36 Yalta Boulevard tyb-3

by Olen Steinhauer

  Brano felt hands on his chest. They grasped his shirt and ripped it open. He heard the click of a button hitting the floor. A sharp, cold pain in his left nipple-the first alligator clip-then the other.

  “Karl?” he heard. “Can you show me how to work this damn thing?”

  This, then, was what he was trained for. No longer boredom, but fear-not of pain, but of the knowledge that your life is no longer in your hands. How long he lasted he wasn’t sure, but the cold, jaw-grinding shocks went through him many times-short pulses that became, over time, longer. Sometimes he could hold the pain in his hand, but often it slipped through his fingers and filled his rigid body. His organs hardened with each shock, and his fingers clenched behind his back. And, like everyone in the end, he talked.

  He gave them a list of names. That was where he started, with the list of Yalta Boulevard’s local informers, because the first impulse of anyone who has been broken is to give away others. Retribution isn’t a worry-all you want is your life back.

  Then he gave them two names they already knew: Austrian agents who also worked for Yalta. One had been bought, the other blackmailed with photographs of him in bed with a young Polish boy. Brano told what little he knew of the information they had handed over.

  But these admissions were decisions; even through the pain he could still think. The two double agents had served their purpose months ago and were no longer of use. The informers he handed over were a mix of the uncooperative and unproductive. And in a city like Vienna there were so many of these that the names could go on for a long time, giving the illusion of completeness yet in reality telling nothing.

  Then Ludwig reached further back, to 1964. He was in West Berlin, no? Brano quickly verified this. And who was the West Berlin rezidenft Again, this was a man who had since been brought back home, so he answered. And what did Brano do there? He followed orders.

  Ludwig closed the circuit.

  “More specific, Brano.”

  He told them of various operations he’d taken part in over that year, none of which concerned Austria. He’d helped manage three informers, had once run a disinformation campaign against British intelligence, had arranged the practical details of two incoming operatives, and had killed one man.

  “Name?”

  He admitted that as well, because by now he could no longer distinguish what was important from what was not. All questions had answers.

  “What about Bertrand Richter?”

  “He was giving you information.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “I gave him false information, and he delivered it to you. He told you a West German truck would carry guns into Hungary. He had to be eliminated.”

  “By whom?”

  “By Erich Tobler,” he lied.

  The sound of paper shuffling. “That’s the informer who lives on Hauptstra?e.”

  “Yes,” said Brano. “He’s the one.”

  “We assumed it was you. You did leave Austria the same evening the body was discovered.”

  “It wouldn’t make sense for me to do it myself-I was the rezident. There are people trained for that.”

  “Okay,” said Ludwig. Papers again. “Tell me why you’re in Austria.”

  “I’ve told you a hundred times.”

  “You’ve lied to me a hundred times.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Try again, Brano.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Movement. Then a hand removed the burlap bag. He blinked, the light stinging his eyes, and looked down at the metal teeth digging into his nipples, the bruises around them, and the blood. He could no longer feel his chest.

  Ludwig was on the sofa, and between them the coffee table was covered with scribbled pages ripped out of a notebook. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I don’t know why you’re being so unreasonable. We all know you’re not here because of a drunk peasant. You’re here for another reason. And this reason has a name: Dijana Frankovic.”

  Brano stared at him, unable to answer. After all the secrets spilled and networks made useless, Ludwig was asking about a matter of personal desire. Perhaps they thought she was part of his network, he didn’t know. But bringing her up provoked that one thing Brano had been able to sidestep for three weeks. It was one of Cerny’s dictums: Never hate your enemy. Hatred means you underestimate; your hatred makes you blind.

  “Dijana Frankovic is connected to nothing. I can’t explain it.” He inhaled, trying not to weep, his stomach knotting. “Dijana Frankovic is an innocent. She just stumbled into the wrong man. She fell in love.”

