Victory Square

by Olen Steinhauer

But the file wasn’t here. I went through my stack twice, then took Lena’s. In the front of the box, I found the order form I’d sent over, listing cases to be retrieved. Each had been checked by the archives clerk, except the one labeled “10-3282-48—MICHALEC, J,” which was marked NH—ne har. The file was missing.

  The phone rang, and Lena went to get it. Central Archives was notoriously inefficient, but of all the files to be misplaced, I was surprised it would be this one.

  “Cher comrade?” Lena was waving the receiver from its cord. “Comrade Kolyeszar requests your presence.”

  While I talked, Lena went through the cabinets, finding a glass and making me a scotch and soda. She’d picked up the ten-year-old malt on a trip earlier that year to England. Unlike in the old days, she didn’t make one for herself.

  Ferenc said, “Sorry to call at home.” He sounded strange, distant, and spoke with an unsettling calm.

  “What is it?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  Lena handed me the drink. Ferenc said, “I don’t know. They … they shot, Emil.”

  “Who?”

  A voice—Magda, I think—said something to Ferenc. Then Agota took the phone. “For fuck’s sake, Emil, he’s telling you the Ministry bastards shot into the crowd! We don’t know how many people they killed—but there are dead people. Lots. You have to spread the word. Understand? The Spark will say something different, but you have to tell them. You have to make sure they know?

  Agota spoke to me with a voice I’d hear more and more over the next days. It was more than Ferenc’s abstracts—it was the voice of the astonished and self-righteous.

  I don’t mean to say people weren’t justified feeling this way; almost always, they were. I just mean that it was a voice I hadn’t yet accustomed myself to. My heart palpitated and my hand sweated. I gulped down the scotch and soda and handed the empty glass back to Lena, who was staring wildly. I said, “Just tell me what to do, Agi.”

  What she wanted me to do frightened me, but I couldn’t do it until the next day, so for the rest of the night I was impotent. Predictably, there was no mention of the Patak massacre on the two state television stations that evening.

  I wanted to distract myself with my old files, because there was some comfort in cases that had been solved and closed, but in light of what was going on, they were like stories out of a piece of fiction. Lena, on the other hand, was empowered by the news. “Finally, this godforsaken country is going to see the light.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, dear, that Pankov has crossed the line. He can starve us and cut off our energy, but once he starts shooting people in the streets it’s over. Only a desperate man resorts to this.”

  I didn’t share Lena’s optimism. We’d both lived through the arrival of socialism, and both of us welcomed the idea of watching it leave again, but I worried—perhaps too much—about my friends. We weren’t like the Czechs or Poles. We’d never been the kind of people to vent our frustration through the ballot box.

  My problem, of course, was that I had no faith in people to make my country better. After forty years in the People’s Militia, it’s hard to maintain such faith.

  Around ten thirty, Bernard called and swore angrily that if anyone touched Agota or Sanja, he was going to blow something up. I suggested he not say this over the phone, but there was no stopping him. He finally made it around to what I knew, when I first heard his voice, he was going to ask: “Do you really need me here?”

  “Go,” I said, hoping his Militia ID would get him through the roadblocks. “A dead Ministry officer, one way or the other, makes no difference.” I said that because I was foolish enough to believe it.

  The foolishness stayed with me all night, even as I sat in bed watching Lena clean makeup from her hollowed cheeks in the vanity mirror. She’d listened in on my conversation, so she asked about the dead Ministry officer, and I told her about Kolev. She showed more surprise than I would’ve expected, lowering her hands from her face in shock. “You’re saying he was murdered?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Why did you run the tests? That colonel told you not to bother.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “You think he did it? Romek?”

  “Maybe. But I don’t really know.”

  She went back to her face, and I peered around for cigarettes but couldn’t find any. I looked back at my wife. It wasn’t just the stupidity that left me feeling calm. It was a kind of detachment. As I would a week later in Italy, I was thinking about something else, something to take me away from the moment, because the moment was frightening. I was remembering how thankful I was for the Afghan War.

