By the time I made it to bed again, I knew it was true. When it came to Jerzy Michalec, coincidences did not exist. Michalec and Gorski moved to France together.
This, finally, was something.
But it only led to more questions. Why did they leave together? And how did Michalec, a labor-camp veteran, get permission to emigrate? For that, you had to go directly to Yalta 36 and suffer the rigors of an entire life study before you could even arrange your first interview. The Ministry only let you leave if it wanted you to leave.
I laid the files on the floor and slipped deeper under the covers, trying to silence my aching head. I was too tired to muddle through it all.
Despite my efforts I couldn’t sleep. I was finally able to push Jerzy Michalec out of my head, but his place was taken, instantaneously, by Lena.
Ever since the guests started filling my home, I’d set her aside because it was the only way to deal with what had to be done. I’ve set aside grief many times in my life, only to come back and face it later. All those tragedies were nothing next to this. The day before, I’d felt as if all my organs had been stolen from my body, but now they were back, all of them, bloated and painful.
I kept seeing her face, and the extra lines she had from a lifetime of hard drinking and smoking. That was my Lena. She’d been beautiful when she was young, but when she lost that beauty she never let go of the toughness that had always given her beauty power. Even during our worst moments-and we had so many-that underlying fierceness bound me to her.
I was always just myself, Emil Brod, a normal man. Average in so many ways. But Lena was always a little more of everything. Funnier, more social, more destructive, and more loving than I could ever hope to be. That made her more tangible than anyone I’d known in my life, all the way through to that final moment when she was cursing at the key she’d stuck into the Mercedes.
That did it. That’s what broke me. For the next hour, until the exhaustion finally did me in, all I could do was cry, and my ears were filled with that horrible electric hum. Somewhere in the middle of my fit I felt the real power of my discovery. Jerzy Michalec wasn’t just another senior citizen who’d been targeted for murder. He was rewriting history and killing off those who knew otherwise.
I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t sure how. All I knew was that he’d finished what he’d tried to do forty years ago-he’d killed me. By killing Lena, he’d succeeded more effectively than if he’d broken each of my bones and then put a bullet in my brain.
23 DECEMBER 1989
SATURDAY
SIXTEEN
Gavra woke in darkness, cold and disoriented. His head was splitting, his mouth parched. He was on a cool floor, wood by the feel of it, and the wall behind him was rough concrete. He started to stand, but the dizziness hit, and he had to settle down again.
About five feet ahead, he could make out a line of light from the bottom of a door. When his ears cleared up, he heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. Dozens of them, moving purposefully back and forth, and quiet murmurs.
He rubbed his eyes and forehead, but nothing could get rid of the ache. He remembered the hotel room, and the sudden, nauseating confusion when he realized the old American couple were not what they had seemed. And Romek. What connected the colonel to these old people? Then Balint, the Ministry heavy whose loyalty to Yuri Kolev was a joke. There hadn’t been much of a struggle; Balint’s brute strength easily outmatched Gavra’s. The bag was soon over his head, and then he felt a small, sharp pinch against his arm. That must have been it, an injection. Because soon afterward he blacked out.
And woke here.
He was scared, but not as scared as he had been in America when he found Lebed Putonski’s corpse in his motel room. He knew he would be dead if Romek wanted him dead. Instead, the colonel had risked exposure transporting Gavra from the Hotel Metropol to here, wherever here was.
I’m going to make you famous, he’d said.
What did that mean?
It was hard to think with the headache and cottonmouth. What he now knew for certain was that Romek’s game was tied to the revolt tearing through the country. Brano, too, was connected-why else would he, after three years’absence, have suddenly called?
Gavra also knew that he was here because of his own stupidity. He’d forgotten Brano’s rule: Act, but never react. Once you start re-acting, you’ve already lost.
