No! They were depending on her! Everyone up there in the world was depending on her! If Lazlo was willing to die for her and Nina and Mariska and the children, she should be willing to do something. Do something!
When the last rung of the ladder creaked, she crawled as quietly as she could to the side of the cellar where she knew the wine kegs rested on a wooden stand, which had felt like a squat table in the dark. She squeezed beneath the stand, spiderwebs settling across her face. It was a tight fit, one of the kegs in its cradle on the stand pressed against her back, another kept the side of her face on the dirt floor. She looked back at the shaft of light from the entrance and saw Komarov standing bent over. Then he disappeared, joining her in the darkness of the cellar.
It was so quiet in the yard Lazlo could hear birds singing down the hill. Juli! Why didn’t you fly away?
The seconds ticked by, Brovko and several other men standing around the hole, looking to one another. One man took out a flashlight, aimed it at the hole, but Brovko put his hand on the man’s arm and the man put the flashlight away.
The birds kept singing, and Lazlo looked down, trying to see through the earth and into the wine cellar. Then he prayed, first to his mother, then to his father, then to Mihaly. He even prayed to the Gypsy deserter on the Romanian border. He prayed that their spirits, knowing the difference between virtue and evil, would tunnel from their tombs. He prayed for them to go into the cellar and take Komarov with them.
Komarov followed the wall for a short distance before sitting on the floor against the wall. Because he held the knife in his right hand, he reached into his pocket with his left hand for the flashlight he had been given by one of the men. He listened for a moment, and when he could hear nothing, he aimed the flashlight straight ahead and switched it on.
She was wedged beneath a low platform holding a row of wine kegs off the floor. She covered her eyes with one hand and tried to squeeze farther beneath the platform.
“I didn’t think you had a gun,” he said quietly. “Otherwise you would have shot at me as I came down the ladder. This investigation has been a long, hard struggle for me. Even though you may think you are innocent, I know better. Just as I climbed down here on the ladder, I will climb to the top on your back and on the back of your lover. If others try to stop me or take credit for uncovering your conspiracy, I’ll climb atop the heap of their remains. I could capture you and say you confessed to me, but I’m afraid there are some who might believe your lies simply because you are a woman.”
Komarov switched the flashlight off and put it into his pocket.
Soon he would use it once more to look into her eyes the way he had looked into the eyes of Gretchen and Tamara. In his other hand, held down at his side, was the knife he would need to defend himself from an attack from behind.
When the glow of light filtering through her closed lids went out, she opened her eyes and, at the same time, struggled out from beneath the kegs. When she crawled free of her hiding place, she thought her ankles would be grasped at any moment. If she stood and ran to the ladder, he would see her and pull her down before she could climb halfway up.
She crawled slowly to the middle of the floor, pushing her fingers ahead through the surface dirt. She listened for him but could hear only her inhales and exhales. She opened her mouth wide in an attempt to quiet her breathing and crawled against the far wall, away from the entrance where her outline would be visible against the light from above. She crawled a circular path to the place he had been because she was certain he would have moved.
She paused and listened. She heard his breathing to one side.
Then she heard nothing and moved forward. Suddenly, her hand touched his shoe.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, his voice seemingly calm, as if he did not really mean to hurt her.
In an instant his hand was at her head, clutching her hair and pulling. She swung out, hit his face. He stood, pulled her up with him, and threw her to the floor. She tried to roll away, but he had her by the arm, twisting her arm until she thought it would break.
Her other hand was on the dirt floor. She clutched a handful of dirt and flung it at his face. He coughed and spit, and she was able to pull free.
She ran to the back of the cellar, smashed her shin against a bench. Despite the pain, she picked up the bench, swung it around, and pushed it out in front of her. She hit him with it, but he was quickly back at her, ripping the bench from her grasp and pushing her against the wooden timbers on the wall.
A sharp pain at the back of her head was followed by dizziness.
