Victory Square

21 DECEMBER 1989
THURSDAY
SIX

Lena kept me up most of the night, shifting and turning in our bed, sometimes saying, “Emil? You awake?” I played dead until the alarm buzzed at six thirty. She was finally deep in sleep, but I got up. After forty years of rising at the same hour, I doubted I’d ever be able to sleep late again. And it says something that this was the thought that first came to me that morning. I didn’t want to think about revolutions, massacres, or even a dead lieutenant general. All I wanted was a little quiet, a little simplicity, and a peaceful retirement party the following night-and even that, I didn’t give a damn about.

Only while waiting in vain for the hot water, then suffering through a cold shower, did I remember what I had promised Agota I would do. It would have to wait until the post office opened at eight thirty; I wasn’t looking forward to it.

The roads were empty for that hour. I was used to swerving around Gypsy families who came into town to search through trash before the Militia arrived to send them away. That should have told me something, but without caffeine I still couldn’t think straight. Instead, I focused on a pitiful papier-mache St. Nicholas in a shoe store window, knowing that, behind the Christmas sculpture, the store was empty. I wondered why the shopkeeper even bothered.

The night crew at the Militia station was getting ready to leave, and when they saw me come in, they nodded their acknowledgment. “Any coffee?” I asked.

Tamas, a young recruit, was putting on his coat. “None in the station.”

“None at all?”

He shook his head regretfully, then yawned.

“I’ve got some in my desk,” I admitted. “I’m willing to share.”

But Tamas didn’t have time for it. He, like the others, wanted to get home to his family. I stopped him at the door. “Anything last night?”

“It’s all on the form,” he said, then unlatched himself from my grip and was gone.

The night form listed calls made over the previous eight hours. There were nine, ranging from simple disturbances-a neighbor’s music was too loud-to someone insisting that she had heard tanks moving in the street. I scribbled down her number and took it up to the homicide office, where someone had left a couple of copies of the morning’s Spark. I didn’t read it. Not yet. Instead, I dialed the number.

A groggy male voice picked up. “What?”

“This is Chief Emil Brod of the People’s Militia. Did you call last night?”

“My wife, comrade.” He was suddenly awake. “No, it’s nothing. Sorry to bother you.”

“It’s all right. But is it true?”

“Who knows? She said she heard it, but I didn’t hear a thing.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

I used the percolator and my stash of acorn coffee in the empty lounge. When, a couple of years ago, the stores began replacing real coffee with this sludge, I suffered flashbacks of those desperate years just after the war. Acorn coffee, for me, was the irrefutable evidence that we were sliding in the wrong direction. Ration cards and petrol rationing were one thing, but when you couldn’t get a cup of real coffee anymore, that was a sure sign that everything was collapsing.

Now, people were being shot in the streets.

As the coffee brewed, I read The Spark’s interpretation of last night. It was, not surprisingly, buried on page eight, under a lengthy profile of our most famous ice-skater, Ingrid Tolopov.

PATAK MOB KILLS 6

A riot broke out in Sarospatak’s main square last night when a mob organized by foreign elements threw stones at members of the People’s Militia.

Six hooligans were killed when militiamen were forced to defend themselves. Comrade Mayor Natan Pankov said that he has been dealing with German, Hungarian, and Yugoslav reactionaries in Sarospatak over the previous month. “This is an attack on all of us,” he said. “It’s no secret that the counterrevolutionary uprisings destroying the socialist frameworks of our fraternal countries have been making great efforts here.” A Militia corporal said, “I saw Hungarians breaking shop windows.” In an effort to protect his citizens, Comrade Mayor

Pankov has instituted martial law.

There were no surprises here: no mention of why the crowd was there in the first place; blaming foreigners; and quoting Comrade Mayor Natan Pankov, Tomiak Pankov’s son.

I threw the paper into a wastebasket and brought my cup back to the office, taking yesterday’s day-end report from Katja’s desk. I took a sip of the wretched coffee and tried to focus on the homicide investigation she’d been working on.

Dusan Volan was a seventy-year-old retired judge who had been found Sunday night by the high stone wall that encircled his Thirteenth District estate. A photograph showed how he had fallen, a face-down lump on the grass, and that the bullet had entered his skull through the back. A 9mm.

