36 Yalta Boulevard

12 FEBRUARY 1967, SUNDAY

Brano woke with the sense that the previous day had been a dream. Indeed, when he sat in the kitchen over a cup of scalded coffee and watched his mother amble through the cabinets, trying not to ask the questions she knew he didn’t want to answer, it seemed that the previous day simply hadn’t existed. He’d woken as a murderer, sat in a cell, then been released-all without any drama or outburst.

Yet everything was different now. Jast had framed him for a murder and fled town, but not before leaving word of the Sorokas’ plans. These two facts simply did not match, unless Jast had lost his nerve at the last moment.

More urgently, though, back in the Capital Colonel Cerny was impatient for results he still did not have.

And here was his mother. Those few lines in Jakob Bieniek’s notes nagged at him, and when she filled his cup and sat across from him he involuntarily pictured her weekly visits to Juliusz’s house, to fulfill her carnal desires. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I imagine you don’t want to go into it, Brani, but, you know, people will talk.” Her eyes were on his shirt.

“What will they talk about?”

She stood again and poured herself a cup. “Yesterday, Brani. The whole town knows.”

He wished she would stay quiet so he could think.

“They pester me. You know that, don’t you? Lots of questions.”

“What do you say?”

“I tell them to ask you.”

“And that’s what you’re doing now.”

“I take my own advice, Brani.”

So he lied to her. He said that there had been a mistake. Captain Rasko, an admirable investigator in many respects, had gone with the word of a drunkard.

“Pavel Jast?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Pavel Jast had told Rasko that he had seen Brano fighting with Jakob Bieniek on Thursday morning, around ten.

“Ten?”

“Yes.”

“But weren’t you with me then? At the shop?”

“We were having coffee.”

“Well, I’ll tell that Tadeusz Rasko myself. You know, he’s not very experienced. He’s only been Militia chief a year.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mother. He found a shirt in my car-”

“I know, I saw it.”

“But it wasn’t Jakob’s. He understands now.”

“If he’s going to start arresting people indiscriminately-”

“He won’t, Mother. I’ll help him out.”

“I bet you will, Brani,” she said, then turned to the clock on the counter. It was eight-forty. “I need to… well, I’d like to…”

“When does it start?”

“Nine.”

“Then let’s go.”

Brano walked with her through deep, fresh snow, and by the time they reached the gate, his feet were wet and very cold. There was a large crowd filing into the pale yellow church, and he scanned their backs until he spotted the trio Jast had assured him would be there: Jan Soroka, his wife, Lia, and their skinny, blond seven-year-old, Petre, holding his mother’s hand.

“Will I see you afterward?” Mother asked.

“I’ll be around.”

The Sorokas entered the church.

A large hand settled on his shoulder. Lucjan was smiling foolishly, Klara coming up behind him. “A bit of a surprise, eh?”

“What kind of surprise, Lucjan?”

“You’re coming in?”

“Not a chance.”

“Okay,” he said, raising his open hands. “No surprises today.”

Brano began to kiss Klara’s cheeks, but she pulled back and looked closely at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“I see you’re out. That’s something. But is this just some kind of delay?”

“Mother will explain.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Brano. I don’t know what’s going on, but tell me… did you do it?”

He didn’t answer at first, only gazed at her large, round eyes. Then he shook loose of the surprise. “Of course not.”

The snow-whitened village was empty now, everyone packed into that little church. Brano Sev chose not to broach the subject of religion with his mother or sister, at least not here, because he’d always felt in his gut that the farther he ranged from the epicenter of Yalta Boulevard 36, the more his authority waned. It made no sense (and if nothing else, Brano felt it must make sense), because anywhere within the borders of the country his legal abilities remained the same. But somehow, here on the northern edge, where the villagers walked boldly into their church every Sunday, he felt less of a man, his long-held convictions relegated to the opinions of an outsider.

