The Confession

82

Leonek and I walked on either side of Nestor, holding his arms. We left October Square by the north road and climbed into my car, Louis and I up front. I had to stop continuously in the traffic and honked when a broken-down Moskvich blocked my way, the men pushing against the spare tire on the back shouting at me for patience. It took a half hour to make it to the Ninth District, and the whole way I tried to decide what I was going to do.

The first thing, of course, was the interrogation.

We climbed to my apartment, and I got a bottle of brandy and four glasses and filled them and handed them out. Louis’s brandy shook when he brought it to his mouth, but Nestor, settling into the soda, had calmed. He had the ability to accept his situation and wait for his opportunities-learned, no doubt, from a decade in the work camps.

Leonek put his glass down. “All right, Nestor. I want to know what happened to Sergei Malevich.”

Nestor took a deep breath that stretched his thin cheeks, then he exhaled and began. “Sergei Malevich had talked to a friend of mine, Osip Yarmoluk. He was a good guy, a Russian soldier who’d had enough of things. I’d known him ever since they marched in. Did you know he was killed, too?”

Leonek looked at me. I shook my head. “We’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, he was the only one I’d told about the four soldiers taking those little girls into the synagogue. There were a couple other witnesses, but they kept quiet. I can’t blame them, particularly after all that’s happened to me.”

“But you saw it?” asked Leonek.

“I saw enough. They took the girls in there, and I heard them scream. I tried to find some help, but everyone was too frightened. I was, too, or else I would have gone into that synagogue. I told all this to Osip. He knew some of these men. He thought I should go to the Militia about it. But I wasn’t sure. I mean, I didn’t know who I could trust and who I couldn’t. Finally, this Malevich guy started asking questions. He didn’t get anything until he finally came across Osip. Osip told him about me, and he set up a meeting that same night. At the Tisa. Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “With that fog, I knew something had to go wrong.”

“So you showed up,” said Leonek.

“I showed up, all right. And I found him. He was on the bank, waiting. But Osip had never really described what he looked like. He’d only told Sergei what I looked like. So I came closer, to let him get a look at me, and Sergei did see me. He started to step forward, then a man’s voice called his name. I could tell this was unexpected because he quickly stepped back into the fog and looked away from me. It was thoughtful of him. The last act of his life was to save mine.”

Leonek leaned back, hands on his knees, and nodded. “And you saw what happened afterward.”

“I had no choice,” he said. “I was afraid that if I started walking, this second guy would hear my footsteps. And I didn’t know anything about him. So I stood a little bit away, not moving, and watched a tall man-Kaminski-come over and start talking with Sergei.”

“What did they say?”

“I don’t know. It was all in Russian. I know some now, but back then I didn’t know any. Kaminski was very calm, it seemed to me. And at first Sergei was calm, too, but then he wasn’t. Because Kaminski had a gun on him. He must have told Sergei to lie on the ground, because that’s what he did. He lay facedown, and not once did he look in my direction. Then Kaminski squatted and shot him in the back of the head.”

I remembered it myself. The thick fog and the sound of the gunshot echoing off the water.

“When the Russian heard more footsteps, he stood up. That’s when I recognized him, from the Jewish quarter. Then he pocketed the gun and ran off. I did, too.”

Leonek was flexing his hands in his lap, staring. He looked at me. We were both remembering the running footsteps that echoed back at us as we stood over Sergei’s dead body, immobile.

“My mistake was that I told Osip about it. He didn’t turn me in, nothing like that. But somebody must have suspected he knew something-he was dead a week later. I didn’t know if they knew about me or not, so I kept myself hidden just in case.”

I said, “You stayed in your apartment with Antonin and Zoia.”

“They were the only ones who knew where I was, so it only made sense that they had turned me in.”

“They weren’t the only ones,” I said. “Louis knew.”

Louis was pouring himself a second shot, and at the sound of his name spilled some on the table. He started shaking his head vigorously. “No. That’s not it. That’s not how it was at all.”

Nestor stared at Louis.

I said, “Louis didn’t turn you in on purpose. But whenever he came into town he notified the Office of Internal Corrections. He also told the office who he was going to meet. But Louis couldn’t know that the man who killed those girls and Sergei not only ran this office, but had also probably learned Nestor’s name by beating it out of Osip Yarmoluk before killing him. With all this information, Kaminski didn’t have to track Nestor down at all. Didn’t have to kill him. All he had to do was plant a couple anonymous accusations against him, then connect him with a foreigner coming into town. That’s all that was needed.”

“But I didn’t show up!” said Louis. “They had nothing on him!”

Nestor, sunk deep into the sofa, arms crossed over his chest, stared at Louis. “Accusations were enough back then.”

Louis’s face was red and damp. “You don’t understand! I tried to get him out. I tried.”

“You did,” I said, then turned to Nestor. “He’s not lying. He went straight to Yalta Boulevard, to Kaminski’s office, when he found out. Kaminski didn’t even open his door.”

Nestor said to Louis, “But why would you tell them anything in the first place?”

Louis chewed air, eyes rolling as he tried to find the right words.

“He was an informer,” I said. “It was his job to tell them when he was in the country. All for the glories of world revolution.”

Nestor stood up and went to the bathroom. Leonek stood too, as if to follow, then settled back down. He looked at me and shook his head. “Christ.”