“Yes?”
Brano Sev adjusted himself on the bench, watching a woman with high heels pass. “In theory, this is a fine idea. Admirable, actually. But, practically, I can see problems.”
“Such as?”
“Well, one problem is resources. The workers running this laboratory will have to be taken from the ranks of the Ministry. That’s the only way we can be confident of their discretion. How many do you think?”
“Five, maybe six.”
“Okay. These Ministry agents will care for some number of patients. Twenty?”
Peter shrugged, then nodded.
“So the Ministry pays for the lives of twenty mental patients and loses five or six trusted agents from the field. For an operation that has a life of one year-two years at most. You understand?”
Peter didn’t. “I saw this as going on for much longer than that.”
In an uncommon sign of affection, Brano patted Peter’s knee. “If we set up a situation whereby we release teaspoons of information periodically, the agents we’re tracking will over time acquire enough information to have the entire picture. One way to delay this moment is to release contradictory information, but at that point their superiors will notice this, and the project will be exposed as a fraud.”
Peter squinted at him, taking this in. Then he understood. “I’m sorry, Comrade Colonel. I didn’t explain well enough. Each individual agent will not be able to collect more than a few pieces of information, because as soon as he’s identified, we will liquidate him. All the West will know is that there is a secret program so important to us that whenever an enemy agent pursues it, he disappears.”
Brano Sev stared at him, unblinking. “So the purpose of this operation is to execute foreign agents.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel. Exactly.”
Brano Sev watched another passing woman as he chewed the inside of his cheek. “Comrade Mas. While I appreciate your initiative, it’s clear that you’re living with a fundamental misunderstanding of what we do. Intelligence work is precisely what it says-it’s about intelligence. We are not murderers. You may have heard stories during your time with us of operations that ended with the killing of a foreign agent. This happens. But make no mistake-the killing of an enemy agent is seldom the purpose of an operation. When it is, it means the decision has been carefully deliberated over, and all other options have been deemed insufficient.” He paused, frowning. “You see, Comrade Mas, the purpose is not to kill the opposition; the purpose is to defeat him. This is not yet a war of attrition. When it becomes that, you’ll know, because there will be mushroom clouds on the horizon.”
They sat in silence, the flush on Peter’s face meaning something entirely different than it had moments before. “Comrade Colonel, I-”
“No,” said Brano Sev. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. And I don’t want anyone else to hear about it. You understand?”
Katja
Istvan returns to the hotel around seven, pink from the sun, and begins telling me about wonderful, hospitable Turks and their oversized hearts. But I’m not interested; I’m famished. I throw him his jacket. “Let’s go.”
The waiter in the hotel restaurant leads us to a table by the window. He’s a tall, thin Turk with heavy eyes and a mustache. Not unattractive.
Istvan’s having trouble opening his menu. I wonder if he’s drunk and suddenly want to be drunk myself. “Rak??” I ask the waiter.
“With water?”
“No. I want it straight.”
The waiter smiles, impressed, at Istvan.
Halfway through my second rak? still waiting on the food, I’m feeling the effects. I begin babbling about Aron. “He’s a good man, but simple. I think that’s the problem.”
Istvan fingers his glass. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“Is it a problem?”
He shakes his head and leans forward, as if he sympathizes. “What do you mean, though? That he’s simple. He’s stupid?”
“No,” I say, laughing, then stop. Because it’s occurred to me that merely calling him “simple” has been enough for a long time. I’ve never actually defined this word. “His parents,” I say, “they were very good to him. They treated him as if he were a prince. Royalty. They taught him…” I pause. “How to enjoy his life. They taught him to appreciate what he has, even me.” I reach for my rak? and, after draining the glass, my mouth tingling from anise-seed, add, “There have been no tragedies in his life.”
Except, I think, his marriage to me.
Istvan frowns as I call to the surprised waiter for another. Even I can see I’m making little sense. He says, “You think they were wrong to teach him these things?”
“I think these things are lies. They make a man soft.”
“And simple.”
“And simple.”
“I don’t know this man,” says Istvan, “but it strikes me that you’re confusing optimism with simplicity. In my experience that’s just not true. Pessimism-or darkness, or whatever you want to call it-is the simplest thing of all. It’s easiest to call the world complicated because it relieves you of responsibility. Optimists must engage the world in all its complexity and still succeed. Pessimists can lounge above the action, can be ironic, can sit with their arms crossed.” He pauses, his face very serious. “Pessimists do not take action, which is the only useful thing humans can do. Certainly it’s more effective than passive criticism.”
During his talk I’ve been sipping my rak? because I have no way of answering his accusations, can only stare at the creases when he smiles, the long lashes that grow from his bright green eyes, the misplaced long hair curling from his left brow, and the way his lips are damp except at the edges, where the dryness is starting to peel.
He nods at my glass, which I’m gripping. “Why are you drinking so much?”
“Because I’m going to have sex with you tonight.”
It’s the only thing I can think of to unsettle him, and it does.
So there I was. In that apartment on 24th of October Street, telling the old Romanian supervisor that I was a friend of Stanislav’s. Which immediately endeared me to her. She began bringing up plates of sarmale and other things with cabbage. Can you imagine? From my life at home, where not even my own mother cared for me, to this. Simply because of a few lies. I was using Stanislav’s money. I didn’t know what I’d do when it ran out, but for the moment I didn’t care. I was Stanislav, you see? And to remind myself I kept his knife with me all the time, inside my jacket, as if his family, too, were mine.
Then there was a knock on the door and I was faced with one of the prettiest young women I’d ever seen.
Yes, Katja Uher. She had seen the light on and wondered if Stanislav had returned. I introduced myself as a close friend, using my real name, and told her lies when she asked what news there was of Stanislav. Her eyes shone when she asked me that. So I told her stories, elaborating on the ones he’d told me. Valor in battle and all that. She was very impressed with her boyfriend. She stayed in Pacin with her family, but most days she took the train into town. I took her out for coffee, convinced her to have a brandy now and then.
You see, it didn’t really matter to me that everything was a lie; the fact was that I was happy just to see her face, the way she trusted me implicitly. And for a week, it was…it was as if she really were mine. I took her to the cinema, to the puppet shows, and once we even had a picnic. And it didn’t even bother me when you showed up, Comrade Sev. Really, it didn’t.
Oh, it wasn’t simple. You came to the apartment and called me Comrade Private Stanislav Klym and said that I had come to your attention because of my courage in battle. You said that the Ministry was interested in strong young men like myself. It didn’t bother me because, ignoring the name, you were right. I am a strong young man, the kind that could be a great help to the Ministry. Besides, you were giving me a plan for the future, something I’ve