So when he broke into Jakob Bieniek’s house, he felt weaker than usual. He had to struggle a little with the boxes-the second seemed heavier than the first-as he dragged them into the living room. He sat on the floor, looking at the many hundreds of wrinkled and bent pages that reminded him of the overstuffed drawers in his old Militia-station desk. The world was full of danger, full of cheats and liars and murderers and informers, and he wondered how he could ever hope to sort through the contradictions and evasions to discover, finally, the truth.

But the truth was what he had always uncovered.

He took a breath and began.

JAST, PAVEL

26 January 1967: The gambler has been showing off his new toy, a debauched pen given to him by a friend he calls Roman. I saw it over Zygmunt’s shoulder at the bar-a woman with clothes that slide off when you turn the pen over. A fool’s pen for a fool… 31 January 1967: He must have won a lot last night. He bought 2 extra bottles of milk and, grinning like an idiot, offered me a tip. Who does he think he is? The rumor is that he cheats, but it doesn’t stop the rest of the cows in this town from lining up at his trough… 5 February 1967: I’m amazed anyone talks to him. What he’s done to Lucjan and Karel and Zygmunt through the cards, in any other town, would get him lynched. But he struts through the streets as if he’s the most loved man in Christendom.

It surprised Brano, marginally, that Lucjan took part in these card games, but the surprise faded when he noticed the next, and last, entry, on the day of Bieniek’s death: 9 February 1967: This morning, the gambler was in front of Iwona Sev’s house, crouched behind the son’s Trabant. He seemed to be waiting for something, but after a while he simply checked to see if the passenger door was unlocked-it was-and then crept away.

“You missed a great service,” said Klara, elbowing him. She was in a good mood now, her bright face alive with the peaceful ecstasy of the believer.

“I’m sure I did.”

Lucjan shrugged. “Well, it was good enough. Not that I buy into all of it.”

Mother was behind him, glancing around at the other villagers. “You’ll be home for dinner tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Good, good,” she said, smiling at Krystyna Knippelberg’s pregnant belly. “Klara and Lucjan will come, too.”

Klara and Lucjan nodded obediently.

Brano spotted the face he’d been waiting for. He brushed past Lucjan and caught up to Jan Soroka, smiled, and nodded at Lia. Worry drew the edges of her puffy lips lower. Petre, whose face was marred by a brown blemish across the left cheek-a birthmark-looked up at him and squinted.

“Do you have a minute?”

Jan didn’t slow his pace. “Right now?”

“Just a few questions. About Pavel Jast.”

“I don’t know him very well.”

“But you’ve talked with him.”

“A couple times, yes. Everyone has to talk to him at one time or another.”

“But about me,” said Brano. “Did you talk with him about me?”

Jan stopped, while Lia continued on with Petre. “Why do you think we talked about you?”

“Because he tried to frame me for murder.”

“And I would be involved?”

“We both know you’re involved in the end.”

Jan looked at the ground, but there was no nervousness in him. He said, “Jast was spending a lot of time around my house. He’s an obvious guy. So I approached him myself.”

“He never told me this.”

“Of course he didn’t. It was embarrassing for him. I told him that if he wanted to talk with me, we would go have a beer and do it like men.”

“What did he want to know?”

“The same things you want to know, Comrade Sev.”

“And what did you say about me?”

“I asked what he knew about you. This was a few days before you arrived, but I thought perhaps you would show up. You’re Bobrka’s most famous son.”

“I’m hardly that.”

“Now you’re being modest. It’s a funny thing to see.”

Brano looked at him with an obscure face. “And what did he say about me?”

“He acted like he didn’t know anything about you. At first. But then he admitted he might be able to contact you when you came.”

“And this is what you wanted? To contact me?”

“I considered it. But you took care of it for me. You found me out in the fields. How did you do that?”

“Why did you want to contact me?”

“Because I don’t believe in avoiding problems, Comrade Sev. I believe in facing them.”

“Is that why you ran off to Vienna?”

Jan’s lip twitched as he glanced at his wife and son waiting beyond the bus stop. “Funny, Pavel Jast didn’t believe me, either. I went to Szuha. But yes, you’re right. I was avoiding problems-running away from my marriage.”

