Victory Square

EIGHT

In the car, Katja said, “Where’re we going?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh no,” she said, because she did know.

“I need to try. It’ll be quick.”

“That may not be up to us.”

I turned off of Lenin Avenue and took a side street to Victory Square. “Does Aron think you’re being overcautious sending him away?”

She grunted loudly. “That’s a funny one.”

“Oh?”

She gazed out at the vacant streets. “Aron’s… well, he’s been weird over the last half year. If you know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

She was silent a moment, but when she spoke it came out as if she’d been wanting to say this for a long time. “He’s paranoid, Emil. Or he’s seemed so for the last six months since his dad died. He thinks the world’s about to end. He’s gotten obsessed with the news, and every time something happens, it’s just more evidence that God’s hand is upon us.”

“What? He’s religious?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just like a… a premonition. I’ve had to listen to it every damned night.” She went into an imitation of Aron’s rants, citing a wide range of events: the collision on the River Thames of a pleasure boat and a barge, which killed fifty-one, the Tiananmen Square massacre that resulted in at least four hundred dead, the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco that killed sixty-three, and even a report in the Soviet media that an alien spacecraft had landed in Voronezh. Last November’s explosion in a Krosno fertilizer plant, which The Spark blamed on “Polish counterrevolutionary terrorists,” disturbed him, as did the murder of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan in August. “He was shocked by it, as if the man were a close friend.” And of course there were the changes occurring everywhere around us in our corner of the world. Each event became evidence for his unfocused paranoid thesis: The world’s collapsing from every corner.

“You should’ve seen him in October, when the bulldozers were tearing down that old Calvinist church in our district. We could see it from the bedroom window. First he screamed about how he was going to kill Tomiak Pankov, then he just sat there for hours, watching the machines. I said to him,‘But you’re not even religious, Aron.’And he gave me that look. It’s a look I know. The one that says, You callous bitch.”

That’s how, her face as red as the hammer-and-sickle crest on our flag, the story ended. I didn’t know what to say. What can you say when your friend’s husband is in the midst of a personal apocalypse?

“But now,” she said quietly, “now I don’t know. Maybe he’s been right all along.”

We stopped in front of Yalta Boulevard 36. I took my hands from the wheel and turned so I could look directly at her. “Everything might change, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to end.”

“Tell him that,” she said, reaching for the door. “Not me.”

I grabbed her shoulder. “I need to go in, but you don’t. Just wait here.”

She gave me a hard expression that wasn’t uncommon for her, then she smiled. “Someone’s got to watch over you, old man.”

We showed our documents to the front-door guard, but he was the same one I’d talked to yesterday, so he didn’t bother looking at them. He nodded down the street. “It’s gone.”

“What?”

“The BMW.”

I found the spot where Kolev’s car had been, now filled with a Karpat Z-20. “Where is it?”

“Ask the Comrade Colonel,” he said. His voice was full of envy. I wondered how Romek had moved the car; the keys were still in my desk.

Remarkably, this was the first time I had ever passed through Yalta’s oak double doors. I’d been at its threshold more than once, but never stepped through. We entered a cavernous, wood-paneled foyer with too little light. At its center stood a wide oak table in front of a large bronze sculpture: the national hawk, wings folded, head turned to the side. At the table, two women in gray uniforms sat in front of dusty computers. One, with a pretty face marred by a harelip, looked up at us.

“Yes?”

I flashed my Militia certificate. “I’m here to look at Comrade Yuri Kolev’s office. Colonel Romek knows about this.”

She looked at a clipboard beside her computer keyboard. “He’s in a meeting. You can wait in 209.”

“We don’t need to see Romek,” I explained. “We’re just here to look at Kolev’s office.”

She smiled, the crease in her lip spreading. “You do need to see Romek first. He said you’d be coming. Room 209. Comrade Sas will show you the way.”

Comrade Sas was another uniformed guard, a big man with a boxer’s nose who materialized from the shadows. He opened a hand toward a doorway off to the left and nodded for Katja to go first. I followed, and he walked behind us.

