by Peter Golden
I spoke slowly, barely able to control my anger. “You don’t have to read it. You did it.”
Yuli glanced up. “I did this?”
“Don’t fucking lie to me. I woke up that night, you weren’t there. In the morning, I’d figured you being gone was a dream or a hangover from those pills you gave me.”
I tried to read her face, but it was like reading a block of heart-shaped marble—beautiful, flawless, blank. And the blankness infuriated me. “What is it with you Russians? You and Emma, with your secret lives. You don’t trust anyone?”
“Don’t shout.”
I shouted louder. “Be straight with me!”
“Straight? This is to tell you what you think already. That I am only pretending to help you find your grandmother’s murderer so no one will know I do work for the Mossad?”
“Damn right that’s what I think.”
“Then you are durak.”
“A fool? Why am I a fool?”
The marble was briefly animated, with hurt. “Because these things I do with you, how I give myself to you, all of myself, and love you from my heart to my toes—this is a plot?”
“You were a virgin when we met? I didn’t notice.”
Yuli snapped, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw up.”
I laughed, a harsh sound, and I loathed the harshness of it and the rage I felt at Yuli for deceiving me. “You mean ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’?”
“I mean you shouldn’t talk—you have secrets. Beryl, the way you looked at each other. You loved her. Was she your teacher? Or were other girls? I know it wasn’t me. I’m your hunting dog.”
I was disgusted with myself for letting her sidetrack me with an absurd fight about our pasts when I should have been persuading her to come clean.
“You don’t want to tell me—fine. It’s your business.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then pack your stuff and go back to Otvali—back to your business.”
“Go?”
“Go—go back to the life you won’t tell me about.”
As I left the den, Yuli flung the magazine at me. It landed on the linoleum.
Upstairs, in my old bedroom, we had pushed the twin beds together. Without bothering to undress, I got into the bed, lying on my side and staring at the ice-fogged window above me. The ice was glowing blue-gray from the light of the streetlamps, and I tugged down the shade, but I still wasn’t sleeping when Yuli crawled across her bed onto mine, spooning herself around me.
“I killed Joost Ter Horst.”
I was silent.
She whispered, “There were others.”
I wondered if Catholics spoke this quietly to priests in the confessional, as if keeping your voice low mitigated your sins.
“They were bad men. Killers, arms dealers, a germ-warfare scientist.”
I felt capable of killing the murderers of Emma and Dmitry, but that was a measure of my outrage and, more important, a choice I didn’t have to make. This was bloodless, professional, and though it didn’t change the way I felt about Yuli, it gave me the creeps.
Reaching over my shoulder, Yuli pulled on me so I would face her. “I don’t want to be this anymore. I didn’t tell you to protect you from what I am. And so you will not stop loving me.”
I turned.
“Taft Mifflin told you KGB could also be searching for Joost, and I believe he is right. I saw Pyotr Ananko in Amsterdam, and a man following me. Now we go talk to Bashe, and KGB could know about her. I am scared for you and for me. This is dangerous. I will go if—”
“Don’t go. Just tell me the truth.”
“I have, Misha.”
We held each other, eventually falling asleep in our clothes. In the middle of the night, we woke up and shed our clothing and, after a long, fierce, exhausting time, slept again.
* * *
Late the next morning we were eating pancakes when the doorbell rang. I answered it, and surprisingly, Taft Mifflin was on the stoop.
“I have more batter,” I said, stowing his tweed walking hat and trench coat in the closet. “You hungry?”
“I should hold off. I’m meeting Julian for an early lunch.”
I led him into the kitchen and introduced him to Yuli. He sat in the chair across from her, taking out a pack of Lucky Strikes. My mother’s black plastic ashtray from the Copacabana was on the top shelf of a cabinet, and I retrieved it, setting it on the table as I sat.
Taft lit a cigarette. “You saw Joost Ter Horst?” It sounded like a question, but he glanced toward Yuli, so obviously he knew the answer.
