The confession tyb-2

by Olen Steinhauer

  “Fair enough.”

  We put Agnes to bed and undressed in our bedroom. I watched Magda slide out of her clothes as if I’d never seen her do it before in my life. Her face and shoulders were brown from a week in the country, and I touched an old scar on her shoulder, white against her tan. We shut off the lights and kissed for a while and made love without speaking. Then, as we lay beside each other in the dark, she finally began to tell me.

  “Remember how it was when you came back from the war?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “You were a different person. Really, you were. The Ferenc I married was bright and happy. God, you could make me laugh. You did it without effort. You saw the humor in everything around you, and you always pointed it out to me.” She shifted, and her hand slid up to my chest. “I was never like that. Then when you came back it was different. Of course, at first you couldn’t do anything. You’d been through something I couldn’t imagine, and I was willing to work with you through it.”

  “I remember that. You were so good to me.”

  Her fingers weaved through the hair on my chest. “Why wouldn’t I be? Your family was dead, and you’d been through a war. I loved you. So we moved to the Capital when Stefan got you the job. I knew why he wanted to help you-we both felt guilty. But I swear it only happened once.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Once you were working again, you started to come out of your shell. I can’t tell you how excited that made me. I was looking forward to greeting the boy I’d fallen in love with.” She paused then, her fingers continuing to stroke.

  “But he didn’t appear, did he?”

  Her hand flattened just over my heart. “Not really. I saw moments of it now and then, particularly after Agnes was born. But you were a different man. I had to realize that. And when you started writing, it seemed to take you away even more. The only time you were like your old self was with Agnes. I was jealous of her for a long time.”

  “Of Agnes?”

  “She was the only one who got the old Ferenc. I wanted that Ferenc for myself.”

  I considered that decade and a half with a man she hadn’t married. “Was it so bad?”

  “What?”

  “Being with me.”

  She stroked the stubble on my cheek. “Of course not. There were moments, I have to admit, when I was scared of you. You’d get into one of those moods, you’d go silent, and I didn’t know if I could trust you. With me. With my body.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she said, then paused again, “you don’t realize what your size does to people. You could snap someone in half. You could snap me.”

  “But I’d never do that. Not to you.”

  “I know you wouldn’t. But sometimes I’d look at you, mulling over your brandy, distant, and wonder if you could. I wondered what would happen if I did something to really provoke your wrath.” She removed her hand. “And then I did. I did the most provocative thing imaginable. And you…you didn’t touch me. Not once. Not many men are that way, Ferenc.” Her hand returned, this time to my scalp. “Maybe this is what I realized at my parents’. I was throwing away my family because I didn’t have enough faith. God,” she said, placing her hand on mine again and squeezing.

  I could hear the tears.

  She said, “I found that letter you wrote.”

  “What letter?”

  “It was in your jacket. You said you were going to leave me and take Agnes with you.”

  “No,” I said. “You don’t understand-”

  “Don’t explain.” Her hand tensed on mine. “I deserve it. But please, consider growing old with me.”

  I held her with my arms and legs for a long time until, the crying done, she fell asleep. To the sound of her soft snores, I tried to figure out what I wanted now, now that it had all been exposed. I was numbed by the prospect of decision.

  But what numbed me more was my impotence: My decisions did not matter. Kaminski’s threat still resonated in me, and reminded me that any life I chose had a fast-approaching expiration date.

  The next morning, over breakfast, Agnes smiled at us-she could tell we were better. Then she asked the question: “Daddy, do you know where my rope ladder is? I can’t find it.”

  91

  Friday morning I typed up the paperwork on the Nestor Velcea case. I listed off the victims-Josef Maneck, Antonin Kullmann, Sofia (a.k.a. Zoia) Eiers, and Stefan Weselak.

  Then I outlined the understood sequence of events, from Sergei’s case in 1946 to the art fraud in 1948 to its discovery in Paris by Louis Rostek and Nestor Velcea’s attempt to right history. Were there a place in the report to mention such things, I might have noted that history can never be made right, but the forms did not ask those kinds of questions. Nor did they allow me to observe that if there was a God, His aims were inconceivable: He gave Svetla an unlocked door, and He also handed Nestor a chance meeting in a bar with his first victim.