To try to regain control, he went through the facts. Romek had been trying to kill off everyone associated with the 1948 criminal case against Jerzy Michalec. Gavra didn’t yet realize that Michalec was also behind the killings; he still believed Michalec was a potential victim.
By that point, he took as truth his assumption that the Americans were part of the plan. They had sent Frank Jones to kill Putonski but hadn’t given the assassin orders to kill Gavra as well. Perhaps his job had been to tail Gavra and find out how much he’d learned before killing him. That was something he would never know.
Despite the risks, Gavra was angry he hadn’t tried to get to the Ministry. One phone call, and Brano Sev might have been able to clear everything up with a few words.
But there was an elephant in the room he was missing. He’d been working along the edges of Romek’s operation. He didn’t have enough information to even guess what was at its center.
He looked up at the sound of a key fitting into the door and tried again to get up. He pressed against the wall, sliding into a standing position, fighting the nausea as the door opened and light poured in. It blinded him briefly, and he squinted. A tall, backlit form stood in the doorway. Behind it, soldiers moved in a nondescript concrete corridor. He could now see that he’d been sitting inside a small closet with shelves filled with hundreds of rolls of toilet paper.
“Gavra Noukas,” said the form. There was enough light for him to see it was an old man, very old, with just a few wispy strands of white crowning his head.
“Who’re you?”
The man smiled-he was missing several teeth. “Please,” he said, offering a hand. “Come with me.”
Gavra ignored the hand as he stepped forward, using the wall for support. Once he reached the corridor, the old man, looking strange among these soldiers in his tailored gray suit and red tie, stepped back and let Balint-now in an infantry uniform with a sidearm- help Gavra walk.
“Your head should clear soon,” said the old man.
It was an army barracks. One steel door said ARMAMENTS and another said MESS. Gavra didn’t ask anything, because there was no point. This old man had come to get him for a reason, and Balint, holding him by the waist, was guiding him slowly to that reason.
They ended up at a door marked OPERATIONS V. Through its glass, he could see a long conference table. The old man led them in. The room was windowless. Balint gently set Gavra down onto a metal folding chair, then saluted the old man and left them alone, closing the door to wait outside.
On the far wall was a blackboard that hadn’t been cleaned well, and in the center of the table was a large glass ashtray, also dirty, beside a pitcher of water and two glasses. The old man filled one and slid it close to Gavra. “Here. Drink. You need to hydrate.”
Gavra stared at the glass but didn’t move.
The old man poured a second glass and drank half of it. “See? No ill effects. Drink. You’ll feel better.”
As Gavra drank the whole glass, the man pulled the ashtray to the edge of the table and lit a scented French cigarette. “You want to know who I am, yes?”
Gavra set down the empty glass and watched the old man refill it. He didn’t want to admit to curiosity, but he had no other options. “Yes.”
“I’m Jerzy Michalec.”
That was something Gavra didn’t see coming, and it told him what I’d figured out in the misery of my empty bed. He looked again at the old man’s fine suit and the self-conscious way he brought the cigarette to his dry lips. Unlike most people those days, he was well shaven, and Gavra noticed a scar-faint bu
t still visible-along his jawline. “And?” said Gavra.
Jerzy Michalec offered a cigarette, but Gavra shook his head. The old man sat a couple of seats down and scraped ash into the ashtray. “You’re Brano Sev’s protege, yes?”
Gavra didn’t answer.
“No need to be shy about it. In fact, you should be proud. Not everyone can claim something so prestigious.”
He spoke as if they were both in an elegant drawing room, enjoying glasses of port by a fire. It annoyed Gavra.
“That’s why you’re here, you know.”
“Because of Brano?”
Michalec nodded slowly. “It’s integral to everything.”
Gavra rubbed his head. “I don’t know where Brano is, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I gave up on trying to find him long ago,” said Michalec. “But whether or not I find him, it makes no difference.”
“Would you mind making sense?”
