Both of us took the rear seat, and I saw that the driver was younger than Brano, late fifties, perhaps. He was clearly no taxi driver. In his breast pocket he wore a carnation. He smiled in the rearview as he merged into the traffic. “Good morning,” he said in our language, though it was awkward for him. “I’m Ludwig. A friend.”
“German is fine,” I said in German.
“Gut,” said Ludwig. He took a right at the next intersection, and we started driving out of town.
Brano was gazing contentedly out the window. “So?” I said.
He looked at me and blinked twice. “How rested are you?”
“Not very, but I’ll manage.”
“We can get you a change of clothes from my wardrobe. Tomorrow we’ll go shopping. Want to come, Ludwig?”
The driver nodded. “Certainly.”
“He makes all my fashion decisions,” said Brano, smiling.
“Stop it,” I said.
“Stop what?” Brano said it as if he didn’t know.
“I just spent nine hours in a train, based on a KGB officer’s suggestion. Now tell me what’s going on.”
Through the window, Habsburg buildings, so much cleaner than at home, sped by. Brano said, “We’re going to make things right.”
“Good luck.”
“I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Maybe I will be,” I said, “but I need to know everything. From the beginning.”
Brano said to Ludwig, “Take the long way.” Then he turned back to me. “You know about Gavra’s trip to America?”
“I know he went.”
“Well, I sent him. I’d known for a while about Jerzy Michalec and Rosta Gorski’s plan to seize power at home. The Austrians,” he said, nodding at Ludwig, “were watching the emigres here in Vienna. Gorski met with them regularly. He was gathering men to put back in the country. As you can imagine, I wasn’t pleased about this.”
“End of communism and all.”
Brano stared blankly at me. “Yes. But more importantly, I learned that Jerzy Michalec’s group-the Galicia Committee-was being funded almost entirely by the Americans. That was more troubling to me than the demise of communism.”
Ludwig made a turn and sped up; soon we were on a broad highway.
“I got in touch with an old friend,” said Brano. “Yuri Kolev. He worked from the inside, I from the outside. We started to gain a picture of what was happening. It was his idea to bring in the Russians. He knew someone in Moscow he thought he could trust. Sarospatak seemed to be the flashpoint, so we agreed that Russian agents would be best sent there. To let Ferenc’s revolution follow its own course. We didn’t want the Galicia Committee taking control, and we didn’t want anyone killed unnecessarily. But the next part-” He tapped his head. “That was my stupidity.”
“The files,” I said.
He nodded. “Kolev didn’t know Jerzy Michalec. Their paths had never crossed. But I remembered the case and asked him to gather the files on it from the archives. They could be of use; they might be able to discredit him. Yuri called back, two weeks ago, and told me they were gone. Signed out by Rosta Gorski, authorized by Nikolai Romek.” He shook his head. “Romek was a surprise. I’d known him a long time ago-you might remember him from my retirement party. I thought he was better than that. Kolev and I realized they were going to doctor or destroy the files. We didn’t know they’d follow up by killing the witnesses.” He tapped his temple again. “My stupidity. I didn’t imagine they would be so thorough. Only a week ago, on Sunday, when Dusan Volan was found killed, did it occur to me that everyone was in danger.”
“You knew on Sunday,” I said.
“Late Sunday night, yes. Kolev called. In a panic. We knew that the people in the files were in danger. He sent Gavra to America to protect one of them, Lebed Putonski. But Gavra failed.”
I rubbed my stinging eyes as the anger bled into me. Brano knew, from Sunday, that Lena’s life was in danger. “Why didn’t you warn us? Lena’s dead!”
Brano seemed surprised by my emotion. “I told Yuri Kolev to guard you,” he said, then cleared his throat. “On Wednesday, I found out he was dead too. So I tried to get in touch with Gavra. He wasn’t in; then no one answered his phone.”
That started to make sense, but then it didn’t. “You couldn’t have just called me?”
“I did, Emil.” He paused. “I called your house. I talked to Lena.”