  I wasn’t far into the report when Leonek approached me. Nestor and Kaminski had been moved up to Ozaliko, but Leonek had gotten a call from a friend who was a guard there. “Tells me they took Kaminski away. A couple state security guys.”

  “They’re going to want to know everything he knows,” I said.

  Leonek smiled. “I hope he makes it difficult for them.”

  I felt my eyes glazing over. Leonek was saying something. “What?”

  He had settled in a chair beside me. “That night. Before you went to The Crocodile. You asked me if I loved them. Why did you do that?”

  Part of me wanted to smack him, another part to embrace him. “Insurance,” I said. “Now get out of here. I’ve got to finish this report.”

  I didn’t get much further before Emil pulled up the chair that Leonek had vacated. “Thought you’d like to know, they found Woznica’s car on the road to Perechyn. It had been rolled into the trees.”

  “Did he have a wreck?” I asked with surprising calmness.

  “Don’t think so.” He scratched his chin. “Haven’t seen it yet, but the local Militia told me the fender only tapped a tree.”

  “You haven’t seen it yet?”

  “I’m going now. Want to come?”

  I looked at the half-written report in the typewriter. “No. I don’t think so.”

  He didn’t move, and I noticed he was grinning.

  “What?”

  When he told me, my grin matched his.

  “For Christ’s sake, Emil. Congratulations!”

  “We’ll get it confirmed by the doctor, but she’s pretty sure. I just hope it works this time.”

  “When’s the due date?”

  “Twentieth of August.”

  “So you’ve decided,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Not to leave her.”

  He touched the corner of my typewriter. “I suppose my love’s not that mature, Ferenc.”

  He went to his desk as I looked at the report, dazed by the white paper. Emil’s new life was just beginning as my new life was preparing to end. Then, on cue, two men entered the station. They were obvious-the long leather jackets, the low-slung hats-but they walked as if no one knew they were state security. They paused in the doorway. This had come sooner than I expected. I took my fingers off the typewriter and reached for my bag. But then they noticed Sev, smiled and walked over to his desk.

  Not yet.

  So I continued, working with the sticky T to make the name Nestor and being gentle with the carriage return so the roller would not shoot out of the machine. I was almost finished when I heard his footsteps behind me. “Ferenc?”

  I turned to Sev.

  He looked at the report in the typewriter, then at me. “Can you tell me, generally, what you did after the riot on November the sixth?”

  I looked past him at the two men waiting by his desk. “I walked back to the station and drove home.”

  “And did you receive any telephone calls at home?”

  “No,
” I lied. “I went to sleep.”

  Sev blinked, no expression cracking those features. “Thank you, Ferenc.” He returned to his desk.

  Through the rest of the report my hands did not shake. My stomach was steady, and my mind was focused. It didn’t matter that everything was closing in on me. I was still able to work like an automaton through the details of my life, grab my hat, and go home to my family as if each hour did not lead nearer to my demise. I had taken so many steps toward my own end that by now the steps were easy. I could believe in fate or not; it no longer mattered. Nothing mattered. I sat with Agnes on the floor, helping her fashion a new knotted rope out of one she had found on her way home from school. I smiled at her and joked as though I were still a man with human feelings. Magda touched me in bed and I made love to her as if I still knew what that meant. And she believed it. Both of them believed it.

  92

  The crowd lined the entire length of Yalta Boulevard, sprouting out of Victory Square and growing straight and sure past state security headquarters at Number 36, out to where Yalta terminated in the middle of the Seventh District. We were somewhere in between. The announcements had been plastered on walls ever since Wednesday, and the radios had broadcast unending reminders of the time and place, but I never imagined so many would heed the call. After the Sixth of November, this kind of turnout seemed impossible. But here they were, all the discontented of the Capital alongside the satisfied and even the apathetic. And they were all weeping.

