The confession tyb-2

by Olen Steinhauer

  The stories became duller as the night wore on, and as he was relating an anecdote about Tito’s brand of cigarettes, I finally gave a yawn and thanked him for the enthralling description of our socialist friends. When we shook hands, he said, “This was great, Ferenc. You should come over more often.”

  I kissed Vera’s cheeks again as Karel smiled radiantly at us.

  The apartment was stuffy, so I opened the windows, which only made it cold. I closed them and poured myself a brandy, then turned on the radio. For once, it was not set to the Americans, just an easy Austrian waltz. I had a copy of Karel’s first book of verse, published five years ago, and settled on the sofa with it. His lines were as dull as his stories, loose rhyming statements about the open-ended quality of life, the ambiguities that make it a pleasure despite the hardships. They were optimistic poems, and I wondered if he could write such happy drivel if he knew what I had been doing to his wife, or what that Swiss philosophy professor had done to her before their marriage.

  I woke to a dim room. Then I heard what had woken me: a knock at the door. Although a large part of me knew, I grabbed my pistol. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” she whispered.

  I set the pistol on a table. We didn’t embrace when she came in. She looked cold.

  “I thought he’d be gone a few more days,” she said. “That was weird.”

  “A drink?”

  We sipped our wine in the kitchen. “I told him I needed to stay with a girlfriend tonight. His head is too far in the clouds for him to be suspicious.” She looked at me. “Is that all right?”

  I put my arms around her and kissed her deeply on the mouth.

  The climbing rope that Agnes had been awarded was knotted every foot-and-a-half so that the Pioneers could use their feet to climb up into trees. I found it rolled up beneath her bed and brought it to the bedroom.

  I told Vera to take off her clothes. She looked at the rope suspiciously, but seemed to like not being the only one to give orders. Once she was naked, she lay back and I tied a knot around one of her ankles, then around the other, so that she could spread them a couple feet, but no farther.

  “What are you-”

  “Quiet,” I said. I tied the other end to her wrists, so that when she brought her hands to her face she was forced to bend her knees. She did this once. When she pulled her hands away, her smile was dreamy.

  I did not take off my clothes. Instead, I unbuttoned my trousers and aroused myself in front of her. She watched me, the smile fading into a heavy-lidded gaze as her hands moved slowly up and down, her knees bending and unbending, sliding the knotted rope between her legs. I watched her as she watched me, but although I wanted to badly, I did not touch her.

  She came very quickly, but quietly, her face convulsing as if in pain, mouth falling open.

  I took off my clothes and lifted her by the rope, so that her feet and hands, red from constriction, wavered above her thin body. Then I lowered her to the bed and finished inside her.

  I began to untie her wrists, but she shook her head, eyes closed. “Not yet.”

  So I lay beside her and drew my finger over her damp body, over the rough fibers of rope, over the knots. It was a long time before we slept.

  63

  Lena had gotten over her illness, and Emil and I went to see the few people on Georgi’s list. As I drove and Emil spoke about the long night spent nursing Lena, I mulled over the previous night. I’d never done anything like that before, but while doing it I’d known exactly what to do, and how long to do it. But it hadn’t been me-it had been that other, more sure Ferenc, the one I’d met on the drive to Vera and Karel’s. It was the Ferenc born of the recent past, amid deaths and work camps and infidelities, the Ferenc sick of being able to do nothing. I still didn’t know how I felt about this strange man.

  “…was the best thing to do,” I heard Emil saying.

  “I’m sure it was,” I said.

  Tamas Brest, surrounded by books I suspected he went out of his way to keep dusty, said he hadn’t heard from Nestor since that party for Louis. “Once word got around that my camp book was going to be state-printed, everyone dropped out of touch. As if I’d done something.” He puffed on a pungent cigar when he spoke. “And now I’ve got two militiamen in my home. How is that going to look?”

  Stanislaus Zambra just wanted to tell me that his series of poems remembering the end of Stalinism was finished. “Four months, and all straight from the heart,” he said proudly, then nodded at Emil. “Is he a writer, too?” Emil shook his head. “Well, that’s all right. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not,” Emil muttered.

  “But Nestor,” I repeated. “Can you help us find him?”

  He couldn’t, and neither could Bojan Kuz, though he did suggest we talk to Kaspar Tepylo, which I assured him I’d already done.

  On the way to Miroslav Olearnyk’s home out in the Seventh District, I told Emil not to let these writers get to him. “I avoid them as much as I can, and when I can’t, I fall silent.”

  “They’re amusing,” he said. “They don’t bother me.”

  “But something is bothering you.”

  He looked at the windshield-not through it, but at it-and nodded. “What do you think about love, Ferenc?”

  I changed gear as we turned into a narrow street cluttered with traffic. “I think I’ll need a drink to answer that.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I stopped behind a line of cars, then moved slowly forward with it. “I reread your book last week.”

  “Glad to hear it’s worth a second read.”

