The Confession

39

Zindel returned to the custody of his captors, each one holding an elbow to guide him to the front seat of the white car. They squeezed in on either side and drove back to Ozaliko.

“Does it help?” I asked as I started the engine.

“Not really. Maybe. I don’t know.” Leonek drew his finger along the windshield and looked at the dirt on his print. “I can file a report on Olonov, at least that. He might be the one who killed Sergei. But he’s somewhere deep in Russia now, I’m sure, forgetting about the two dead girls and Sergei. I can’t touch him.”

I changed gear. “Maybe you can.”

He looked at me.

“Kliment. He helped me out recently on a case. He might be willing to look around.”

“ Kliment helped you on a case?”

“He’s a good man.”

“Like his father,” said Leonek, watching the blocks go by. A smile spread across his face. “Yes. This could work.”

We had a few drinks at his tiny, tin-roofed house. It was dirty; ever since his mother had died, it seemed, no one had cleaned a thing. Except for the bedroom. The bed was made and the sheets starched, and all the surfaces had been dusted. “This where you live?” I asked him, and when he realized what I was asking, his face darkened in an uneven blush.

With our third round of brandies, Leonek turned on the radio. It was set to the Americans. These days they were calmer, reporting on international events with a steady, tempered voice and leaving the vitriol to their guests, exiles recently escaped from the Empire. There was a writer from Kiev who chronicled in painful detail the interrogations he had faced at the hands of the KGB. He described the use of heat and cold on the flesh, the simple effects of clubs struck repeatedly against his legs. I wondered what simple tools Kaminski preferred, then wished I hadn’t. I said, “You listen to this a lot?”

Leonek touched his glass to his chin. “It’s the only thing I listen to.”

I left just after dusk, feeling a little vibrant from the drinks, and I didn’t want this pleasure to be undermined by Magda’s silence or by dreams of Stefan sliding over her body, so I drove into the Fifth District and slowly turned up and down the narrow streets, stopping generously for pedestrians. My hands and feet knew where I was going, but I was in no hurry. When it occurred to the rest of me, I tried to deny it, but then I was parked in front of Vera’s building and could no longer fool myself.

If I wanted to justify it, it would have been no problem. But I didn’t try to justify it. That would have made what followed into part of a game between me and Magda. That would have trivialized it. So I held the loose banister as I ascended, thinking only that it was a lovely building where Vera and Karel Pecsok lived.

She opened the door, started to say hello, then stared.

She was half-dressed, as if getting ready to go somewhere. A brassiere and a black skirt over stockings, her hair tied in a bun on the back of her head.

“Well,” she managed, along with a smile.

“You busy?”

“Just wondering what to do with my night. Come in.”

Vera’s beauty lay less in her physical appearance than in her ferocity. Long, hungry fingers that pulled off my jacket and hat, large eyes that roamed over my chest, arms, face. Her brassiere was loose on her white, bony shoulders. She was so thin. She took my jacket away and reappeared in a blouse with glasses of red wine, smelling of lavender.

“You surprise me, dear,” she said. “You always surprise me.”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

Her lips were the only fat part of her. They stretched when she drank, and her strong teeth made clinking sounds against the glass.

She turned on the radio. I was relieved to hear no Americans, just some tamed Soviet pianist tapping through a countryman’s scribblings. I realized I was still standing, somewhat foolishly, in the middle of the room. I moved to the edge of the couch. Vera settled next to me, a hand on my back and her thigh against mine.

“Don’t feel strange, Ferenc. I don’t want you like that.”

“How do you want me?” I said this quietly.

“Silent. But I want all your strength. You’ll need it.”

I finished my glass and held it out. “For strength.”

She got up and refilled it, but before returning the glass she leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. Full, hard. It was in her kisses that her ferocity was most evident. She looked me in the eye, her voice a whisper: “You’re going to enjoy yourself.”

Her kiss had already convinced me, but I still drained my glass.

The Soviet pianist was having a fine time of it.

We kissed on the sofa for a while. First she initiated it, then I did. We were like those kids monopolizing Georgi’s couch, smearing lipstick and saliva. Hands groping, my fingers pressed beneath her brassiere, over her tall nipples, then slid up her skirt. She flinched and pulled my hand out. A smile. “Your rings hurt.” I took them off.

We were out of our clothes quickly, but it was not simple. It was more complicated than I had imagined. Their bed was wide enough for two couples, and we shifted positions often, twisting in a mad clockwork. She rolled to face the sheets and held her backside high for me, then turned over and brought her knees to her ears. She slid down and took me in her mouth. The gymnastics were strenuous. She brought me to the edge many times, then changed everything completely. I was sweating freely. Once or twice she expelled a brief orgasmic shout, then took a breath and kept on. She dragged her tongue over the moist inside of my thigh, then bit me. I flinched. She said, “Wait.”

There was a drawer beneath the bed. She took out a frayed purple belt, part of a lost robe, and crouched on the bed, her long white body glowing.

“Tie me up.”

I used the headboard and her wrists and a knot I’d learned in the army. It was secure, but would not bind. I paused to consider her beneath me, arms above her head, her long hair scattered over the sheets. Her rib cage tightened behind thin flesh as it rose and fell. She was so small and breakable.

I used her facing up, then facing down. She squirmed and made noises I’d never heard from any woman before. Once she trilled a consonant, then grunted. I could just make out the words that followed: “Hit me.”

I struck her rear end with my open hand and heard the pleasure come out of her mouth.

“Harder.”

I did, smacking until she was bright red, then I kissed her. I kissed anything I could reach. I licked and gnawed her until she made that sound again. Then I did, too.