  Ludwig smiled doubtfully, the same smile Colonel Cerny gave him when he told Brano she was obviously a spy. “Tell me, Brano. You were sent to follow Jan Soroka, to track his path. Why, then, once you knew you’d be picked up by us, didn’t you arrest the Sorokas, or simply turn back?”

  Brano was asking himself the same question. He took a deep breath, and the tight flesh on his rising chest began to ache. He’d had orders, but he could have interpreted them however he liked. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “It wasn’t just her in love with me.”

  “I knew it!” Ludwig slapped his knee and turned to Karl. “Didn’t I tell you? All idealists are, beneath the surface, just romantics. Didn’t I say that?”

  Karl nodded.

  Brano exhaled and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, blinking, but couldn’t quite get the living room into focus. He felt very old.

  19 MARCH 1967, SUNDAY

  He’d spent the last week sore and sleepless, fearing each night that when Ludwig came the next day, it would be with Dijana Frankovic in tow, and he’d give way to the hatred that tugged at him. But when Ludwig arrived each morning, it was with a notebook and pen, and the questions continued. Until Sunday, when he brought a cardboard box. Brano shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Ludwig set the box on the coffee table. “Go ahead, Brano. Something for you.” Brano reached forward and opened it.

  Inside was a suit, slate gray jacket and pants, and beneath, a pressed white shirt.

  “Try it on. I guessed your measurements yesterday. Let’s see how well I did.”

  Ludwig had guessed perfectly. Despite the soreness in his nipples when he buttoned the shirt, each piece of clothing fit as if it had been measured for him, and the material was strong and very fine. Ludwig put his hand on his chin.

  “Like new, Brano. Very good.”

  “What now?”

  “Now, we take you to your new home.”

  They used the burlap bag again, and when it was removed they were making their way through farmland toward Vienna. It was the same car that had brought him in from the Ferto Lake, the gray Renault. Karl sat in the backseat with him while the tall guard drove. Ludwig, in the passenger seat, gazed ahead as the road widened and rose, the familiar cityscape coming into view.

  “Where’s my new home?”

  Ludwig twisted back and winked. “A surprise.”

  They entered Vienna from the southeast, through the Simmering and Landstra?e districts, then along the Ringstra?e that circled the inner city, past the Stadtpark and the immense buildings of the Museum Quarter. Along Mariahilfer Stra?e, storefronts loomed, the sidewalks packed. A left just before the Westbahnhof, a few more streets, then they parked.

  “Not a bad area,” said Ludwig. “You can do your shopping just up the road.”

  “So I’m allowed to leave?”

  “Leave?”

  “My new home. You’re not taking me to prison.”

  Though he’d often smiled, this was the first time Ludwig laughed in Brano’s presence, a choked sound from a red face. “Christ, Brano. You’ve got an imagination.”

  His new home was a quaint apartment building at number 25 Web-Gasse. White Secessionist women’s faces looked down from a high floor.

  “How long?”

  “What?”

  “How long are you going to le
t me stay here?”

  “As long as you want, Brano. Just check in with us weekly-each meeting we’ll renew your visa-and sometimes we can talk. Why should we treat you the way you treat people?”

  “How do I treat people?”

  “Just read the newspaper, Brano. Everyone knows what you guys do.”

  Brano almost replied, but the week-old soreness beneath his shirt convinced him otherwise. His impulse was to give a list of agents who had been lost in Vienna over the last three years. Ignac Janke had turned up in a landfill outside town with burn marks covering his chest and two fingers missing. Alfonz Schmidt drowned, but from motor oil poured down his throat. Kristina Urban, the old Vienna rezident, at least experienced a moment of flight when she was thrown from that high window of the Hotel Inter-Continental. And last September, after returning to the Capital, Cerny told him that one of his three agents suspected of being GAVRILO, Theodore Kraus, had turned up at an Austrian farmhouse. He had somehow escaped his captors, though by that point he was blind and mute, the result of haphazard operations with a kitchen knife.