I replied, “Joost said Hildegard took my grandmother’s daughter, Darya, back to Germany, and they died when Nuremberg was bombed. He also told us a woman, Bashe, shot him. She was a friend of Emma, and we located her in Atlanta. We’ll talk to her this week.”
“Good, good.” Taft twirled the ash of his Lucky on the lip of the ashtray. “I have some bad news.” He looked at Yuli. “Der Schmuggler. He’s dead.”
Yuli didn’t flinch, and this, I realized, was the professional, the murderous technician who filled me with moral queasiness. “How?”
“Allegedly got drunk, passed out in front of his compound, and froze to death. But my information comes from a source who didn’t see the body. He did say there’s a rumor around Otvali that he was strangled and beaten by the KGB.”
I put my hand on one of hers. I’m not sure Yuli knew it was there.
“This could be because of Joost?” she asked.
I felt sick with guilt, thinking my enlisting Yuli to help me had cost her the man who had raised her, and relief flooded through me when Taft said, “No, from the information I have, Der Schmuggler was involved in some other things—dangerous things. Where was he the last time you spoke?”
“Bucharest.”
“Israel has an embassy there, and Der Schmuggler, I’m told, was arranging with the Israelis to bring in Russian and Yiddish translations of the novel Exodus.”
I’d seen the movie, a historical romance about the founding of Israel with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. “And the KGB would kill Der for that?”
Taft said, “The book’s illegal in the Soviet Union. Get caught with a copy, they’ll send you to prison. The Kremlin is threatened by Jewish nationalism. There are probably a million Jews who want to leave, and if they go, half the Soviets will apply for exit visas. It’s an old story. Khrushchev put up the Berlin Wall because he knew if East Germans could get out, they’d go live in the West.”
Yuli was studying Taft, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Papka did favors for KGB since I was little. Things they could not do, and he paid off their agents—American cigarettes, German radios, French perfume for their wives. Translations of Exodus are all around at home. KGB would not kill Papka only because of that book. Is there something else?”
Taft stubbed out his Lucky. “You ever hear of Kazimir Zolnerowich?”
Yuli had appeared encased in an eerie serenity, but now she sat back and exhaled sharply. “A Soviet physicist. Very smart, very young. Designs missiles.”
“Right. I wasn’t involved, but I’ve heard that we and the Israelis tried to get him to defect. Nothing came of it. Then, a month ago, Der Schmuggler comes to Germany. He doesn’t call me, which was unusual, and he goes to Bonn, not Munich. West German intelligence spotted him meeting a man from the British embassy at the Beethoven Monument. They took a walk, and then Der Schmuggler left Germany. The Brits aren’t saying much—failure doesn’t encourage conversation—but word is that Kazimir got it into his head that he wanted to teach at Cambridge, and somehow—no one knows how—reached out to Der Schmuggler to help.”
“Kazimir would know people who knew about Papka. And if someone wanted help, Papka would help.”
Taft slipped his Luckies into his shirt pocket. “And if he was a missile designer, the Kremlin wouldn’t like that.”
“No, the Kremlin would not.”
“And the KGB would put an end to it.”
“Yes.”
Taft stood. “Yulianna, I’m very sorry. Der Schmuggler was a good man.”
“Thank you,” she replied, perfectly calm.
“And one more thing. Odds are the KGB is trying to track you down, so you can’t go back. We’ll have to talk about that.”
Yuli nodded, and I accompanied Taft to the door.
“Be in touch, Michael. And watch your step. If you can’t get ahold of me, try Julian. He’ll find me.”
After shrugging into his coat and putting on his hat, he was gone.
In the kitchen, Yuli was at the sink, facing away from me and drying off a plate. I touched her shoulders. She put the dish in the drainer and turned, resting her head on my chest.
“I met Kazimir Zolnerowich once. He was reading an H. G. Wells novel.”
I put my arms around her, and she began to sob, soft and shallow at first, then louder and deeper, and finally her arms came up and we held each other while she wept.
