He’d followed his orders well up until December 1971. In the Ministry headquarters on Yalta Boulevard he’d taken a bulky file downstairs to the incinerator, but on the way stepped into a bathroom. He closed himself into a stall and began to read.
Why should he not share in the state’s secrets?
The file began with an overview of the history of the USSR’s studies into “psychotronics,” beginning with Bernard Bernardovich Kazhinsky’s Tblisi experiments into telepathy, which led, in 1922, to an address on “human thought-electricity” to the All-Russian Congress of the Association of Naturalists. Later, Leonid L. Vasiliev took up the mantle, focusing on the use of mental suggestion in his 1962 book, Biological Radio Communication. And in 1966, sixty Russian researchers were brought to Academgorodok, or Science City, on the Ob River in western Siberia, to work in the Institute of Automation and Electrometry’s Special Department Number 8. Because of a lack of results, the entire department was closed in 1969.
This historical summary had been used to justify the continued use of the research institute in Rokosyn. Since 1967, scientists there had been attempting to harness “psi particles,” which could potentially allow global communication among special Ministry officers, without the need of hazardous radio transmitters.
But the Rokosyn project, the final document told him, was being scrapped.
As Peter slipped the pages into the incinerator’s fire, a plan was already forming.
The Hotel Erboy was filled with American tourists sagging on padded chairs and fanning themselves with wrinkled maps. Like its facade, the lobby was modern, with wood paneling and inset lamps above the front desk. Peter handed his passport to an amiable clerk. “A room, please.”
“Of course” said the clerk in English, looking at the document. “Mister Ree — zahrd Knopek.”
“Ryzsard Knopek.”
“Of course,” said the clerk, making a note of this. “And you will find breakfast downstairs in our Pasazade Restaurant from seven until ten thirty in the morning. Free, of course, of charge.”
In his narrow room, he waited for the international operator to connect him. It took a while, but finally a woman’s voice said, “Importation Register, First District.”
“Hello, Regina. This is Ludvik. Is the Comrade Lieutenant General available?”
“Just a moment,” she said coolly. Regina Haliniak, at the Yalta front desk, had never liked him.
The line clicked, then buzzed twice before he heard the Lieutenant General’s booming greeting. “Ludvik, you old bastard! How’s the weather down there?”
“Hot, comrade.”
“Do you have good news for me?”
“Everything will be cleaned up by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Excellent, Ludvik. I knew I could depend on you.”
Peter nodded self-consciously into the receiver, as if the Lieutenant General were there to see. “I only had a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Has someone else arrived here in the last day or so?”
“Besides the obvious pair, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
The Lieutenant General paused, humming. “Not that I know of. Brano!”
Through the hiss of the line he heard Brano Sev’s weak voice in the Lieutenant General’s office. Yes?
“Comrade Sev’s there with you?”
“Did you want to speak with him?”
“No.”
The Lieutenant General’s voice lowered as he asked Brano Sev if he knew of any new operatives in Istanbul. “He’s shaking his head, Ludvik. Comrade Sev’s a man of few words.”
“Yes. I know.”
He could hear the Lieutenant General’s uh huh, uh huh in answer to something Brano was saying. Then: “We’ll double-check here and get back to you if we learn something. Where will you be?”
“The Hotel Erboy,” said Peter. “It’s where the others are.”
“You’ll be under Knopek again?”
“Yes, comrade.”
Peter hung up and stretched out on the bed, closing his eyes. While he trusted the Lieutenant General, he didn’t like the fact that his original mentor, Brano Sev, was there. He and Brano were not enemies, per se, but nor were they friends at this point. Friends often grow apart over the space of weeks or months for a variety of reasons; yet with Brano he knew the exact day and hour, the precise reason.
18 April 1972. One o’clock.
At Peter’s request, they met at their usual bench in Victory Park, beside the statue to the dead of all wars, the bronze soldier on a boulder, his rifle lying across his knees. Peter said he had an idea.
“So Comrade Junior Lieutenant Mas has an idea.”
Peter ignored the tone. “A method for uncovering imperialist spies.”
“Go on.”
“Well, the Russians had Special Department Number 8, and we had the Rokosyn clinic. To study the potential use of psychokinesis. It was recently closed down.”
Brano Sev looked at him. “I hope you’re not suggesting we use mystics to give us the names of enemy agents.”
“Not at all, Comrade Colonel. What I’m suggesting is that we reopen the Rokosyn project, which will, ostensibly, continue investigating paranormal phenomena.”
“Why?”
“Bear with me, Comrade Colonel. Please.”
Brano Sev folded his hands in his lap.
“On paper, the clinic would keep up the pretense of this work. Our mental homes are full of people who believe they have special abilities, and they would be brought to that remote mountain facility.”
“To be studied?”
“No, Comrade Colonel. They would simply be cared for in the same manner they’re cared for now. No actual research would be conducted.”
“You realize,” said Brano Sev, “that you’re making less and less sense as you continue.”
“This is where my reasoning lies: The program would be given the highest level of security clearance.”
“Yes?”