  All our life together, Lena had been an alcoholic. No—drunk is the better word. We twice separated because of her drinking, and her drinking led to two miscarriages and many, many hospital visits. Then, in 1983, Lena woke from another of her brief comas, this time triggered by a bottle of black-market rakija that had been mixed with methanol. The nurse smiled at her and laid a copy of the day’s Spark on her bedside table. After a couple of hours, she was finally able to focus enough to take in the front-page story about the Soviet troops who had been killed in the mujahideen’s most recent offensive in the Panjshir Valley.

  Maybe it was the poison in her bloodstream, lingering even after the stomach pump of bad Serbian brandy—whatever it was, it had a lasting effect. On the third floor of Unity Medical, she cried uncontrollably.

  Never the weeping sort, Lena nonetheless let forth at times with the hysterical weeping of the unbalanced; it was a sound that always troubled me. There in Unity Medical, though, it was as if someone else were crying, someone who understood exactly why she was crying, understood that if she’d had her wits about her, she would have been crying like this ever since she first picked up a bottle, sometime during her first disastrous marriage more than forty years ago.

  She showed me the newspaper, and though I didn’t understand, I never admitted it. I didn’t want to undermine the vow she’d just made in a fit of emotion: As long as men were blown up in obscure corners of the world, she, Lena Brod, would not touch another drop of alcohol.

  Now it was 1989, and she was seventy-two. A dry seventy-two. Her hands no longer shook, and when I returned home I no longer opened the door with apprehension, wondering about her unpredictable moods. In the winter of our lives she had given me something not unlike spring, and I was thankful.

  Thankful for the floundering Soviet war in the deserts of Afghanistan, only recently ended, and for the cretin who added methanol to his batch so he could sell more of his black-market ra-kija to the alcoholics of our country.

  Lena was staring at me, the light in the mirror shining against the large spectacles she’d slipped on to see me better. “What is it? You worried?”

  “Not anymore,” I said. It’s amazing how the human mind can comfort itself.

  FIVE

  •

  “Shell wonder,” said Lebed Putonski.

  Gavra pulled the beige Stop & Drop curtains shut, then parted them with a finger. He peered out at the parking lot and beyond the line of trees, to where headlights sped through the darkness. “Who?”

  Putonski had trouble turning on the bed to face Gavra, because his arms were above his head, tied to the bedpost with a leather belt. “Maureen. She’ll come over and wonder why I’m not home. She’ll go to the school. She’ll worry—she’s that kind. Then she’ll call the police.”

  “The school will say you’re with your cousin.”

  “She’ll panic.”

  “She won’t.”

  It took Putonski a moment to realize this was true. “What’re you going to do with me?”

  Gavra dropped the curtains. “I’m not sure.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re in danger.”

  Lebed pressed his
face into the motel pillow. “It’s starting to drive me crazy, you know.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not telling me anything.” He raised his head. “You’ve come all this way to find me, but you don’t tell me who sent you. You tell me I’m in danger, but you won’t say why. And then you tie me up. You expect me to not go a little crazy?”

  “You hungry?”

  “I’m more curious than hungry.”

  “Well, I’m hungry.”

  “Please.”

  In the bathroom, Gavra washed his face. The lack of sleep was showing in his eyes. Or perhaps it was just confusion. He’d been sent to get hold of Lebed, and he had done this, but now Kolev lay dead in a morgue, unable to tell him what to do next.

  He dried himself and sat on the corner of the bed while Lebed stared at him. “Okay,” he said. “I was sent by Lieutenant General Yuri Kolev.”

  Lebed’s dry lips worked a moment. “Kolev? Jesus.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course. What does he want with me?”

  “He’s dead. He had a heart attack earlier today.”

  “Heart attack?”

  “Yeah,” said Gavra.

  “So it’s finished. Let me go.”

  I cant.

  “You think I’m the cause of his heart attack?”

  “Maybe. Indirectly.”

  “A man like that has enemies. He’s got hundreds.”

  “How do you know him?”