42
Charleston, South Carolina
March 5, 1965
There was a jangling beauty to Paris. Whether you crossed one of the bridges or passed statues and spuming fountains, the city seemed confident that she had set your eyes on fire. Of course, Charleston lacked the artistic pedigree of the French capital and the tidy grandness. That was apparent as Yuli and I left our hotel on King Street and walked along the seawall of the Battery. Yet Charleston possessed a wilder beauty than Paris, less self-conscious, subtly erotic. Part of it was the warmth—the temperature had to be over eighty degrees. But it was also the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which made you feel encircled by water, and how the sun slanting through the live oaks, Spanish moss, and the palmettos dyed the light gold-green. The grand houses were done up in tropical yellows, pinks, and blues and, despite the obvious care, the side-yard gardens appeared to have flourished in untouched soil, a tangle of jasmine, azaleas, and a bonfire of other blossoms I couldn’t name, all of them scenting the air so that I might have been walking among a crowd of perfumed women.
Yuli asked, “When do we have to see Mr. Benjamin?”
“He said any time today.” When I had called Thaddeus Benjamin from New Jersey to tell him about Emma and ask if we could visit, he had expressed his condolences and given me directions to his house. The strangest aspect of the conversation was that he didn’t sound the least bit surprised to hear from me.
My car was a block from the hotel, and we drove up Meeting Street through a shopping district. Yuli had said little on the ride from South Orange, and not a word about Der Schmuggler. We had stopped overnight at a hotel off I-95 in Virginia, and in the dining room she ate a few spoonfuls of soup for dinner and had no interest in breakfast. It had been easier to console her when she was crying. From my own losses, I knew that all I could do was wait for her sadness to fade, a conclusion composed of equal parts disappointment and helplessness, because there was nothing I could offer her other than my presence.
“The white people disappeared,” Yuli said.
In less than fifteen minutes, we had passed some invisible line separating white from black Charleston. It reminded me of crossing from Newark into South Orange.
Yuli stared out the passenger-side window. “Segregation is illegal now, yes?”
“Yep. Just like Stalin denouncing anti-Semitism. It sounds better than it is.”
The streets were mostly lined with cottages, many of them with sagging roofs and peeling wood siding, until we reached an enormous pale yellow Queen Anne, with a porch on the ground floor and another on the second. I turned into a driveway and headed up along a bright velvety garden, stopping in front of a garage. To our right was a lawn with a flagstone patio and a figure-eight swimming pool.
A smiling man came toward us from the flagstones. His face was the color of polished oak, and even in his orange cabana set with a terry-cloth collar he looked as debonair as Duke Ellington, with the same slicked-back hair and pencil mustache.
“Y’all must be Michael and Yulianna.”
I shook his hand. He waved at the rear windows of the house, and by the time we were seated on the deck chairs by the pool, a uniformed Negro maid was placing a tray, with three glasses of lemonade, on a tile-topped table.
Thaddeus and I sipped the drinks, but Yuli didn’t touch her glass.
I asked, “Mr. Benjamin, can you tell how you met my grandmother?”
“It was one of the luckiest days of my life. I stayed in Paris after fighting in the war—the First World War. Way it was down south, a colored man could do better there, ’specially since I married a white woman. Jane Ellen had been a nurse with the Red Cross in the hospital at Bussy-le-Château. I had shrapnel in my back, and we was a pair of lonely Southerners. So we move to Paris, and I’m tending bar in cafés. My mama—God rest her soul—was Cajun, so I could get by in French. Always loved art. Couldn’t paint a lick, though. Jane Ellen and me went to the Louvre a lot and the shows in the galleries. That’s how I met Emma and Gak. Gak had a Jewish pal from Russia, Soutine, a fine painter, and another Jewish fella, Modigliani. Neither of them couldn’t sell nothing, and I bought everything of theirs I could. I even picked up a Matisse. But I didn’t have the money to buy all I wanted, and Emma, she helped figure that out.”