It wasn’t like the old days, when a summons to Yalta Boulevard was often a precursor to a man’s disappearance. Those days had passed with the Prague Spring, which had reminded leaders throughout the socialist world that there were limits to what you could do before your citizens snapped and set fire to tanks in the streets.

Nonetheless, the Ministry for State Security still had the same powers it always had. If the Ministry had relinquished its magic acts of making holes where people once stood, it was because the Ministry had made that decision. Decisions could be reversed at any time.

The institutional green corridor was lined with doors, each marked by a number on an opaque window. Number 209 was four doors down, on the right. It was unlocked. Inside, a secretary sat at a desk under an old portrait of President Pankov, from when he still had hair. Beside her was another door. She hung up the phone and nodded at three cushioned chairs against the opposite wall. Without a word, we sat and waited. Comrade Sas left us to our fate.

From behind the closed door, Colonel Nikolai Romek spoke to someone we couldn’t hear. A telephone conversation. The colonel said, “I don’t care what those motherfuckers say. If they don’t get their fucking journalists out of our country, Belgrade can kiss its coal shipments good-bye. See how they fucking like that!”

Silence followed, broken only by the colonel’s, “Uh huh. Uh huh. Right in the ass, yes.”

I looked at Katja. The one-sided conversation only deepened her terror, and it wasn’t helping my blood pressure at all-my veins throbbed. I squeezed Katja’s hand; she squeezed back.

We heard the phone bang down. The intercom on the secretary’s desk buzzed. She smiled at us. “The Comrade Colonel will see you now.”

I took Katja’s elbow to help her up, and we walked through to the small office where Romek, at his desk, was frowning at a little metal box with five colored buttons and a speaker grille. He pressed buttons, cursing to himself. “Livia? Livia?”

The secretary’s staticky voice came through the grille. “Yes, Comrade Colonel.”

“Three Turkish coffees.”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel.”

Romek looked up as if just realizing we were there. “Please, please,” he said, half standing and gesturing at two chairs facing his desk. As we sat down, he pointed at the intercom. “Can’t ever figure this thing out.”

“They’re difficult,” I said, then immediately regretted speaking. Perhaps it sounded like I was mocking him.

Romek didn’t seem to notice. He gazed at Katja. “I see you’re in better company today, Comrade Brod.”

“Lieutenant Katja Drdova,” I said.

“Of course I know,” said Romek, touching his thin mustache. He came around the desk and took Katja’s hand, bringing it to his lips. Katja’s face was blank, as if she’d been drugged. He kissed her knuckles and said, “The first woman in homicide. You’re an example for the whole country, Comrade Lieutenant.”

When he released her hand and returned to his desk, I noticed Katja wiping her knuckles clean on the side of her pants.

“So,” said Romek, sitting again. He clapped his hands together, as if in prayer. “You’re here to look at Yuri Kolev’s office. No?”

I nodded.

“Despite what I told you yesterday?”

Again, I nodded.

He took a long breath through his nose. “Well, I’m afraid that’s going to be pointless.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. Katja was still comatose.

“Of course you don’t. You’re busy working hard to save individual citizens from criminal death, and that’s of course commendable. But over here we’re more interested in saving the citizenry as a whole.”

Despite myself, I was getting irritated. I leaned so my elbows touched my knees. “What are you telling me, Nikolai?”

“I’m telling you that I gave you this little task, which you’ve bungled mercilessly. You upset Comrade Aspitan from the Archives, and now I hear that your coroner’s actually filed some ludicrous murder theory concerning heroin. So now I’ve taken back this simple job. It’s done, Brod. I filed the paperwork this morning.”

“What?” Katja had found her tongue.

Romek gave her a winning smile. “Comrade Drdova, I imagine you’re aware-that you’re both aware,” he added, acknowledging me, “of last night’s debacle in Sarospatak. I wish I could say that’s the end of the story, but I can’t. Just this morning, I received word that demonstrators are on the move right here, in the Capital. They haven’t reached the streets yet-they’re collecting in various apartments.” He shrugged. “It’s a smart scheme. By the time we’ve searched all the doors, it’ll be too late.”

Without warning, I’d learned what my morning’s phone call had set in motion. My cheeks were hot; my heart made thumping noises.