“However, we would sometimes allow pieces of information to slip out-about a major parapsychology program that’s achieving great success. This, in turn, will pique the interests of the imperialists. They will mobilize their embedded agents, and perhaps send new ones. But because we control the outflow of information, we will be able to identify and track foreign agents in our midst.”
Peter waited as Brano Sev scratched a mole on his cheek, then inhaled deeply through his nose. “Interesting, Comrade Mas. Very interesting.”
Peter felt himself flushing with pleasure.
“But…”
“Yes?”
Brano Sev adjusted himself on the bench, watching a woman with high heels pass. “In theory, this is a fine idea. Admirable, actually. But, practically, I can see problems.”
“Such as?”
“Well, one problem is resources. The workers running this laboratory will have to be taken from the ranks of the Ministry. That’s the only way we can be confident of their discretion. How many do you think?”
“Five, maybe six.”
“Okay. These Ministry agents will care for some number of patients. Twenty?”
Peter shrugged, then nodded.
“So the Ministry pays for the lives of twenty mental patients and loses five or six trusted agents from the field. For an operation that has a life of one year-two years at most. You understand?”
Peter didn’t. “I saw this as going on for much longer than that.”
In an uncommon sign of affection, Brano patted Peter’s knee. “If we set up a situation whereby we release teaspoons of information periodically, the agents we’re tracking will over time acquire enough information to have the entire picture. One way to delay this moment is to release contradictory information, but at that point their superiors will notice this, and the project will be exposed as a fraud.”
Peter squinted at him, taking this in. Then he understood. “I’m sorry, Comrade Colonel. I didn’t explain well enough. Each i
ndividual agent will not be able to collect more than a few pieces of information, because as soon as he’s identified, we will liquidate him. All the West will know is that there is a secret program so important to us that whenever an enemy agent pursues it, he disappears.”
Brano Sev stared at him, unblinking. “So the purpose of this operation is to execute foreign agents.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel. Exactly.”
Brano Sev watched another passing woman as he chewed the inside of his cheek. “Comrade Mas. While I appreciate your initiative, it’s clear that you’re living with a fundamental misunderstanding of what we do. Intelligence work is precisely what it says-it’s about intelligence. We are not murderers. You may have heard stories during your time with us of operations that ended with the killing of a foreign agent. This happens. But make no mistake-the killing of an enemy agent is seldom the purpose of an operation. When it is, it means the decision has been carefully deliberated over, and all other options have been deemed insufficient.” He paused, frowning. “You see, Comrade Mas, the purpose is not to kill the opposition; the purpose is to defeat him. This is not yet a war of attrition. When it becomes that, you’ll know, because there will be mushroom clouds on the horizon.”
They sat in silence, the flush on Peter’s face meaning something entirely different than it had moments before. “Comrade Colonel, I-”
“No,” said Brano Sev. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. And I don’t want anyone else to hear about it. You understand?”
Katja
Istvan returns to the hotel around seven, pink from the sun, and begins telling me about wonderful, hospitable Turks and their oversized hearts. But I’m not interested; I’m famished. I throw him his jacket. “Let’s go.”
The waiter in the hotel restaurant leads us to a table by the window. He’s a tall, thin Turk with heavy eyes and a mustache. Not unattractive.
Istvan’s having trouble opening his menu. I wonder if he’s drunk and suddenly want to be drunk myself. “Rak??” I ask the waiter.
“With water?”
“No. I want it straight.”
The waiter smiles, impressed, at Istvan.
Halfway through my second rak? still waiting on the food, I’m feeling the effects. I begin babbling about Aron. “He’s a good man, but simple. I think that’s the problem.”
Istvan fingers his glass. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“Is it a problem?”
He shakes his head and leans forward, as if he sympathizes. “What do you mean, though? That he’s simple. He’s stupid?”
“No,” I say, laughing, then stop. Because it’s occurred to me that merely calling him “simple” has been enough for a long time. I’ve never actually defined this word. “His parents,” I say, “they were very good to him. They treated him as if he were a prince. Royalty. They taught him…” I pause. “How to enjoy his life. They taught him to appreciate what he has, even me.” I reach for my rak? and, after draining the glass, my mouth tingling from anise-seed, add, “There have been no tragedies in his life.”
Except, I think, his marriage to me.
Istvan frowns as I call to the surprised waiter for another. Even I can see I’m making little sense. He says, “You think they were wrong to teach him these things?”
“I think these things are lies. They make a man soft.”
“And simple.”
“And simple.”
“I don’t know this man,” says Istvan, “but it strikes me that you’re confusing optimism with simplicity. In my experience that’s just not true. Pessimism-or darkness, or whatever you want to call it-is the simplest thing of all. It’s easiest to call the world complicated because it relieves you of responsibility. Optimists must engage the world in all its complexity and still succeed. Pessimists can lounge above the action, can be ironic, can sit with their arms crossed.” He pauses, his face very serious. “Pessimists do not take action, which is the only useful thing humans can do. Certainly it’s more effective than passive criticism.”
