The Confession

23

I drove through the Friday morning work crowd up to the Sixth District, to Unit 21, Block 10. The entryway was one of those dismal greens that give the feeling of being underwater, and the elevator was broken. So I climbed to the fifth floor and knocked. Stefan was in his underwear. “This is a surprise. Finally decide to finish me off?” He was smiling, but when I stepped forward, he stepped back.

I peered past him. “Have any coffee?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll buy you a cup.”

I waited for him to dress. His view was like ours: blocks upon blocks; up, sky. He lived the same way ever since Daria left him; he lived like the bachelor he would always be. This, I supposed, was why he and Magda used my marital bed.

I considered talking to him then. We could have it all out in the open and start settling things finally. But when he wandered out of the bedroom and found his shirt under a sofa cushion, I changed my mind. Magda had said she was making her own decisions, and this, in the end, was the only way. It was not up to him, or to me. He pressed a hand against his swollen belly to flatten the wrinkles of his shirt, but it didn’t help. What did she see in him?

In the car, he leaned forward and frowned. “That your engine? You need to have it looked at.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’ll take a look if you want. I just hate to have cars going around sounding like that.”

I stared at him until he shut up.

We went to the same place he had been going to for years. Cafe-bar #338. A dark workers’ hole almost in the Third District where Turks drank coffee from very small cups. “Why don’t you try another bar?”

He shrugged. “Why should I? I’ve brought Leonek here. He likes it.”

“ Leonek likes it? I wouldn’t think so.”

“Because of the Turks? Come on, Leonek’s a bigger man than that. These guys didn’t kill his family.”

“Well, neither of you has any taste.”

We got coffees and rolls and settled on knee-high stools around a low table. A thin Turk with a little beard raised his cup to Stefan, and Stefan nodded back. “Out with it,” he said to me.

“I’ve found your Antonin.”

“Antonin?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

He knew, but it took a moment to settle into his skull. “ My Antonin?”

“Antonin Kullmann. He was found in the Canal District, burned to a crisp.”

His tongue moved around his teeth, then he swallowed. “So that was Antonin.”

“I talked to his mother, in Drebin. He was an artist, and Josef Maneck showed his stuff. He has an ex-wife named Zoia who’s married to a clerk. He was trying to get her back.”

Stefan folded his hands beneath his chin.

“I think the killer came by last night, but I lost him.”

“The killer?”

“Maybe.”

He finished the roll and ordered another coffee from a barmaid with striking dark eyes. Then he watched me a moment. “And you’re bringing this information to me?”

“It’s a case.”

“You’re right.”

“And I can be a big man too.”

“I’m glad.”

We returned to Antonin’s apartment and went through everything again. There was nothing new, but Stefan was thorough as he read the letters and examined the newspaper clippings. I pointed out the letter to Zoia mentioning the sense of my mortality. “He may have known he was going to be killed.”

“Uh-huh,” said Stefan. He looked at the cigarettes still dirtying the plate beside the chair and read their brands. “This one’s yours?”

“Yeah.”

He examined the bed, then went on to the bureau. The clothes were good quality, expensive, and I wondered if Lena Brod would approve of them, or if I was too much of a prole to know the difference. As he searched he told me what little more he had learned about the dead curator, Josef Maneck.

“Before he was sent to the bottling plant, he was doing very well for himself. The Culture Ministry gave his museum a significant percentage of their budget.”

“Why?”

He straightened. “This is where I become embarrassed. It was because of his contribution to the art world, having brought some genius-an A. Kullmann-to the attention of the public.” He shrugged. “I never followed up on it.”

“You should be embarrassed.”

“Anyway,” he said as he went back to searching, “in ’fifty-one the heavy drinking began and just got worse. He drank throughout the day, hid it from no one, and after he’d drunkenly insulted enough Ministry officials, they sent him to the bottling plant. The drinking didn’t stop.”

“Did you catch up with Martin again?”

“He disappeared.”

“I saw him hiding from you in the Fourth District. What did you do to him?”

Stefan smiled. “Maybe I was a little pushy.”

“What happened after the bottling plant?”

“Josef survived. That’s a mystery, how he made ends meet. I suspect someone was helping him out.” He appraised the living room as he walked to the paintings on the wall. “Probably Antonin. Hey-this is good.” He took down the one I’d noticed and brought it to the window, turning it so the pig’s head became even more illuminated.

“Josef made this guy famous.”

Stefan turned it in the light. “This painter made himself famous. Josef just came along for the ride.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Here’s another one.”

I brought him the factory scene, and when he took it his head slipped back, as if afraid of catching something. “What happened to him? This is trash.”

We held the paintings side by side. Beneath each signature was a year. The good one was dated 1949, the factory scene last year, 1955.

Stefan grunted. “It’s criminal. That’s what it is. Someone with this much talent, and he sells his soul. To make this.” It was more than he could bear. He tossed both paintings on the sofa and reached for his hat.