The Confession

8

The corridor on the fifth and highest floor of Unity Medical was as crowded as Georgi’s party. Old babushkaed women, a farmer with a leg ending in dirty bandages at the knee, pregnant girls, fevered children, and young, chain-smoking men pacing as best they could. There was a smell of decay, of rotting, but I couldn’t locate its source. I wondered how the hospital corridors in Budapest were looking at that moment.

We had avoided the nurses’ station at the end of the corridor, where a heavy, smocked woman leaned into a telephone, trying to slow the flood of patients.

The third door on the right had a corroded bronze nameplate: DR. SERGIUS BRANDT.

The doctor didn’t seem aware that we had entered. He was bent over a young, pregnant woman in a chair that faced the door, one hand beneath her blouse, holding her swollen belly. She looked past his shoulder at us, reddening beneath her freckles. “Doctor,” she whispered, but he wouldn’t be distracted. He shifted his hand and hummed a few bars of something. “Doctor.”

He straightened, tugged down his white lab coat, and turned to face us. His glasses magnified his eyes, and his short-cropped white hair was thin and soft. “You,” he ordered us, “wait.”

We remained by the door as he finished with the woman, whispered some kindness, accepted a bottle of white wine from her, and kissed her cheeks. When she passed between Emil and me, she kept her eyes on the floor.

The doctor sat and made a few marks in a folder, then closed it. Behind his head was a framed photo beside his medical certificates: two blond boys-twins, perhaps his. Almost in the corner was a tiny, framed Mihai-put up as an obligation. He took off his glasses. “You can see I don’t have a lot of time, Inspectors.”

“We’ll try to be fast,” I said. Out of habit we pulled out our certificates, but he waved them away. “We want to know about one of your patients.”

“Then ask.”

He had a way about him. His curtness was commanding, yet not insulting. He was a man living under the weight of great responsibilities.

“Comrade Malik Woznica,” said Emil.

“And his wife,” I added. “Svetla.”

Doctor Brandt started to reach for his file cabinet, then stopped. “Of course-Malik Woznica suffers from nerve problems of indeterminate origin. This is public record.”

I stepped closer to the desk. “We understand that his condition’s become worse in recent years.”

The doctor frowned, then got up and left the room. When he returned he held two yellow folders-one thick, the other nearly empty. He opened the thick one, replaced his glasses, and read over the top page. “Who told you his condition was worse?”

“His pharmacist,” said Emil.

Dr. Brandt shook his head. “Ask someone with an education, okay? I’ve examined him regularly for five years, and his condition has plateaued. I’ve increased his morphine dosage, but only to counteract his tolerance. There’s been no change in his condition.”

“What about his wife?” asked Emil.

There were only a few sheets inside the thin file. “Last time I saw Svetla Woznica, she was fine. A sore throat, nothing more.”

“How long ago was that?” I asked.

He looked for a date. “Eight months ago.”

When he saw our surprise, he took off his glasses, and his eyes shrunk.

“I’d ask what this is about, but I’m hearing too many terrible things these days. God knows there’s no reason to compound them.”

On the drive back to the station, I went over the particulars again: “Svetla Woznica, a woman too weak to leave the house, disappears with some clothes, leaving the kitchen a mess. Malik Woznica is also ill, and requires morphine in order to function.” I stopped behind a pair of coffee-colored horses that would not move, no matter how much the farmer in front of them pulled the reins. “And now, we have contradictions.”

Emil stared at the swishing tails. “The family doctor can’t verify her condition, because he hasn’t seen her. The neighbor thinks of Svetla as a complainer. Not how her husband describes her at all.”

“Maybe that’s just nostalgia,” I said. “On his part, or hers.”

A couple other farmers had joined the first. They pulled on the reins, pleaded with the horses, and struck their ribs with sticks. Behind, another Skoda’s horn blared.

“And Comrade Woznica’s own condition has worsened over the last half year.”

“Which is almost the amount of time,” Emil said, “that the good doctor has not seen Svetla Woznica.”

Their patience at an end, the farmers beat the horses on the rump, the ribs, and the face. Some bystanders joined in, one of them a teenage boy in his exercise uniform. There were more horns screaming behind us.

“For a half year,” I muttered, and by saying the words aloud, it crystallized in my head. “Svetla’s been taking her husband’s morphine for the last six months. She’s an addict.”

“And Malik Woznica’s been protecting her.”

“Nursing her. But it still doesn’t explain her disappearance.” I tapped the horn to hear it squeak. “When Comrade Woznica gets home from work, we should be there to greet him.”

The horses would only move after blood had been drawn. It flowed along their rib cages and over their eyes. One bucked, then shot forward, the other following, and a crowd of men and boys with sticks and boards chased after them.