  “It’s good,” he said, but without enthusiasm. “There’s a line in it that always stuck to me. I don’t remember the exact words, but it’s about love of your country. Something about the love of a soldier for his country is the most mature, because it’s about sacrifice. What was it? If your love is mature, you will not hesitate to sacrifice yourself if the object of your love will benefit. ”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

  He nodded into his chest, and I stopped again behind a truck filled with bags of onions. “You said it was the same whether the love was for a country or a woman.”

  “I remember.”

  He turned from the windshield finally. “I’ve been thinking about this, and about Lena. I’m not sure I’m any good for her.”

  “That’s a load of crap, Emil. It’s obvious even from the outside that without you she’d go off the deep end.”

  He shook his head. “Wasn’t always that way. She used to be the strongest woman I knew. Then we married, and she became steadily more terrified by life. And when she leaned on me, I was happy to support her.”

  “Just what I’m saying.”

  “But now she doesn’t know how to stand on her own. I can see it getting worse each day. And it will get worse, unless she’s forced to stand on her own.”

  “Well, force her.”

  “I can’t. If I’m there, I’ll help her. I can’t do otherwise.”

  I turned onto an emptier street and got going. “Listen, Emil. I’m not one to give marital advice, but if you truly believe this-if you think your presence is doing Lena more harm than good-then I suppose you’re thinking the right thing.”

  “If my love is mature.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “What about you?” he asked, looking back to the windshield, and through it. “Would you leave Magda if you found out you were bad for her? Would you leave Agnes?”

  “Sure,” I said, but I just wanted to sound decisive. “If I was bad for them, I’d leave.”

  Emil let the subject rest. We soon appeared at Miroslav Olearnyk’s block, but he was not in.

  64

  At the station, I saw Leonek for the first time since before the provinces. His hair was a little long, and oily, and he looked pale. But he was smiling about something, and that smile kept me from being able to focus on anything. He pulled up a chair. “Not onl
y has Kliment found Boris Olonov, but he interrogated the son of a bitch. The transcript should arrive tomorrow.”

  I stared at him, expressionless. “Did he kill Sergei?”

  “Kliment didn’t tell me much, but he did say that while Boris isn’t my man, he was one of the soldiers who killed the girls. There’s something else in the interview. He wouldn’t tell me what it was-he wants it to be a surprise. But he said it should begin to bring everything together.”

  I continued to stare at him.

  “Kliment’s very interested in this case.”

  “Of course. It’s his father.”

  “Yes,” said Leonek, nodding, his smile wavering. “Look, I’m going to give the Jewish quarter another try. If I tell them we’ve got one of the girls’ murderers, maybe I can get something more. Come along?”

  I shrugged.

  On the drive, he began telling me about how he had almost given the case up. “So many blind alleys. I thought it would have been easier. What about your case? How’s it coming?”

  “It’s coming.”

  Leonek patted a dark hand against the horn, frightening an old woman in the middle of the street, and I couldn’t help but think of all the things that hand had touched. “He mailed the interview transcript, it should arrive by tomorrow.”

  “You told me that.”

  Leonek gave me a look I’d seen before, and only now did I understand where the shame had always come from. “You all right, Ferenc?” He spoke quietly. He didn’t want to ask, but there was no choice. “Is there something wrong?”

  I turned to watch a group of workers with pickaxes walk by, their breaths coming out like smoke. “Maybe it’s the thing I had to learn from my wife.”

  He brought a hand down from the wheel. He seemed to recognize how close we were in this car, and that he was trapped. Then an ounce of courage came into him, and he put the hand back on the wheel. “I’m not proud of it, Ferenc. But I do love her. Honestly.”

  “That makes me feel better.”

  “I don’t mean it that way. But I do love her, and I love Agnes as well.”

  He had no right to love my daughter. I shifted, just to watch him lower his hand again. “You know, I would be fully justified in beating the hell out of you. No one would argue this.”

  His voice was a whisper. “I know.”

  I stared at him as he drove. He had nothing to say-or, he probably had a lot to say, but knew none of it would come out right, so he kept quiet. I didn’t have anything more to say. I only wanted him to know that I knew, and to be afraid. I would not hurt him-I could not do that to Magda-but Leonek didn’t need to know that.

  When he came to a stoplight, I placed my hat on my head and opened the door. “Good luck in the Jewish quarter.” I stepped out, and the bright light made me sneeze.

  65

  I called Magda from home. It was a brief conversation; we did not speak of Leonek. Agnes had become bored by the second day, and her parents were starting to drive Magda crazy. “When are you going to take care of this guy so we can come home?”

  “Home?” I asked. It seemed like a word we were no longer allowed to use. “Soon. I’ll bring you back home soon.”

  Vera did not come over that night, and on Thursday morning when I arrived at the station, Sev was waiting for me. He waved me over. I moved stiffly. “Ferenc.” He paused. “The morning you discovered Stefan’s body, why were you there?”

  I looked at his hands on the desk. “To talk with him about our case.”

  Sev moved his hands so his thumbs touched, a movement I remembered from Lev Urlovsky. “I’m just doing my job, Ferenc. You know this.”

  “I know.”