She grasped at the wall, but it moved upward and away from her.
She was forced onto her back. She felt his weight on her. Then the flashlight burned in her eyes.
She could hear muted voices from above. Men arguing. They would come down into the cellar to help her. They would drag Komarov away. But Komarov’s hot breath blew on her face as he shouted, his voice enraged and insane.
“Don’t come down! That’s my order! If you do, you’ll be shot!
She’s armed!”
It was all happening too fast. Only seconds had gone by. The arguing from above continued. No one came.
He was behind the flashlight, breathing heavily. She could smell his foul breath. When she tried to push the flashlight away, she felt a sharp pain on her abdomen.
“Lie still.” His voice was calm again, a voice seemingly coming from a different person. “I have a knife. I’ll push it all the way in if you move.”
He turned and again shouted, “Fools! Don’t interfere! She’s armed!”
The knife was at her. Not inside yet, but pricking the skin of her abdomen. Her baby! What about her baby? She needed something to strike him with. She reached out slowly, not moving, not really.
The light stayed in her eyes until she stared above the light where she could now see his eyes in the dim light above the flashlight.
Dirt would be futile. She stretched her arm outward, and this seemed to draw him closer. Then she felt something. Cloth. Damp cloth. A soiled diaper from Mariska’s baby. She pulled it in with her fingertips, pulled it closer and dragged it to her side where he could not see it because his eyes were close to hers. He spoke.
“How young you are, and beautiful. I thought you would have reminded me of other Gypsy women. Your hair is lighter than I thought it would be. You are neither Barbara nor Tamara. I’m paying you a compliment when I say you remind me of Gretchen.”
She considered pleading with him. Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe he was really after someone called Gretchen. Maybe if she reminded him she was not Gretchen. No! Reason would not do. He was insane. She could see it in his eyes. And if he was insane, maybe she could make him think she was Gretchen, if only for a moment.
She slowly moved the diaper closer and felt more pressure on the knife. When she opened her eyes wide, the pressure lessened.
She kept her eyes open wide and forced a smile. She said, “I am Gretchen. I have something for you.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he moved his face back when she began unbuttoning her blouse with her free hand. The flashlight lowered, and she could see him looking at her breasts. The look on his face changed slightly. A smile began to appear. As she unbuttoned her blouse, she had his attention. But what would she do after this? And what would he do?
For the first time since he’d held her down, she felt a slight lifting of his weight. Then, when she felt the pressure of the knife at her abdomen ease even more, she pushed the soiled diaper into his face and rolled sideways.
He screamed, and she kicked out her legs, kicked against something. She scrambled to it, swept the floor with her hands until she found it.
When he threw aside the foul-smelling rag, he could still smell it and feel it. Urine, his face soaked, his lips tingling. A sudden image of Dmitry and his lover using the cellar for lechery flashed before him. A wave of nausea threatened to overcome him, but he regained his senses.
He spit and turned in the direction she had crawled. He reached for her. He wanted her beneath him again. But where was his knife?
The knife!
Yes. There it was. He found it. He found it! It was… in him.
It felt hot, as if it had saved up all the heat of its victims.
Were there voices? Did he hear voices? Was it his wife and Dmitry come to see him in hospital? Had time moved ahead faster than he realized? Yes, Grigor Komarov, the hero, taking visitors in hospital. How did it happen? asks the visitors. And he tells them how he was forced to kill the woman in self-defense because… because Captain Brovko had come down into the wine cellar and been killed by her? Yes, it could have happened that way… there were so many ways, so many rungs on the ladder…
But the voices… the voices. Like being on his back porch in the dark, someone creeping up on him. Was it his father and mother?
Had they come to join him in seeking vengeance upon the Gypsies?
Then the voices became a thousand faces, and he tried to scream but could not.
Nikolai saw that Captain Brovko was uncertain about what to do.
The captain had started for the hole several times, only to step back.
