“I know my limits.” He takes a drink and cocks his head, and in this light I can see his scalp through his thin hair. “So why are you in Istanbul? Obviously not business, or you’d have a reservation.”
“I just wanted to see it. Istanbul.”
“And what do you do back in the Capital?”
I’m not sure at first if I should answer, but then it seems that there have been too many secrets around me, and I don’t want this to continue. “I’m a militiawoman.”
Istvan inhales, bobbing impressed eyebrows. “I’d never have guessed.”
“Why not?”
He answers as if he’s standing behind a podium. “From my experience you can tell the Militia type pretty quickly. They walk like they’re being watched all the time. They give off this silent-but-judging aura they want everyone to notice. As if what’s going on in their heads is for them, and only them, to know about.”
“Isn’t everyone like that?”
“You’re not.”
I smile, lean closer. “Then tell me what I’m like.”
He peers at me over the rim of his glass, his eyes twinkling-he likes this. “Well, you’re average height, so you don’t stand out that way. You’re not overly muscled, which would also stand out on a woman. But you’re fit. That could mean any sort of job.”
“You’re just describing my body.”
“Have to start somewhere. So…you do have a habit of taking in a place when you enter. Like this bar. When we came in, you immediately looked to your left and right, to see what was on either side of the door. Usually people look ahead, to where they want to end up. But you’re careful.” He shrugs. “I suppose that’s the training.”
I sip my rak? and wait for more.
“You know how you look,” he says. “In that way you’re self-conscious. But not in the way most militiamen are. You’re self-conscious the way beautiful women are. They know that when they enter a room, eyes will turn to them. They know that because of this they have some power.”
“You’re embarrassing me.”
“I’m just telling you what I see. When we were on the plane and I started to speak with you, you acted as if I were asking for your phone number. Because you’re used to this. So you went out of your way to ignore me, even though I was sitting next to you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because at that moment I really am.
“I’m not offended; it’s a common thing. It’s how beautiful women protect themselves. Why should they have to lose their anonymity just because of the way they look? It’s unfair, so you have to fight it.” He looks down at my empty glass. “You want another?”
“Water,” I say, and he orders this from the bartender, as well as another rak? for himself. Then he measures me with his eyes.
“Now that you tell me you’re a militiawoman, it starts to make me wonder. In France I’ve run into a couple of policewomen, but they tend to shape themselves into men. Short haircuts, a kind of forced machismo. Partly so that the public will take them seriously; partly so their co-workers will stop trying to kiss them. But your fingernails-you keep them painted and long. Your hair is well cared for. And you use makeup.”
I instinctively touch my cheek.
“You must have a difficult time in the Militia office. What department?”
“I’m a homicide inspector.”
He takes another breath, very affected. “Now, that’s interesting. What made you want to track down murderers?”
No one has ever asked me that before, so I don’t have a pat answer ready. I’ve only been asked, by my worried family, why I’d want to work with Militia oafs-and by my frustrated husband, why I’d want to risk my life. But homicide in particular?
It’s the same reason I’m here in Istanbul.
I say, “Some years ago, my fiance was murdered.”
“Did they catch his killer?”
I shake my head.
“So you do this in order to avenge him.”
“Perhaps.”
He drinks his rak? and considers that. “What about the abstract stuff?”
“What?”
“The state-defending the order of the state and all that?”
“Of course. That, too.”
“But not really.”
I pause, then shake my head.
He takes another sip. “What if he was caught? The murderer, I mean. Let’s say you caught him and he was sent to some work camp. Let’s say he’s sent to dig the Canal. What would you do?”
“I’d be happy.”
“But would you want to leave your job?”
“I don’t follow.”
He smiles. “It’s simple, Katja. If he’s the reason you wanted to become a homicide inspector, and you took care of that reason, would you still want to be a homicide inspector?”
I can feel myself flushing, because I don’t like this question. It sounds too much like a question Aron might pose. If you left the Militia, would you then have my baby? But I know the answer to this what-if. “I don’t know how to be anything else,” I say, though I’m not sure he believes me. I’m not sure I believe myself.
Peter
1968
He rubbed his eyes and gazed out the dirty window at the passing countryside, rubbing the scratches on the back of his hand. Flat fields had given way to rolling hills under an overcast late-morning sky. Across from him in the compartment was a fat farmer’s wife, not unlike his own mother, her babushka tied tightly under her chin. She ate pumpkin seeds and tried not to stare at the blood soaked into the upturned collar of his army jacket.
He’d slept the whole way from Prague, then been woken in Sarisske by a Czech border guard, who, though he noticed the blood, was too intimidated by the uniform to comment. Peter handed over Stanislav Klym’s documents with a serious expression and accepted them back just as morbidly. It was in Sarisske that this woman had joined him.
He hadn’t thought about the blood when he plunged the knife into Stanislav Klym’s neck. He had simply followed what he knew was the inevitable next step. He pushed it through the skin, and when it hit resistance the neck slid back against his knee. The soldier’s eyes and mouth snapped open, but without voice. Just the wet rasping of impossible breaths. His fingers came up, clawing Peter’s hands, and his legs kicked. Then Peter let go of the knife and fell back, climbing backward up to the window. It took a minute, maybe two, for the soldier to die. He writhed on the ground as a black pool grew in front of him and dribbled down the steps.
