“Regina, it’s Brano.”
“Hello?”
He raised his voice. “Regina! It’s Brano!”
“Oh, Brano! Where are you?”
He sighed, wanting only to listen to Regina Haliniak’s comforting provincial accent. But he said, “I don’t have time to talk. Can I speak to the Comrade Colonel?”
“Colonel Cerny?”
“Yes.”
“One minute.”
The phone clicked four times, then began ringing again.
“Brano? You’re on a clean line?”
“Public telephone, I think it’s clean. The Felberstra?e safe house is no longer safe. Lochert must have sold it for another.”
“Right,” said Cerny. “Where are you?”
“Where do you think?”
“Don’t be smart.”
“I’m not being smart, Comrade Colonel. You’ve kept me in the dark. You wanted me in Austria from the beginning, didn’t you?”
He heard Cerny’s long sigh as static. “Brano, everything has gone to plan. Now hang up and return to your apartment on Web-Gasse and await further instructions.”
He almost didn’t say the words, but they’d come to him so many times over the last week and a half that by now there was no holding them back. “Have you abandoned me?”
Another pause. Brano glanced up at the man in the next booth, who was sinking down the wall, crying into his telephone. Cerny said, “Comrade Sev, you will receive your orders when I want you to receive them. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel. I just felt-”
“I don’t care about your feelings, Brano. Not at this moment. I care about the security of socialism. You’ll learn everything you need to learn, but only when you need to learn it. And stay away from our embassy-your presence is not their business. Are you reading the Kurier?”
“Every day, Comrade Colonel.”
“Good, Brano.” His voice lowered. “Just tell me that everything’s all right. You’re not hurt?”
“No.”
“You’re under observation?”
“Yes, but I’ve broken away.”
“Not for long, I hope.”
“No, Comrade Colonel.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
“Need?”
“Yes.”
“No,” said Brano. The man in the next booth had hung up the phone but was still in the booth, on the floor, weeping.
“Okay, Brano. My only order for you now is this-”
“What?”
“Be patient.” Then the line went dead.
The gray Renault pulled alongside him four hours later, as the sun was descending behind the Hofburg Palace. He heard the engine rumbling, then a squeaky window rolling down. Ludwig’s voice: “Come on now, Brano. Take a rest, why don’t you?”
The car pulled a little in front of him and stopped. Karl stepped out of the back and touched the brim of his hat.
Ludwig’s head popped out of the passenger window. “Enough. Now get in.”
Brano climbed into the backseat, and Karl followed him inside.
They turned right onto the Ringstra?e and rode without speaking for a while, the driver, Karl, and Ludwig preferring to gaze out the windows at their capital.
“You like Vienna, Brano?” Ludwig didn’t look back when he asked it.
“It’s a nice city.”
“It’s a big city with a lot of history, and that’s why we get all these damned tourists. Not that I mind so much-if it wasn’t for tourist money we’d have more war ruins-but sometimes you don’t want to see crowds of Japanese with their little cameras. Know what I mean?”
“Did you pick me up to talk about tourism, Ludwig?”
“It’ll get me as far as any other subject.”
“Try me.”
Ludwig turned in his seat. “How about hospitality, Brano? You’re a guest in our lovely city. That’s agreed, isn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“And I don’t think you could really call us bad hosts, could you? Apartment, money, the freedom to move around-that’s not so bad, is it?”
“It’s very fine,” said Brano. Despite everything, he found himself admiring Ludwig. His insistent good humor was a rare thing in their business, and sometimes Brano could even imagine liking the inept Austrian. In another life, perhaps. In another war.
“So you can imagine our frustration when it turns out our guest isn’t being polite. When he in fact tries to send us to Salzburg to make fools of us. Can you imagine our frustration?”
Somewhere along the way, they had turned around and were driving in the opposite direction. “I can imagine that,” said Brano.
Karl was looking out the window, smiling.
“Listen,” said Ludwig. “I’m not going to try to be discreet about this. If you keep this up, we’re going to take you out into the suburbs and fire up our battery again.”
Brano didn’t answer.
“But, hey, none of us wants to do that. Right, Karl?”
Karl nodded at the window.
“So where were you?”
“Here and there.”
“You were gone almost five hours.”
Brano stared at his hands, which looked very small in this light. “I was at the Espresso Arabia, on Kohlmarkt, for the first couple hours.”
“And what were you doing?”
“I read the newspaper a little, but in general I was enjoying myself. The coffee there is very good.”
Karl sniffed.
“And then?” said Ludwig.
“And then the Espresso Josefstuberl.”
“On Alser Stra?e.”
“That’s the one.”
“Again, just reading?”
Brano nodded.
“Anything of interest in the news?”
“I was learning more about the recent coup in Sierra Leone. And it seems they’re unable to sink the Torrey Canyon oil tanker. The Scottish coast is covered in oil.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes,” said Brano. “There have been more protests in America against Johnson’s imperialist war in Vietnam.”
