The Confession

81

I waited inside the cafe window, while Leonek walked a few paces behind Louis into the October Square market, where round peasant women sold wormy apples and soft potatoes. Along the edge, the Romanians Agnes disapproved of stood in a semicircle playing fiddles. A couple uniformed Militia watched them a moment, then checked their papers. In the center of the crowd, Louis rose on his toes to see over heads.

“You going to just stand there?”

“Yeah, Corina. I’ll just stand here for now.”

She went back to the tables, and I watched the militiamen give the Romanians their papers back and move on, out of the square.

He arrived at five minutes after noon.

Like the gum-chewing teenager had said, he was short, but not a real shorty. He limped through the crowd from the east side of the square, pausing for women to pass, taking his time. I could only see his head and sometimes a shoulder. Blond hair and a gaunt face. Cheekbones sharp and clear and white, eyes set deep into his skull. He noticed Louis, but didn’t alter his slow, steady pace. Louis’s face lit up in one of his bright smiles as he pushed through bodies to get to Nestor.

Leonek remained a couple people back, glancing in their direction only casually, and I stood at the window with my face half-exposed.

“Sure you don’t want a coffee?”

I didn’t look at her. “Give me a few minutes, will you?”

“Whatever you say.”

They talked a moment, and Louis motioned to the cafe. I slid farther out of sight as Nestor turned in my direction and considered it. Then he shrugged and limped forward. Leonek kept close behind them. Then Nestor stopped. So did Louis and Leonek. He turned and said something to Louis, and Louis’s face melted, his lips opening and shutting rapidly. Nestor turned back then, quickly, and used his hands to part the crowd. But Leonek caught his arm and stuck a pistol into his ribs. All three turned back to the cafe. I waved to Corina and pointed at an empty booth. “Four coffees.”

He did not struggle. I noticed this immediately, but I didn’t know what it meant, if anything. I sat at the booth and watched them enter, Leonek still gripping Nestor’s arm. Louis’s face looked like pain as he whispered into Nestor’s ear. I only heard a little of it once they were at the table: “… the only way… no choice… just listen… ”

Louis sat beside me and Nestor across from me, Leonek beside him. “Hello, Nestor,” I said.

His thin face moved beneath the surface, his jaw shifting. “Good afternoon, Ferenc.” His voice was high but coarse, as if his throat had been put through a lot.

“Nestor, please give Leonek your gun.”

He kept his eyes on me as he pulled it out of the inside of his jacket and passed it beneath the table.

Corina arrived with our coffees and looked significantly at me before walking away.

“Tell me about Stefan.”

Nestor frowned. “Here?”

“Yes. Then we’ll go somewhere else. Right now, Stefan.”

The other customers didn’t notice us. They smoked and ate and talked loudly with one another. When Nestor lifted his trembling cup to his mouth, I saw the missing finger-just a pink stump. “I didn’t do it,” he said.

“Tell me what happened.”

He set the cup down. “I went to see him. To turn myself in.”

“What?” said Leonek.

“Let him,” I said.

Nestor looked at Leonek, then at me. “Stefan didn’t believe me at first either. He kept his gun on me, and we talked. I told him why I had killed Josef and Antonin and Zoia. The paintings, and-” He frowned at his missing finger. “And my time in the camp.” He looked at Louis. Nestor couldn’t hold his gaze still. “He was all right, that militiaman. After a while he made some fish soup; he knew I was hungry. He kept his gun with him, but we talked and ate, and he asked why I was turning myself in.”

“What was your answer?” I asked.

He turned to me again. “Because it was done. I had killed them, and I didn’t care anymore what happened to me. But then he arrived.”

“Kaminski,” I said.

“Kaminski?” That was Leonek.

Nestor blinked a few times, then nodded. “Stefan asked who it was, and that’s when I learned his name. I didn’t know it before. Stefan told me to wait in the kitchen, so I did. Kaminski asked Stefan about me. He wanted to know if Stefan had found me yet, and that when he did he should give me to him. To Kaminski. But as I was listening to his voice, it sounded familiar. I hadn’t seen him yet, so all I had was the voice. I stuck my head around the doorway. It was so stupid of me.”

“He saw you,” I said.

“And I saw him. And I recognized him right away. When you see a man commit murder, his face never leaves you. It was the same face I’d seen in that crowd of four Russians who were talking with those little Jewish girls. The same one who killed that other militiaman, Sergei Malevich. And I knew it then: Antonin hadn’t sent me to the work camps after all. I knew it immediately.”

“You’re right.”

Nestor nodded. “Kaminski recognized me, too, and he was quick. Stefan was taking out his gun, but Kaminski turned and shot him twice. So fast. But quiet, with that silencer.”

“But you had a gun too.”

“I’d taped it to the small of my back; I didn’t know if I could trust this Stefan. I shot Kaminski in the shoulder. But he jumped back into the corridor before I could get him again.”

Leonek gaped, “So it’s true.”

Nestor nodded at him, but his face was pale and unwell. “It’s true.”

“And you got out through the window,” I said.

“I thought he would be waiting at the front door.”

“He probably was. Did you come to my apartment a few days later?”

“But the woman wouldn’t let me in. Your wife?”

I waved to Corina for the bill.

Louis finally spoke. “Nestor. Good god damn. Nestor. ”