“We have to work you into this, Gavra. That’s just how it has to be. Tell you everything, and your poor head won’t be able to take it. We’ve still got time.”
“Have a little faith in me. You’d be surprised how much I can take.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Michalec said affectionately, then winked.
Gavra nearly threw himself across the table in order to rip out the man’s eyes. Instead, he muttered, “Tell me where I am.”
The old man was suddenly serious. “You’re in the Sixteenth District Third Infantry barracks. No one knows you’re here. If we want, we can get rid of you, and no one will ask us a single question. Remember that.”
Gavra reached for his glass and started drinking again. Michalec was right; his head was clearing enough for him to start to make connections. “You and Nikolai Romek have been killing people who know about your Nazi associations. You’re erasing your past. Even in America. Why?”
Michalec set his cigarette hand against the table and scratched his scar. “Mr. Lukacs.”
Gavra nodded.
Michalec put out his cigarette. There was a studied look on his weathered face, but then the smile returned. “It’s funny. Nikolai thought you were in Yugoslavia; so did I. Kolev turned out more wily than we thought. Then the Atkinses ended up on a plane with you. Rather beautiful coincidence, don’t you think?” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you think you know about my past is beside the point. The only matter of importance is that you are here and that your country requires your help.”
A series of rebuttals came to Gavra. What do you know about my country? You have no idea what my country needs. I’d help my country best by killing you. They were all childish taunts, so he remained silent for a moment, then said, “What kind of help?”
Michalec stood. “Can you walk now?”
With Balint now following them, Gavra and Michalec continued down the corridor, passing soldiers Gavra could now see were all officers. Their faces were flushed, as if they were scared. Then he saw Nikolai Romek, also fitted out in an army uniform, walking past, but the Ministry colonel was involved in reading papers and didn’t notice him.
They turned down another corridor, which was lined with classrooms marked by numbers. Odd on the left, even on the right. They stopped at number 6, which was open, and through the doorway he saw chairs with attached desktops, the kind children used. They had once been arranged in perfect rows when recruits attended lessons but now were disordered. The desks were occupied by old people, about fifteen of them, some talking animatedly, others sitting quietly with their thoughts. Through a far window, he saw black tree branches and faint light-it was dawn.
When Michalec stepped through the doorway, the conversation stopped abruptly and they all looked up. Among them sat Harold and Beth Atkins, both breaking into huge smiles. Harold came over, grabbed Gavra’s hand, and started pumping it. “You feeling all right? Better now?”
“Don’t crowd him, Harry,” said Beth.
Harold returned to his wife, and Michalec continued to the wide lecturer’s desk at the front of the room. On the large, dirty blackboard someone had written:
AIMS END STREET FIGHTING
UNITE FACTIONS CENTRAL CONTROL OF UTILITIES
INSTALL BUREAUCRACY
SECURE DEMOCRACY
Balint urged Gavra forward until they also reached the desk at the front. Michalec said to the room, “Once again, I thank you all for traveling so far.” He patted his hands together to applaud their long journeys, and they briefly applauded themselves.
One of the old men in the back called, “Viva la revolucion!”
The others laughed, and even Michalec smiled. But Gavra didn’t. He started to understand, and the understanding frightened him more than the confusion had.
“I have to be brief,” Michalec said, then gestured toward Gavra. “You all know why this young man’s here. But he doesn’t know. Not yet. As we discussed before, we’re going to take this slowly. We’ve got…” He checked his watch. “Nearly twenty hours to bring our man to our way of thinking.”
“And if he doesn’t?” said an elderly woman at the front. Her accent was strange; Gavra couldn’t place it.
“We’ll deal with that when it comes. It won’t change our plans.”
She nodded very seriously, as did a few others.
“But I wouldn’t worry,” said Michalec. He winked at Gavra. “I have great faith in Mr. Noukas.”
