Victory Square

THIRTY-SIX

From the opposite side of Wiener Gurtel, peering through the busy traffic, I spotted the airport bus in front of the ugly Sudbahnhof. It was parked along the road, empty, and outside its door stood four policemen talking with the bewildered driver. I didn’t see Michalec among the small crowd of passengers who’d been taken off. He’d gotten away before the police arrived.

When the light changed, I crossed behind three teenagers cursing in German. They looked very strange-they wore leather jackets, and their long hair was shaved into Mohawks, like American Indians, but dyed bright green and purple. It was unnerving.

The car ride had given me back my breath, but not my strength. I worked hard to keep up with the teenagers, terrified that a policeman would recognize my face. No one stopped me. I crossed the sidewalk to the entrance, the pistol in my coat pocket feeling very bulky and conspicuous, and waved off a hustler trying to sell me a watch.

The station was airy and cavernous and full of travelers, just as when I’d arrived hours before. An escalator to my left led down, but I continued to the rear wall, where a vast board of departures and arrivals was being updated to the clicking noise of revolving numbers and city names.

I was looking for the next train leaving. There it was, at the top of the departures pane. In two minutes-at three thirty-the train on track 7 would depart for Trieste, Italy.

I hurried through travelers to the escalator. It was difficult getting past them, muttering Entschuldigung endlessly, but soon I reached the underground passageway. At the sign for track 7, I used the stairs, gasping, to reach the platform. A bell sounded, warning passengers that the doors to the dirty red train were about to close. I reached an open door on the last car and pulled myself inside. Shaking, I steadied myself against a window that looked out at the station.

As the train started to move, a crowd of policemen poured onto the first platform and spread out, looking for me, and for Jerzy Michalec. They were followed by two men without uniforms. One was tall- Ludwig-and he shouted at the policemen. The other, a short old man with three moles on his cheek, stood back a bit, his hands clasped behind his back. He was staring at my train with a severe expression. I didn’t know if he could see me through the dirty glass, but then our eyes met. Brano Sev glared at me with what looked like hatred, but he didn’t tug his friend’s sleeve to point me out.

That, of course, was another of Brano’s mistakes. I wondered, as we moved out of the station, if living so well, with a house and a family that loved him, had made him soft.

I suppose it had.

I didn’t go after Michalec immediately. In the space of a couple of hours I’d betrayed Brano Sev, taken his car and ruined it, shot four times at a man, and hijacked a woman’s day, chasing the man across town. I’d spent the last half hour acting like a young man, but I wasn’t one. I stumbled into an empty compartment and collapsed, catching my breath and fumbling with my medicine bottle.

When the conductor came along and asked for my ticket, I used most of the schillings Dijana had given me to buy second-class passage to Tarvis, on the border. The conductor told me I could buy the rest of my passage from the Italian conductor, who would take his place there.

I thanked him.

Before leaving, he paused and squinted. “Herr, are you all right? Do you need something?”

I thanked him again but shook my head, blowing air through pursed lips. The train rumbled on.

I peered out the window at the passing countryside south of Vienna. It really did look the same as home, particularly as the sky turned gray and cloudy. I rubbed my eyes; my head buzzed. I again heard that hum in my ears left over from my wife’s death. I tried to think back over the steps that had brought me here, to another country, but couldn’t. There seemed to be links missing. I wondered where Ferenc was now, and if he was with that Russian. Then I heard her voice, Lena’s, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. She sounded angry.

When the train stopped, I woke up without realizing I’d fallen asleep. We were at a station with bright lamps shining in on my face. I panicked. The sky was dark. I didn’t know where I was. I got up and tugged down the window and pulled out the pistol. It caught on the fabric of my coat, but I got it free, holding it below the window as I craned my neck to see down the length of the train. A sign told me we were at a town called Bruck.

The lights at Austrian stations are brighter than at home, and I could see the people who climbed slowly down from the train. Old women mostly, and a few young people with backpacks. Michalec wasn’t among them. I kept watching until the train closed up and we were under way again, moving into the darkness. It was 5:18 P.M.

I pushed the window shut and stepped out into the narrow corridor. The conductor squeezed past me, giving a genial nod as he went on to check tickets. I went the opposite way, to the bathroom. I tried not to look in the mirror but couldn’t help it. In the flickering train light, I was completely white except for the dark rings around my eyes. I looked like death.

I straightened my collar and adjusted my jacket under my coat, then got a sudden, sharp pain in my left arm. I squeezed it, grunting. Not yet. Later, okay, but not yet. I breathed deeply until the pain subsided, then checked the pistol again. My hand on the metal grip was sweaty, so I dried everything off and looked through my pockets for something with friction. Rubber bands would have helped, but I didn’t have any. The best I could do was take some toilet paper and press it between my hand and the grip, squeezing everything together in the pocket of my coat as I slowly proceeded up the train.