The ballistics report told me that the bullet that killed the judge was shot from an ASP pistol. I’d never heard of it. ASP: 9x19 mm, 7 rounds. Length: 173 mm. Developed by

American gunsmith Paris Theodore in 1970s. Designed for concealment-i.e., clandestine work. Only 300 on the open market, in USA, the rest supposedly produced for CIA.

It went on, going into the gun’s special snag-proof design, which made it impossible to catch on clothing, the American company that produced it, and the fact that it was last known to be manufactured in 1983. The ballistics specialist added a handwritten side note. Just dumb luck I know this — we’ve got 1 ASP, from a dead American 5 years ago.

My phone rang, and when I picked it up the line was fuzzy, long distance. “Emil?” said a familiar voice.

“Gavra? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Zagreb,” he lied. “How’s the Kolev report coming?”

“It’s not simple.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” I told him about the heroin and then heard some voice on his side, a woman over a loudspeaker-she was announcing a flight in English. I didn’t bother asking about that.

There was a rush of static, then he said, “Take down this name: Lebed Putonski.”

I wrote it down as, through my open door, I saw Katja arriving. She smiled at me but looked tired, and I nodded back. I lowered my voice to a whisper: “Who’s Lebed Putonski?”

“Ex-Ministry. Also murdered. I should be home by tonight, but can you pull his file?”

“Is it connected to Kolev?”

“Yes, Emil. Undoubtedly.”

As I hung up, Katja sniffed the air in my office. Her short-cropped blond hair looked disheveled, and her makeup seemed a little off. “Where’s the coffee?”

“Lounge.”

She grabbed her cup from her desk but paused at the door. She looked back at me. “Where’s Berni?”

“Out of town,” I said. “Just you and me.”

“Oh.” She frowned theatrically before continuing to the corridor.

I called Central Archives. A tired woman answered, saying, “Records.”

“I need a file sent over. Name’s Lebed Putonski.”

I started to spell it out, but she interrupted. “You’ll have to fill out the form, Comrade Chief. You know that.”

What I knew was that going through proper channels would take a week. “I don’t have time. Please, just check. I’ll make it worth your trouble.”

“You will, huh?”

“How’s your coffee ration?”

She hummed into the phone. “How much’ve you got?”

“Two kilos,” I said. “I’ll give it to the courier.”

When I hung up, Katja threw herself into the chair that faced my desk, placed an ankle on a knee, and sipped her steaming coffee. She was my most astute detective, as well as the first woman in homicide. Lena often accused me-not without justification-of having a crush on her.

I tapped her day-end report. “How’s this coming?”

She shook her head. “Not well. The wife got hysterical when I asked her questions. I might have been wrong.”

“How?”

“I thought she’d killed her husband.” Katja rocked her head. “He’d been keeping two mistresses for years. But to be honest, I don’t think she gave a damn. I was planning to visit her again today…” She trailed off. “You want to come?”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s wait a while. I’m expecting a call.”

“No hurry.” She rubbed her ear with her buffed but unpainted fingernails. She had small hands with smooth, pale skin; they were very pretty. “Any more news from Patak?”

I blinked, then shook my head, that anxiety coming back.

“I heard sixteen dead.”

I didn’t bother saying I’d heard thirty. “Any family there?”

“No. You?”

“Agota and Bernard are in Tisakarad, but I’ll bet Ferenc has dragged them over there by now.”

We let that sit between us, because even though this was our space, neither of us knew for sure how well Gavra Noukas did his job, which was in part to keep an eye on us, and measure our political morality. It was always possible he’d bugged the place.

So she changed the subject. “What’s going on with Yuri Kolev?”

“Poisoned. And I don’t have any tenable leads.”

Then Katja put into words something that had been nagging at me. “It seems odd, though. Two men, Volan and Kolev, one retired and the other ready to retire. Killed a few days apart.”

“By that logic, I’m next,” I said, smiling.

“Watch out, Chief.”

My phone rang, but she made no move to leave. I picked it up. “Yes?”

“This is Records,” said the woman.