That provoked another round of applause and brought on the nausea again. What he understood was that he was standing among emigres who had returned home after decades away to assist the revolution. Unlike Gavra, and unlike me, they felt it was in their power to change a foul regime; they felt it was their duty. He should have been overcome by admiration for them, but he couldn’t manage it. There was something wrong here. Their euphoria felt like hysteria, and he knew that hysterical revolutions were the bloodiest.
Then he considered the writing on the chalkboard. Practical reasons for whatever they were doing. There was nothing hysterical there-the list concerned the stabilization of the country. Rearranging the bureaucracy so that utilities would continue to work and people wouldn’t be killed in the street.
Michalec said, “I just wanted you good people to see him, and remember his face. His face is our face.”
That last line revived Gavra’s panic. “No,” he said aloud.
The crowd looked at him expectantly.
“No,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I’m not any part of this.”
“Give him time,” Michalec told them.
Involuntarily, Gavra tried to run, but Balint was prepared for that. His big hands caught Gavra’s shoulders and pulled him sharply back. He stumbled but didn’t fall.
Michalec said, “Now to our lessons,” and the people laughed.
As he was guided back out to the corridor, some came to shake his hand again, and Gavra, bewildered, let them do it. Then the old man who had shouted Viva la revolucion raised two fingers to Gavra’s forehead and muttered a blessing in Spanish as he marked the cross on Gavra’s body.
SEVENTEEN
Surprisingly for a man as old as myself, I slept for eighteen hours. I suppose it was my body’s attempt to fight back. Keep me knocked out so I would stop putting it through so much. It was a good try.
I woke early on Saturday to Karel’s swarthy features hanging over me. Shocked, I pushed back, eyes wide. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He sighed heavily and stepped back. “Sorry.” He settled in a chair that Lena had bought in Bern, Switzerland. “Gavra’s still not back.”
I closed my eyes. “Did you try the station?”
“I called yesterday. Someone told me he’d left long ago and then told me to stay inside.”
It didn’t sound good, but neither he nor I could do anything about it. I forced myself into a sitting position and rubbed my temples. “Can you make some coffee?”
“Already did.”
He left the bedroom without closing the door,
so I hobbled over to shut it, tripping on the files scattered on the floor. Everything ached. Karel returned with a steaming cup of acorn brew and set it on the drawers, watching me pull on pants.
“Well?” I said, frustrated.
“What are we going to do?”
“Just get out of here, okay?”
He shrugged but did as I asked.
I drank the wretched coffee quickly, then went to brush my teeth. Karel was in front of the television again. On it, soldiers were stepping carefully through a destroyed room, lifting gold objects-vases, paperweights, a large golden frame around a sentimental painting of the First Family-and showing them to the camera.
“What’s that?” I said.
“It’s the presidential palace. They got into it late last night. Just look. Food rationing for us, and they’ve got a whole room made out of gold. Bastards.”
I couldn’t look. Seeing the luxury of the Pankov lifestyle made me sick, like everyone else in the country, but the sickness didn’t fill me with Karel’s self-righteousness.
One of my most vivid memories is from just after the war, along St. George Boulevard, which would later be renamed Mihai and is now called something else: a stunned, topless woman in rags walking along the Tisa. She was covered in bruises, and her head had been shaved. Across her breasts, in red paint, her self-righteous abusers had written COLLABORATOR.
I remembered her again as I brushed my teeth, staring into my own bloodshot eyes.
I filled a second cup and joined Karel on the couch. Spread across the coffee table were pages from The Spark. “Where did you find this?”
“Outside,” he said without taking his eyes from the screen, where a soldier held up a gold bowl and tiny gold spoon-the commentator said it was a caviar set. “There’s a stack of them on the sidewalk. The delivery guy must’ve gotten spooked and just left them.”
I gathered the newspaper and refitted it together. I saw it was yesterday’s edition before seeing the front-page story. My throat closed up. Above a grainy photograph of a burning wreck, it said
Victory Square tyb-5 Page 15