  Lebed shook his head, unwilling to answer.

  “Listen to me,” said Gavra. “Kolev wanted me to find you and protect you. His words. And if this wasn’t simple heart failure, then the people who killed him will want you next. I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Oh,” said Lebed, and Gavra looked closely at him because he’d spoken with the voice of a small child. “But I don’t know anything!”

  “How do you know Kolev?”

  “Long time ago. Before you were born, probably.” He paused. “Can you at least free my hands?”

  “Tell me first.”

  Putonski sighed loudly. “Okay. Just after the war, we were both on a Ministry tribunal. You know how it was—rooting out enemies of the state. Put them on trial, broadcast on radio, and get lots of people in as shouting, hysterical witnesses. That’s how we met. We tried lots of cases, sent a lot of men and women to their deaths. I’m not proud of it, but that’s how it was.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what about after that?”

  “We saw each other now and then at Yalta. We knew each other. But we didn’t work together again. I’m surprised Kolev even cared about saving my skin. We certainly weren’t friends.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Look,” said Putonski. “I’m not the one who crossed the Atlantic. You’re the one who’s wasting his time.”

  Gavra stood again and slipped the pistol into his belt.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We eat dinner,” said Gavra. “What do you want?”

  Lebed rolled his face back into the pillow. “I’d like my hands free.”

  “When I get back.”

  “Eggs, then. And sausage.”

  “It’s dinnertime, Lebed.”

  “Breakfast helps when I’m nervous. Otherwise I’ll throw up.”

  “Okay. From where?”

  “McDonald’s, of course.”

  Gavra considered covering Lebed’s mouth before leaving, but the man seemed to understand now that he wasn’t his enemy. He locked the door and drove up the busy evening turnpike to where he’d seen a McDonald’s when he first arrived. Around the back were lit arrows pointing to a DRIVE-THRU, which he followed to an enormous menu board. A crackling female voice said, “Elcome to M’Onalds.”

  “Hello,” he said, but there was no immediate answer. “Hello?”

  “Uht an I it for oo?”

  “Eggs and sausage, please. Two orders. And coffee.”

  “Arry, sir. We ont erve ekfas ow.”

  “Uh, what?”

  She repeated herself, but he was just as baffled, so he drove around to a window where a girl with red, damp cheeks explained that McDonald’s didn’t serve breakfast at this hour.

  “What do you suggest?”

  She rubbed her cheek with her wrist, unsure. “Well, most people just get a cheeseburger and fries.”

  “That sounds perfect. I’ll have two orders. With coffee.”

  She took his money and gave him his food with a smile. The car soon stank of processed meat. As he drove back to the motel he ate lengths of the oily but delicious French fries. He parked in front of the room and carried the McDonald’s sack all the way to the door before noticing that the door was open, just an inch, and the wooden frame was cracked.

  He set the food on the ground, taking out the pistol with his other hand. Behind him, three cars were parked by the line of pine trees. He lifted his foot, then kicked. The door bounced off the wall and hit his shoulder as he rushed in. Lebed was still tied to the bedpost. His face was in the pillow again, but the pillow, like the back of his fractured head, was the burgundy of fresh blood.

  He didn’t panic. Ministry training was an exceptional thing, and he’d served his apprenticeship under the best. It all becomes mathematics, Brano Sev had explained. That’s how you deal with the fear.

  Spatial relations. Protective barriers. Escape paths. Turn them all into numbers, and you can keep the panic at bay.

  He checked the bathroom, then peered through the curtains at the parking lot. The three other cars appeared empty. He ignored Lebed’s body, the soft, greasy fries in his stomach mixing sickly with the stink of organic matter as he collected his things, then kept close watch on the trees as he put his bag and the McDonald’s sack into the car. Distances. Measurements. Escape paths. He hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, then pulled it as shut as it would go.

  It took fifteen minutes before Gavra knew he was being followed. A cherry red Ford with Virginia plates that he felt sure he’d seen in the Stop & Drop parking lot. But he’d just found a dead man in his room—a scared, pitiful math teacher for whose life Gavra was responsible—and that had flung him out of the safe realm of mathematics. His hands trembled on the wheel, and his stomach convulsed. Perhaps he was just being paranoid.

