Leon said, turning on a table lamp.
Mihai winced at the sudden light. “What you know. What you don’t know. Whether you’re a fool. Or something else.”
Leon nodded to his bandaged hand. “You think I
knew? I wouldn’t have asked you—”
“Not that,” Mihai said, waving his hand toward the drinks tray. “Make yourself a drink.”
“I just had one.”
“Oh yes? With Alexei?” he said, his voice curling around the name. “A celebration?”
“Not exactly.”
“And how did you find him? Good company?”
“Worried.”
“Ah. Pour me one, will you?”
Leon poured two, handing one over.
“A natural reaction,” Mihai said. “To being shot at. I don’t feel so wonderful, either.”
“Not just that. Worn out.”
“A sympathetic figure. And now such a helpful friend.” He took a drink. “Who sent you? Tonight?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Scruples, at such a moment. If the bullet had got me, would you have told me then?”
“Does it make any difference, who? What’s this all about?”
“Trading with the enemy. A drink with the devil,” he said, holding up his glass.
“He’s not the enemy anymore.”
Mihai looked at him, then down at his glass. “So I wondered, is he a fool? Now I know. Sit down.”
“You’ve got something on your mind?” Leon said, taking a chair.
“My mind, yes. Not on my conscience. Yet. I thought, he doesn’t know. He should know.”
“Know what?”
“Who he is. Your Alexei. Shall I guess what you think? The Romanians. Well, they sided with the Germans. How could they not? The expedient thing. Our friend too. What choice? Then Stalingrad, the Russians push back. And push. Into Romania. Now Germany’s losing and who’s coming? So why not make a deal with them? Throw out the fascists. Fight with the Russians instead. The new expedient thing. But meanwhile some people get caught in between. Our friend, for example. The Russians don’t forgive him. They’re going to put him on trial. Like Antonescu. So he runs. And he has something to sell. Things he knows. I’m right so far, yes?”
Leon nodded.
“Only one bidder in this deal. And better not to ask too many questions. The whole Romanian army was fascist, so, yes, he was a fascist, but now the Communists are after him, a recommendation in itself. In such a situation you take what you can. All right. An opportunist. But our opportunist. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t thought. I don’t know.”
“But I do. I recognized him. Before I took a bullet for him. You think he’s someone—not so good, maybe, but Romanian politics were like that. Who can blame him for wanting to save himself?”
“You, it seems.”
“Yes, me. I know what he is, Jianu. That’s his name. A butcher. But you don’t know, I think. So what do I do? Keep my mouth shut? Somebody this close to me? Anna I used to trust with my life. We killed a man tonight—you, me. And you don’t even know.”
“Tell me, then,” Leon said quietly.
Mihai nodded to his hand. “Get me another. It hurts.”
“It’s not infected, is it?”
“Such concern. So where to start? King Carol with his hand in everybody’s pockets? The wolf at the door. But still, thank God, the Jews to hate. So, the Legion of Archangel Michael. You know it? The Iron Guard.”
“Yes.”
“A wonderful group. Pouches with Romanian earth around their necks. Little ceremonies where they drink each other’s blood. Like savages. My countrymen. Well, not by then. I’m in Palestine. My family said, how can you be a Zionist? Jassy is a Jewish city. Well, it was. So I’m in Palestine and things get worse for the Jews. Mossad sends me to Bucharest, to get them out. The Athénée Palace, everyone in the same place. You go to dinner at Capşa and bribe someone, then back to the Palace and bribe someone else. You could still do that then. But how many Jews listen? Then Carol runs away with Lupescu, the mistress—and the treasury. For them, at least, the happy ending. No one else. Now Michael is king, but really General Antonescu, the army. And meanwhile the Iron Guard are running wild. Killing people. Government people even. Pogroms naturally, what else? Terrible excesses. Finally, it’s too much even for Antonescu. He sends the tanks out—the army fighting the Iron Guard, fascist against fascist. But Hitler prefers Antonescu. Not so crazy. He sides with him. And so does our friend Jianu. Your Alexei.”
“He was in the Iron Guard?”
“But now he helps Antonescu break them. So Antonescu joins the Axis and the army goes off to invade Russia. A reign of terror in Odessa—that you know from the trials this summer. Deportations from Bessarabia. All the Jews. The Romanians set up extermination camps—the only ones the Germans didn’t run themselves. They killed almost two hundred thousand, we think. Quite a record. My countrymen.”
“And Alexei?”