He continued. “My point to the two of you is, whether or not you realize it, your case is going to end by tomorrow morning however things develop. Either martial law will go into effect, and the law will be taken over by divisions of the army and the Ministry, or-and this is of course extremely unlikely-the agitators will have their day, and you can be sure that a dead lieutenant general won’t be their concern. There’ll be many, many more corpses to take your attention.”

“Katja,” I said.

She looked at me, as did Romek, surprised by interruption.

I reached into my coat and handed over my key ring. “Please wait for me in the car.”

“But, Chief, I-”

“Now,” I said, in a tone I’d never used with her before.

Flustered and embarrassed, she got out of her chair and mumbled, “Excuse me,” to Romek.

He resurrected that shining smile and nodded at her.

As she left, closing the door tightly behind herself, I didn’t take my eyes off of Romek. When I was a young man, I’d had trouble controlling my features, but years in the Militia, dealing with killers, had made this easier. He blinked at me. “What is it, Comrade Brod?”

“I’ll drop the case if you’ll be straight with me.”

“I’ll certainly try,” he said.

I wasn’t as sure of myself as I pretended to be. My head hurt, and I was certain Romek could hear my loud heartbeat from where he sat. With my next words I could receive enlightenment or a quick trip down to the barred cells in the basement of Yalta 36. “Four people. Dusan Volan, Lebed Putonski, Tatiana Zoltenko, and Jerzy Michalec.” For the moment, I left out Brano Sev and myself. “What’s their connection?”

Romek was also good at masking his face, but he didn’t have the same kind of experience I did. There was an instant, as I rattled off the names, when pain flashed across his features. He recovered quickly, his upper teeth grazing his lower lip to get it back in line, but that instant had occurred. I knew that whatever followed would be a lie.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know where you got those names. Tatiana Zoltenko’s a Ministry colonel, like myself. Exemplary. Tania’s in Sarospatak as we speak. The rest-Putonski, you said? And Dusan Vol-wait. I do know him, I think,” he said with earnestness, correcting himself as if he were absentminded. “In The Spark. A judge. The man was murdered, wasn’t he?”

I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a reply, so I didn’t.

“Yes,” he continued after a moment. “A murdered judge- murdered, just as you claim Kolev was murdered. Is that what you’re talking about? Have all these people been killed?”

He reached into an aluminum case and took out a cigarette. I still didn’t answer him. I rubbed the edge of my dry lips. I waited.

He lit his cigarette. “Don’t just sit there, Emil.” He took a drag, and the rush of nicotine brought back his composure. He exhaled bitter smoke. “What’s your game?”

Finally, I said, “Jerzy Michalec.”

“What about Jerzy Michalec?”

“He’s a murderer.”

“You’re saying he killed Kolev and Volan?”

“I’m saying all these people have a connection, and that connection is Jerzy Michalec.”

“Interesting,” he said without interest.

I blinked once. “Where’s Brano Sev living these days?”

“Sev?” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know. Isn’t he a friend of yours?”

“Brano Sev is no friend of mine.”

Halfway through his cigarette, Romek seemed to remember who he was. He recalled that he didn’t have to listen to anything I said. “I don’t like your tone, Comrade Brod.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that people are being killed. They’ll continue to be killed, however things develop today.”

“What made you put these names together in the first place? Did someone tell you something?”

“Who’s Rosta Gorski?”

Showing your cards one at a time produces wonderful results. The pain returned briefly, the teeth again, and he put out his unfinished cigarette. “Listen, Brod. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’ve got my hands full trying to keep down an insurrection. I don’t have time to bother with a bunch of senior citizens.”

“I never said they were all senior citizens.”

His eyelids drifted down in annoyance. He pointed at the door. “Get out of here, Brod. While you still can.”

I got up and walked through the door, ignoring Romek’s secretary, down the green corridor, past the front desk and its enormous bronze hawk, and out the door. I heard nothing outside the dangerous pounding of my blood. Only on the sidewalk, crossing to reach the car, did I let my body release its anxiety. My knees went weak, my arms ached, and I thought I might cry. Or have a heart attack. That’s what Yalta 36 could do to a man. Particularly an old man like me.

“What’s wrong?” said Katja.