“Will you be drinking coffee today?”

She sighed loudly. “Just send one kilo for my effort.”

“Nothing?”

“The file on Lebed Putonski was signed out two weeks ago and not returned.”

“You’re joking.”

“If you knew me, Comrade Chief, you’d know how unlikely that was. The file should’ve been returned after three days.”

“If you can tell me who signed it out, you’ll get both kilos.”

“I’m not supposed to do that, you know.”

“Three kilos.” I didn’t have three kilos, but I was retiring. This would be my last bribe as a militiaman. Katja stared at me over the rim of her cup.

“You win. Name’s Rosta Gorski.”

I asked her to spell it, then scribbled it in my notepad. “What else did he sign out?”

She hummed. “Don’t tell me you have more coffee?”

“You need stockings?” I could take a couple of pairs from Lena if necessary.

“Hold on.”

I heard her set down the phone. Katja mouthed, What’s going on?

I shook my head and waved her out, but, like Lena, she wasn’t the kind of woman to be shooed off. She read what I’d written. “Gorski?”

I put a finger to my lips as the clerk returned. “Got a pen?”

“Shoot.”

“One Militia case file, number 10-3283-48.”

As I wrote the number in my notepad, my hand went cold. I knew that case intimately. “Go on.”

“And a bunch of personnel files. Names: Volan, Dusan. Sev, Brano… hey.”

My heart was palpitating, and my hand was damp. “What?”

“Youre here. Brod, Emil.”

For an instant I couldn’t speak. Katja, seeing my face, stood instinctively. I wrote one word- me — and said, “Go on.”

The clerk noticed my tone; when she continued, it was in a whisper. “Michalec, Jerzy, and Zoltenko, Tatiana. And that Putonski one. You got them all?”

I looked at the list. “Who gave Gorski the authority to walk out with all these files?”

“A minute.”

She set the phone down again, and I heard papers being shifted and flipped through. Katja was in her seat again but leaning forward to read the names. Brano Sev, she mouthed, a look of terror on her face.

“Comrade Chief Brod?” I heard-but it wasn’t the clerk. It was a man.

“Yes?”

“Comrade Chief, you know the regulations. As much as we respect your tenure, I’m afraid you’ll have to go through proper channels for your information.”

“Who am I speaking to?”

“Chief Administrator Zoran Aspitan.”

“Comrade Aspitan,” I said, making no effort to hide my annoyance, “you’re obstructing a murder investigation, which comes under the direct supervision of Comrade Colonel Nikolai Romek of the Ministry for State Security. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

There was a pause as Aspitan tried to gauge my conviction. Perhaps I wasn’t much of an actor, because he said, “Comrade, I seriously doubt the truth of what you say.”

“Do you?”

“If you like,” he said, “please have Colonel Romek contact me, and I’ll discuss it with him. Or, if you prefer, I’ll call him directly to sort this out.”

I was astonished by the chief administrator’s bravery. In those days, it was a rare virtue. “You’ll hear from him,” I said. “Very soon.” I slammed the phone down.

Katja was surprised by my anger. “What happened?”

Because mine was empty, I took her cup and drank the last of her coffee. Then I explained why I initially called the Central Archives- Gavra’s news, from Zagreb, that a man named Lebed Putonski had been killed. She said, “A Yugoslav?”

“No, one of ours. Ex-Ministry.”

“What was he doing in Zagreb?”

“I don’t know.”

As I told the rest, she rubbed her nose, which was something she did when deep in thought. “You’re telling me that a man named Rosta Gorski took out one case file and the files of six people. Two of them-Volan and Putonski-are recently killed, one of them is the first criminal you put away, one is Brano, and one is you?”

I nodded obliquely. “The last one-Tatiana Zoltenko-I don’t know her.”

“Kolev’s not on the list.”

“Gavra insists he’s connected.”

“But why your file? Why Brano’s?”

“Because you’re probably right.”

“About what?”

“All us retirees are in trouble.”

The stolen case file was, of course, my first one from 1948. When I fell in love with my wife; when she was kidnapped by Jerzy Michalec; when Michalec was sentenced to a life of hard labor. The case file linked Jerzy Michalec, me, and even Brano Sev, who made the final arrest.

