Liberation Movements

Gavra

Once Katja had slammed the door on her way out, Adrian gave him a kiss on the cheek, took his beer-stained shirt from him, and soaked it in the bathroom sink. Gavra poured vodkas in the kitchen and brought them to the bathroom, where he sat on the toilet.

“Not going to tell me either?” said Adrian, as he squeezed the shirt and plunged it back in the water.

Gavra downed his vodka. “I’m sorry.”

“State secrets and all that?”

“And all that.” He left to refill his glass.

In the kitchen, Gavra wondered again why he did this job. Unlike Brano Sev, he was a man without belief-in the promise of socialism, or even the maintenance of world peace. And no matter what he believed, the job was never about such grandiose ideals. It was always like this, like standing in an apartment waiting for a phone call asking you to kill a man you’ve made love to. While he’d never before been asked to do this particular thing, it wasn’t so different from the lies he’d been asked to hand out to enemies of the state, the gradual confidence tricks he’d used to ensnare political opponents-tasks that often left him with a hole in his stomach that could only be filled by shots of hard liquor.

He had nothing else; that was true. He’d ostracized his family long ago and given himself up to the strange solitude of the Ministry for State Security, which had become the only world he knew. But was this reason enough to stay?

Adrian laid the wet shirt on the radiator and placed his empty glass on the kitchen table for Gavra to refill. Then he pulled up a chair and sat with his legs crossed at the knee.

“You’ve been lying to me,” said Gavra.

“Have I?”

“You know more than you’ve let on, and it’s going to have to end. Now.”

Adrian looked into his glass, rotating it with his fingertips. “She called me.”

“Who? Zrinka?”

He nodded but didn’t speak. When he sniffed, Gavra understood.

“She called you from the airport.”

“Yes,” he said. “She called to say good-bye. And to give me instructions. To tell me things she said I didn’t need to understand but should only do.” He looked up at Gavra. “I trust my sister. My sister was a saint.”

“Tell me what she said.”

“Can I have another?”

Gavra refilled his glass.

He sipped. “She knew she wouldn’t survive that plane ride, and she knew what would follow. She said that I would meet a man-you-and that we would become very close. She even used the word ‘love.’”

Gavra waited.

“She told me that I should do two things, and she told me when to do them. Exactly when.”

“To do what?”

“The first thing I’ve done. I did it a few hours ago. I took Katja to where you went today. Tolar Street, number 16.”

Gavra pressed his forehead with a palm. “What?”

“I don’t know why. She told me to take Katja there at precisely three o’clock on Monday the twenty-eighth of April, and wait. Just wait. So I did. Katja didn’t want to go, but I told her it was important-important for her to understand things. We went and sat in the car. I didn’t know what to expect. And then the door opened and you left with Brano Sev. He drove you somewhere. That surprised her, but she still didn’t understand. She asked me again why we were there, but I didn’t know what to say. Then the door opened again, and we saw a small, tough-looking guy come out, followed by another man. He had a very thin mustache. That was it. You should have seen her face. It was-it was unbelievable. She almost wept. We watched them drive off. Then I brought her back here. That’s why she was so upset when you wouldn’t tell her anything. That’s why she got you wet.”

The light in the apartment was failing, and Gavra had trouble seeing Adrian’s face clearly. “Your sister,” he said. “She told you this?”

“Yes,” he said. “She has a knack for knowing things.”

“Had.”

Adrian nodded. “Had.”

“How did she know Katja? Or me? Did she meet us?”

“No,” said Adrian. “She just knew.”

“I don’t believe it.”

He shrugged. “I’m not asking you to believe anything, Gavra. I’m just telling you what happened.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“What second thing?”

“The second thing she asked you to do.”

“What time is it?”

Gavra checked his watch. “Quarter after six.”

Adrian frowned, considering this. “It’s not time yet.”

“Tell me.”

“Okay,” said Adrian. “But don’t go doing anything. Just wait. Can you promise me that?”

“I can’t promise you anything.”

Adrian looked at Gavra’s shoes, which were dirty. “At eight, you’re going to get a call here. From Brano Sev. Wait for him to call. He will. When he calls, tell him that the hijackers were not a surprise. Not to Zrinka, and not to Ludvik Mas. And it was no coincidence that he put her on that particular plane. It was a test.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand, dear. The message is for Brano Sev, not you.”

