The Confession

6

I slept on the couch, because this was where I’d been sleeping for months. The mosquitoes woke me, but I survived by pulling the sheet over my head and sweating. I heard her come in, saw the dim light from the stairwell as she opened the door, then smelled the cigarettes on her clothes when she passed. Pavel whimpered in recognition. She didn’t look at me, and I didn’t say a thing.

A thump to the head woke me. Agnes’s stern face was in mine-she was dressed. “We’re going to be late,” she said.

“Have you walked your dog?”

Her expression relaxed.

“Well then,” I said.

I waited for the hot water to reach our floor, then shaved and gave myself a quick wash from the sink. I toweled off and went into the bedroom for clothes. Magda was still sleeping under a mess of sheets, her walnut hair curled against the pillow, and a bare, dirty foot stuck out below. I considered waking her, then realized she was probably already awake, playing dead until I left the apartment.

I drove Agnes to a cafe in the center before sending her off to school. I always did this on first days-the drive and the breakfast were to mark something important. There was the usual mess of blue work clothes and old, quiet men in berets who perked up at the sight of a young girl. We sat by the window. “Are you nervous?” She shrugged and pushed her glasses closer to her eyes. “First days are exciting.” But she didn’t answer; she was becoming quieter as she got older. She was becoming more like her mother.

Emil Brod and Brano Sev were the only ones in the office this early, and Brano, behind his files, turned his round face with its three moles and gave the usual, polite half nod. The last time I’d seen him, the state security inspector had a mouth full of metal braces, but now they were off, and his teeth, when he flashed a brief, self-conscious smile, were straight and true. It was a clever lie. We’d worked with him over a decade now, but like all the world’s secret policemen, his world was run by a dark logic none of us was privy to.

Emil’s blond hair was combed to a perfect part, like a schoolboy’s. “You’re back,” he said, smiling.

“I’m back.”

He sat on the corner of my desk. The smile wouldn’t leave him. “So?”

He was one of the few I’d told. I shook my head.

Emil was the youngest in Homicide, only thirty. We’d given him a hard time when he was first transferred here-there were misunderstandings on all sides-but after a while he became part of the wood-work. “No decisions, I guess?”

“We wait.”

“You know, Lena’s still willing to talk with her. It might help.”

I didn’t want his crazy wife talking to mine. “I still don’t think so.”

“You hear about Leon?”

“What?”

“His mother died.”

I looked up at him.

“Two weeks ago. We all went to the funeral, even the Comrade himself,” he said, tilting his head toward Brano’s desk. “Leon’s taking it badly.”

“I imagine.”

“He adored Seyrana. I liked her a lot too.”

“I never met her.”

He shrugged in a way that suggested these kinds of events were beyond us all, then got off my desk.

There was nothing to do until Stefan showed up and walked me through the case, so I rolled a fresh sheet into my typewriter, gave the ring on my left pinkie a half turn, and stared at the page. I’d written the book on this, adapting my touch to the stiff T, the rusting carriage return, and its fragile, gray body.

A half hour later, the paper was still blank. I scratched a mosquito bite on my ankle, then typed a few words to get it going. But it went nowhere. I tapped my fingers on the edge of my desk and gazed at the ubiquitous portrait of Prime Minister Mihai-young, a wave of healthy hair, a smile that begged to be trusted.

Finally, Stefan stormed into the room, his satchel banging against the doors and clattering to the floor as he arrived at his desk. He was looking fatter than usual, and his shrapnel limp was stronger today, but he had a pink, lively glow above his sparse beard. “There you are,” he said, out of breath.

We shook hands, a little formally.

“You get my message?”

“Magda wrote it down.”

“Good, good.” He rubbed a hand through his whiskers. He seemed to be deciding something. “What are we waiting for?” He got his satchel again, and I followed him out of the office.