Then, when it seemed he’d made up his mind to go down into the hole and he actually leaned in, he stepped back, his eyes open wide.
When Nikolai saw the look on Brovko’s face, he stared at the entrance to the hole as if it were a living thing.
A blood-soaked hand gripped the edge of the cellar entrance.
There were gasps from the other men as the rest of the bloody arm appeared; then another hand, not bloody; then Juli Popovics climbing out of the hole under her own power.
“Juli!” shouted Detective Horvath.
Captain Brovko stepped back as Juli Popovics saw Horvath and ran to him. She knelt before the chair and hugged him, looked into his eyes as she touched his face with her hands, both of them ignoring the blood on her right hand and arm as they stared into one another’s eyes and wept.
Captain Brovko came to Nikolai, handed him a key, and motioned to the couple. Nikolai stooped down behind the chair and unlocked the handcuffs so Detective Horvath could embrace Juli Popovics.
35
Captain Brovko ordered them to remain in the house. Men were posted at the front and back doors and at all the windows. The three men assigned to stand guard inside the house told Mariska and Nina to care for Lazlo and Bela.
Juli’s wounds consisted of a few bruises and a shallow cut on her abdomen. After she was searched, and Lazlo’s money along with the keys to the Skoda were taken, she went into the bathroom to change out of her blood-soaked blouse and wash Komarov’s blood from her hands and arms. When she came out of the bathroom, both Bela and Lazlo held wet towels to their faces and said they felt much better.
But when Lazlo closed his eyes to rest and she could no longer look into his eyes, the terror in the wine cellar returned. The memory of total darkness, suddenly replaced by Komarov’s eyes, momentarily paralyzed her.
She went to the sink in the kitchenette. She gripped the edge of the sink and took several deep breaths. She had killed Komarov! She had killed Komarov, and she and Lazlo had survived. She turned on the faucet and began moistening another towel for Lazlo.
Outside the window, she could see the open trapdoor to the wine cellar; the open lid of the box resembling a coffin had become a coffin. As she watched, Captain Brovko and the man whose partner had been killed in Visenka climbed down into the wine cellar.
It seemed so long ago, yet only a month had passed since the Chernobyl explosion. Juli knelt beside the daybed, applying the wet towel to Lazlo’s face. Nina handed her a glass of water. When she took it, Nina looked at her for a moment. Then Nina turned away and wiped tears from her eyes with her sleeve.
The little girls, Anna and Ilonka, came from the bedroom and stood with their mother. The older daughter, Anna, asked, “Mommychka, is she going to marry Uncle Lazlo?”
“I don’t know,” said Nina. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Anna came close to Juli, but instead of speaking, she stood silent with her hands behind her and watched as Juli applied the towel to Lazlo’s swollen eyes.
At first, because of the way Captain Brovko went into the wine cellar and hurried out in a frenzy announcing Komarov’s death and ordering men about, Nikolai thought the brutality might continue.
But after Horvath and the others were in the house and men had been posted at every possible exit, Brovko grew calm and asked Nikolai to accompany him into the wine cellar.
Komarov’s body was near the back wall of the cellar. He lay sprawled out on his stomach, his head twisted to one side, eyes open wide and glistening wet in the beam of the flashlight. Brovko aimed the flashlight at Komarov’s eyes for some time. Even in death, the major’s eyes seemed demonic. Because his face was twisted sideways against the dirt floor, Komarov’s mouth was contorted into an insane grin, showing yellow-stained teeth.
Below Komarov’s waist, a pool of blood extended out in all directions, soaking into the dry soil. Komarov’s lower back was arched upward slightly, and when Brovko used his foot to push Komarov over onto his back, Nikolai saw the knife. It was embedded deep in the major’s abdomen above the groin. Only part of the handle showed.
Brovko took out a handkerchief, wrapped it about the knife handle, and pulled. There was a liquid gurgle as the knife came out. The sound, combined with the smell of released bowels and Komarov’s tobacco, nauseated Nikolai. He backed away to the entrance where the air was better. He found a bench tipped on its side, righted it, and sat down.
