The Bridge of Sighs

by Olen Steinhauer

  “Ma’am,” Emil said loudly. Everyone looked up. “Do you know Irina Kula? I’m looking for her.”

  The widow frowned deeply. “Of course I know Irina. Who are you?”

  “From the Capital,” said the farmer with the mustache.

  “I’m Emil Brod.”

  The second, smooth-faced farmer stood up, and Emil thought his face was familiar. “Valentin Brod’s son!”

  The others looked at the grinning farmer, then back at Emil. The widow began to laugh.

  Irina Kula’s two-room house was as near as everything in Ruscova—a few houses down, then back through someone’s garden—and Irina glowed when she saw Emil. She pulled them both inside with her hands on their backs and called for her friend Greta, who was waiting in the kitchen. They were two fat, aproned women with sunburnt smiles. Their short hair had gone frizzy and useless years ago. Irina served plates of baked apples, one after the other.

  “Tell me,” she said, watching them eat. “Your grandmother— how is she?”

  “She works now, in a factory. Textiles.” “Shirts?” asked Greta.

  “Slacks and jackets.”

  “Factory pants,” Greta muttered disapprovingly. “And that red husband of hers?”

  “Still red.”

  He told them about his travels in the north, the cold Arctic, the cold Finns, and admitted to the massive beauty of Helsinki. Lena, he noticed, listened closely to all of it.

  “But you came back,” Irina said, smiling.

  “Where would I go?”

  Greta slid a soft mound of apple from her wrinkled fingers into her mouth. “You came back and married.” She smiled at Lena as she chewed, and, after a moment, Lena smiled back.

  Emil avoided as many details as possible, only enough to make them understand the severity and secrecy of his request for a room. “Just a few days. For her safety.”

  Irina glowed. “She’ll live here forever if she likes—such a beautiful girl! Don’t you think?”

  “Indeed,” said.Greta, nodding.

  Irina gave a wide smile that was short on teeth. “She can be my daughter.”

  “I thought I was your daughter,” said Greta haughtily, and both women laughed.

  After a late dinner of pork-stuffed cabbage, Emil smoked on the front porch, watching two shadowy horse-forms grazing in a black field across the road. They moved in increments, holding their bowed heads to the crabgrass, unaware. There were other small homes farther along, some with high fences blocking them from sight. Irinas home and a few others had no fences, and he could see straight through to the low beginnings of the Carpathians.

  The door groaned, and Lena squatted beside him. She blinked, adjusting to the darkness. “You’ve got a nice little town.”

  “Not mine,” he said. “Not much, either.” He pointed. “Some houses, fences and mountains, like I told you. The occasional horse.” He wondered how long she’d be able to take living in the sticks without her scotches and American cigarettes, in a hard bed, surrounded by the clumsy handcrafts of the peasantry. “Is Irina still up?”

  “She’s listening to the radio,” whispered Lena, and Emil realized they had both been whispering all along.

  As if on cue, tinny voices drifted through the window, submerged in hisses, then rose again like a swimmer struggling in the middle of an ocean.

  “Only one station, she told me. And only sometimes.”

  Emil pressed his palms against his knees. He reached for his cane. “A walk?”

  They made it to the road without speaking, then crossed into the field where the horses cantered nervously away. Lena twisted long grass into a knot. “When I was in Stryy again, I was reminded what it means to be alone. It’s not good.”

  Emil knew, and said as much.

  “It’s hard to find someone,” she said. “To trust, I mean. It’s rare.”

  He didn’t know how to answer that. The breeze was chilling him, but he hardly noticed.

  She looked at the mountains, then back at the village. There were no lights. “How long are you going to be gone?”

  “A week. If I take longer, I’ll send someone to get you.”

  “You’re going to Berlin?”

  He squatted, trying to get rid of the ache in his stomach that had pestered him since the train. Lena Crowder was no fool.

  “You’ll fly?”

  “I’ve never been on a plane,” he admitted. “I’m terrified.”