But what about the others-Dusan Volan, Lebed Putonski, and Tatiana Zoltenko? Were they connected to the old case? I couldn’t recall their names, and without the original case file, I might never know.

I told Katja to sign out a Militia Karpat and pick me up in front of the central post office. Then we’d go talk to Volan’s wife. “You’ve got some mail to send?” she asked, puzzled.

“I’ve got a call to make.”

She decided not to ask anything further, so I grabbed my hat and headed out, down past the understaffed front desk, and out the front door. Lenin Avenue was also underpopulated for eight thirty in the morning, and at the post office only one window was open. A woman with dyed black hair and a sleepy expression watched me enter-I was the only visitor-and cross to the four bubble-enclosed pay phones against the faux-marble wall. I stuck in a two-hundred-korona coin, peering behind myself to be sure I was still alone. I was, but my fingers had trouble dialing the six-digit number Agota had given me.

“Hello?” said a man’s voice, wary.

“A message,” I said.

“Yes?”

“From Patak.” Go on.

I tried to remember the exact words. “There’s no time to waste. The apples must be harvested by six o’clock.”

“Really?”

“That’s what I heard,” I told him. I didn’t know exactly what the phrase meant, nor what it would lead to, but I had to trust that Agota’s friends here in the Capital wouldn’t make a mess of my country.

“And why am I hearing from you, not from the farmer?”

In my nervousness I almost laughed aloud at the extended metaphor. “The farmer,” I said, “is busy harvesting her own apples.”

I’m sure I said it wrong-there was probably something about applesauce or barren trees that was more appropriate-but he seemed to understand. Although her family’s phone was clean-they had begun checking it nightly-Agota suspected her friend’s phone line was being listened to by the Ministry, and she didn’t want the call to be traced back to her family’s house. Further, she knew that in Sarospatak and Tisakarad, she and her family were being watched, and any visit to a pay phone would be noted. I accepted her paranoia as truth and used this phone to make sure nothing could be traced back to my own house, or to Lena.

“Thank you,” said the man. His tone had changed. It was almost giddy. “Thank you very, very much.”

Dusan Volan’s Thirteenth District house was far to the north, beyond the Ninth and its clusters of block towers. Out here, among large swaths of poorly managed wheat fields that had been cut from thick forests, one could find the mansions of Politburo members and those who were close to the Central Committee and its Grand National Assembly. There was a time, long ago, when Lena lived out here as well. Her father had been a coal baron before the Russians marched in, and he’d made a deal with the new government to keep hold of his foreign investments, and pass them on to Lena, while they nationalized his business. But after the death of her father, and then her husband’s murder, there was nothing left for her out here, so she sold the land to some up-and-coming Central Committee member and moved into town with me.

One thing that surprised everyone was that her father’s deal held strong. Lena was allowed to keep her father’s foreign investments-in an English bank, Austrian land, and a Dutch shipping concern- which paid for her frequent trips to Europe’s capitals, and the various perfumes and stockings and gourmet foods that always filled her luggage when she returned. Her money was why we both drove German cars when everyone else drove our national excuse for an automobile, the Karpat.

So, unlike Katja, I wasn’t intimidated by the high iron gate, the long, curving driveway lined with poplars, nor the large villa we parked in front of. For me, being among these trappings of luxury was like revisiting that period when I was young and knew nothing-when knowing nothing made me brave.

At least, that’s how I like to remember those days.

“Are you doing the talking?” she asked as she turned off the engine.

“Want me to?”

“That woman hates me”

The villa had been built in the thirties, during the regime of late Bauhaus. While the foundation was constructed of stones, the walls were reinforced white concrete, which rose and curved to form elegant terraces on the second and third floors. From our angle, we could just make out the treetops of a roof garden and half of a small satellite dish pointing at the sky.

Since Katja wasn’t going to do it, I pressed the buzzer, and instead of a buzz we heard a soft melody play from inside the house. Then footsteps, and a pause as someone peered through the door’s spy hole. The door opened. A small, heavy woman around thirty looked back at us. She was dressed all in black. “Is Comrade Csilla Volan in?” I said.