The train slowed and pulled into Velky Saris. On the platform, the men who guarded the border of Peter’s new home gathered and approached the train.
He’d stared at the dead soldier a long time, squatting until the balls of his feet burned. He’d wanted to cry but calmed himself by putting his mind elsewhere, into an oral examination he had taken months and another life ago, where he had mistaken the structure of the sonata allegro form-the first theme, followed by a transition into the second theme in a new key. This theme is developed, and then comes the recapitulation-a repeat of the first theme. Then the second theme returns, but in the original key, and is followed by the coda.
How could he have gotten this wrong?
He’d stood when he thought he could do so without falling. Then, despite the chill, he undressed.
“Papers.”
He looked up at a young guard in a smart blue uniform with the national symbol of the hawk on its shoulder. The guard bowed his head to the woman as he took her passport. “How are the cows, Irina?”
She shrugged. “Norbert had to shoot the two best ones.”
“Oh?” The soldier stamped the passport and handed it back.
“Tuberculosis.” She shrugged again. “It happens.”
The guard nodded with sympathy, then smiled at Peter as he accepted his papers. “Coming from Prague?”
“I am.”
He flipped absently through the passport. “How’s it going up there?”
Peter wasn’t sure how to answer,
and his hesitation earned a look from the guard. “It’s improving,” he said quickly, then shook his head. “Last week was hell.”
The guard pointed at Peter’s collar. “Yeah. It looks like it was.”
Peter touched the blood. “Earned this at the radio station. I’m lucky to get back with my life.”
The woman crossed herself.
“A lucky man,” said the guard. He squinted at the photograph in the passport. “You need to start eating.”
“You think so?”
“You’ve lost a lot of weight.” He showed the picture to the woman, who nodded her agreement.
“You’ll get sick,” she said as the guard stamped the passport and handed it back.
“My girlfriend will fatten me up,” said Peter. He slipped the passport into his jacket pocket, beside the stiff hunting knife marked by a hawk similar to the one on the guard’s shoulder patch.
He’d acquired so much in the past six hours that what he’d lost was barely a memory. Like a simple melody line that gains chords, a variety of keys, and counterpoint, developing into a grand piece, he had acquired a name, a knife, money, and an apartment. In the space of six hours he’d acquired a life.
The guard saluted Peter. “Welcome home, comrade.”
Katja
“A militiawoman,” Istvan says once we’re back upstairs. He’s in the bedroom, and I’m in the bathroom, removing makeup in the mirror. “You’re not on a case, are you?”
“I’ve got no authority outside our lovely country.”
“I see,” he says, then stands in the doorway. “You’re a very beautiful woman.”
I can see him in the reflection, and my face is up close. Perhaps he’s right-I have the requisite cheekbones, blond hair, dark eyes-but age is setting in early and I’m wondering what I’ll look like at thirty, thirty-five. I’ll look fifty, I know it. “It’s a temporary beauty,” I tell him.
“Where do you want to sleep?”
“In the bed.”
His smile is huge.
“And you’ll be a gentleman and take the sofa.”
He retains the smile another few seconds, but that’s only decorum. “Of course, of course. You want another drink? There’s a minibar in the cabinet.”
“I’m really tired.”
“It’ll help you sleep.”
I stop fooling with my face and turn to look at him. “Really, Istvan. Thanks, but all I want now is a proper rest.”
When I come out, he’s lying on the sofa in the other room, and I tell him good night as I close the adjoining doors. His Good night sounds distinctively frustrated.
Before turning off the light, I call down to the front desk and ask in stilted, stumbling English if they have a reel-to-reel tape player in the hotel. “I believe we do, bayan. ”
“I can use tomorrow?”
“Of course, bayan. What time?”
I returned to the Metropol bar an hour before my appointment with Brano Sev because I couldn’t stand the sunlight anymore. How can I explain it? The sunlight wasn’t a metaphor for anything. No. There are no metaphors in life, simply things. Things that undermine you or give you strength. The sunlight undermined me.
I drank two waters and was rude to one bearded man who tried to start a conversation. Disappointed, he returned to his dim corner table and watched from a distance.
Brano arrived at precisely five. Under his arm was a bulky envelope that he placed on the bar as he climbed onto his stool. He asked the bartender for a beer.
“Comrade Drdova.”
“Comrade Sev.”
He looked at the glass the bartender placed before him. “Comrade Drdova, this man you call Peter Husak no longer goes by that name. He was…well, he came to my attention in 1968, the year you knew him. But when I met him, he wasn’t using that name. He went by the name Stanislav Klym.”
Up until then I’d had my elbow on the table, my forehead resting in a palm. I dropped my hand slowly. “He used my Stanislav’s name?”
“This is why he came to my attention. The real Stanislav Klym had proved himself brave and steadfast during the troubles in Czechoslovakia, an intelligent young man, and I wanted to recruit him. I didn’t know, at the time, that he had died in Prague.”
“Recruit him for what?”