I started the car and, with some effort, put it in first, but my hands had trouble doing anything. I took a long breath, placed my forehead on the wheel, and said, “Can you drive?”

“Yes, but-”

“Can you drive,” I repeated, “and not ask me any questions?”

I’d been honest with Romek about everything, including Brano Sev. We’d parted ways in 1985, and it was only at Lena’s insistence that I even attended his retirement party the following year. I remember us fighting about it. She sat at her vanity mirror, putting on makeup and explaining what a fool I was. “The man worked with you for thirty years. Send him off with a pat on the back, for Christ’s sake.”

“Why?” I said, full of self-righteousness. “You think the others are going because they like the man? No. They’re afraid that if they don’t go, he’ll leave a report on them with the Ministry. But I’m too old to be scared. People are dead because of Brano. Do you understand what that means?”

She wouldn’t have it. “You jump to conclusions. You always have. You think you know what people are thinking, but you’re nearly always wrong. The fact is, Imre’s death wasn’t Brano’s fault.” Then she got up, found my tie, and threw it at me.

Our relationship had ended the night Brano Sev called me down to discuss the murder of Captain Imre Papp. I found Brano parked on Friendship Street, just outside our door. “Get in,” he said.

“Why don’t you come up?”

“Please, Emil.”

He didn’t want anyone seeing us together, so for the space of our conversation he drove slowly down half-deserted streets, where we were hidden by the warm July darkness. But I could see him. In the ten years since we’d worked together in homicide, he’d aged dramatically-he was Lena’s age, but had the sickly expression of someone even older.

“I need to tell you a story, Emil. But you have to promise to keep it to yourself.”

“Then don’t tell me.”

“I think I should. Gavra thinks I should.”

“Gavra?”

Brano focused on the dark road. “He says Imre’s murder is tearing you up. He thinks you should know the truth behind it.”

I was surprised Gavra cared, but I was more surprised that Gavra, working every day with us as we tracked down futile clues, had never shared his secret knowledge. “Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

“This is not for your report, understand? Not even for Dora. I don’t want his wife knowing anything.”

I considered telling him that there was no deal. If I couldn’t give some answers to Dora Papp, and their son, Gabor, then knowing the answers seemed pointless. But I was too curious. “Okay,” I repeated.

So he told me, and the story, performed in his purposeful monotone, took ten miles of slow driving to get out. It had started the previous year with something Tomiak Pankov had brought up in one of his hour-long Central Committee speeches-the War on Revanchist Fiscal Counterrevolutionaries, by which he meant the war against corruption. The Ministry for State Security began investigating reports of large-scale bribes being taken by upper-echelon members of the People’s Militia. The bribes were paid by a burgeoning Hungarian mafia that traded in Western cigarettes, off-season fruits not available at home, and Japanese radios. They would capture shipments in Austria and West Germany, sometimes Italy, then transport them through Hungary and then here. All along the way, they paid off militiamen and customs officials to get their goods to our black market.

“So? Imre was a homicide detective.”

“Please,” said Brano in his unbearable monotone. “Just wait.”

The investigation was largely unsuccessful, because the agents working on it were equally susceptible to payoffs, and those very few who weren’t kept turning up dead in the countryside. “We needed a new method.”

“You needed a Hungarian,” I said, slowly realizing what he was getting at.

“Exactly,” Brano answered. “As you probably know, the Ministry has long been plagued by nationalist prejudices. Some people at the top-and I’m not one of them-feel that Hungarians can’t be trusted. We fill the ranks with Slavs-Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Ukrainians-and the occasional Romanian. It’s a stupid thing, but there it is. So I was asked to find a Hungarian we could trust to infiltrate the group and pass on information. Imre came to mind.”

I didn’t know what to say. “How long was this going on?”

“Six months. Imre’s cover was simple enough-he was a militiaman in need of money. He kept the truth from everyone, even his wife. Even you. We didn’t know who in the Militia was involved.”

“Six months7.”

He leaned into a turn but didn’t bother answering.

“So they killed him,” I said. “Despite the secrecy, they figured out who he was and executed him in the Canal District.”

“I wish,” said Brano.

“What?”

He drove another block before explaining. “He was killed by a Ministry agent who didn’t know Imre’s true role.”