The cabins, as I moved forward, became fuller and louder. Austrian families fed plastic-wrapped sandwiches to children, and Italians, sipping smuggled wine, argued in voices that sounded like angry songs. Sometimes they paused to look up at the strange old man staring in through their doors, and once a fat Italian mother with a missing tooth smiled and offered me wine. I smiled back but went on.

I tried not to hurry. I tried to be methodical, but my sick body kept wanting to run. I stopped many times when I found elderly men facing their windows and waited for them to turn back. A couple of times I knocked on their doors and then waved embarrassedly when I saw their faces, as if I’d made a mistake, before continuing on.

The train was ten cars long, and at my steady, meticulous rate it took nearly an hour to reach the restaurant car, where I found a route schedule. Two more cars, and I was at the engine. I hadn’t seen him.

I’d neglected to bring cigarettes, so I asked an Austrian businessman for one and smoked by the window, squinting at the schedule. We had another hour before Klagenfurt, then Villach, and then Tarvis on the border. I peered out at the black mountains, just visible in the lights of a passing town, and wondered if I’d been wrong. Perhaps Jerzy Michalec was still in Vienna.

No. I wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t be.

The bathrooms. There had been seven occupied bathrooms in the train, but I’d only had the patience to wait for four of them. That was the only answer.

I slowly worked my way back down the length of the train. The toilet paper wrapped around my pistol grip was so full of sweat that it had disintegrated into slippery mud, so I waited for a bathroom, replaced the paper, and continued.

I was slower this time, again giving bashful looks of confusion after staring at passengers too long, and people became suspicious. A young Italian man asked me in German what my problem was. I told him I had no problem. I was apparently scaring his mother, so I apologized and went on. When an old Austrian man complained, the conductor also asked me questions and then asked me to please return to my seat. He was kind, though. “You’re sick, Herr. I can see that. But you cannot scare my passengers. They’re my responsibility.”

I tried to assure him of my good intentions, but people whose job it is to deal with strangers know better. They can tell, perhaps from the face, when someone has taken that final unimaginable step over the border that separates the rest of the world from murderers. Certainly I knew what it looked like-I’d seen it enough-but I couldn’t see it in myself.

Because he insisted, I let him walk me, much too fast, back to my seat. I kept leaning back to look into cabins, but he had little patience. “Mein Herr. Please.”

During my excursion, an American couple, backpackers, had set up house in my compartment. They looked disappointed when the conductor guided me to my seat. They pulled in the bags of potato chips and canned beer they’d spread over the seats to discourage just this situation. They warmed to me, though. Just before Klagenfurt, the girl offered a beer, and I finally took my hand off that damned pistol to accept it. “Thank you,” I said in my best accent.

Halfway through the can, I opened the door and leaned out to look. The conductor was at the end of the corridor, an open book in front of him. He stared at me glumly, and I drew back in.

“Where you headed?” asked the American girl.

I blinked at her. My English wasn’t very good.

“Where are you go-wing?” she repeated, slow and loud.

“Oh.” I nodded and sipped the beer. “Trist.”

“Trist?” said the boy.

“He means Trieste,” she explained.

The boy nodded.

“We’re go-wing to Ven-iss,” she told me.

“Venicia,” I said in my language and suddenly recalled my youth.

I’d worked for a while on a fishing boat up in the Barents Sea, and among the crew were men from many countries. One of them, a Croat from Split, was obsessed with Venice and the bridge that connected the courthouse to the prison, where prisoners got their last sight of freedom before descending into the their dank cells.

“Ponte dei Sospiri,” I said, remembering its Italian name.

The girl smiled, showing all her big teeth, and nodded. She had no idea what I was talking about.

As we pulled into Klagenfurt, I set aside the empty beer can and checked the corridor. The conductor had stepped out to perform his station duties. I climbed down to the platform, again gripping the pistol in my pocket, and under the arc lights watched people leaving. The air was mountainous, cold and clean; it woke me. Again, no Michalec. Perhaps he’d actually found a way out of the Sudbahnhof undetected and made his way to the embassy, but I still doubted it. Other people would have tried that, but Michalec wasn’t the type of man to panic and run through the streets of a city where anyone could be looking for him. He would have assumed that the Austrian police who came over to his bus just after he’d disembarked were waiting to arrest him. He was on the train. I was sure of it.

I climbed onto the steps and leaned out as we started moving again. Once we’d picked up speed, I came inside. The conductor was standing outside my cabin, asking the Americans where I was. When he saw me, his sour expression returned. “Please, Herr. Do not make trouble.”

“Of course not,” I said. Soon after, we stopped in Villach, but I was more confident now. I excused myself as I pushed between the Americans’knees and looked out the window. They gave me generous smiles and offered potato chips, which I declined. We were high up now, moving along dark mountainsides and whistling through tunnels. When we emerged, the moonlit clouds seemed close enough to touch. Sometimes snow blew against the window. The Americans cooed at all of it, and I wished I knew enough English to ask if this was their first trip to Europe. They were so full of joyful excitement.