“For the kind of work I do.”
I waited.
“Once I learned Stanislav had returned from Prague, I visited his apartment and found this man who answered to his name. I made the offer of work, and he accepted.” Brano took a sip of his beer, then set it down. “The truth came out later, during a week-long interview session. It’s something we do to new recruits. We talk with them intensely over the space of a week to be sure they are the kind of people we can work with. This Husak was an adept liar-quite talented, you could say-but over days I began to see that elements of his story didn’t fit together. He knew nothing about Pacin, your and Stanislav’s hometown, and he could not accurately piece together his time in Czechoslovakia.” Brano shrugged. “So the truth finally came out. His real name was the one he gave you, Peter Husak, and he was a Slovak from the border region, which explained why he knew our language so well. He’d gotten into trouble during the counterrevolution and assumed your boyfriend’s identity in order to escape the country.”
“But,” I began, then paused. I looked in my bag until I found a cigarette, then stuck it in my mouth. I didn’t light it. “You mean he stole his papers off a dead man?”
Brano took a lighter from his pocket and lit my cigarette for me. He watched me suck on it. “Peter Husak killed Stanislav Klym. For his papers.”
His face, through the smoke, was so neutral, and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to press my fingernails into his eyes. But I spoke calmly. “What is his name now?”
Brano squinted. “This is something that remains between us. You understand?”
“Just tell me his name.”
“Ludvik Mas. After he joined the Ministry we gave him a new identity. We didn’t want the Czechs to know who he was.”
“Ludvik Mas,” I said.
“You’re not curious why I’m telling you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t care. Is he here? Is he in the Capital?”
“He’s in Istanbul.”
“Istanbul?”
“He left this morning.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I don’t know why I didn’t ask more. Sitting there with Brano Sev, my desire for simplicity was acute. Ludvik Mas, or Peter Husak, was in Istanbul. That was all I needed to know. Brano opened his envelope and slid a roll of audiotape to me.
“This is a record of part of my conversation with Peter Husak back in 1968. You may find it of interest.”
But all I wanted was simplicity. “I don’t need it.”
“I think you’ll find it useful for understanding.”
“Understanding what?”
“The why of your boyfriend’s death, Katja. And perhaps more. We are sometimes faced with inexplicable moments in our past, and they plague us over the years until we’re no longer able to function. But if we find an explanation…”
“I didn’t think Ministry officers subscribed to psychology, Comrade Sev.”
Brano actually smiled. “Not officially, Comrade Drdova. Here.”
From the envelope he also took a small bundle of koronas and a fresh maroon passport. An external passport.
“Take this,” he said.
On the front page of the passport was an old photograph of me, with my name.
“Comrade Drdova, do you have any travel plans?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. At that point I honestly didn’t know. “I might.”
“Well, if you do, remember that time is of the essence. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d stay in touch. Give me a call.”
“I don’t know if I can promise that.”
“A call is only a call, Katja. Over a telephone you don’t have to say anyt
hing you don’t wish to say, whereas I can be particularly helpful. I’ll be sure to remain near my desk.”
“Okay, Brano.”
With those words, something moved in me. Though it would soon return, the confusion left, and I felt like a worker receiving instructions that made my entire life a simple matter of obedience.
For that one instant, I felt good.
Gavra
It took a half hour for the Militia technicians to arrive, and Gavra waited for them by the dead American, chain-smoking. Details were accumulating-a hijacked plane, a delusional woman, and the cryptic Ludvik Mas-who, it appeared, killed a German terrorist, a doctor, and an American spy. Now Adrian Martrich was living under the threat of execution.
In the world outside the Ministry, the why of these murders wouldn’t be of importance. A single man had killed three men in the space of a day and was after a fourth. It didn’t matter how the killings were connected to a hijacked plane or to a sick woman who had called from the airport. In the real world, Ludvik Mas would have been picked up and locked in a cell. And Gavra would be allowed to treat him just as he’d treated Wilhelm Adler in that factory office.
But this wasn’t the real world. This place was much more elusive, and more threatening.
The men took photographs, carted away the body, and mopped the floor clean.
By the time he returned, Adrian was playing a Smak record and had set two cold vodkas on the coffee table. He smiled at Gavra. “How was your day, dear?”
When the momentary surprise faded, Gavra smiled as well.
They didn’t speak at first, only settled into the sofa and sipped their drinks, while over the speakers Smak’ s progressive jam session settled Gavra’s nerves. They toasted their health; then Adrian refilled their glasses and settled next to him on the sofa, close. Gavra said, “Tell me about your sister.”
Adrian spoke of a wicked childhood in Chudlove. He described their father’s sudden, rabid fits of anger. The two times he broke his son’s arm. The day Adrian walked in on him on top of his struggling sister-Zrinka was ten.
Gavra set down his glass.
Adrian told him of the time their father tied their mother to the radiator and made the children watch what he did to her. He told Gavra that she, in turn, focused her frustration on the children. When Father was gone for days on alcoholic rages, Mother blamed them for his disappearances and locked them in the cellar. Then, when Adrian was twelve, they both killed themselves. In the backyard. With knives.
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