“I told you before,” the clerk said, her face stern. “You’ll receive information on that when everyone else does.”
Brano took a red Interior Ministry certificate out of his pocket and handed it over. She squinted at the strange language, while the policeman frowned over her shoulder. “I’m a government official.”
“Not the Turkish government,” said the policeman.
As Brano stared at the smirking officer, Gavra sensed the cool, hard anger he’d felt only a few times over the last year of his apprenticeship. Brano said, “Are you interested in causing an international incident?”
The policeman didn’t answer.
“Because when I shoot you, my diplomatic immunity will allow me to walk out of here a free man.”
As the policeman lifted a telephone and began to dial, Brano returned to his native language and said to Gavra, “Keep an eye on Ludvik Mas while I find out what’s going on.”
When Brano sauntered off down the corridor with the policeman, Gavra lit another cigarette and leaned on a column. Beyond Ludvik Mas stood a young security guard with a machine gun hanging from his shoulder. Ludvik had that harried, claustrophobic look of men from their country, with his self-conscious mustache, disorganized sideburns, and too-tight suit, while the guard’s handsome face suggested-to Gavra, at least-relaxation and self- confidence: a few days’ beard, cap perched back on his head. Even his Uzi seemed a fashion accessory. As he watched the guard, Gavra felt the relaxation that Istanbul always brought him. Beautiful boys and a hot, clear sun that kept his skin tingling. The mosques appealed to his amateur aestheticism, mesmeric prayer-songs filled the city five times a day, and the expanse of the Bosphorus dividing Europe from Asia made his country’s stretch of the Tisa look like an open sewer. Istanbul was so different from life in the Capital, where clouds darkened the sky and the men were…
Gavra rubbed his nose.
Where the men were closed to new experiences.
That was when Gavra finally comprehended Brano’s words. Because, love for one’s family or not, who would not choose to shake loose of the Capital and stay, indefinitely, in this paradise?
Then Ludvik Mas left the mullein plant to use one of three pay phones along the opposite wall.
Gavra sipped his coffee as he followed, watching Mas nod into the telephone and bite his lip between words. He reached the next phone and picked it up. Mas was saying, “Of course it’s irregular. That’s what I’m telling you.”
Gavra slipped in a coin and began to dial a random number.
“Okay. But patience isn’t easy. Yes. Yes.”
Mas hung up and walked back to his corner.
“Who are you calling?” It was Brano.
“I was listening to Mas’s conversation.”
Brano, blinking rapidly, shook his head. “Forget that for now. Come with me.”
He followed the colonel down a busy corridor to a door marked GUVENLIK — security-beside which stood another handsome guard wearing a tall cap. Gavra gave him a smile he didn’t return.
The airport security office was small and dark, lit almost solely by the blue haze of video monitors and the glow of five cigarettes held by five sweating men. The scent of Turkish tobacco, which last night at the club had seemed so intoxicating, now made him want to flee.
“This is my associate, Gavra Noukas,” Brano said in English. “Nothing is to be kept from him.”
It was an introduction he appreciated. Gavra nodded at each man, but none introduced himself. A fat Turk sitting in front of the monitors, said, “What to tell? There is no more plane. It blow up over Bulgaria.”
Gavra touched the back of an empty chair to steady himself. “What?”
“The pilot, he reports they are hijacked. So we talk to the hijackers-Armenians, members of…of the what?”
“Army of the Liberation of Armenia,” said another man.
“Who are they?” Gavra asked.
The fat man shrugged. “Who knows? Just more dis…disaffected Armenians what think his empty bank account is the fault of Turkey. We talk to them, then lose contact. Then the plane, it disappear from the radar.”
“You’re sure it exploded? It didn’t go down?”
Brano explained. “The Bulgarians saw it. Sofia Airport reported the fireball.”
“Before we can answer the demands,” said the fat man.
Gavra turned the empty chair around and sank into it. “Then why did they hijack the plane?”
The fat man shook his head. “You think I know, kid?”
“You said you have a recording?” asked Brano.
The fat man nodded. “They bring the equipment right now. But it’s no help. None. Probably they just wire the bomb all wrong. Fucking Armenians.”
Brano turned to Gavra. “I want you to watch him, Ludvik Mas. Maybe he has nothing to do with this, but if he leaves, you follow. Do not make contact, only follow. Here are the car keys. You understand?”
“Okay,” Gavra said. “But Libarid, wasn’t he Ar-”
“Now,” said Brano.
Peter
1968
It was seven by the time he left Private Stanislav Klym and, a little drunk, began tracing his steps back through the darkening university district. He was surprised by how unchanged it looked. He’d expected crumbled buildings and commons areas turned into impromptu graveyards, but Prague was much as it had been before he left, the few people he saw only looking a little more exhausted.
He caught a half-empty tram, held onto the leather strap, and, as he swung back and forth, wondered if he hated, or if he should hate, Stanislav Klym. There was something that gnawed at him about the man, but it wasn’t hatred. Despite the invasion, and despite what had happened outside eske Bud jovice, he never felt the urge to spit in any soldier’s face. They were boys just as he was a boy, taken from their homes and stuck in a city where, like Stanislav, they’d rather be tourists.
He wasn’t upset with Stanislav because of his uniform but because of what the man had. Stanislav was happy; he had a life back home he was eager to return to. Whereas Peter Husak was returning to nothing.
In the Tenth District he got out and walked up Pod Stanici to the Hostivar? dormitory, which was decorated by a painted proclamation: AN ELEPHANT CANNOT SWALLOW A HEDGEHOG. He nodded at the young men who stood at the front door as if they were guarding the place. Inside, a thin, spectacled political science student ran up to him. “Jesus, what are you doing here?”
“I didn’t make it, Jan.”
Jan gripped his shoulders and squeezed as tight as his weak fingers could manage. “Christ. Peter-”
“I’m really tired. Can we talk later?”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” Jan patted his back. “I’m glad you’re all right. Josef’s up there now.”
He took the stairs to the second floor and paused in the empty corridor. The window at the far end was broken, and a cool evening breeze swept through. He took a breath and knocked on the door marked 305.
“Yeah?”
On one of the two cots, his roommate, Josef, lay with a book propped on his chest. Then he dropped it and was on his feet, his small, dark face twisting. “What happened?”
“They caught me,” he said as he dropped into his own cot. “Near eske Bud jovice.”
“Where’s Toman?”
Peter shook his head. “Toman and Ivana weren’t caught.”
“They made it?”
“I assume so.”
