The Confession

63

Lena had gotten over her illness, and Emil and I went to see the few people on Georgi’s list. As I drove and Emil spoke about the long night spent nursing Lena, I mulled over the previous night. I’d never done anything like that before, but while doing it I’d known exactly what to do, and how long to do it. But it hadn’t been me-it had been that other, more sure Ferenc, the one I’d met on the drive to Vera and Karel’s. It was the Ferenc born of the recent past, amid deaths and work camps and infidelities, the Ferenc sick of being able to do nothing. I still didn’t know how I felt about this strange man.

“…was the best thing to do,” I heard Emil saying.

“I’m sure it was,” I said.

Tamas Brest, surrounded by books I suspected he went out of his way to keep dusty, said he hadn’t heard from Nestor since that party for Louis. “Once word got around that my camp book was going to be state-printed, everyone dropped out of touch. As if I’d done something.” He puffed on a pungent cigar when he spoke. “And now I’ve got two militiamen in my home. How is that going to look?”

Stanislaus Zambra just wanted to tell me that his series of poems remembering the end of Stalinism was finished. “Four months, and all straight from the heart,” he said proudly, then nodded at Emil. “Is he a writer, too?” Emil shook his head. “Well, that’s all right. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not,” Emil muttered.

“But Nestor,” I repeated. “Can you help us find him?”

He couldn’t, and neither could Bojan Kuz, though he did suggest we talk to Kaspar Tepylo, which I assured him I’d already done.

On the way to Miroslav Olearnyk’s home out in the Seventh District, I told Emil not to let these writers get to him. “I avoid them as much as I can, and when I can’t, I fall silent.”

“They’re amusing,” he said. “They don’t bother me.”

“But something is bothering you.”

He looked at the windshield-not through it, but at it-and nodded. “What do you think about love, Ferenc?”

I changed gear as we turned into a narrow street cluttered with traffic. “I think I’ll need a drink to answer that.”

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I stopped behind a line of cars, then moved slowly forward with it. “I reread your book last week.”

“Glad to hear it’s worth a second read.”

“It’s good,” he said, but without enthusiasm. “There’s a line in it that always stuck to me. I don’t remember the exact words, but it’s about love of your country. Something about the love of a soldier for his country is the most mature, because it’s about sacrifice. What was it? If your love is mature, you will not hesitate to sacrifice yourself if the object of your love will benefit. ”

“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

He nodded into his chest, and I stopped again behind a truck filled with bags of onions. “You said it was the same whether the love was for a country or a woman.”

“I remember.”

He turned from the windshield finally. “I’ve been thinking about this, and about Lena. I’m not sure I’m any good for her.”

“That’s a load of crap, Emil. It’s obvious even from the outside that without you she’d go off the deep end.”

He shook his head. “Wasn’t always that way. She used to be the strongest woman I knew. Then we married, and she became steadily more terrified by life. And when she leaned on me, I was happy to support her.”

“Just what I’m saying.”

“But now she doesn’t know how to stand on her own. I can see it getting worse each day. And it will get worse, unless she’s forced to stand on her own.”

“Well, force her.”

“I can’t. If I’m there, I’ll help her. I can’t do otherwise.”

I turned onto an emptier street and got going. “Listen, Emil. I’m not one to give marital advice, but if you truly believe this-if you think your presence is doing Lena more harm than good-then I suppose you’re thinking the right thing.”

“If my love is mature.”

I didn’t answer.

“What about you?” he asked, looking back to the windshield, and through it. “Would you leave Magda if you found out you were bad for her? Would you leave Agnes?”

“Sure,” I said, but I just wanted to sound decisive. “If I was bad for them, I’d leave.”

Emil let the subject rest. We soon appeared at Miroslav Olearnyk’s block, but he was not in.