  So when he saw the massive cartoon Big Boy in overalls holding a plate of food aloft (for some reason reminding him of Lenin in a similar pose), he left the turnpike and parked.

  The Ford pulled in after him, but the man waited behind the wheel until Gavra had tossed the now-cold McDonald’s food into a wastebasket and walked inside. Then the man got out. Through the window, Gavra watched a blond young man cross the harshly lit parking lot. Unattractive to Gavra’s eye. A little slouched, as if life so far hadn’t been entirely fair.

  He kept track of his shadow while he ate half of a Caesar salad at the counter. When he got up to use the toilet, the man was in a booth, cradling a cup of coffee, as if dreaming. Five minutes later, Gavra returned, having been sick, and the shadow didn’t even glance at him—he was good at his job.

  When Gavra paid and left, the man followed, and when he pulled back onto the turnpike, the lights of the Ford were visible in his rearview.

  He tried some evasive maneuvers, driving through a residential area with big crabgrass yards and high houses, then reentered the turnpike heading back toward Midlothian. All his moves felt panicked and obvious, but he had no choice. By the time he took another U-turn, however, the Ford was behind him again. That’s when he spotted the Chesterfield Towne Center, a shopping mall with a vast parking lot full of cars. It was just after eight.

  Gavra parked by a high flat wall with a SEARS sign, pocketed his P-83, got out, and entered quickly. He didn’t bother looking back, because he knew the man would be right behind him. The interior was cool, packed with racks of pastel women’s clothes, counters, and fat shoppers. Dry music floated through the ai
r, and then, just before he reached the entrance to the mall itself, the air became saturated with astringent smells that brought back his nausea. The perfume section. Women in faux medical smocks and feathered haircuts stood bored behind counters, some chatting, but all ignored him. Gavra held his breath until he was clear of them.

  He paused beside a tiled water fountain, peering down the mall’s length. It looked like an obscenely clean city street crowded with shoppers. Ahead, to the left, he saw a store called Fit-4-All, which advertised “Today’s styles for today’s gentlemen.”

  Only after he was inside the shop, among racks of gray and blue suits, did he let himself peer through the display windows for his shadow. He wasn’t out there.

  “Well, howdy, sir!”

  He turned to find a broad-chested, very effeminate man with a yellow tie and a white name tag that said ROG. “Howdy, Rog,” said Gavra.

  Rog’s smile didn’t change as he said, “It’s pronounced Rodj, sir. Short for Rodger.”

  “Oh.”

  “What can I do you for?”

  “I’d like a suit.”

  Rog giggled. “Well, you came to the right place! What’s your size?”

  Gavra wanted a black suit, but Rog disagreed, insisting on “navy” blue. It was also more expensive. In the changing room, Gavra transferred his wallet, his money, both passports, and the P-83 to his new clothes. He left the jeans and polo shirt crumpled on the bench.

  “Very handsome, sir. Manly?

  Gavra looked past the salesman through the open door—still no sign. “I’ll take it.”

  “Excellent!”

  “And I’ll wear it now.”

  “As you wish.” The salesman sank to his knees.

  Gavra stepped back, disoriented, before realizing the man was using a large pair of scissors to snip off the price tags.

  He paid in cash, and as he was leaving, Rog called, “Sir?”

  Gavra looked back. “Yes?”

  “Your clothes? The ones you came in with.”

  “Keep them.”

  That seemed to please Rog immensely.

  In the center of the mall, Gavra stopped between another tiled fountain and an information desk where two white-capped girls chewed gum. It was busy here, loud with voices and Muzak. He considered leaving by another exit and stealing a car. But if the police caught him, they’d easily connect him to the body of Lebed Puton-ski back in the motel room registered to Viktor Lukacs. He couldn’t toss the Lukacs passport, because his real one had no American visa. So he headed back to Sears.