  “So please tell me the truth.” The absence of emotion in his face always gave it a dull strength.

  “What are you getting at?”

  He glanced around the empty office. “I am aware of your animosity toward Stefan, and I also know it was unfounded.”

  “I know that now, too.”

  “Good. So tell me. Why did you go to Stefan’s that morning?”

  Just talking about it made me feel as I did when I stood looking down on Stefan’s body-weak. I pulled up a chair. “To talk, Sev. That’s all. I just wanted to talk it out.”

  “And you wouldn’t have attacked him again, like you did in that bar?”

  “I don’t think so. Leonek is still alive, isn’t he?”

  Sev nodded at his thumbs. “Thank you, Ferenc.”

  I stumbled back and shuffled through the papers on my desk from the past few days. Among the circulars about new penal codes from the Politburo was a scribbled phone message. Kliment had called.

  I struggled with the Russian operators, using the words I knew and listening to them use all the words I didn’t know. I gave them the direct number Kliment had left. “Da?”

  “This is Ferenc Kolyeszar.”

  “Ferenc. Thanks for calling. Look.” He paused. “I’ve got some terrible news, you’re not going to like it.”

  “I’ve gotten a lot of bad news lately. I can probably take it.”

  “Two days ago Svetla Woznica was killed in her village. She was shot once in the chest and once in the head. They found her body in the woods outside town.”

  I took a long breath. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. And it’s clear enough who did it.”

  “Was he seen there?”

  “He didn’t hide. He arrived the day before by train, spent a lot of money in the hotel, and disappeared just before the body was found. He crossed over at Turka.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I repeated.

  “I’ve seen it before. Some men are that way. If they can’t have their woman, then no one can.”

  I fogged over, thumbing my rings until they hurt, remembering that battered face at the train station, kissing my hands. But he was speaking again.

  “-can’t do anything about it now. With the proper papers, I could follow him there, but it’s not the sort of thing they’ll sign for. I wish I could.”

  “You’ve done enough, Kliment. Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I figured you would, Ferenc. Watch out for yourself.”

  As I hung up I looked over at Sev looking back at me. I think that was the closest I ever came to killing Brano Sev, even though he had nothing to do with Svetla’s death. But he was one of many-like the missing Kaminski-whose positions made them feel they could not be touched. I filled his empty features with all the evil in the world. He blinked. I stood up. But instead of ending everything right then, I made myself walk out the door.

  66

  The Canal District was colder than the rest of the city. The water seemed to suck any heat from the air, and wind funneled through the empty passageways. In Augustus II Square, where long before I had found a black shoe, the water level had dropped, and I arrived relatively dry at number three. The chalk x had faded away. The inner room was still a pool, the small well still dry, but the blemish from Antonin’s body was completely gray now, with spots of black corroded by the wet air.

  I could not find Nestor, and Louis was in another country. I was no longer sure who had killed Stefan, but I was convinced I would never figure it out. And it didn’t matter how valiantly I protected my family-my marriage was slipping away. Now, my only virtuous act in recent memory-the only one that I had followed through on-had been erased. No action I took seemed to stick. I wanted to sleep.

  In the mosaic beneath the water were chalices, wine, debauchery-a satyr leaned, grinning, over a white-robed young woman with a breast exposed. In the corner, a platter of wild berries and the head of a pig gazed up at me.

  The Romans had themselves a time in their day, putting everything into their mouths like children. They slaughtered whole civilizations and sowed lands with salt. These were a people of extremes, but somehow over time all the extremes had been bred out of humanity, so that we wore ties and took busses and trams and clocked in and out of the jobs that fed our fa
mily. We spoke with calm, responsible detachment and made words that seemed to show what logical beasts we were. But the only important words are those that result in action-Vera knew this. And so did I. In the war I learned who I was-not by the words I spoke, but by the things I did.

  We were captured near Humenne on a bleak, dry hill that had become our home for a week. We ran out of ammunition, and our commander, a young man from Hust, announced that the fight was over. Then he went behind the hill and shot himself in the mouth with his last bullet. The Germans came over the hill in a cloud of dust and their bold helmets, well fed and scornful. They arranged us into lines and walked us westward.

  Before shooting himself, our commander had told us about the camps set up by the Germans. They were for Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs. The Germans, he pointed out, were a people of extremes. His stories were difficult to believe, and some of us laughed at him, though since then his descriptions have seemed mundane. But on that dusty walk, as we starved on blistered feet, we began to suspect the truth.

  Each day we stopped so the Germans could rest, and during one of these breaks I escaped with a couple other soldiers. I’ve written about this. I’ve written about the calculations we made, the old trenches we dropped into in order to escape snipers, the grass we ate to hold off starvation, the peasants’ homes where we rested and received nourishment. What I never wrote down was the bitterness between us when we stopped over a clump of grass and tried to divide it up. I used my size to force the largest portion, and once when another escapee-Yakov Teddi, a skinny boy with long hair-tried to take his fair share I kicked him in the face. This is something I never wrote about. My boot broke his nose, and I didn’t care. But he stayed with us until the end.