  Children sobbed on fathers’ shoulders; mothers clutched their heads whenever anything appeared on the cleared boulevard. Banners fluttered down from windows, announcing that MIHAI LIVES FOREVER IN THE HEARTS OF THE WORKING CLASSES and quoting him: “ THE PATH TO FREEDOM IS TREACHEROUS, BUT WE ARE GREATER THAN MERE TREACHERY.” His younger portraits hung from lamp-posts like Roman standards and filled shop windows. Magda grabbed my hand as we were pushed forward. The motorcade began with white Militia cars, their aerials bound in black ribbons, then came the long hearse. Magda slipped as the crowd surged, but steadied herself on my arm. Bullhorns on the hearse’s roof bellowed a slow dirge and a deep voice listing all his titles: Liberator of the Nation; Friend to the Young and Old; Fount of Impenetrable Knowledge…Wails shot up around us.

  On a family vacation we once drove to Baia Mare to see Mihai’s childhood home. It was a letdown-a two-room shack outside the city, with portraits of him everywhere, looking down on the ratty BED WHERE HE SLEPT and the clay oven in the KITCHEN WHERE HE ATE. I didn’t understand until Magda sighed, and said, He really is one of us, isn’t he?

  Magda’s fist covered her quivering lips, and her red eyes tried to see past shoulders and heads. Then she buried her nose in my chest. I turned to my other side. “Where’s Agnes?”

  Magda’s face was twisted. “What?”

  …Seed of the Land; Thunderstorm in Times of Drought…

  “Agnes!” I shouted. “She’s not here!”

  Magda unlatched herself and pushed people aside to see for herself. “Agnes?”

  We split up and threaded through the crowd. I shoved women and men aside and kneed children who stood in my way as the worry became frantic. “Agnes!”

  …Academician of Worldwide Acclaim; Friend to the Animals of the Planet…

  As I pushed I imagined her trampled beneath feet, dragged away by molesters, knifed by Nestor Velcea or tortured in a wet Canal District mansion, her corpse carried to the mountains for disposal. Not once did I imagine the most evident scenario, which was proven as the Politburo cars slid slowly by and Magda caught up with me, dragging our daughter along: She had squeezed her way to the street in order to cry and wail where she could better see the object of her adoration.

  93

  We were eating dinner when they came. The buzzer went off, and Magda got up from the table to open the door. I followed her when I heard his voice, monotone: “I’d like to speak with Ferenc, if you don’t mind.”

  He was already inside the apartment when I got to them, and through the door I saw the other two men. Leather coats, hats. They did not come in.

  “Ferenc,” he said, and squinted as if faced with too bright a light. He stuck out a hand and I took it. “Comrade Kolyeszar,” he said to Magda. “Would you mind if Ferenc and I talked alone?”

  Agnes stood in the kitchen doorway, frowning. Sev noticed her and tried a friendly smile, but no one was convinced of it, him least of all. Magda took her back into the kitchen.

  We sat-him in a chair, back straight, me on the sofa. He touched the mole on his cheek. “Listen, Ferenc. I’m going to have to take you over to Yalta Boulevard. Some questions.”

  “Questions about what?”

  “The case. The Nestor Velcea case.”

  “You have my report.”

  “And other things.”

  “I’ll come by Monday.”

  “Ferenc,” he said. “Let’s not make this ugly. There’s no reason.”

  “I suppose there isn’t.”

  Somewhere inside me, in a small soft place, I was terrified.

  “My wife and daughter know nothing about any of this. You realize that, right?”

  He glanced back toward the kitchen. “I know that.”

  “Then let’s go. I’ll tell them good-bye.”

  “Listen,” he said. I looked at him chewing the inside of his mouth. “This,” he began. “This is not my doing, what’s going on right now. Comrade Kaminski talked to other people, and they want to know more from you. I’m following orders.”

  I wasn’t sure if I believed that or not.