Katja made a noise behind me as the woman smiled thinly.”I am Comrade Csilla Volan.”

I hid my embarrassment by showing my Militia certificate. “Chief Emil Brod. You know Comrade Lieutenant Drdova?”

She looked past me at Katja, her face showing nothing pleasant. “Come to ask about my husband’s mistresses again?” she said. “Maybe you’d like to know their sexual positions?”

1 tried to get her attention: “I’d like to speak to you about your husband.”

“Comrade Drdova didn’t do her job well enough?”

“Comrade Drdova did a fine job. There’ve been new developments.”

“Yes?”

“Please, can you let us in?”

She shrugged and stepped aside. “Not long, though. I’ve got an appointment.”

I took off my hat as we entered a large foyer that was two stories high. “What kind of appointment?”

“My husband’s funeral, Comrade Chief.”

“Oh.”

She led us past framed paintings that matched the design of the house-large geometric abstracts in primary colors. Squares, triangles, octagons. The furniture in the living room was similar-white cushions shaped in rigid cubes and rectangles. A minimalist steel chandelier lit the room. Against the far wall sat the largest television I’d ever seen. Though the sound was off, bright, clear images flickered across the screen selling breakfast cereals, and from the occasional text that popped up I saw it was a German station.

Katja and I settled on one of the two long couches as Csilla Volan sat on an aluminum chair. “Should I be offering you coffee?”

I shook my head no.

“Good,” she said. “I don’t want to waste my Colombian.”

I began to suspect that Katja had, in fact, done her job poorly- she’d made her suspicions obvious during their first interview.

“Want me to turn it up?” said Csilla Volan.

I wondered what she meant, then saw she was talking to Katja, who was mesmerized by two dancing cartoon bears on the television. Katja shook her head but said, “How do you get this?”

“The magic of satellites,” said Csilla Volan.

I took out my notepad, flipped to the last page, and leaned over the coffee table to hand it to her. “Any of those names familiar?”

She squinted at it, then reached for a pair of reading glasses on the table. “Your handwriting’s atrocious,” she said, putting on the glasses and tilting the pad to get better light. She blinked a few times. “Pu-tonski. I know that name.”

“Yes?”

She nodded slowly. “And-yes!” Despite herself, she was getting excited. “Jerzy Michalec. Of course I know about him.” She looked at us. “That was one of Dusan’s first big cases. He sentenced the man to death.”

That’s what I’d been waiting to hear. “It was commuted,” I told her. “Sentenced to a labor camp instead.”

She shrugged. “No matter.”

“What about Putonski?”

“I know the name but not the man. They knew each other long ago. Not sure how. Dusan brought up Putonski’s name because he heard the man had defected. To America, I think.” She snorted softly. “Lebed Putonski was no fool.”

“And the others?” said Katja.

She went back to the sheet, reading with her lips. “Me. Yes, I know me.” She smiled. “And of course everyone’s heard of Brano Sev. He disappeared, didn’t he?” When we didn’t answer, she arched a brow. “What’s this about?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“You think my Dusan was murdered because of these people?”

I reached out to take back the pad, but she wouldn’t let it go that easily.

“Answer me, Comrade Brod. I’m not just a little fat woman who takes it lying down.”

“Please,” I said, waving at the pad.

She held it to her breast. “Answer me first.”

I glanced at Katja, but she just shrugged. “Yes,” I said. “We believe there’s a connection between these people. Two people on the list, including your husband, have been killed in the last three days. We believe a third murder is also connected.”

She looked again at the list. It was a different list now, because two of them were corpses. “Who.” She said this quietly.

“Your husband, Lebed Putonski, and Yuri Kolev-he’s not on the list. Did you know Kolev?”

She shook her head and returned the pad without a word, then peered past me at the television. She reached for a slim remote control on the coffee table and started pressing buttons. “Look.”

On the screen were nighttime shots of crowds, the video grainy. I recognized a few buildings, so I didn’t need the German voice to know it was Sarospatak. I listened anyway.

“This footage of last night’s massacre comes from the Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug.”