“But-” I began, then understood. Outside the window, rolling countryside eased past. “You were her handler. In the Ministry. Lena worked for you.”
That, too, seemed to surprise him. He scratched the corners of his mouth. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“You bastard.”
In the rearview, Ludwig’s eyes flashed at me, but he drove on without comment.
Brano said, “Lena told me you two were going to your place in Ruscova. I thought she was taking care of it.”
I rubbed my eyes, remembering her attempts to get me to leave with her. She’d been angry, frustrated by my resolve. Now I knew why. “You should have told me.”
“You’re probably right, Emil. I’m sorry about that.”
Now I was the one left surprised, because I couldn’t remember when, during the three decades he worked in the Militia station, Brano had ever apologized.
The road hummed beneath us.
“What about Gavra?” I said. “You saw the tape, right?”
Brano scratched his nose and looked out the window again. “I don’t know about Gavra. I imagine he was coerced.”
“Why?”
“Because of me. Michalec probably thought it would shut me up.” Brano let a little smile appear in the corners of his lips. “Michalec’s wrong.”
“But there’s nothing else to do,” I said. “Even your Russian friend admitted that.”
Brano shook his head. “A lot of the Galicia Committee are good people, no matter who’s funding them. Earnest. Interested in giving the government back to the people. The problem is at the top. Michalec, Gorski, Romek, Andras Todescu, and some other old communists who don’t want to lose their influence. The rest of them, the ones doing the work, they’re good people. The problem is, how do you get rid of the bad eggs?”
I said the first thing that came to me. “You kill them.”
“I suppose that’s one way, Emil. But it might be more effective to slander them. That’s where our friend Ludwig comes in.”
On cue, the driver waved his hand proudly.
Brano said, “You’ll be thanking this man a lot in the next days. He’s gotten Michalec to come to us.”
I had to slow down. My simple militiaman’s head wanted to take in each little bit and turn it over in my hands until it was familiar before moving on to the next bit. Brano, unlike me, had had plenty of time to learn, and when I told him to stop I saw the irritation in his face. This was why he’d brought me here, and I needed to listen. “Okay,” I said. “Go on.”
As it turned out, once the trial and execution had been broadcast, Brano’s friend Ludwig got in touch with a friend in Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky’s cabinet. The cabinet member then contacted our embassy on EbendorferstraBe to invite Michalec to Vienna.
“Why?”
Ludwig answered joyfully, “So the chancellor can congratulate him on his revolution and discuss monetary loans. No one could turn down an offer like that.”
“You’ve got some influence,” I told him.
“I’ve got friends all over,” said Ludwig. “Even old commies.”
“Of course,” said Brano, “the chancellor knows nothing about this, because Michalec will never meet with him.”
I still didn’t understand. “Then why are you bringing him here?”
Brano paused. “When Jerzy was released from prison in 1956, after fathering Rosta Gorski, he went to work for the Ministry. He still had friends there, and they put him to work. Over time, he became a surveillance technician. He was too weak for any tough work. They sen
t him to bug rooms and set up cameras in a lot of cities, in particular Vienna. He came here five times during the seventies under different names. He just didn’t know the Austrians were aware of it every time. His visits were all documented. So, as soon as he arrives, we’ll arrest him as a Ministry spy.”
Finally-something unambiguous and simple. Something I could understand. I even managed a smile. “But how did the Austrians know this? That he was a spy.”
“Because I told them.”
I stared at Brano. With only four words, he’d made it complicated again. I remembered that old, militant Brano Sev, who protected socialism at any cost. Who let Imre’s murderer go unpunished and left Imre’s wife without an explanation. “Wait,” I began, then stopped. “You were working for the Ministry. You…” I rubbed my suddenly dry lips. “You were spying for the Austrians, too?”
Brano’s smile-a rare thing-blew across his face. “Yes, Emil. I was a double agent. A traitor. But the Austrians, and Ludwig in particular, offered me something I couldn’t refuse. Something even you could appreciate.”