Brovko stayed at the body, wiping the knife and inspecting it.
Then Brovko placed the knife and handkerchief beside the body and joined Nikolai on the bench. Brovko sat closer to the entrance, and although the flashlight was out, Nikolai could see Brovko’s profile against the light from the entrance.
“A lot of blood,” said Brovko. “The pressure of his weight pushed the knife in past the hilt. It apparently severed a main blood vessel, and he quickly bled to death.”
“It was his own knife,” said Nikolai. “I saw him take it out of his pocket before he came down here. A folding knife.”
“A large one,” said Brovko. “I saw the major with it once before, in Kiev. He threatened an old man playing a violin on Lenkomsomol Square.”
“She must have gotten the knife away from him somehow.”
“Perhaps,” said Brovko. “But it’s also possible that in the midst of the struggle, he simply fell onto it.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“She was unarmed,” said Brovko. “All we found on her were car keys and four hundred rubles. She had it in a sock pinned inside her blouse. She said she left the car in the village. I sent two men after it. A black Skoda, which was originally white. I saw the black paint on Horvath’s hands after he was captured.”
Brovko was silent, staring straight ahead, his Germanic profile unmoving. Then he turned. “Tell me something, Nikolai. Do you think Major Komarov noticed the paint on Horvath’s hands?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was with Horvath all night, as you know. One thing puzzling me is that he didn’t send men out looking for the car.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Captain.”
“Listen to me, Nikolai. We both saw what happened up there.
We both witnessed Komarov’s actions, myself more than you. Last night you saw Komarov aim his pistol at me. This morning we all saw him fire an AKM into this cellar when he knew women and children were down here. I’ve taken over command from a crazy man. Immediately after the Chernobyl explosion, he was told there could be another, even worse explosion, yet instead of investigating this possibility, instead of gathering information about the disaster according to the general directive from Moscow, the major pursued his own investigation. He convinced Deputy Chairman Dumenko he had evidence of sabotage. And I must now d
ecide what to do.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to listen to what I have to say. When I’m finished, I want you to tell me what you know. No one can hear us down here.
You are the only other member of the KGB who knows vital details concerning this case.”
“Very well, Captain. I’m listening.”
“Good, Nikolai. There are several factors to consider. The first is the nature of Komarov’s interrogation. He immediately began using what we call the active method of interrogation on Detective Horvath and Bela Sandor. He wanted to know where Juli Popovics was, and he wanted to know where the women and children had gone. During the time I was with him, this was the extent of his questioning. Not once did he ask about Chernobyl. Not once did he ask about technical details of the so-called sabotage. He treated Detective Horvath as if he were extremely dangerous, as if the man would try to kill anyone in his path. I found this to be untrue. Horvath was even careful when sneaking up on our men so as not to seriously injure anyone. Doesn’t this seem odd?”
“Yes,” said Nikolai. “It all seems especially odd to me, because when Pavel and I arrived in Kiev, the major emphasized Detective Horvath’s threat while seemingly forgetting what had happened at Chernobyl. When we went to pick up Juli Popovics, we were told to be careful of Horvath because he was a murderous saboteur. Last night, when he arrived here, Horvath could have killed Komarov.
And I think he might have.”
“Why didn’t he?” asked Brovko.
“Because he would have had to kill others. Last night he could have easily killed me and made it into the house. When he climbed in the window, I could have killed him but did not. Yes, he shot Pavel. But Major Komarov was the real killer. Major Komarov was the one who frightened Pavel into aiming his pistol at Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics. Pavel and I were not trained as you were, Captain. I told Major Komarov this when we arrived in Kiev.
But he insisted we be put on the case. He made it sound as if he were doing us a favor. Pavel’s death was what Major Komarov needed so he could have a more substantial case against Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics.”
Chernobyl Murders lh-1 Page 42