  “There’s a war on,” he said. “None of us know what to expect.”

  The Austrian shrugged. “You’re right about that, Brano. Just consider yourself blessed.”

  They took a rickety elevator to the fifth floor; then Karl placed Brano’s suitcase just inside the barred door of number 3.

  The apartment was large enough for a family-two bedrooms and a vast kitchen, a dining room filled with a huge polished table. Everything was stocked: food, furniture, linens; his clothes had even been hung in the wardrobe. It was unimaginably large compared to his twelfth-floor two-room in a concrete tower back in the Capital. “Hope you don’t mind the style,” said Ludwig.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell that to my wife.”

  Karl seemed to think that was funny.

  “No one lives on this floor, though some old folks are below you. They shouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “I’m sure they won’t be.”

  In the living room, by the twenty-inch television, Ludwig sat on the blue sofa. “It’s an easy deal, you can’t deny it. Once a week you and I meet. Let’s say Sunday, at one. Sound good?”

  “Okay,” said Brano. “Where?”

  “Cafe Mozart on Albertinaplatz. You know it?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Good. Cafe Mozart at one every Sunday.” He placed Brano’s maroon passport on the coffee table. “This has a one-week visa stamp. Each Sunday I’ll give you a new one. For that, you and I talk, and I don’t do all the talking. You understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “If you’re contacted by anyone-and I’m sure you will be at some time-you let me know. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And you don’t leave Vienna.”

  “I expected that.”

  “You should, Brano. Because we’re giving you everything. Here,” he said, handing over a small stiff card with a long number on it. “That’s your account number at the Raiffeisenbank. Don’t go crazy, now. We’re just civil servants, after all.”

  “Of course.”

  “On the other side I’ve written my work number. For emergencies.” “Okay.”

  Karl took a ring of three keys out of his pocket and placed it on the coffee table. “Any questions?” asked Ludwig.

  Brano looked at Karl standing behind Ludwig, smiling, his hands clasped in front of himself. Then he focused on Ludwig. “Why?”

  Ludwig flared his nostrils and breathed loudly. “Because, Brano, we’re no fools. You’ll only be of use to us when you’re on the street. In a prison cell you’re no use to anyone.”

  “But why do you trust me?”

  “Who ever said I did?” He forced a chuckle. “Brano, I don’t trust you at all. But consider this a job. Right? We’ve got enough unemployed in Vienna.”

  He patted his thighs and stood up. He stuck out his hand.

  Brano shook it.

  Then Ludwig and Karl walked out the door.

  For a while Brano stood in the empty living room, staring at the door. He thought nothing, except that silence-the physical silence of an empty room-was a strange thing. Then he snatched the keys from the coffee table and locked the door.

  He crept back past the sofa to the French windows. They were open, covered by translucent white curtains that stirred in the breeze. He tried to see the street but couldn’t without leaning his head out to where it could be seen from below. So he parted the curtains and quickly peered down.

  The space where they had parked was empty.

  He looked again to be sure, then gazed down the length of the street-from Mariahilfer down to Gumpendorfer Stra?e-and saw only a few car roofs and some pedestrians, small from this height, going to and from their homes. His hands on the window frame shook, but not from elation. He knew that what he did not see still existed. To prove it to himself he walked over to the beige telephone that hung on the wall in the foyer, beside the bare coatrack, and lifted the receiver to his ear. He hung up and repeated the procedure three times, each time recognizing that additional click of the phone tap he would have installed had he been them. Then he turned back to the living room, and in the fan-shaped overhead lamp, in the dials of the large television, in the electric clock hanging on the wall-in all these things he knew he had an enemy.