During his talk I’ve been sipping my rak? because I have no way of answering his accusations, can only stare at the creases when he smiles, the long lashes that grow from his bright green eyes, the misplaced long hair curling from his left brow, and the way his lips are damp except at the edges, where the dryness is starting to peel.
He nods at my glass, which I’m gripping. “Why are you drinking so much?”
“Because I’m going to have sex with you tonight.”
It’s the only thing I can think of to unsettle him, and it does.
So there I was. In that apartment on 24th of October Street, telling the old Romanian supervisor that I was a friend of Stanislav’s. Which immediately endeared me to her. She began bringing up plates of sarmale and other things with cabbage. Can you imagine? From my life at home, where not even my own mother cared for me, to this. Simply because of a few lies. I was using Stanislav’s money. I didn’t know what I’d do when it ran out, but for the moment I didn’t care. I was Stanislav, you see? And to remind myself I kept his knife with me all the time, inside my jacket, as if his family, too, were mine.
Then there was a knock on the door and I was faced with one of the prettiest young women I’d ever seen.
Yes, Katja Uher. She had seen the light on and wondered if Stanislav had returned. I introduced myself as a close friend, using my real name, and told her lies when she asked what news there was of Stanislav. Her eyes shone when she asked me that. So I told her stories, elaborating on the ones he’d told me. Valor in battle and all that. She was very impressed with her boyfriend. She stayed in Pacin with her family, but most days she took the train into town. I took her out for coffee, convinced her to have a brandy now and then.
You see, it didn’t really matter to me that everything was a lie; the fact was that I was happy just to see her face, the way she trusted me implicitly. And for a week, it was…it was as if she really were mine. I took her to the cinema, to the puppet shows, and once we even had a picnic. And it didn’t even bother me when you showed up, Comrade Sev. Really, it didn’t.
Oh, it wasn’t simple. You came to the apartment and called me Comrade Private Stanislav Klym and said that I had come to your attention because of my courage in battle. You said that the Ministry was interested in strong young men like myself. It didn’t bother me because, ignoring the name, you were right. I am a strong young man, the kind that could be a great help to the Ministry. Besides, you were giving me a plan for the future, something I’ve never had. Though I told you at first that I needed time to think about it, I knew I’d accept your offer. I had no choice.
Yes, I did tell her, but only that I’d been offered a job. It was an excuse for celebration, and I took her to the Hotel Metropol for dinner, using most of what was left of Stanislav’s money.
Right-how do you know this? Yes, afterward, on the walk home, I drew her aside and kissed her.
Is this really important?
No, she did not kiss me back. She became upset and ran away.
I can tell when he reaches orgasm, because men make it known. His silence turns to panting, and I feel him grow inside me. He straightens-at this moment men are the most proud. As if they are onstage, their leakage some kind of gold that only this particular man is capable of producing. Perhaps that’s why I push him out before he can stain me.
It doesn’t interrupt his performance. He rolls on his back and pulls on himself. At this moment the woman disappears anyway, and there’s just a man and his tool and the glory of his mess.
When he’s done, he opens his eyes and turns to me, but I’ve rolled away. I noticed, when I undressed, the expression when he first caught sight of the ragged scar just below my navel, and now it’s instinct to hide it from him.
“Katja,” he says, then slides up behind me. He’s making my buttocks sticky, and that only brings on more tears. “Katja, what’s wrong?”
Yes, yes. Okay? I followed her after she ran off.
We were in Victory Park, and I caught up with her. I apologized. I said I understood how terrible it was, me being a friend of her fiance, and perhaps we could put it behind us. She calmed down and said she accepted my apology. Then I asked her if I had a chance. I mean, if Stanislav did not exist.
She frowned-I remember that face clearly. A frown, and then a smile that became a full, terrible laugh. I think she was going to say something, but I didn’t find out. I was having trouble hearing her at that point. I grabbed her, she was very light, and dragged her deeper into the park. I threw her down behind some shrubs and began to kiss her. She fought back, I think, but it wasn’t very hard to get her out of that skirt and…
I’m sorry, I blanked out there. But you know what I mean.
No, actually. I didn’t rape her. At first I thought I would, but then I remembered that I had a new life, a new career. One that had to be protected. And this girl, beautiful as she was, she was what one might call a loose end. So I used the knife that I had brought with me from Prague, the one I always carried inside my jacket. I used it on her. Right here.
For the recording, right? I stabbed her in the stomach.
I killed her.
I assume so. It’s a big knife, Comrade Sev.
In the darkness, after I get control of my tears and we’re just lying there, side by side, Istvan says, “There’s a phrase in Islam, al-hikmat al-majhuulah, which means ‘the unknown wisdom.’ It’s about those things that Allah does that are beyond our understanding.” He pauses. “It’s a comforting thing to believe that when the innocent suffer, there’s a reason, though we will never understand it.” I feel his hot palm on my thigh. “I find it a liberating thought. You?”
He waits for an answer, but I have none to give.
Gavra
They left through the rear of the apartment building, Gavra stomping through the muddy parking lot while Adrian carried his bag a few feet behind, avoiding puddles. Gavra said, “That Trabant. Do you know who it belongs to?”
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