I couldn’t find any air for a moment. Then: “He had five bullets in him.”

“I know.”

“Where is he? Where’s the man who killed Imre?”

“Transferred.”

“To where?”

“It’s not important.”

That was all I could get out of him, but by the time we returned to Friendship Street, I’d gone over it all many times. I knew where to place the blame.

“If you’d told me, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Not necessarily, Emil.”

“You know it’s true. I would’ve had Bernard watch his back. He would still be alive.”

“Or they’d both be dead.”

“I’m telling Dora.”

“No,” said Brano. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Why? Why shouldn’t she remember her husband as a hero?”

He shook his head. “Emil, listen to me. Everything I’ve said is only for you. Remember: Our country has no organized crime problem. Nor do we have serial killers. Those are capitalist diseases.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said.

“The truth doesn’t matter,” he said. “If Dora Papp starts telling her son about how his father died a hero, then he’ll tell the story at school. Dora will tell Imre’s mother; she’ll tell other people. And what happens then? You’ve got a crowd of people slandering our workers’state. And that, last I checked, was a crime. A punishable one.”

“You’re a shit,” I said and got out.

Next time I saw Brano was at his retirement party, a year later. Then, like all bad dreams should, he disappeared.

It was two when Katja and I reached the station, but there was no sign of Lena. I was suddenly worried about her. I didn’t know why I should be; I was just worried about everything and everyone. I called home but after ten rings gave up.

Katja leaned into my doorway. “Who’re we pissing off next, Chief?”

“I was thinking about searching Kolev’s house.”

“Fine,” she said.

I rubbed my aching temples. “No, forget it. You heard him. Case closed.”

“That’s a load of shit.” She sometimes talked that way.

“It is what it is.”

She took the chair by my desk as she always did-as if she owned it. “But you have some idea why it is the way it is. Tell me.”

We all have our flaws, and one of mine is that I find it difficult to keep too many things going on in my head at once. I’m at my best when I’m staring at a single thing for a long time, and only then can I figure it out. But now, I had to worry about a colonel who might or might not be a murderer. A man named Rosta Gorski had my file; he might be interested in killing me, as well as Brano Sev. Despite our relationship, I didn’t want him murdered. Gavra was finding dead men in other countries. All of this connected to a forty-year-old case that had nearly meant Lena’s death, and so I feared for her. Add to that a revolt bubbling under the surface of the Capital, and it was too much to keep in my poor head.

Katja was staring at me. I’d always been fond of her. So I told her. I told her that I suspected Romek was connected to the murders of Yuri Kolev, Dusan Volan, and Lebed Putonski. I told her that, based on the stolen files, I felt pretty sure that he also wanted to kill me, Brano Sev, Jerzy Michalec, and Tatiana Zoltenko.

“But why?” she said.

“That’s the question. It looks like we’re all connected to a forty-year-old case.”

That explained nothing, though. Why would anyone care about an old Gestapo agent sentenced to hard labor? “Why,” I said aloud, “would Romek call us to investigate Kolev’s death, when he could’ve just signed off on it himself? It makes no sense.”

“It might,” said Katja.

I looked at her.

“Your name,” she explained. “Not his. Maybe he didn’t want anyone in the Ministry signing off on it, just in case there was an investigation later. Nothing to tie him to it.”

That was good, and I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. “Maybe.” Then something occurred to me. “I need to make a call.”

Katja nodded, as if giving me permission, but didn’t move.

“Alone,” I said. “Please.”

She was plainly dissatisfied, but she got up anyway and closed the door behind herself.

When I tried to call direct, I got a busy signal, so I talked to a local operator and demanded she put me through to Ferenc’s house, and if necessary cut into his conversation. She told me she couldn’t do that. The national operators had, since five that morning, been ordered to refuse all connections into the Sarospatak region. I rattled off my Militia number, then told her-by now I’d done it often enough that it made no difference-that this was business for Colonel Romek of the Ministry for State Security. It took a few minutes, but finally I heard Agota’s voice. “Hello? Hello?”

“Agi, it’s Emil. Where’s your father?”

“I was in the middle of an important-”

“This is important,” I told her.

