“You’re damn right you’ll help.”
So we spent that afternoon cleaning. She dusted and mopped; I swept and washed dishes. Both of us went through the apartment with rags, wiping down all surfaces, and by the afternoon it was done. We bathed together, washing each other’s backs, and when we were done I suggested we go to a puppet show. “That’s a nice idea,” she said.
But the theater was closed in deference to Mihai, and on the front door was a twenty-line poem extolling the virtues of that great patron of the arts. We ended up at a restaurant where I told them to get whatever they wanted. Agnes chose fried potatoes. I tried to get her to add some meat to her order, or vegetables, or even ice cream, but she shook her head firmly. “You said whatever I want.”
“Fair enough.”
We put Agnes to bed and undressed in our bedroom. I watched Magda slide out of her clothes as if I’d never seen her do it before in my life. Her face and shoulders were brown from a week in the country, and I touched an old scar on her shoulder, white against her tan. We shut off the lights and kissed for a while and made love without speaking. Then, as we lay beside each other in the dark, she finally began to tell me.
“Remember how it was when you came back from the war?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“You were a different person. Really, you were. The Ferenc I married was bright and happy. God, you could make me laugh. You did it without effort. You saw the humor in everything around you, and you always pointed it out to me.” She shifted, and her hand slid up to my chest. “I was never like that. Then when you came back it was different. Of course, at first you couldn’t do anything. You’d been through something I couldn’t imagine, and I was willing to work with you through it.”
“I remember that. You were so good to me.”
Her fingers weaved through the hair on my chest. “Why wouldn’t I be? Your family was dead, and you’d been through a war. I loved you. So we moved to the Capital when Stefan got you the job. I knew why he wanted to help you-we both felt guilty. But I swear it only happened once.”
“I believe you.”
“Once you were working again, you started to come out of your shell. I can’t tell you how excited that made me. I was looking forward to greeting the boy I’d fallen in love with.” She paused then, her fingers continuing to stroke.
“But he didn’t appear, did he?”
Her hand flattened just over my heart. “Not really. I saw moments of it now and then, particularly after Agnes was born. But you were a different man. I had to realize that. And when you started writing, it seemed to take you away even more. The only time you were like your old self was with Agnes. I was jealous of her for a long time.”
“Of Agnes?”
“She was the only one who got the old Ferenc. I wanted that Ferenc for myself.”
I considered that decade and a half with a man she hadn’t married. “Was it so bad?”
“What?”
“Being with me.”
She stroked the stubble on my cheek. “Of course not. There were moments, I have to admit, when I was scared of you. You’d get into one of those moods, you’d go silent, and I didn’t know if I could trust you. With me. With my body.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, then paused again, “you don’t realize what your size does to people. You could snap someone in half. You could snap me.”
“But I’d never do that. Not to you.”
“I know you wouldn’t. But sometimes I’d look at you, mulling over your brandy, distant, and wonder if you could. I wondered what would happen if I did something to really provoke your wrath.” She removed her hand. “And then I did. I did the most provocative thing imaginable. And you…you didn’t touch me. Not once. Not many men are that way, Ferenc.” Her hand returned, this time to my scalp. “Maybe this is what I realized at my parents’. I was throwing away my family because I didn’t have enough faith. God,” she said, placing her hand on mine again and squeezing.
I could hear the tears.
She said, “I found that letter you wrote.”
“What letter?”
“It was in your jacket. You said you were going to leave me and take Agnes with you.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t understand-”
“Don’t explain.” Her hand tensed on mine. “I deserve it. But please, consider growing old with me.”
I held her with my arms and legs for a long time until, the crying done, she fell asleep. To the sound of her soft snores, I tried to figure out what I wanted now, now that it had all been exposed. I was numbed by the prospect of decision.
But what numbed me more was my impotence: My decisions did not matter. Kaminski’s threat still resonated in me, and reminded me that any life I chose had a fast-approaching expiration date.
The next morning, over breakfast, Agnes smiled at us-she could tell we were better. Then she asked the question: “Daddy, do you know where my rope ladder is? I can’t find it.”
91
Friday morning I typed up the paperwork on the Nestor Velcea case. I listed off the victims-Josef Maneck, Antonin Kullmann, Sofia (a.k.a. Zoia) Eiers, and Stefan Weselak.
Then I outlined the understood sequence of events, from Sergei’s case in 1946 to the art fraud in 1948 to its discovery in Paris by Louis Rostek and Nestor Velcea’s attempt to right history. Were there a place in the report to mention such things, I might have noted that history can never be made right, but the forms did not ask those kinds of questions. Nor did they allow me to observe that if there was a God, His aims were inconceivable: He gave Svetla an unlocked door, and He also handed Nestor a chance meeting in a bar with his first victim.
I wasn’t far into the report when Leonek approached me. Nestor and Kaminski had been moved up to Ozaliko, but Leonek had gotten a call from a friend who was a guard there. “Tells me they took Kaminski away. A couple state security guys.”
“They’re going to want to know everything he knows,” I said.
Leonek smiled. “I hope he makes it difficult for them.”
I felt my eyes glazing over. Leonek was saying something. “What?”
He had settled in a chair beside me. “That night. Before you went to The Crocodile. You asked me if I loved them. Why did you do that?”
Part of me wanted to smack him, another part to embrace him. “Insurance,” I said. “Now get out of here. I’ve got to finish this report.”
I didn’t get much further before Emil pulled up the chair that Leonek had vacated. “Thought you’d like to know, they found Woznica’s car on the road to Perechyn. It had been rolled into the trees.”
“Did he have a wreck?” I asked with surprising calmness.
“Don’t think so.” He scratched his chin. “Haven’t seen it yet, but the local Militia told me the fender only tapped a tree.”
“You haven’t seen it yet?”
“I’m going now. Want to come?”
I looked at the half-written report in the typewriter. “No. I don’t think so.”
He didn’t move, and I noticed he was grinning.
“What?”
When he told me, my grin matched his.
“For Christ’s sake, Emil. Congratulations!”
