Liberation Movements

Katja

Istvan returns to the hotel around seven, pink from the sun, and begins telling me about wonderful, hospitable Turks and their oversized hearts. But I’m not interested; I’m famished. I throw him his jacket. “Let’s go.”

The waiter in the hotel restaurant leads us to a table by the window. He’s a tall, thin Turk with heavy eyes and a mustache. Not unattractive.

Istvan’s having trouble opening his menu. I wonder if he’s drunk and suddenly want to be drunk myself. “Rak??” I ask the waiter.

“With water?”

“No. I want it straight.”

The waiter smiles, impressed, at Istvan.

Halfway through my second rak? still waiting on the food, I’m feeling the effects. I begin babbling about Aron. “He’s a good man, but simple. I think that’s the problem.”

Istvan fingers his glass. “I didn’t know you were married.”

“Is it a problem?”

He shakes his head and leans forward, as if he sympathizes. “What do you mean, though? That he’s simple. He’s stupid?”

“No,” I say, laughing, then stop. Because it’s occurred to me that merely calling him “simple” has been enough for a long time. I’ve never actually defined this word. “His parents,” I say, “they were very good to him. They treated him as if he were a prince. Royalty. They taught him…” I pause. “How to enjoy his life. They taught him to appreciate what he has, even me.” I reach for my rak? and, after draining the glass, my mouth tingling from anise-seed, add, “There have been no tragedies in his life.”

Except, I think, his marriage to me.

Istvan frowns as I call to the surprised waiter for another. Even I can see I’m making little sense. He says, “You think they were wrong to teach him these things?”

“I think these things are lies. They make a man soft.”

“And simple.”

“And simple.”

“I don’t know this man,” says Istvan, “but it strikes me that you’re confusing optimism with simplicity. In my experience that’s just not true. Pessimism-or darkness, or whatever you want to call it-is the simplest thing of all. It’s easiest to call the world complicated because it relieves you of responsibility. Optimists must engage the world in all its complexity and still succeed. Pessimists can lounge above the action, can be ironic, can sit with their arms crossed.” He pauses, his face very serious. “Pessimists do not take action, which is the only useful thing humans can do. Certainly it’s more effective than passive criticism.”

During his talk I’ve been sipping my rak? because I have no way of answering his accusations, can only stare at the creases when he smiles, the long lashes that grow from his bright green eyes, the misplaced long hair curling from his left brow, and the way his lips are damp except at the edges, where the dryness is starting to peel.

He nods at my glass, which I’m gripping. “Why are you drinking so much?”

“Because I’m going to have sex with you tonight.”

It’s the only thing I can think of to unsettle him, and it does.

So there I was. In that apartment on 24th of October Street, telling the old Romanian supervisor that I was a friend of Stanislav’s. Which immediately endeared me to her. She began bringing up plates of sarmale and other things with cabbage. Can you imagine? From my life at home, where not even my own mother cared for me, to this. Simply because of a few lies. I was using Stanislav’s money. I didn’t know what I’d do when it ran out, but for the moment I didn’t care. I was Stanislav, you see? And to remind myself I kept his knife with me all the time, inside my jacket, as if his family, too, were mine.

Then there was a knock on the door and I was faced with one of the prettiest young women I’d ever seen.

Yes, Katja Uher. She had seen the light on and wondered if Stanislav had returned. I introduced myself as a close friend, using my real name, and told her lies when she asked what news there was of Stanislav. Her eyes shone when she asked me that. So I told her stories, elaborating on the ones he’d told me. Valor in battle and all that. She was very impressed with her boyfriend. She stayed in Pacin with her family, but most days she took the train into town. I took her out for coffee, convinced her to have a brandy now and then.

You see, it didn’t really matter to me that everything was a lie; the fact was that I was happy just to see her face, the way she trusted me implicitly. And for a week, it was…it was as if she really were mine. I took her to the cinema, to the puppet shows, and once we even had a picnic. And it didn’t even bother me when you showed up, Comrade Sev. Really, it didn’t.