“How much longer do you plan to stay here?”

“In Bobrka? Not much longer. I’ll need to return to the Capital and get back to work soon.”

“Okay,” said Brano. “We’ll talk later.”

“I’ve no doubt.” Jan raised a hand, then jogged to catch up with his family.

At Bieniek’s, he collected the papers on anyone he knew. His mother, Pavel Jast, the Sorokas, Klara and Lucjan, Zygmunt the bread man, Eugen, and Captain Tadeusz Rasko. Then he spread the papers across the floor and sat on the couch. He felt strongly that the answer was here, because, despite Bieniek’s inept conclusions, his eye for detail was unerring. He was a camera-eye to the anomalies of Bobrka.

He picked up the one closest to him- MYMKO, EUGEN — and learned that his mother’s assistant had masturbated in the cemetery on the cold night of 15 November. Bieniek was not impressed. On 31 December, during the New Year’s gathering in front of the church, he had been particularly forward with the young daughter of Piotr Stepniak; his attempts, though, had been rebuffed.

Brano reached for WITASZEWSKI, LUCJAN.

His brother-in-law had begun attending Pavel Jast’s games of luck in December. Bieniek speculated that life with Klara was not what it could have been, because why else would he leave her for Jast’s smoke-filled shack three nights a week? Bieniek was a romantic, but he was also practical. He noted that during most of any given day, Lucjan could be found drinking with his workers on the grounds of the still-under-construction Ignacy Lukasiewicz Petroleum Industry Museum instead of working.

Captain Tadeusz Rasko was hardly controversial, as evidenced by only two brief entries. In September, he had taken his mother to Dukla in order to help her file divorce paperwork-again, Bieniek’s morality erupted: Does no one know the purity of commitment anymore? Apparently not, because in December Rasko split with his longtime girlfriend, Anita Gargas.

He went through more, but these papers told him nothing of importance. The answer, perhaps, was not here after all, and he was wasting a precious day burrowing through the inconsequential ramblings of a dead man. The window was dark-it was already evening. And he was expected for dinner. In his jacket pocket he found Bieniek’s passport-the wide face, the mole. He closed it again, then sat on the floor.

There were two pages on Zygmunt Nubsch, most of it mundane. Each morning he drove to the factory in Dukla, picked up his order, and delivered bread to state shops in the region. He and his wife, Ewa, attended church regularly and sometimes joined the Knippelbergs and all their children for picnics in the countryside. And, like so many men, he made the pilgrimage to Pavel Jast’s smoke-filled shack. 1 February 1967: There is a story going around that, at last night’s game, Zygmunt lost more than his shirt. He was drunk, and when he ran out of money, asked for credit. Jast refused, said he was tired of Zygmunt not being dependable. He wanted something more than money. Zygmunt knew what he meant. The same as with Tomasz Sakiewicz’s daughter. So he shrugged and bet his wife’s life on the hand. The story is that he lost… 3 February 1967: Saw him on his bread rounds today. He looks sick and pale. It seems the story is true… 6 February 1967: He’s smiling again. This evening he was in the center with Ewa. She’s alive, but now she’s the one who looks ill. Maybe he told her that her time is limited-or maybe he made another deal with Jast, and it’s only the knowledge of how close she came to death that’s ruining her.

There were voices in the cloud-deepened darkness. A woman’s shout from behind a closed door, the whisper of two children hidden in the shrubs, and a man’s cigarette-congested cough somewhere ahead, to the left. But he ignored them all, even the snow that leaked into his shoes, the images in his head as clear as a memory of that night with Dijana Frankovic: Pavel Jast’s smoky, cold shack, men around the dirty table, drunk, sweating over their game of Cucumber. Zygmunt, an old man with less sense than he should have, looks at what he thinks is a winning hand. But he’s cleaned out; there’s nothing left to bet. No more credit, you deadbeat, says Jast. Give me something more than money.