“Did you do what I asked?”

“It’s done.”

“Thank God,” she said, then called for her father.

Since the previous night, Ferenc had regained his swagger. “Welcome to the end of the world, Emil!”

“I need your help again.”

“What about?”

“Tatiana Zoltenko, Ministry colonel. She’s working in Patak. You know her?”

“I’ll ask around. If she’s running any of their units, then we can find her. What do you need?”

“I need her to stay alive.”

“What? You think we want to-”

“Not that,” I said. “I think someone’s going to kill her, and I want you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“It’s a tall order without more information.”

All my information was too speculative to make any sense, so I just said, “If we don’t save her, it’s possible I’ll be killed too. Or Brano Sev.” Neither of us cared about Jerzy Michalec’s life, so I didn’t bother mentioning him.

Silence followed, but I could hear him breathing. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you at home tonight.”

“You won’t be out in the streets?”

“I will,” he said. “I’ll be calling you late.”

By two thirty, Lena arrived with one of the front-desk militiamen dragging her huge suitcase. The poor man’s face was red and damp. “Right here,” she said, pointing at the floor beside Bernard’s empty desk, and gave offhand thanks when he left.

“What took you so long?” I said.

“I had to pack, Emil.”

“It’s just a few days.”

Lena frowned at me, then turned to smile at Katja. “You hear how he talks to me?”

Katja came over from her desk. “He’s a real cretin.” She kissed my wife’s cheeks. “But he’s right. Aron’s leaving, too.”

Unsurprisingly, Katja’s opinion carried extra weight. Lena touched my detective’s arm and nodded resolutely. “You get out, too. Okay?”

“Soon,” said Katja.

“You get hold of Georgi?” I asked.

Lena rocked her head from side to side. “I think he’s drunk.”

Georgi Radevych was an old friend of Ferenc’s, a literary type we’d gotten to know over the years. He was genetically incapable of writing anything that could make it through the Culture Ministry censors, so when he finally tired of causing trouble at the Writer’s Union and passing out at endless parties in the Capital, we offered him my family’s dacha in Ruscova, down near the Romanian border. He’d lived there for nearly a decade by now, hammering away at an old typewriter, producing stacks of pages that no one, probably, would ever read. It wasn’t only kindness: Since we rarely went there, he kept the little house in shape, fixing leaks and sometimes making improvements in exchange for a roof over his head. It also left him with enough change to buy liter bottles of cheap brandy.

“You’ll be able to make the drive?” I said as I handed her the pass for the roadblocks.

“Of course.”

“And you’ve got money?”

Lena gave me one of her looks-I was treating her like a child again. It was an old habit; those years when she drank more than even Georgi, it had been necessary. We went to my office, and I closed the door. She said, “This isn’t just about the demonstrations, is it?”

I shook my head. “Remember that missing case file?”

She nodded.

“The person who took it also took six personnel files. I think that person killed Kolev and two of the people in the files. One of the files is mine.”

She reddened and touched the desk. “Then you’re coming with me.”

“I will,” I said, “but later. Trust me, I don’t want to be around when everyone starts shooting.”

She ran a hand down my arm and spoke softly. “Emil, you’re allowed to end your career a day early. Come with me. Don’t be stupid.”

“And leave Katja on her own?”

“She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”

I shook my head. “Bernard’s fled. I’m not doing the same thing to her.”

She smiled, rubbing my bald scalp as if it still held hair. “You’re a good man, Comrade Brod.”

“You’re a liar, Comrade Brod.”

I kissed her-I remember that. Nothing dramatic, because I was used to her leaving me for her shopping trips to Western Europe. This was no different, not really.

Then she pulled back and blinked at me. “No.”

“No, what?”

“You’re not staying here. You’re coming with me. We’ll bring Katja and Aron, too.” She fingered my lapels. “Okay? We’ll be out of town in an hour.”

I shook my head, then leaned closer. “Are you crying?”

She wiped her eyes quickly and even sniffed. “Don’t be silly, Emil. I just don’t wear widowhood very well-you know that.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She brought her face close to mine, gripping my arms, so I could hear her choked whisper. “When?”

