“Spare me your excuses, Brano.”
“Yes, Comrade Cerny.”
“Take care of your job and stay out of jail. I don’t want to have to repeat myself. We understand one another?”
“We do.”
“Good. Now let me talk to the captain.”
He called for Rasko, gave him the phone, and returned to his cell. Through the doorway he heard the captain’s weak voice murmuring, Yes, Comrade Colonel, yes, I understand, immediately.
Cerny, like any man of importance, had many faces. He knew when to sympathize and when to attack. And when his temper flared, Brano would remind himself of a cold night in 1960, a month after Cerny’s wife, Irina, shot herself with her husband’s Walther PPK. Brano had gone over to the colonel’s apartment to draw him out of his depression, but the depths he’d reached were a surprise. Cerny took out his insulin syringe and placed it on the coffee table, beside his vodka. I don’t need a gun, he said. It’s simple, ending everything. All it takes is a little air. He lifted the syringe, pulled the plunger, then slowly squeezed it shut again. When Brano told him he couldn’t do that, the colonel, drunk, smiled strangely. Because it’s a sin, One-Shot?
Because there’s nothing on the other side.
Sounds peaceful.
And besides, said Brano, I need you.
The colonel smiled then, dropped the needle on the floor, and began to weep.
Brano refused the ride the captain offered and left as the sun was setting. He wandered back up to the empty bus stop at the main road and settled on its bench. The church grounds, too, were empty. He took Jast’s white, unmarked matchbook from his pocket, ripped out the insides, and tossed the leftover cardboard under the bench. It was beginning to snow.
Mother was at the window again, her hands now by her side, but she did not come out to meet him. She waited inside and kissed his cheeks hesitantly. “Is it all right?”
“Yes. But I’ll need to go out again. There’s someone I need to talk to.”
“A moment,” she said, raising a finger, then went to the kitchen. She returned with a small sealed envelope. “Pavel Jast dropped this off for you.”
“Pavel Jast?”
“I told him where to find you, but he was in a hurry. He had to leave town on some business.”
“What kind of business?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He was in a hurry.”
As he headed off to his room, she asked when he was going out; she would heat some soup. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said, then shut the door and tore open the envelope.
He found a small slip of brown paper, ripped from something, with a single line of handwriting: They’re leaving very soon.
12 FEBRUARY 1967, SUNDAY
Brano woke with the sense that the previous day had been a dream. Indeed, when he sat in the kitchen over a cup of scalded coffee and watched his mother amble through the cabinets, trying not to ask the questions she knew he didn’t want to answer, it seemed that the previous day simply hadn’t existed. He’d woken as a murderer, sat in a cell, then been released-all without any drama or outburst.
Yet everything was different now. Jast had framed him for a murder and fled town, but not before leaving word of the Sorokas’ plans. These two facts simply did not match, unless Jast had lost his nerve at the last moment.
More urgently, though, back in the Capital Colonel Cerny was impatient for results he still did not have.
And here was his mother. Those few lines in Jakob Bieniek’s notes nagged at him, and when she filled his cup and sat across from him he involuntarily pictured her weekly visits to Juliusz’s house, to fulfill her carnal desires. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I imagine you don’t want to go into it, Brani, but, you know, people will talk.” Her eyes were on his shirt.
“What will they talk about?”
She stood again and poured herself a cup. “Yesterday, Brani. The whole town knows.”
He wished she would stay quiet so he could think.
“They pester me. You know that, don’t you? Lots of questions.”
“What do you say?”
“I tell them to ask you.”
“And that’s what you’re doing now.”
“I take my own advice, Brani.”
So he lied to her. He said that there had been a mistake. Captain Rasko, an admirable investigator in many respects, had gone with the word of a drunkard.
“Pavel Jast?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Pavel Jast had told Rasko that he had seen Brano fighting with Jakob Bieniek on Thursday morning, around ten.
“Ten?”
“Yes.”
“But weren’t you with me then? At the shop?”
“We were having coffee.”
“Well, I’ll tell that Tadeusz Rasko myself. You know, he’s not very experienced. He’s only been Militia chief a year.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mother. He found a shirt in my car-”
“I know, I saw it.”
“But it wasn’t Jakob’s. He understands now.”
“If he’s going to start arresting people indiscriminately-”
“He won’t, Mother. I’ll help him out.”
“I bet you will, Brani,” she said, then turned to the clock on the counter. It was eight-forty. “I need to… well, I’d like to…”
“When does it start?”
“Nine.”
“Then let’s go.”
Brano walked with her through deep, fresh snow, and by the time they reached the gate, his feet were wet and very cold. There was a large crowd filing into the pale yellow church, and he scanned their backs until he spotted the trio Jast had assured him would be there: Jan Soroka, his wife, Lia, and their skinny, blond seven-year- old, Petre, holding his mother’s hand.
“Will I see you afterward?” Mother asked.
“I’ll be around.”
The Sorokas entered the church.
A large hand settled on his shoulder. Lucjan was smiling foolishly, Klara coming up behind him. “A bit of a surprise, eh?”
“What kind of surprise, Lucjan?”
“You’re coming in?”
“Not a chance.”
“Okay,” he said, raising his open hands. “No surprises today.”