  Agnes was sitting at the table, and Magda stood by the sink, chewing the nail on her little finger. “What is this?”

  “It’s nothing. Just some questions. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Questions? Questions?” She shook her head, and her kiss was salty. She held my lower lip in her teeth. “Don’t go,” she whispered. “Tell them you’ll go in tomorrow. Or Monday.”

  “I tried. If you need…”

  “What?”

  “If you need anything, call him.”

  “Who?”

  “Libarid.”

  “Oh God, don’t say that.”

  “Where are you going?” asked Agnes.

  I pulled away from Magda, but she clutched my hand as I leaned over the table and kissed Agnes’s head. “Just to talk with these men. It’s nothing. I’ll be back soon, but if I’m not back tonight, you go on to bed, okay?”

  She smiled a moment, then her smile disappeared. Perhaps she saw it in her mother’s face, because she started to cry quietly. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, honey.”

  Magda squeezed my hand until the rings pinched my fingers, then walked with me into the living room and helped me into my coat. Then she said to Sev, “Bring him back soon. Do you understand?”

  He pressed his lips together. “Of course, Comrade Kolyeszar. I will do my very best.”

  You hear this later.

  You hear that the Magyars have it worse than anyone this year. Nagy is lured out of hiding from the Yugoslav embassy and over a year later is executed deep inside the Empire. Thirty-five thousand Hungarians are arrested and three hundred executed.

  You hear that after the death of Mihai, after the convulsions of grief and homages to his immortality, the nation goes on. It is announced that a joint leadership is now in power, because how can such a man be replaced with just one? There are three: Bobu the Professor, Kozak the Engineer, and a name you’ve not heard before this, a name no one has heard: Tomiak Pankov, a Party apparatchik from before the war. Less than a week later, Bobu is arrested by state security at his mistress’s apartment in the Fifth District. The next morning The Spark explains all: He is guilty of financial improprieties. Kozak and Pankov shake hands on the balcony of the Central Committee chambers before a crowd that fills the entirety of Victory Square. They wear identical greatcoats to symbolize their accord, and then the arrests begin to riddle the C
apital with holes where men once stood-you’re only one of many. The empty prisons swell as they did a decade before, after the war, and the trains lumber under the weight of the dispossessed on their way to the provinces and the camps. This is what you learn much later.

  You learn that once the Capital is cleansed it is time to fumigate the Central Committee. Chairs in the great hall go empty, two, three at a time. Emergency elections bring in new, quieter men, younger men with a lifetime of service before them. Then, in February, Kozak delivers a speech to these new young men, says that he will resign his position for a quiet life in the provinces. He holds his hand up and tells them, tears in his eye, that it is the hardest decision of his career, as well as the wisest. Tomiak Pankov shakes his hand and smiles, then opens his arm to the Committee members. This movement lets them know what to do next: to give the poor old engineer a rousing farewell. Which they do, all standing and hollering. You never see the newsreels of this meeting-no one sees them. But you can imagine the fear in Kozak’s eyes and the desperate sound of all those shouting voices, wanting nothing but to live and to go on.

  Winter

  1

  I look back over weeks and months in an attempt to give them order, but time can only be given shape by time. Fall had been my season of irresponsibility, and I had moved steadily through it, accumulating mistakes and fears and tragedies, and in the winter I was paid back for it.

  The beginning was a white, four-door Mercedes. Brano Sev sat in front with the driver, and the second man remained in the back with me. Brano had not talked in the stairwell and maintained his silence all the way to Yalta Boulevard, where the shops were closed, their metal blinds like mouth braces holding the buildings straight.

  Sev walked ahead of us as the guard opened the heavy door of Number 36 without a word. I couldn’t remember if he was the guard from Georgi’s visit. The inner doors parted, and we were in a cavernous, institutional green room, where two uniformed women sat behind a wide desk. Sev talked to the heavier one, and the other, her thin face revealing the shape of her narrow jawbone, watched me. The hawk on her shoulder patch matched the one on the wall above them: a copper sculpture five feet tall, the hawk at rest.