“What?”
“They watched over my family.”
I started to ask how the Austrians could watch over his mother and sister, who lived in our country, but didn’t. Even after a week of shocks, this one somehow topped them all.
The evidence was presented to me when we reached a maple-shaded farmhouse outside Vienna and parked beside a very clean pale-blue Volkswagen Bug. The front door opened, and a pretty, dark-haired woman stepped out with flowers in her hand, rosy-cheeked, waving at us.
“Oh Jesus,” I said.
Brano patted my leg. “Come meet my wife.”
Dijana Frankovic (Brano told me, almost embarrassed, that she had kept her maiden name) was remarkable. Somewhere in her late forties, she was a Yugoslav who’d lived in Vienna for decades but had learned to speak our language like a native. “Merry Christmas,” she said. She handed the bundle of lilacs to me, then kissed my cheeks. I couldn’t find my tongue. She said, very seriously, “I hope the flowers are right. It’s the custom in your country, correct? When you lose a loved one.”
I actually wasn’t sure, but I nodded.
“Please,” she said. “Welcome to my house.”
Brano, standing behind her, beamed in a way I’d never seen. Lud-wig said, “Dijana, you’re looking ravishing.”
She winked at me. “That man’s been after me since 1967.”
Inside, Brano called up the stairs to the second floor. “Jelena! Come meet our guests!”
A woman’s voice floated back. “Be right down.”
Stiffly, I settled on one of the leather sofas surrounding a large television. Against the wall a fireplace burned logs. Ludwig produced a pack of cigarettes and offered me one; I accepted. So did Brano. Soon all three of us were puffing away in this comfortable place. Dijana emerged from somewhere carrying a tray of cut meats and water. “Put out those filthy things and eat.”
I was the only one who followed her command. The meats were delicious.
Then my surprise was complete. A tall, lovely young woman in her early twenties came down the steps. Brano smiled at her, and she even smiled back as she fitted an earring under her long, straight auburn hair. I stood involuntarily as she leaned over the table and offered a hand. She had wide brown eyes. “I’m Jelena,” she said in our language.
“My daughter,” Brano said proudly.
Her hand was soft, and her smile was full of white teeth.
As I settled down again, she disappeared into the kitchen, and Di-jana sat beside me. She patted my leg. “Anything you want, just ask.”
I couldn’t think straight enough to ask for anything. I just stared at Brano. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Like I said, I wanted to protect them. How do you think my old employers would have reacted if they knew I had a family here? They would’ve made sure I couldn’t leave the country anymore, for one. Two: They would’ve figured out I was passing information to the Austrians. Thirdly, they would’ve hassled my family for information.” He shook his head. “Almost no one knew.”
“Lena?”
He took a slice of ham from the tray and delivered it to his mouth.
“Did you wash your hands?” Dijana said firmly.
He ignored her and looked at me. “Don’t blame Lena. Never blame her. I made her swear not to tell you about this.”
“And her work?” I said, my cheeks growing warm. “Did you tell her to hide that from me, too?”
“That was her idea,” he told me. “At first, she was afraid. She didn’t know how you’d take it. But the lie troubled her. It made her drinking worse. Remember that time she ended up in the hospital? When she quit?”
My face was burning up; I nodded.
“She called me from the hospital. She was very proud of herself. She was going to stop making your life hell. And she did this by quitting the drinking, and quitting the Ministry. That’s the day she told me it was over. She wouldn’t work for us anymore.”
Whatever new understanding I’d had of my wife changed again. I wanted to cry. “What did she do?” I said. “Tell me that, at least.”
“Nothing dangerous. Well, usually nothing dangerous. She was smart. She could talk to anyone, get in anywhere. Her job was simply to visit people who knew things, listen, and pass on the information to me.”
“And you gave the information to the Ministry.”
“And us,” said Ludwig. He seemed annoyed at being left out of the conversation.
“Did she know?” I said. “Did she know she was also supplying the Austrians with information?”