It looked less like footage of a massacre than pictures taken by someone who was very frightened. The camera jerked and jumped, and we heard a cacophony of voices punctuated by the low thump of gunshots. Screams, the video smear of flashlights in darkness, and a very quiet Serbo-Croatian voice reporting what was translated by a louder German voice:

“A peaceful demonstration against the wrongful imprisonment of a priest, which grew over four nights to also protest the economic and human rights policies of the Pankov government, was disrupted last night when members of the Militia, mixed with regiments of the Ministry for State Security, fired on the crowd in 25 August Square. Official estimates are that six died in the shootout, though unofficial estimates place the death toll as high as sixty. In a city where nightly blackouts are common, any hard estimate is difficult to ascertain.”

It cut to a morning shot of 25 August Square. The camera was inside a building, looking out, fragments of broken glass framing the image. In the center of the square was a single old man with a broom, scrubbing a spot.

“By morning,” said the German translator, “the government had cleaned the square, making sure that there was nothing left to contradict its official estimates.”

The news turned then to China, something about arms treaties, and Csilla lowered the volume. It had all given me a headache, and I realized I’d forgotten to take my medication that morning. I grabbed my hat and stood. “Thank you for your help, Comrade Volan.”

Katja was still sitting, dazed by the television. I squeezed her shoulder, and she looked up.

“Come on.”

As we walked back to the door, Csilla Volan kept close to us. “You’ll tell me? If you find out why Dusan was killed.”

“Yes,” I said.

She opened the door for us but stood in our way. There was a distant look in her eye. “What about everything else?”

“Everything else?” I said.

“Sarospatak. Everything.”

“What about it?”

“Do you think there’s some connection?” I considered that a moment. “Was your husband a dissident?” “Hardly.”

“Then I doubt it,” I said and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Our condolences for your loss.”

On the drive back into town, we were silent. I knew what Katja was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. In addition, I was wondering how we were going to find the reserves to focus on this case. Did it even matter anymore? When upwards of sixty people are killed in a single night, why care about a few old, rich men who’ve been murdered?

Then I remembered why it mattered: I was on the list.

“I need to call Aron,” said Katja.

I wasn’t sure what she meant, and said so.

“He should stay at his mother’s, outside town. If there’s shooting in the Capital, I don’t want him in the middle of it.”

“He won’t want you in the middle of it either.”

“Unlike Aron, I can take care of myself.”

“I’ll call Lena, too.”

Our decisions made, we returned to the station, which was still only half-staffed, and used the phones at our desks. I tracked down my medicine bottle and swallowed two Captopril, then dialed. After a few rings, Lena picked up. “Hello?”

Its me.

“A call from work. How privileged am I?”

“I want you to pack a bag and go stay with Georgi.”

“No,” she said. That was her initial response to everything, so I wasn’t discouraged.

“Yes,” I answered. “It looks like sixty people were killed in Patak, maybe more.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I have a feeling something similar’s going to happen here.”

“Now what makes you think that?”

“Remember what I was going to do for Agi?”

She hummed a yes.

“That’s what makes me think it. I’m serious, Lena.”

“But I can’t go anywhere.”

“What?”

“I told you, but you never listen. My car’s not starting.”

“Then call a taxi, come here, and take mine. I have to write you a pass for the roadblocks anyway.”

“That sounds like a lot of trouble.”

I fought the urge to shout at her; I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing. She was being difficult because she thought it was cute. But it wasn’t. “Do it, Lena. I have to leave, but I’ll be back by…” The clock on the wall told me it was twelve thirty. “I’ll be back by two. I’ll expect you here.”

“I love it when you talk like a sergeant, dear.”

Despite myself, I smiled but tried not to let it come through in my voice. “You’ll be here?”

“When you say it like that, how can I refuse?”

I found Katja with her feet crossed on her desk.

“You find Aron?”

She nodded. “His supervisor was incredibly annoyed, but I told him I’d send him to a work camp if he didn’t give me my husband.”

“He believed you?”

“Well, he found Aron pretty quickly.”

“And he’s going?”

“He’ll stop by here after his shift’s over.”

“Good.” I handed her a travel pass I’d stamped and filled out with her husband’s name. “Now come with me.”

“Where?”

“Just come, will you?”