  “You shouldn’t go. You could get killed.”

  He wondered, amid her innuendoes and his own mounting confusion, if she understood how much danger she was in. Two old women could do nothing to protect her.

  When she walked, her skirt moved with the breeze. “I’ll write you a check. You can’t afford the trip.”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  He heard her exhale a soft, weary laugh in the darkness, but couldn’t see her smile. “Not the People’s Militia. They won’t pay a single korona.” She was a little ahead of him in the grass, standing with her legs apart. She was so quiet he could hardly hear her, even this close. “You’re not sure about any of this, are you?”

  He squatted again as the pain shot through him, and when he looked up she was right there, standing over him, shaking. The airy smell of her perspiration filled him. From the sound of her breaths, he knew she was crying. He stood up quickly, unsure, and held her shoulders. He slid his small, flat hand across her back and felt her ribs shaking against his chest. His cheeks were wet from her tears, and her short, hot gasps warmed them. His cane slipped from his grasp, and now both hands were on her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  She kissed him first, lightly on the neck, and when he kissed her salty lips it felt as if they had done this all their lives. There was no Janos Crowder, no People s Militia, no one. His legs gave out, and she fell with him into the grass. It had been such a long day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  *******************

  On the train he tried to ignore both his aching back and stomach, and his fears for Lena. He tried to focus on the facts.

  February 1948, Janos Crowder made a trip to Berlin. This was before the present Russian blockade and Allied airlift.

  Soon after Janos returned to the Capital, he had enough money to take an apartment in town and leave his wealthy wife.

  (His wife, Emil thought. In the field last night, she kissed his scars.)

  Six months later, in early August 1948, Janos made a halfhearted attempt to get back together with Lena, and after a week was kicked out.

  One week after that—August 18—Janos was killed.

  Then his building supervisor was killed in the same way.

  Emil had few doubts: Jerzy Michalec, alias Smerdyakov, was his man, and Smerdyakov used an unknown German to do his work. For Emil it was not a question of who murdered these men, but why. Presumably, they were killed over an object that Janos Crowder and Aleks Tudor had in their possessions. Something that could fit into the pages of a book.

  (He felt the blades of grass cutting into his palms as he held himself over her moist face.)

  He again looked over the photograph of Jerzy Michalec and the tall German who had shot him three times. Certainly thesephotos couldn’t be the objects that had killed two men? A meeting at an automobile. Nighttime, talking. They proved nothing.

  Another photograph, he thought.

  When they called her that first time to tell her Janos was dead, she felt as if she were being watched. You know the feeling.

  Maybe they were watching her, waiting for her to run after the photograph. But she didn’t, because she knew nothing.

  (When he closed his eyes, he was back in that field, at the foot of the Carpathians.)

  It was three in the afternoon when he dropped by the state bank, cashed Lena’s exorbitant check, and then made it to the station. Big Ferenc was getting ready to leave with Stefan, but they stopped when they saw him clicking along with his cane. Leonek sat up in his chair, w
aking. “Brod! What the hell?”

  Emil went straight to Brano Sev, who was sliding his file drawer closed, watching him approach. Emil dragged over a spare chair and settled into it.

  “Comrade Brod,” said Sev—round, flat face, tiny eyes.

  Everyone in the station was watching them.

  “I need some help,” said Emil. He neither whispered nor raised his voice, so the others had to lean to listen. “Information.”

  Brano Sev gave a minimal shrug and brought his fingers together on the impeccably clean desktop.

  “There’s a man who went to Berlin last February. I want to know who he visited.”

  The small mole on his cheek didn’t move when he spoke. “Depends on the man.”

  “Janos Crowder.”

  “Ah ha.”

  Emil lowered his voice—just a little, but enough. “Can you contact the Berlin MVD?”

  Sev looked at his hands, then at the buttons on his leather coat. The hardly visible shrug again. “Maybe.”

  “Can I know by tomorrow?”