“I made sure she didn’t know,” said Brano. “That would’ve put her in danger.”
“What about her file? Rosta Gorski said it wasn’t in the archives.”
“A precaution,” said Brano. “Before I retired, I went through and cleared out everything on her. I didn’t want her being passed on to another controller, someone who might force her to go back to work.”
Jelena came in, smiling, and noticed the silence. Her smile disappeared. She sat in a metal-framed chair clutching a glass of orange juice.
Brano finally said, “Lena was practical. That’s why she agreed to work for the Ministry. It was the only way to keep her and your lifestyle. She knew you didn’t want to leave the country, but she didn’t blame you for it. It was more important that you remain happy. She knew you’d only be happy at home.”
I’d heard enough. I didn’t want to ask more, because Lena wouldn’t want me to. I’d had enough information to deal with for one day. For the rest of my life, even. I took another of Ludwig’s cigarettes and lit it. “Okay. Let’s talk about Michalec. When does he get here?”
Brano raised his hand and looked at his silver wristwatch. “In three and a half hours. Two twenty P.M.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Brano, as usual, understood the situation better than I did. If I’d trusted him, everything would have turned out differently, perhaps better, and I wouldn’t feel the need to write all this out. The plan was simple. When Michalec’s plane landed at two twenty in the afternoon, his entourage would drive him to our embassy. On the way, Ludwig’s men would intercept the vehicle and arrest Michalec for espionage. “Why not arrest him when he lands?” I said.
Brano shook his head, but Ludwig answered. “We want it to be sensational. We want witnesses; we want the press to be interested. There won’t be press waiting at the airport, because we can’t publicize a meeting that isn’t going to happen. But out in the street, screeching tires and pistols waving… the newspapers will be all over the story.”
I still didn’t quite comprehend it. “But what do you get out of this, Ludwig? How’s all this in Austria’s best interests?”
Ludwig looked at Brano, who shrugged. “Tell him.”
“We’re not entirely neutral,” Ludwig said. “We’ve never been. How do you think the French get money into the East? They get it in through us. And when w
e feel like it, we supplement their money with our own. Your friend Ferenc-he and his people are beneficiaries of our generosity. Brano saw to that. Like the Americans, we don’t want to see our money go to waste.”
I looked at Brano, then the Austrian. “Ferenc never told me this.”
“He knows better,” said Ludwig.
I suppose it’s true of all revolutions. When there appear to be two or three sides fighting over a country, each side is made up of infinite smaller interests, working to make their money pay off in the end. No one wants to be on the losing side.
Even sitting in a room with these power brokers explaining everything so clearly, it was still confusing. Magda was right about me. I was too simple for this world.
Jelena finished her orange juice and said, “Can you imagine what it’s like growing up around this kind of stuff?”
I shook my head.
“She takes it well,” said Brano.
“She takes after me,” Dijana muttered as she got up to clear away the food.
After I’d showered and changed into some of Brano’s clothes, which were a little loose on me, he came up to the bedroom with two glasses of Serbian rakija. We sat at a small table by the window, looking out over a forest of maples, and he showed me copies of some of the photographs to be used against Jerzy Michalec. There was Jerzy in a hotel room, clearly marked as the Vienna Inter-Continental by papers on the desk, crouched in a corner, installing a microphone in the overhead lamp, his open briefcase on the bed full of equipment. In another, shot from a passing car, he leaned against a doorway with a camera propped against his face. Another one was a photograph of a Hungarian 37M Femaru pistol laid flat on a table, with a card displaying a magnified thumbprint. “What this?” I asked.
“A murder weapon. Killed a well-known emigre named Filip Lutz in 1967. That’s Michalec’s print.”
“He killed an emigre?”
Brano paused, considering what to reveal to me, and since it doesn’t matter now I won’t hide it either. “He didn’t kill anyone. Michalec only did surveillance, but I’m framing him for this one. He was in Vienna at the time, though I didn’t know it. He was taking photographs of me.”
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