“I should call him now.”

“No,” said Adrian. “That’s not how she planned it.”

Gavra rubbed his eyes. He could hardly see a thing. “This doesn’t make any sense. How could she know these things?”

“I told you, Gavra. She had a knack for knowing things. She always did, even when she was a child.”

“So she wasn’t delusional?”

“Of course not. Unlike most saints, my sister was never delusional.”

“I need to think about this.”

“Go ahead. Lie in bed, and I’ll cook us something to eat.”

Gavra wasn’t sure what to do. Ludvik Mas’s story of a complex ruse to snare foreign agents played and replayed in his head. Was it possible that the real ruse was Zrinka Martrich herself-that she was, in fact, the real thing? Doctor Arendt had talked of “thought broadcasting,” the ability to influence other people’s actions, which was plainly impossible. Yet even the Russians had invested millions of rubles into such research. If it were true, then was Zrinka put through a test to stop a group of Armenian terrorists from hijacking a plane?

“If she had some kind of… powers…then why didn’t she stop the terrorists?”

Adrian stood up. “I don’t know. She told me she wouldn’t survive the flight. Maybe she didn’t want to survive it. Come on,” he said, rubbing Gavra’s shoulders. “Take a rest.”

Despite himself, Gavra did what Adrian asked. He took off his dirty shoes and climbed into Adrian’s bed, blinking in the darkness. He could hear his host going through pots and pans, the puff of the stove being lit, the refrigerator opening and closing.

He remembered what Ludvik Mas had said to someone on the telephone in Ataturk International: It does appear she didn’t play along. Then the urgent, confused voice of the Armenian hijacker:

She said it. She’s one of yours. Yes. Because she knows even more. She told me. How did she know?

He sat up and rubbed his face again just as the telephone in the other room rang. The clock beside the bed said seven thirty.

Adrian’s surprised voice drifted back to him: “He’s early. ”

Gavra went into the living room and approached the phone. Adrian was cooking chicken breast in a pan. “Go ahead. It’s for you.”

On the seventh ring, Gavra picked it up.

“Hello.”

“Gavra,” said Brano. “I thought I should be the one to call, rather than Mas.”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid the order has come down from the Comrade Lieutenant General. About Adrian Martrich. You are going to have to do it.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, it doesn’t have to be you. I’ll come over and take care of it myself. I know how hard it can be, particularly when you’ve spent so much time with the subject.”

Gavra blinked toward the kitchen, where Adrian whistled as he cooked. The subject. Ministry terminology drove him crazy. “I have a message for you,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s originally from Zrinka Martrich, before she died.”

“A letter?”

“No,” said Gavra. “She called her brother from the airport and asked him to pass a message on to you.”

“Me?” Brano paused. “She used my name?”

“Apparently so.”

“But I never met-”

“She seemed to know a lot of people she never met. I can’t explain it.”

He could hear Brano Sev breathing. “What’s the message?”

“That Ludvik Mas knew about the hijacking before it happened. And that’s why Zrinka was on that plane. It was a test.”

“A test? What kind of test?”

Gavra bit his lip. He didn’t know how to say this. “It seems that what Ludvik Mas told us was only partly true. The research was real, and Zrinka Martrich was…She had abilities that they wanted to use.”

Brano didn’t speak for a moment. Gavra waited for him to say that this changed everything, that there was no need for him to kill Adrian Martrich. But Brano only said, “Thank you for the message.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What you asked me to do.”

Brano’s breaths were very heavy as he considered this. “I’m afraid that doesn’t change. The order comes from the Lieutenant General, who no doubt knows everything already.”

“But-”

“Do you want me to come over?”

“No, comrade,” said Gavra. “I’ll take care of it.”

It was possible that he knew what he’d do while he was speaking to Brano, but more likely, he didn’t know until afterward as they sat over plates of chicken and fried potatoes in silence. Adrian didn’t ask a thing, only ate quietly, waiting for Gavra to say something. Finally he did.

“Adrian, I want you to pack a suitcase and get your passport.” He paused, reconsidering. “Do you have an external passport?”

“Of course,” said Adrian. “She asked me that as well.”