With the logic of a drunk and the narrow-mindedness of a villager, Zygmunt remembers Tomasz Sakiewicz. But all he remembers through the vodka haze is that Tomasz won his hand. He made the ultimate bet, and won.

So Zygmunt can, too. He says, Ewa’s life.

They all pause, because even though this happens, it’s rare, and never taken lightly. Jast even leans forward, cigarette smoldering between his fat lips, and squints. You’re sure about this, Zygi? A bet is a bet.

Yes, says Zygmunt. A bet is a bet.

“Hey!”

It was the man with the smoker’s cough, wandering up from the bus stop. The illumination from the church lit the dirty snow around the man but kept him in shadow. “Yes?”

He was tall, with a very long nose. “You’re Iwona’s son, right?” He slurred the words.

“Yes, I am.”

Gravel crunched behind Brano; three more vague forms approached. All men.

“Why’d they let you out, Comrade Security?”

“Because-”

“Because you can’t jail your own!” shouted a voice behind him, and laughter followed.

They were all very drunk.

Brano stepped back, but each direction brought him closer to one or another of the drunkards. So he waited. The first man was at his face now, looking down on him, those large nostrils flaring. “You’re a nasty son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

A second one-fat, his old soldier’s coat too small for his belly-had reached Brano’s left side. Both stank of home-distilled rotgut.

“You come here and slice up a respected member of our little village.”

The third, hovering on his right, nervously rubbed one palm with the fingers of his other hand.

“In fact,” said Brano, “that wasn’t-”

The fourth, whom he never quite saw, threw a hard fist into Brano’s kidney. The fat one grabbed his left arm, twisted, and pulled it down. Brano swung with his free hand, catching a chin, then tumbled into the snow.

What followed was a battery of sharp pains and stunned blows to the head and futile attempts to use what skills he had long ago been taught and had often practiced. But those times he’d fought one man, maybe two, and there was a universal rule of fighting that, once a certain threshold is reached, talent and training are of no importance-the greater numbers always win.

He didn’t know how long the blows were delivered and the alcohol-heavy spittle rained on him, but when they finally tired and wandered away after a last kick in the ribs, he could not move. He no longer felt the gravel digging into his back or the snow that had soaked through his clothes. His arms were as heavy as trees. He blinked teary eyes at the black sky, unable to make out the crescent moon breaking through the clouds.

He hurt, but he’d been hurt enough times to know how to deal with pain. Pain was mental; it could be coerced and tamed. He compressed the aches into a dense ball that he moved to his heavy hand. He breathed steadily, the cold night burning his lungs. Now all he had to do was move, pick himself up and figure out how to walk. It was simple, the kind of thing an infant learns to do. But, like Zygmunt Nubsch after he looked at Jast’s winning hand, it took him a long time to learn to walk again.

His shoulder felt as if it had been ripped out and shoved back in, but he was able to let himself inside through the kitchen door. He heard their voices drift from the living room. A little laughter, and Mother’s sudden, “Is that you, Brani?”

He leaned against the counter and tried to take breaths. “Yes,” he said, then said it again, louder.

“Late,” came Klara’s unsurprised voice.

He found a glass and filled it from the tap, his shaking hands barely able to bring it to his lips. He sucked it dry, then looked at the muddy footprints he’d tracked across the floor. His head was pounding.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Lucjan said to someone.

Feet approached the kitchen as Brano refilled the glass. Then he turned and saw his mother stop, her face crumbling. “ Brani! ”

She was on him then, a white rag magically in her hand as she mopped the blood and grit that had smeared across his cheeks and forehead. “Brani, Brani,” she whispered.

Klara was standing, stunned, in the doorway. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out.

Lucjan’s voice: “ What? ”

He hadn’t realized how much blood was on him until he took off his wet, spotted clothes in the living room. Before accepting a robe, he was for a moment naked in front of them, Mother kneeling, wiping his legs dry. He wasn’t sure what he felt, shame or more, but the pain he’d been holding in his hand seeped from his grip and spread through him again. He thought his head might explode.