At about eight in the evening, we stopped outside Tarvis, or, to the Italians, Tarvisio. Austrian guards walked leisurely down the corridor, coming upon us first because we were at the end of the train. The Americans grinned as a chubby guard stamped their passports, and I handed over my fresh Austrian one. He gripped the stamp in his fist and stared a moment at the passport. I didn’t know if it was real or not-Brano hadn’t told me either way-and when he closed it again without stamping it, I was sure it was a forgery, a lousy one. He gave me a brief, severe smile and nodded down the corridor. “Please, come with me.”

The Americans gazed in confusion as I got up and followed him out.

It was snowing here, the winds from the Julian Alps bearing down on us as we crossed the platform. I started to tell him that I was a police officer working on a case but realized there was no point. By the door to a quaint-looking office building, my guard whispered to the ranking officer, a fat man with a white mustache. This, I supposed, was the man who would end my journey. He looked me over a moment as I stared through heavy, wet snowflakes at the train-no, no one was getting off. He held up my passport and told me to come inside.

The office was overheated and stank of burned coffee-but real coffee. He looked through the mess on his desk and picked up a telegram.

He noticed me sniffing. “Get yourself a cup,” he told me. Then he picked up the telephone and dialed. I poured the coffee and drank it black-it was scalded, but I needed it. I almost unzipped my coat, then remembered the heavy pistol and decided against it.

After a moment, the officer said, “Hello? Yes, this is Major Karloff Brentswinger. Yes, Tarvis. I was told to call this number when an Emil Brod reached the border. Yes. Danke.”

He covered the mouthpiece as I sipped the dreadful coffee and said, “He’s not in the office. They’re transferring me.”

“Who?”

He seemed surprised I didn’t know this, but he was only too aware of the limitations of his job in this snowy outpost, so he didn’t answer. I drank my coffee quickly.

“Yes,” the major said into the phone. “Emil Brod.” He nodded at my passport. “Yes. Okay.” He held out the phone. “He wants to speak to you.”

I set down the empty cup and took the phone. Ludwig’s voice came through the line. “Brod? That you?”

“Yes.”

“You bastard! Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Yes,” I said, biting my lip before the word “comrade” made it out. “I have some idea.”

“An international fucking incident. That’s what you’ve done.”

There was noise on the line, movement, then Brano Sev came on, returning to my language. “Emil? Tell me the situation.”

“Look, Brano. I’m sorry.”

“Just tell me.”

So I did. As far as I knew, Michalec was on the train, headed to Italy. He might get off beforehand, but I suspected he would take it all the way to Trieste. I imagined he could find protection there. “I’m following him.”

“To kill him?” said Brano.

“I think so.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” I said.

There was a long pause. “And money? Dijana gave you some.”

“Most of it’s gone.”

“Okay.” He didn’t say good-bye, just went silent; then I heard him speaking to Ludwig. I couldn’t make out the words. The Austrian was agitated, but Brano wasn’t. Ludwig came back on. He sounded disgusted. “Give me the major, Brod.”

It was, inexplicably, accomplished. After hanging up, Major Karloff Brentswinger took a stamp from his drawer, adjusted the date, inked it, and pressed it into one of the pages of my passport. I tried to read it when he handed it over, but it wasn’t in German. It was in Italian. Some kind of Italian visa. When I looked at him, he shook his head. “Don’t ask, okay?” Then he went through another drawer and handed me a slip of cardboard-a second-class ticket the rest of the way to Trieste.

He walked me back to the train. The conductor, farther up the platform, stared angrily when he saw I wasn’t being removed. The Americans, having seen me shake hands with the major on the snowy platform, offered another beer, which I declined with thanks.

When the Italian border guards saw the passport, they didn’t give me any trouble, so I suppose the stamp was official enough. They only peered at the shelves around me, looking for extra bottles of liquor, but I had nothing. The Americans told the guards all about their plans to see Venice, then Florence, then Rome, and the guards wished them a happy trip.

After a while, an Italian conductor came through, selling tickets. I handed him my new ticket. He punched a hole in it and handed it back with a smile.

I couldn’t understand my good fortune. Brano didn’t want me to kill Michalec-he’d made that clear. Was he just too soft, as I’d suspected before? Had he become too sentimental about his old friends and decided to give me my revenge because I needed it? Or was he being what he had always been-practical? His plan to arrest Michalec had gone disastrously wrong, and Ludwig’s journalist friend was at that moment writing a scathing article about the ineptitude of Austrian intelligence for Der Standard. Perhaps the only solution left to Brano was to let me get rid of Michalec. I still hadn’t had a chance to ask him.

By ten, we had descended from the mountains and were moving toward the Adriatic. I could smell the sea.