“Now a right hand to Antonescu. Antonescu liked him. Someone who would betray the Guard? Who better for intelligence work? He knew how to get Russians to come over. The Romanians had good intelligence, right up to Stalingrad. But he had to know about the Jews too. The army carried out the deportations. It was the Guard all over again. Jassy they emptied out in ’forty-one.”
“Your family.”
“Everyone. Then bigger things. Until they started to lose. After Stalingrad, they knew. Antonescu was so desperate he put out feelers—this time to save the Jews, help them get to Palestine. Sell them. I was here then. We bought some out. The Americans more. They had the money. Already Antonescu must have been thinking about the end, making some friends for after. He should have looked closer to home. When he was deposed, ’forty-four, where was loyal Alexei? Nowhere to be found.” He paused. “Until you found him.”
“So he knew. That’s not the same as—”
“Who pulls the trigger? Is that what you mean?”
Leon looked away, flustered.
“Maybe I’ve been going too fast for you.”
“I get the picture. He’d sell his mother. What am I supposed to do?”
“Not let him sell her again. Antonescu goes on trial soon. But not Alexei. Why not?”
“Because he made a deal.” Leon looked up. “He didn’t make it with me.”
“So it’s not your responsibility. Nobody’s.” He took a drink, letting the air settle a little. “Let the Communists have him. Put him on trial. With Antonescu.”
“A show trial. They don’t try people. They shoot them.”
“In this case, well deserved.”
“Maybe he’s more valuable this way. I don’t know. I don’t know what he knows.”
“I know what he is. I said before a butcher. I didn’t tell you why.”
Leon held up his hand. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not up to me—”
“One more thing. Then you decide. The Guard. You remember I said there were excesses. But what’s in a word? Excesses. You know Bucharest?”
“No.”
“Dudeşti was the main Jewish district. Three days they went crazy there. First Strada Lipscani, a killing spree, looting. Then out in the Băneasa forest, making them dig pits before they shot them. The reason for this, by the way? No one said. Enough they were Jews. But the second day, before Antonescu decided to send the tanks, the Guard went even crazier. Maybe they drank each other’s blood again, who knows. For courage. What courage? Who was fighting them? Terrified Jews, begging for their lives? That was the day they got two hundred of them—men, women—and took them to Străuleşti.” He stopped, then tossed back the rest of the drink. “The slaughterhouse. South of town. An abattoir.”
Leon waited, not moving.
“They put the Jews on the conveyor belts. Stripped, on all fours. They made them bleat, like the animals. Crying, I suppose, maybe screaming, but also bleating like they were ordered. Then through the assembly line, the same treatment the animals got. Heads sliced off, then limbs, then hung up on hooks. Carcasses. And then they stamped them, the carcasses.” He said something in Romanian, then translated. “Fit for human consumption. The inspector’s stam
p.” He paused. “You decide.”
Leon said nothing, staring, as if the belt were moving through the room before them, blood spurting, running into gutters.
“And Alexei was there?” Leon said, marking time, his stomach queasy.
“There were no witnesses. Among the Jews. Just the Guard. But he’s still with the Guard then. He was seen. Ask him.”
“He sold the Guard out, you said.”
“When it was convenient. A fine point.” He paused again. “You decide.”
Leon was quiet. “I can’t,” he said finally. “It’s not my decision.”
“It’s somebody’s.”
“Not yours, either.”
“No, I just speak Romanian and drive the car. And keep my mouth shut. That was before. Help a man like this escape? I won’t be part of that. Whoever sent you—maybe he doesn’t know, either. He needs to know. So somebody can decide.”
“You’re not part of it. They don’t even know you were there.”
“That’s not so easy now. Maybe you didn’t think about this, either, what it means for me, what this is now.”
Leon looked at him, waiting.
“So more thinking. I had this time,” he said, waving to the room, “while you were having your drink. Who were they tonight? Russians? All right. Who else would have such an interest? Stop him before— So they send a unit, three, four men. In which case they’ve already cleaned up the mess, got rid of the body. But no one followed us. It’s more important to get Jianu than worry about the fallen comrade. But no one follows. So he must have been alone. Think what that means.”
“I know what it means.”
“Yes? You have thought about this too? No one moves the body. It lies there to be found. And it will be found. Now something for the police, even Emniyet. And what are they looking for? My gun. My car. Who protects me now? The boss you can’t tell me about? Who wants me to help the butcher? I’m working for him now too. I have a right to know.”
“I never meant—”
“It’s too late for that. Do we want to tell the police it was self-defense? Then we have to tell them what we were doing there.”
Leon stared at his drink for a minute. “Can they trace the car to you?”