  The security inspector gave a sharp, economical nod. Leonek was waiting at Emil’s desk. His eyes shifted back and forth between Emil and Sev, as if he couldn’t make them match. “What’s this?”

  Emil laid his cane beside the typewriter. “Can you get me a visa?”

  “A what?”

  “I need travel papers. Berlin. Here’s my passport.” He grunted and withdrew from his inside pocket the hard, maroon booklet. *Berlin?”

  “Spare me the surprise.”

  “And this?” He touched some koronas sticking out of the passport.

  “Bribes, I suppose.”

  Leonek rubbed the bills between his thumb and forefinger. . “I’m coming with you.” “No, you’re not.” “You’ll get killed.” “I need you elsewhere,” said Emil. “Where?” “First, the visa.”

  Leonek frowned and handed back the money. He held the passport beside his face. “Come on.”

  Roberto did a fine job acting overjoyed to see Emil. He scrambled up and over the counter and patted his shoulders violently. “A ghost! It’s the curse of Sergei—that accursed typewriter!”

  “Shut up,” said Leonek, though Emil smiled.

  Roberto patted Leonek on the cheek, his lazy eye observing the far wall, and spoke reverently. “I’m sorry, my sensitive comrade.” Then he turned back to Emil, loud again: “So what can I do for my most abused customer? Typewriter ribbon? Blotters? Lamps? Erasers? Picture frames?”

  Emil nodded at Leonek. “Tell him.”

  “Travel visa.”

  Roberto’s smile slid away. “Now that, my friends, is highly complicated. Do you realize?”

  “But not impossible,” said Emil.

  “Nothing:,” Roberto explained, “is impossible these days. The only issue is how.”

  “And tomorrow,” said Leonek.

  Roberto looked as though he had just witnessed a murder. “My God Friends! How can I?”

  “And for free,” said Leonek, his stony face making no suggestion of flexibility.

  Roberto emitted more sounds of protest—whimpers and shouts—and pulled at his hair, but in the end took the passport. “For you,” he said to Leonek. “And that’s done.”

  In the corridor, Leonek explained that, a year ago, Roberto was caught selling surplus Militia pistols in the Canal District. Leonek saved him from being sent to the labor camps. He had milked that favor for as long as possible, and Emil’s visa constituted the final payment.

  “You’re a good man to know,” said Emil.

  Leonek shoved his hands into his pockets. “Take a walk?”

  They left the station house, and Leonek guided him through a couple turns, stopping often for Emil to catch up. They were soon in a busy market—loud voices, hands shoving vegetables in their faces.

  “I’ve been asking around,” Leonek said, nodding an old woman and her wooden spoons away. “Like a real inspector.”

  “A real one, huh?” Emil tried to keep up.

  “About your Michalec. He’s up for a vote in one week.”

  Emil started to ask for clarification, but quickly understood. “Politburo?”

  Leonek stopped just past a butcher with gutted lambs hung up to dry. “You think he’s untouchable now? Just wait”

  Emil remembered Smerdyakov s explanation: We, as members of the Political Section, have very specific duties. And these duties confer upon us specific rights.

  “How did you learn this?”

  Leonek smiled and leaned close to his ear. “Your favorite informer, Dora with the girl’s name.”

  That name brought back everything—the suspicion and abuse of his first week in Homicide, the shooting and the two dead children in Republic Park. He hated this man he had never met, who had nearly killed him without even knowing who Emil Brod was. “Can you trust him?”

  Leonek shrugged. “Eighty percent of the time.”

  Emil started moving again, and finally told him what he’d done with Lena. “She’s safe for now,” he said, but felt the doubt swell in his gut. “If something happens you’ll have to get her. I’ll give you directions.”

  Leonek smiled broadly. “I can vacation in the provinces while you’re vacationing in Berlin.” They were out of the market and in the narrow, winding alleys. “Bring an umbrella. I hear things are dropping from the sky.” He nodded at a Russian soldier who passed them. The soldier, surprised, smiled and nodded back.

