The Confession

21

On the drive back I explained the connection to Emil. He frowned at the fields. “Why was his name on Maneck’s notepad?”

“They were probably friends. What’s Antonin’s address?”

Beatrice had given it to us with Antonin’s extra key. “Karl Marx fifty-nine.”

K — R -5-: K. Marx 59.

The apartment was another one near the Tisa, but in the Second District, and on the ground floor. It faced a small, overgrown courtyard through barred windows. Books had been tossed casually around, clothes strewn on the chairs, and a smell of fried eggs lingered in the kitchen. Emil brought out his pistol.

It was soon clear that the apartment was empty, though someone had eaten there not long ago. There was no sign of forced entry.

“Another spare key?” Emil suggested.

“Or Antonin’s key.”

The apartment had been treated roughly, but not destroyed; I didn’t think anything had been taken. Someone had slept in the bed recently.

Emil looked through some canvases leaning against the wall. Family scenes: dinner tables, children in a lake, an overfull Trabant driving to holiday. The signature was quite legible: A. Kullmann.

We went through the apartment and came up with little. Whoever spent the last few days there had left only old food in the kitchen-potatoes, eggs. There were crushed cigarettes on a plate beside the chair in the living room, and a couple books on the floor around it-a volume of Kandinski’s writings on the spiritual in art, and a book on Socialist Realism. Our anonymous man was a reader-that was the only thing we learned.

A small room with a large window housed the studio. Empty tubes of oil paints littered the floor with crumpled newspapers. A couple canvases-more family scenes-had been destroyed with a knife. “When artists get frustrated, watch out,” said Emil, then stopped at the canvas on the easel. It was empty except for the image of a hand, a couple inches wide, that had been painted in the center-or, it had been begun. The brushstrokes were awkward-they trembled-as if Antonin had been terrified when he painted it.

I looked around the corridor. Clean enough, and empty. The buzzer on the only other ground-floor apartment was marked SUPERVISOR, but there was no answer to my ring. An old man came through the front door as I was heading back, and I asked if he knew the building supervisor.

He squinted up at me. “Supervisor?”

I pointed at the door.

“Yes, some time ago.” He pressed his temple with a finger. “I suppose, yes.”

“And now?”

He shrugged with opened hands. “Haven’t had one for I-don’t-know-how-long. What can you do?”

“How about here?” I nodded at the open door. “Antonin Kullmann. Did you know him?”

“How could I? A man like that doesn’t talk to us.”

“A man like what?”

“You know. Didn’t have time to talk to us proles.”

“Bourgeois?”

He touched his temple again. “You’re not kidding.”

“Did you ever see anyone else go in there? Another man, perhaps?”

“I didn’t look. I’m no spy, you know. Why did you say, did?”

“Did?”

“You said, Did you know him. Is he gone now?”

“He’s dead.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “So his apartment’s free?”