Oh, it wasn’t simple. You came to the apartment and called me Comrade Private Stanislav Klym and said that I had come to your attention because of my courage in battle. You said that the Ministry was interested in strong young men like myself. It didn’t bother me because, ignoring the name, you were right. I am a strong young man, the kind that could be a great help to the Ministry. Besides, you were giving me a plan for the future, something I’ve never had. Though I told you at first that I needed time to think about it, I knew I’d accept your offer. I had no choice.

Yes, I did tell her, but only that I’d been offered a job. It was an excuse for celebration, and I took her to the Hotel Metropol for dinner, using most of what was left of Stanislav’s money.

Right-how do you know this? Yes, afterward, on the walk home, I drew her aside and kissed her.

Is this really important?

No, she did not kiss me back. She became upset and ran away.

I can tell when he reaches orgasm, because men make it known. His silence turns to panting, and I feel him grow inside me. He straightens-at this moment men are the most proud. As if they are onstage, their leakage some kind of gold that only this particular man is capable of producing. Perhaps that’s why I push him out before he can stain me.

It doesn’t interrupt his performance. He rolls on his back and pulls on himself. At this moment the woman disappears anyway, and there’s just a man and his tool and the glory of his mess.

When he’s done, he opens his eyes and turns to me, but I’ve rolled away. I noticed, when I undressed, the expression when he first caught sight of the ragged scar just below my navel, and now it’s instinct to hide it from him.

“Katja,” he says, then slides up behind me. He’s making my buttocks sticky, and that only brings on more tears. “Katja, what’s wrong?”

Yes, yes. Okay? I followed her after she ran off. We were in Victory Park, and I caught up with her. I apologized. I said I understood how terrible it was, me being a friend of her fiance, and perhaps we could put it behind us. She calmed down and said she accepted my apology. Then I asked her if I had a chance. I mean, if Stanislav did not exist.

She frowned-I remember that face clearly. A frown, and then a smile that became a full, terrible laugh. I think she was going to say something, but I didn’t find out. I was having trouble hearing her at that point. I grabbed her, she was very light, and dragged her deeper into the park. I threw her down behind some shrubs and began to kiss her. She fought back, I think, but it wasn’t very hard to get her out of that skirt and…

I’m sorry, I blanked out there. But you know what I mean.

No, actually. I didn’t rape her. At first I thought I would, but then I remembered that I had a new life, a new career. One that had to be protected. And this girl, beautiful as she was, she was what one might call a loose end. So I used the knife that I had brought with me from Prague, the one I always carried inside my jacket. I used it on her. Right here.

For the recording, right? I stabbed her in the stomach.

I killed her.

I assume so. It’s a big knife, Comrade Sev.

In the darkness, after I get control of my tears and we’re just lying there, side by side, Istvan says, “There’s a phrase in Islam, al-hikmat al-majhuulah, which means ‘the unknown wisdom.’ It’s about those things that Allah does that are beyond our understanding.” He pauses. “It’s a comforting thing to believe that when the innocent suffer, there’s a reason, though we will never understand it.” I feel his hot palm on my thigh. “I find it a liberating thought. You?”

He waits for an answer, but I have none to give.

Gavra

They left through the rear of the apartment building, Gavra stomping through the muddy parking lot while Adrian carried his bag a few feet behind, avoiding puddles. Gavra said, “That Trabant. Do you know who it belongs to?”

Adrian didn’t.

He’d chosen it because the window was half down. “Don’t you have a car out front?” asked Adrian.

“Get in,” said Gavra.

He made quick work of the wires beneath the steering wheel, and soon they were moving through the dark streets. Once they reached the highway out of town, Adrian said, “Where?”

“Airport,” Gavra muttered.

“Where?”

Gavra looked at him then, as if only now aware he wasn’t alone in the car. “Sorry, it’s important we leave the country. I’ll explain later.”

“We’re going to Istanbul, aren’t we?”

Gavra slowed a little, peering over at him again. “How did you know that?”

Adrian shrugged. “She said you’d take me there.”

“She did?”

“She told me lots of things, Gavra. My sister was always right. Always.”