“What’d she do?”
“A lot of artists used to go see Gak, but if he was painting, they’d leave a note. And Emma, she made the artists sign them, and gave the notes to me. I sold them. Notes from Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Braque, and some others to American collectors. Then I start goin’ round to studios and buy any sketch they threw out. Chagall was a real peach: he gave me two of his old palettes and signed them. And Salvador Dalí, man, that was like striking oil. Dalí used to pay for his dinners with a check—he’d scribble a picture on ’em—knowing the café owner wouldn’t cash it. He used to eat at the Sélect when I worked there, and I’d pay his bill and hold on to the check. Made a fortune. Jane Ellen’s daddy, he’s a good man, retired military, couldn’t care less if I was chartreuse long as I take care of his baby girl. He’s a widower and got sick, so we came on home. Jane Ellen’s up to his place at Folly Beach now.”
I finished my lemonade. “How did Emma find you when you moved here?”
“Mademoiselle Blum, her landlady. After I start making money, Jane Ellen and me was also renting at 22 Place des Vosges. And Emma calls me up from Nice and sends me some of Gak’s work. Easy for me to sell it now that I got me a list of serious collectors. And Emma gives me the name of a lawyer in Nice, and I spoke to him about selling all Gak’s work when he’s gone. Emma says there’s lots of paintings.”
“There are. Yuli and I saw them.”
“The lawyer tells me your grandmother says the money should go to her daughter and you. Emma, she tell me about you, but never say nothing about a daughter.”
“That was a best-case plan. Her daughter seems to have died during the war.”
“Sorry about that. And Emma, too. I owe that lady.”
“My grandmother never told me about you. Gak’s caretaker did.”
Thaddeus laughed. “I knew that. Emma told me you’d find me—her Michael was a lot smarter than he thinks.”
“That’s standard grandmother talk.”
“Sometimes the old folks see what we don’t see.”
Yuli slipped her hand into mine. “And you found Mr. Benjamin, didn’t you?”
I smiled at her, feeling both grateful to Emma for her confidence and angry at her for keeping another secret from me.
“Yeah, I did.”
43
Washington, D.C.
March 6, 1965
If the present is bleak, Taft Mifflin thought, and you don’t give a shit about the future, then all you have is the past.
That was his situation on this chilly afternoon, which was why he had insisted that the meeting be held at Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown, his old neighborhood hangout, and wh
y Taft had arrived early to walk by the brick Federals and Victorians and row houses. He was cheered by the familiar window flower boxes, austere gates, coach lights, and courtyards, all of it seeming to belong to a more dignified hour in the history of the Republic, when perfecting the future was only a few big ideas away, and the men riding the merry-go-round of Georgetown soirees had believed, with an infrangible faith, that they were up to the task.
N Street, however, was not so cheerful. Turning up the floppy collar of his Burberry, Taft paused outside the redbrick townhouse where Jack Kennedy had lived with Jackie in 1957 or 1958—he couldn’t recall. Taft had lived across the street with wife number two. Those were the good times: potluck suppers with just the four of them; Sunday afternoons with Jack swapping their memories of Cape Cod while they drank Heinekens and watched the Washington Redskins on TV; even those evenings Jackie and his wife dragged them off to hear chamber music at Dumbarton Oaks, and Taft and Jack kept glancing at each other and swallowing their laughter like schoolboys. Then Taft was posted to Munich, and Jack made it to the White House. Their last meeting was in June 1963. Jack was in Berlin to excoriate the Soviets for ordering their East German puppets to divide the city with a wall. Taft had driven up from Munich and chatted with the president before Jack pledged to the West Germans that he too was proud to be considered a citizen of Berlin. The president had asked Taft his opinion of Vietnam, and Taft said, Korea with a warmer climate—get out. To which Jack replied, We have to stand up to the Communists somewhere, and Taft quipped, So invade Greenwich Village, and they started laughing. Five months later Jack went to Dallas, and Taft never quite laughed the same way again.