He’d never quite understood that night with Dijana, nor the letters she’d sent after he left. He’d even received one just before leaving the Capital for Bobrka. Brani, why this silence? What we have it is good. He remembered standing at her door, and her saying in her stilted Serbo-Croat version of his language, I want for to read your future. Though she spoke German well, she chose out of adoration to speak his language to him, which she butchered mercilessly. Brano Sev, I am in the love with you.
He emerged into an open field littered with blackened pump-jacks tipping their heads like chickens, then continued up a gravel road to the Emilia 4 pump, a high wooden tower built four decades before on the Canadian model and lit up like the church, though now it was used as a meeting room for officials in from the Capital. As a child, Brano had often climbed up inside it, alongside Marek, and across the roof of the low administrative building that stretched along the tree line. As he approached he heard what he’d heard the previous night: drunken howls from far off.
The door to Emilia 4 was unlocked, and when he closed it behind himself, the cold darkness was an unwavering black. He heard the labored breathing of unhealthy lungs close by. Brano lit a match and stared into the grinning, red-veined face of Pavel last. Jast’s hands were stuffed in his pockets, and he reeked of vodka. “Evening, Comrade Sev.” He stuck out a thick hand.
“What’s the name of your friend?”
“You know who I am, I know who you are. What’s the point?”
“Your friend’s name, Comrade Jast.”
The big man dropped his hand. “The glorious Archduke Ferdinand, Comrade Sev.”
“Thank you.” The match was burning his fingers, so he blew it out and slipped it in a pocket. “Let’s go outside.”
They walked shoulder to shoulder behind the administrative building, where the trees threatened to swallow them. Jast took out a cigarette, but Brano asked him not to light it. “Of course, of course,” muttered last.
“So what do you have for me?”
Jast sucked on the unlit cigarette. “Soroka’s been staying in his parents’ house-that’s the two-story one just past the church.”
“Cream colored?”
“Yes, yes. His wife and boy go out to take care of errands-shopping, that sort of thing-but Jan I almost never see. A couple times I visited the house-clandestinely, you realize, just looking through the windows-but all I ever saw was the Sorokas eating and listening to the radio.”
“Radio?”
“Nothing like that. Just a receiving set. If he’s sending, I wouldn’t know.”
“What do the villagers say?”
“Villagers.” He sniffed. “They’ll say anything if it’s entertaining enough. Wienczyslaw thinks he’s working for us, preparing to turn Bobrka into a New Town-tear down all the homes and build block towers. Armand has the paranoia to think he’s working for the Poles, to redraw the border and take the region back. Only the old folks believe his cover story.”
“The one about the woman, Dijana Frankovic.”
“Exactly.”
“And you?”
“I try not to think too much. He’s working for the West-I’ve been told enough by Yalta to know that. But what does the West care about a dump like Bobrka? Our oil deposits aren’t big enough to be important to anybody. All I can think is that he’s going to try to take his family back with him.”
“That was my assumption,” said Brano. “How do you suggest I make contact?”
Jast took the spit-damp cigarette from his lips and then replaced it. They had stopped and were facing one another. “He does go to church.”
“Every Sunday?”
“On the two Sundays he’s been here it’s been regular. It’s the one thing I’d depend on.”
They began walking back in silence, until Jast brightened and took something from his pocket.
“Here-look at this!” He handed over a ballpoint pen, and in the light bleeding around the buildings Brano saw on it the image of a shapely blonde in a red evening gown.
“Yes,” he said.
“Turn it over.”
Brano did so, and watched the evening gown slide down her body, revealing breasts, hips, and the dark spot between her legs.
“Pretty good, huh?”
“Very nice,” he said as he returned it.
“Got it from a friend who visited West Germany. The things they make there!”
As they rounded the corner of the administrative building, Brano noticed two men approaching the wooden tower.
“Damn,” whispered Jast. “The night watch is usually longer at the bar.” He turned back and waved for Brano to follow.
They entered the woods, where Jast soon found a barely discernible trail, cursing when he ran into low branches, his heavy feet snapping everything they touched. As they progressed, Brano explained the method of their future meetings. The cue would be an empty matchbook left under the bus stop bench. “We’ll meet in the graveyard at eleven that same evening. Does this suit you?”
“Pretty morbid, yes, but it suits me fine. Damn!” He flailed his arms against unseen branches, then fell. Brano crouched, reaching out a hand. He heard Jast’s voice. “What the hell?” And then, “Jesus Christ, what-” Then nothing.
Brano lit another match, which shook as his eyes focused. Pavel Jast also saw what he had tripped over, and leapt up, muttering, “ Oh fuck oh fuck.”
On the ground was a shirtless man, short and heavy, mouth gagged tight over a beard, his stomach and chest and arms covered by numerous tiny cuts. They had bled, tinting the white body pink. Brano touched the sticky, dead wrist, then the still-warm chest, and glanced at the well-tailored black pants and scuffed shoes. He dropped the match and lit another, while Jast jumped from foot to foot, babbling words Brano could no longer make out.
Before they split up at the edge of the woods, Jast told him how to get to Captain Rasko’s home. Brano returned to the dark village, which was no longer haunted by howls from the forest, continued past the church, and near the Militia station opened the wooden gate to a low one-bedroom. He knocked on the loose front door, then did it again. Something fell behind a window; a light came on. The lace curtain was pulled back slightly. Finally, Captain Rasko stood in the doorway, hands shoved in the pockets of a gray robe, his black hair sleep-pressed into an angle. “Comrade Sev,” he said, not bothering to hide his disappointment.
“Sorry to wake you, Comrade Captain. I’m afraid there’s been a murder. In the woods near the cooperative.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.”
Rasko stepped back, and Brano entered. There were piles of clothes in the living room and a pungent smell from the kitchen. “Last murder we had was two years ago,” said Rasko.
“You’d better come look at it.”
“And that murder was before my time. I’ve only been Militia chief a year. I don’t even have a staff.”
Brano waited.
“I suppose I should get dressed.”
“I suppose you should.”
Despite the darkness, Brano was able to take him directly to the body. Rasko ran his flashlight beam up and down it. “Jakob.”
“You know him?”
“Of course. Jakob Bieniek. I know him as well as anyone else knows him.” He crouched, made a face, and touched the gag, turning the head aside. “After his wife, Janica, died-I guess that was five years ago-he became…