  24 MARCH 1967, FRIDAY

  Day 5. The Subject, it seems to this agent, is a man in love with ritual, with repetition. He rises at 6:30 each morning and makes one cup of coffee in his apartment, then showers and dresses. Around nine, with a book in hand, he strolls up Liniengasse to where it meets Gumpendorfer Stra?e, purchases a copy of Kurier from a kiosk, then continues to Eszterhyzy Park. On a bench in the shadow of the flak tower, he skims the newspaper, then reads his book. (Purchased 21 March, but title not yet ascertained.) The morning’s coffee runs through him, and he walks to a tree-the same one each day, three back from his bench-and urinates. (This agent hesitates to mention it, but this strikes him as evidence of the Subject’s degraded social conscience-a result of the socialist mentality.) At noon, the Subject walks into the inner city, buying a sausage from a W urstelstand and eating in the street-a different street each day-window-shopping and sometimes settling on a bench to watch passersby. Each evening, he finds a bar-again, a different one each day-and settles with his book or newspaper and a beer in the back corner, often ordering a schnitzel and fried potatoes for dinner. After two beers, he pays and returns to his apartment (never after 21:00), watches television, and goes to sleep.

  The only significant diversion from this routine occurred on Monday, 20 March (Day 1), when, at 11:00, the Subject entered the Raiffeisenbank at Michaelerplatz and withdrew a significant amount of money. He hides the schillings in an ice-cream box he keeps in the freezer.

  “Gru? Gott,” said the waitress, a pretty blonde in a foolish-looking folk costume.

  Brano placed his book on the table, facedown. “Gru? Gott,” he said. “May I have a melange?”

  “Anything else?”

  “Some water. With gas.”

  He watched her weave around full tables to the pastry counter and give the order to a big man beside an espresso machine, who looked as if he ran the Espresso Arabia. Around him Brano heard German, French, Italian, and English. Children sat sullenly with their parents, who flipped through guidebooks. Through the window, Kohlmarkt was full of businessmen and tourists; leaning in a doorway, his shadow, a heavy man with a sunburn, wiped his nose.

  Brano had lived under observation before. In West Berlin, he lived for months with the knowledge that he was being watched. The KGB, whether or not they were doing work in the interests of socialism, kept an eye on agents from both sides of the Curtain. It helped a man to stay on the correct path. Cerny had once joked that the Russians couldn’t get anything done in Berlin because they used all their manpower to watch one another, and this was perhaps true.

  But he had never quite gotte
n used to surveillance. It made even a man as self-conscious as Brano Sev more self-conscious, so that when he paused on a street corner, it felt like a pose, and when the second beer in a Viennese bar caused his head to tingle, he made a special effort to walk straight when he left, so that his shadows would have nothing of interest to report.

  Over that first week he established a dull routine for his watchers’ reports, wondering all the time if Ludwig really expected him to walk to the embassy on Ebendorferstra?e, drag Josef Lochert outside, and announce that he was the local rezident. Maybe he did. Instead, Brano gave him tedium. That, within the confines of his comfortable imprisonment, was rebellion enough.

  On the second day, Brano had purchased a book-Strategie Ouvriere et Necapitalisme, by Andre, Gorz-visited his local park, and wandered the streets of Vienna. To avoid anything of interest, he hid his distaste for the monoliths of the old Habsburg regime, the equestrian statues and palaces from a time when even his own country was ruled from this capital. Although he sometimes paused to consider baskets of painted eggs sold by old women from the countryside, he spoke to no one save the occasional waitress.

  The sunburned man followed him most days, and by Wednesday he seemed to have caught a cold-he wiped his nose with the side of his hand all the way through the Volksgarten. Brano considered offering him his handkerchief, but instead stopped a moment by the Temple of Theseus, with its naked young man whose genitals were covered by a leaf. The concrete base read DER KRAFI UND SCHONHEIT UNSERER JUGEND. The strength and beauty of our youth.

  It made as little sense to him then as it had seven months ago, waking up with a headache and no identity.

  “Melange,” said the waitress as she placed an Austrian caffe latte on the table. “And water.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  The waitress began to turn, then paused, looking at the book on the table. “Is that Andre Gorz?”