Then he was in the robe and stretched out on the couch. There were sores on his face and bruises developing across his chest. Both his knees bled. He told them what had happened, ignoring their dubious silence. He shrugged, sending a sharp ripple through his back, and said that he supposed his attackers thought they were making some justice.

“Savages,” said Mother.

Klara lit a cigarette and stared at him. Lucjan patted Brano’s foot, which was the only thing that didn’t hurt. “Tomorrow we’ll teach them a lesson.”

He sneezed, shooting agony through his temples. “Don’t-don’t worry about it. I’ll survive.”

“Maybe you will,” said Klara.

“I always do.”

He was able to get up again and, with Lucjan’s help, make it to the dinner table. They served him his food, and whenever he began to reach out a hand they asked what he wanted and got it for him. As she passed him a plate with butter, Klara muttered, “You’ll survive until you don’t.”

Brano smiled while Lucjan, sitting next to him, used a knife to carve him some butter. “You’ve become a pessimist. I doubt your god would be too pleased with that.”

Klara considered that, then said, “Brano, you and your kind will survive until drunk men in the street have had enough. And they will.”

“My kind?”

“Apparatchiks.”

Brano looked at his mother, but she was focused on pushing food around her plate; Lucjan, finished with the butter, had begun sucking on a glass of vodka. Brano said, “This time you speak of. You think it’s near?”

“Nearer than you think.”

“I suppose you learned this from your Good Book. Revelations. Fire in the sky and all that.” He said, “Don’t choose faith over facts, Klara. It’ll always get you into trouble.”

“You pompous bastard.” She pointed her fork at him. “What about Father Wieslowski? Huh? Was it a mistake of faith that got him thrown into prison and then murdered by his guards? And where are they keeping Father Wolek?”

Wieslowski was an old story, an easy one to dredge out whenever some Christian had run out of arguments. Wolek was one of his associates, arrested last June. “Socialism is a demanding mistress,” he told her. “And fragile. These so-called fathers were nothing more than hooligans undermining the foundations of our culture.”

“Did you just say, our culture?” She let out a rough laugh. “Read your history books, Brano. Christianity is the foundation of European civilization.”

“I have read them,” he said calmly. “European civilization survived despite-not because of-Christianity. There’s a reason why the height of Catholic power is called the Dark Ages. Because facts were given less credit than faith.”

Klara fell quiet a moment. Lucjan shoveled food into his mouth. Mother stared intently at her glass. Brano kept his eyes on his sister. They had never been particularly close as children; fourteen years’ difference and the sudden disappearance of their father had pushed her further away. Adulthood had done nothing to lessen this distance. Each sibling, in each town, had followed a different track, had built up his own values and hatreds, had formed his own language. Brano didn’t understand her-he knew this-but there was no sense backing down from her stupidity.

Quietly, she said, “You’ve got more faith than anyone at this table, you know that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re the most religious person I know. Your faith in your beloved Ministry.”

“You saw my work as a religion?”

“At least in ours we have salvation.”

“Of a kind.”

“And we’re never alone. I don’t think you can say that about yours, Brano. The religion of the apparatchik only gives you paperwork and a bad conscience.”

“You could turn it around,” he said after a moment. “Maybe I’m not religious at all, and neither are you. Maybe you’re all apparatchiks for God.”

Klara looked at him, but before she could answer, Lucjan slapped a big hand on Brano’s back. “Apparatchiks for God?” He was laughing a laugh that sounded like desperation. “That’s good! I like it!”

Through the fresh flood of pain in his back, he understood: No matter how upset he made Klara, Brano wouldn’t have to deal with it at the end of the night; Lucjan would.

He said, “Doesn’t matter. I’m not in the Ministry anymore, and we’re just sharing our opinions. Right?”

Mother picked up her glass. “That’s the smartest thing anyone’s said this evening.”

Klara, red-faced, shoved her fork into her potatoes. “Just as long as no one arrests me for my opinions.”