  He gave his grandparents silence for their concern, and the next morning the chief gave him an angry frown. He called Emil into his office and closed the door. “Sit.” Emil did. Moska walked around him, looking down, and settled on the edge of the desk. His form arched over Emil. “I hear you’re working on a dead case.”

  “A dead case?” He spoke with measured stupidity.

  “Maybe you’ve forgotten,” Moska began again. “In the hospital—you certainly weren’t yourself, were you?”

  “Hardly.”

  “I specifically told you the Janos Crowder case was closed.”

  “Yes,” Emil nodded. “Of course that’s a closed case. You told me.”

  The chief pursed his lips and looked at the thick, barklike nail on his right thumb. He spoke quietly. “You’ve been with the Crowder woman, Inspector Brod. She called here and left a message, and you met with her.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And now she’s apparently gone missing.”

  “Who reported her missing?”

  “None of your concern,” said Moska, “because the Crowder case is closed.”

  “Agreed,” said Emil, nodding. “Janos Crowder’s case. But Lena Crowder has been the victim of burglary and threats.”

  “Until she’s dead, it’s no concern of yours.” The chief stopped looking at his nail. “Tell her to call the district police, Brod. Burglaries are their jurisdiction.”

  Perhaps it was only Emil’s hereditary hopefulness, but it sounded like the chief was reading reluctantly from a script that had been prepared in other offices, in the Central Committee back rooms. His words came out stiffly and without proper conviction. Emil shifted to take pressure off his stomach. “You’re right, Comrade Chief. I’ll drop the case right this minute.” The lie was a breeze.

  “What about this?” He lifted a maroon passport from his desk and held it between his thumb and forefinger.

  Emil didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m not an absolute fool,” said the chief. He opened the passport, turning pages until he had reached the German visa. He shook his head. “You do realize, don’t you, that outside our border, your badge is worth nothing?”

  Emil nodded.

  Chief Moska closed it again and stared at the cover, thinking. Then he handed it to Emil. “Brod?”

  “Yes, Chief?” He stood.

  Moska looked at him. “Sympathy will only take you so far.”

  *********

  The others were arriving, clutching coffees and blinking tired e
yes. Brano Sev was already at work in the corner, speaking into his phone. His whole body tilted toward the wall in a position of urgency.

  Emil waded through some clutter that had built up over the last couple days—an informative proclamation on the tense situation in Berlin ( When all nations allow Germany to he a nation again, all nations will deserve their annihilation), two notes from yesterday asking that he return his grandparents’ calls, and a sealed envelope marked by typed capitals: brod. The words cut into the thin paper.

  7 October 1948, Thursday

  Comrade Inspector Brod,

  Regarding our exchange of last evening, the following facts have been ascertained from Berlin:

  1. On 10 February 1948, J. Crowder arrived in Berlin by Aeroflot #34B. From Schonefeld, he took a taxi to Wilhelm Strasse 14, the residence of Konrad Messer, owner of a nightclub called “Die Letze Katze”—or “The Last Cat.” Messer is originally from Heidelberg.

  2. Comrade Crowder stayed overnight and in the morning crossed into the American sector at the Brandenburg Gate. Our Berlin comrades followed him as far as the end of the Tiergarten, but for various reasons lost track of him.

  3. At 20:30, Comrade Crowder returned to the Soviet sector and took a room in the Hotel Warsaw. In the evening he had drinks in the lounge, and a search of his belongings came up with nothing of interest.

  4. He was allowed to leave Berlin without questioning. He returned on 12 February, Aeroflot #29.

  It is my sincere wish that this information is of service to your investigations.

  Respectfully,

  It ended with a scrawled flourish of signature.

  “Still here?” asked Leonek. He was crossing the room, feeling his pockets for change. “Get some coffee?”

  But Emil didn’t look up. This was exactly what he had wanted from Brano Sev, but now that he had it in his hands, the intricacy of the details disturbed him. They kept names upon names in the Russian MVD files, and he suspected his own—since he had traveled outside the country—was relatively thick.