Night Soldiers

told the truth. He turned to look back at the river for a moment but heard an odd noise and saw that Sascha was crying, hiding his face in his hands. Beyond him, out on the road, the policeman was watching them. His eyes met Khristo’s and he shook his head, slowly, back and forth. He did not understand them, or the world, or the carnage on the road. Nothing.

“You have achieved virtually nothing, Lieutenant Stoianev.”

Colonel General Yadomir Bloch-Yaschyeritsa-touched the tip of his index finger to the end of his tongue and turned the page. It was brittle, transparent paper that crackled as he smoothed it down on the left side of the file folder.

“Not here,” he said, eyes running over the print. Moistened the finger again, “Nor here.”

The rezidentura was in an old hotel near the docks, and though the drape was closed Khristo could hear bells and whistles as the night stevedore crew unloaded cargo. The boat had been there for two days, a rusty old Black Sea freighter, its name swabbed out with gray paint.

“As you have no doubt heard, Colonel Alexander Vonets has returned to Moscow at the request of the Directorate, so you will have to carry on, but …” Finger to tongue, a new page. “Mmm … yes.” It was dark in the office, lit only by a tiny bulb in a desk lamp. Shadow hardened the planes of the face, sharpened the angles, cloaked the slanted eyes set deeply in the head.

“Such praise. ‘Attentive.’ ‘Meticulous.’ ‘Intelligent.’ ” A new page, turned back for a moment, then turned again. “I don’t believe it,” he said. He closed the file, rested his chin on folded hands and stared into Khristo’s eyes.

For a long time there was only silence, intensified by the low rumble of noise from the docks. “We have problems, Lieutenant,” he finally said. “You agree?”

“I am not aware of the problem, comrade Colonel General.” “Problems, Lieutenant, the plural. Don’t fence with me.” “I am not aware of any of the problems, comrade Colonel General.”

“You consider yourself an able officer?”

“I am doing my best, comrade Colonel General.”

Colonel General Bloch seemed to be sitting still, then Khristo noticed that his body rocked slightly, back and forth, as the last answer hung in the air. The longer he rocked, the less true the answer seemed, as though the credibility of the statement melted away with the motion.

“Very well. I choose to believe you, and we have seen your best. The air is cleared, the mystery resolved, this attentive, meticulous, intelligent, able officer has given us his best effort. One cannot ask for more.” He glanced at his watch. “It is now fourteen minutes after two. The Neva will be ready to sail at six- thirty this morning. You will gather your effects and be on it. I will have my aide assign you a berth. Good evening, Lieutenant. I appreciate your frankness.”

With long, thin hands he squared the file, opened the bottom drawer of the desk, and set it carefully among others. Looking up, finding Khristo still staring at him in apparent disbelief, he seemed surprised. “Dismissed, Lieutenant,” he said and kicked the drawer shut with his boot.

“Comrade Colonel General,” Khristo cleared his throat, “I believe your criticism would enable me to improve my performance.”

“What performance? You fucking parasite, get out of my office before I have you thrown out!”

Crawl, Khristo’s mind told him. Crawl for your life. He stood up, came to attention. “Colonel General Bloch, I entreat you to assist me in the better performance of my duties, that I may better serve the objectives of my service. I entreat you, comrade Colonel General.”

Bloch stood and leaned across the desk. “How you whine,” he said, “like your friend Sascha Vonets, of the prominent Vonets family. You are all boot-kissers at the last, aren’t you. Self-satisfied little kings who drive about the countryside in fine clothes and fuck the Spanish whores, while in Moscow people eat potato peels and give thanks for one more day of existence. Oh you should have heard him. The intellectual. What promises he made. The moon and the stars. But it was too late. Too late. Your Armenian spy, Roubenis, sits in Madrid with his American girlfriend and reports on morale. Morale? What morale? These odious little Spaniards have lost their war. They’re finished, done with. Because all they’ve ever done is hold their pricks in their hands and dream of their freedom and liberty. Generalissimo Franco will give them freedom, all right, he’ll free them of their mortal souls and they’ll go dreaming to their Spanish heaven. Morale, indeed. Is that what you think we are here for? Is that why Russia feeds you and clothes you with roubles it does not have? You foolish boy, to think we don’t know such tricks. At the age of seventeen, I led a mutiny aboard the battleship Sevastopol. We chained the officers to their steamer trunks full of uniforms and threw them into the sea. They too pleaded. A great deal of pleading in 1917, one grew bored with it.”

Abruptly, he sat down. Swiveled his chair away from Khristo and pulled the curtain back from the window. The Neva, working lights fixed to her booms and superstructure, stood hawsered fore and aft to the dock. A wooden platform on cables slowly lowered a JSII tank to the quay.

“Sit, Lieutenant,” he said. “You wish not to sail on the Neva? It is not uncomfortable. You might spend a day or two in Odessa before transit to Moscow. No? Not appealing?”

“Comrade Colonel General, my brother was murdered by the fascists.”

“So it says in your file. But then, both my parents were knouted to death by the White Guard. Your parents, on the other hand, have found it expedient to connect themselves to the fascists, by way of your sister’s marriage. This too it says in your file. Come to think of it, expediency rather defines you, doesn’t it. It was expedient for you to leave Bulgaria in her agony. Expedient to do well at Arbat Street. Expedient to serve Sascha Vonets in his drunken self-pity. Very well. Look out the window. See where expediency leads.”

“What must I do, comrade Colonel General, to improve my performance?”

“Go to Madrid. The time for safe houses is over. Find this Roubenis and put your boot up his ass. He attends these Cagoulard meetings-the Falange in their hoods. Well, enough of that. Put some men in the street. Find out who these people are, where they live, get their names. Wire those names to me-there must be ten, at least. Use the wireless at our consulate, in Gaylord’s Hotel near the Retiro Park. We’ll take care of it from there, believe me. The American girl. I want to know who she is, what of her relationship with Roubenis. Take her to bed if you have to-if Roubenis objects, tell him to get out of your way. She must have American friends, or English. Get me something I can use. I wish to hear no more meowing about morale. Is this understood?”

“I understand, comrade Colonel General. I will do it.”

“When? How many days?”

“Twenty days. A fortnight.”

“I will hold you to that.”

“It will be done, comrade Colonel General.”

“You leave here at five o’clock sharp this morning. I will assign you a sublieutenant-observe his commitment, you can learn something from it. Now, before you go, one small matter. Tell me, Stoianev, you have heard me referred to by a certain nickname?”

“No, comrade Colonel General.”

“A stupid lie, but let it pass. The name in question refers to a particular reptile. Let me just point out to you that it depends, for its survival, on a special principle, which is that its prey always believes itself to be beyond reach. Keep that in mind, will you?”

“Yes, comrade Colonel General.”

“Now get out.”

By the time Khristo reached his tiny room, in another dockside hotel, his hands were shaking. Looking in the mirror, he saw that his face was gray with fear. He sat on the edge of the bed, drew his Tokarev from its holster and stared at it for a time, not entirely sure what he meant to do with it. He noticed, finally, an unusual lightness to the weapon and ejected the magazine. Sometime in the last twenty-four hours somebody had unloaded it. He ran the bolt back and inspected the chamber. It was empty as well. In the Guadarrama, Thursday had come to be known as Dia de las Esposas, Wives’ Day, in the course of which the guerrilla band of Lieutenant Kulic did those chores that, in normal times, would have fallen within the province of their wives-excepting, of course, the happiest chore of all, which would have to await their return to home and the marriage bed. They shook out and aired their blankets, sand-scrubbed the cooking utensils, washed their clothing and hung it in the trees to dry, and for the