I wasn’t sure why she was getting emotional over this-it was be-wildering. “I just need to see a few things through. A couple of days.”

“No,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

I considered that. By tomorrow, as Romek had said, the world might be an entirely different place. Tomorrow was a strong possibility. “Okay. Tomorrow. And if necessary, I’ll drag Katja with me.”

That seemed to satisfy her. She sniffed and fixed my tie and kissed me again.

On the way out, she ordered Katja to take care of “my pensioner husband,” and I followed her out to Lenin Avenue, complaining the whole way about whatever she’d packed in her bag.

“I’m too old for this. I’m sixty-five!”

“Sixty-four,” she corrected as we stepped outside into the cold. “Don’t mark up the leather.”

“How did you even get this to the taxi?”

“I asked the driver to come up.” She flashed a fresh smile that outshone her mottled mascara. “He was strong. A real looker.”

“I hope you tipped him well.”

“Oh,” she said, placing a hand over her mouth. “Was I supposed to?”

I groaned, heaving the suitcase into the trunk of my Mercedes.

“Keys?” she reminded me, and I handed them over. She gave me another peck on the cheek, then got rid of the smile. “Don’t forget your medicine.”

“Okay.”

“And you promised, remember? Tomorrow. Early as possible.”

“I remember.”

“I’m serious, now. Do what you have to do, but even if it’s not finished, you come down south. Don’t get too involved in any of this. There’s no reason anymore.”

“You’re worried about me?”

She made a face as she opened the door-her nose was already pink from the cold. “I just don’t want to spend too long alone with Georgi. He reminds me too much of how I used to be.” Then she kissed me again and shooed me away. “Don’t waste time dawdling. You’re on a deadline.”

I returned to the Militia steps and waited for her to drive off. I could see her hunched over the wheel, looking for where to insert the key. This always gave her trouble, but only in my car. It didn’t make sense, because we both had the same model Mercedes. I took a step down toward the sidewalk to help her out, but she got it.

I know this because the Mercedes exploded.

Katja was at her desk when the blast occurred. An instant beforehand, she looked up at a sound-a neighborhood dog let out a single worried bark. Then it happened. It was, she told me later, like two explosions. A low, bass thump she felt in her stomach, then, immediately after, a higher-toned pressure that hurt her ears and shattered the window behind her. Glass caught in her hair and covered the floor. But she didn’t move.

I was thrown back, the corners of the front steps cutting into my back, and for an instant I, too, was frozen. I heard things inside the demolished Mercedes exploding, fire crackling. But the loudest thing was my damned heart. Black smoke billowed into the sky, then sagged, heavy, and filled the street. I rolled and caught the stink of burning gasoline. It was everywhere.

Through the smoke, I saw a flaming, twisted Mercedes, but I was trying to see past it, because this couldn’t be the car that held my wife. I thought that mine was somewhere behind this one. I got up and ran toward it, limping, entering the smoke, choking and coughing. The militiamen told me later that I was shouting her name, but I don’t remember that. I only remember the thumping sound and the smoke and heat that stopped me before I could get to her.

I wasn’t alone. At the sound of the blast, and the sudden rain of broken glass in the station, the militiamen ran out, some standing stunned at the top of the steps, others running forward to wrestle me back. They shouted things I couldn’t hear because my ears were dead as they dragged me back inside the station. They put me in a chair. I could see them but couldn’t hear them. They were arguing over something. Katja broke through, bent down close to me, and said more things I couldn’t hear, but there was some comfort in just seeing her face. Then she turned and shouted something that silenced the others. Someone went to make a phone call.

I realized why I couldn’t hear anything-my ears were humming like an electrical generator. My eardrums had been kicked, and I wouldn’t hear anything for another hour, and even days later the unnerving electric hum would pop up, sometimes at inopportune times.

When Katja returned, I grabbed her coat and pulled her close to me, screaming, “Where is Lena? Where is my wife?”

I couldn’t hear her answer, and she understood this. She just shook her head.

I thought briefly of Katja’s husband, Aron, who believed everything in the world was collapsing. He was right. The world was an entirely different place now. I felt as if someone had taken out all my internal organs but left me, inexplicably, alive. I wondered who could be that cruel.