walking.
Katka told him about her family. Mountain shepherds from the north. She said her grandfather was famous for breeding the loveliest sheep in the Tatras. He wondered how close they lived to the spot where Maria Brod had starved to death, somewhere, perhaps, above the treeline. He asked when he would be released, and as she took his bedpan she said she would find out.
His father’s watch had been chipped along the edge of the glass. Its ticking filled the hours.
The photographs were still on the bureau, and he asked Grandmother to bring them to him when she visited. She turned them over in her hands. “What’s this?”
“Nothing.”
Two men, a street, night.
She handed them over and smiled before turning to go.
He wished for Lena Crowder all the time.
It was a little embarrassing when the roses and daffodils arrived with a card that said in typed capitals: homicide, first district. He imagined those gorillas fumbling through a flower store. They’d probably sent a woman from Accounts, or one of their wives. He wanted to like the bouquet, the way it lit up the room in reds and yellows, but couldn’t escape the feeling that the flowers were a trick. Something to humiliate him, or to lure him.
At the end of two weeks, Katka brought him a damp bag of baked apples and said he was free to go. He was helped into his clothes-Grandmother had left behind a fresh change when she incinerated the bullet-and-blood- scarred suit-and given a worn, wooden cane. He hobbled around the room a few times- clumsy, shaky. Leonek was waiting in the corridor. He looked Emil over approvingly. “Let’s get you out of here.”
In the Mercedes, each small bump ripping through Emil’s insides, Leonek asked about the broken headlights.
“We didn’t know. We thought maybe you went crazy and broke them.”
“Yes,” Emil grunted. “I went crazy. I took a piece of wood and I beat the hell out of them.”
He spent two miserable weeks at home, in bed. It was difficult holding in the frustration. There were so many hours in each day, and during most of them he tottered on the verge of shouting at his grandparents to leave him alone. Grandfather beamed, reveling in his newfound pride-he had a hero in the house, after all-and Grandmother pestered him with food. Grandfather read the paper to him, using his most urgent voice to say that General Secretary Mihai had announced his distaste for the corruption being practiced in some corners of the state security division. It was an urgent matter-the stability of the nation was at risk- and would be looked into. Grandfather smiled when he said that the General Secretary’s standing ovation had lasted seven full minutes. Sometime during those two weeks the refugee mothers who slept on the staircase disappeared. No one knew if they had found their sons, or if the supervisor had had them shipped away. Grandmother appeared with a bowl of cabbage soup and a crust of stale bread. Emil was beginning to hate all leafy vegetables.
On his second Thursday, he used his cane to reach the communal telephone on the landing. A Militia operator patched him through.
“Terzian.”
“It’s Emil.”
“You’re ready to come in?”
“I think so. You have something I can help with? Some work?”
“Sure…” He made clicking sounds with his tongue. “Two bodies. In Republic Park. Coitus interruptus.”
“Can I help?”
“I’ll bring the file by.”
As he hung up he heard movement behind him-the building supervisor, on her blue-veined, tree-trunk legs, puffy hands folded on her wide hips, stared suspiciously. He was the first one to use the phone in over a week, and her sweat-sealed brow said she would brook no nonsense on her landing.
True to his word, Leonek arrived a little after five with a folder under his arm. Hungry face, hungry eyes. Grandfather asked if he was called Mouse.
“Mouse?” He frowned at her.
“No,” Emil said quickly. “Not this one.”
“Dinner,” said Grandmother, her soft, lined cheeks flushed from the heat of the kitchen. “You should eat. With us.”
“My mother’s expecting me,” said Leonek. “I live with her.”
“That’s a good boy.”
Grandfather plied him with his bad cigarettes. “Come on, have one on me. Rolled myself.”
They withdrew to the bedroom and opened the file. Emil supported himself against the headboard, and Leonek sat at the foot of the bed, passing individual pages on to him.
“Here it is. Two kids, teenagers.” Leonek produced photographs of a boy and girl, both blond and half-naked, bent among the overgrown bushes along the eastern edge of Republic Park. Near the bush was a small splash of white vomit, also photographed. Then, a map of the park with the location of the bodies marked by two overlapping Xs.
The girl, Alana Yoskovich, had been strangled with her scarf. The boy, Ion Hansson, had been struck with an ax where his shoulder met his neck. The ax had not been found at the scene.
“You’ve done some work on this?” asked Emil, setting the photographs aside.
Leonek lit one of Grandfather’s cigarettes. “Of course. The evidence points to the girl’s father.” He took a drag and gave the cigarette an abrupt, fearful look. He jumped up and tossed it out the window. “Christ!” He blinked, recovering, and waved away the black smoke, then was back. “It’s simple: The old man finds young Hansson molesting his only daughter, and proceeds to kill him. Then strangles the girl-out of rage, shame, whatever.”
“And you’ve followed up on it?”
He settled on the bed again. The shifting mattress shot sparks through Emil’s sewn gut. “He’s in the holding cell. Hasn’t admitted to anything yet. We searched his home and a small dacha out of town they share with another family. But listen to this: not a single ax.”
Emil understood immediately. “With winter coming on? No ax?”
“Exactly,” said Leonek. “And rows of firewood up to my chin.”
“There’s another boyfriend?”
“No one knows of any.”
“And a mother?”
“Died. Back in’forty.”
“Boy’s parents?”
“Live in Cisna. He stays with an uncle, who’s been on business in Prague for the last three weeks.”
Emil let this settle in. He tried to see it from different angles in his head. It was a simple mental exercise, but something. Finally something after these empty weeks. “You’ve talked to the friends?”
Leonek smiled. “School’s out until next week.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You’re sure?”
Grandfather stuck his head in and asked how the cigarette was.
“Terrific,” smiled Leonek.
Grandfather waved, grinning, as he withdrew.
“I am,” said Emil. “I’m very sure.”
The next day-Friday, the first of October-he came by the station. It took a lot of effort, hobbling down the stairs, then along the insecure cobblestones to the main street-he couldn’t move faster than a steady walk, nor raise his hands over his head. He didn’t know why the pedestrians looked at him-his wounds were hidden beneath his shirt, and there were so many real amputees and maimed citizens in the Capital that a pale young man waiting for a bus could not have deserved much attention. But they did watch him as they passed, and on the bus a woman offered him a seat, but he refused. Each bump and turn ripped through him. In the station, his shaky form limping toward his desk was the only thing to look at. He was the youngest in the room, but he looked like a pensioner. Leonek appeared next to him. “You aren’t up for this.”
