ran out, some standing stunned at the top of the steps, others running forward to wrestle me back. They shouted things I couldn’t hear because my ears were dead as they dragged me back inside the station. They put me in a chair. I could see them but couldn’t hear them. They were arguing over something. Katja broke through, bent down close to me, and said more things I couldn’t hear, but there was some comfort in just seeing her face. Then she turned and shouted something that silenced the others. Someone went to make a phone call.
I realized why I couldn’t hear anything-my ears were humming like an electrical generator. My eardrums had been kicked, and I wouldn’t hear anything for another hour, and even days later the unnerving electric hum would pop up, sometimes at inopportune times.
When Katja returned, I grabbed her coat and pulled her close to me, screaming, “Where is Lena? Where is my wife?”
I couldn’t hear her answer, and she understood this. She just shook her head.
I thought briefly of Katja’s husband, Aron, who believed everything in the world was collapsing. He was right. The world was an entirely different place now. I felt as if someone had taken out all my internal organs but left me, inexplicably, alive. I wondered who could be that cruel.
NINE
TisAir Flight 38 from Frankfurt touched down at Pankov Interna-tional a little after six in winter darkness. Gavra helped Beth with her carry-on luggage and guided them to the line for passport control, waiting a few paces back. He watched her grip Harold’s arm. “You see that man?” she whispered loudly.
Harold looked up from a tourist brochure with three-toned color images of Orthodox churches and spas. “What man?” “In the corner. The uniform. Is that a machine gun?” Harold went back to the pictures. “Grow up, Beth. We’re crossing a border. They’re required to carry those things. It’s communism.” “You’re telling me it’s communist law to carry machine guns?” He turned the page. “That’s what I’m telling you.” The bored clerk with sweaty bangs glanced at their visas, stamped their passports and sent them on to the luggage carousel. When he saw Gavra’s passport-his real one, with the Ministry crest-he woke up. “Welcome home, comrade.”
Gavra continued past the waiting passengers and on through customs, where more bored men in blue uniforms-”navy” blue, he remembered-leaned on a white table discussing basketball scores. In the marble-tiled arrivals lounge he passed waiting families and crossed to a pay phone, lit a cigarette, and dialed the Militia station. On the first ring a breathless man said, “Yes?”
“First District Militia?”
“Yes, yes.” There was a cacophony of voices in the background.
“Emil Brod there?”
“Not here.”
“Where is he?”
“At home. Chief Brod’s at home.”
“What’s going on?” he said, but the line went dead.
He dialed my home number as he watched families greeting and hugging arrivals. On the eighth ring Katja answered. “Uh, hello?”
“Katja?”
“That you, Gavra?”
“Where’s Emil?”
“I’ve got him lying down finally.”
“Lying down? Is he hurt?”
“No, he-” She paused. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Lena. She’s dead.”
The cigarette stuck to his suddenly dry lips. “How?”
She told him everything, and he was stunned.
The crowd of waiting families had left, and Gavra still saw no sign of Harold and Beth. He found them at the customs area. They stood, exasperated, by the long white table, their suitcase open and its contents spread down the table’s length. “What is this?” a young customs official said in heavily accented English, holding up Harold’s electric razor.
“It’s my razor,” said Harold, his voice slow and measured. “I shave with it.” He pantomimed shaving his cheeks.
When Gavra approached, Beth gave him a hopeful smile.
“What’s going on here?” he asked in our language.
The one with the razor gave him a drowsy look. “Official business, comrade. Shove off.”
Official business, in this sense, meant that they were waiting for a bribe.
Gavra took out his Ministry card and held it out for them to read.
“Oh,” said the clerk. He placed the razor back in the suitcase.
“Clean this up,” said Gavra. “And if anything’s missing I’ll have your head.”
They got to it.
He turned to the old couple and switched to English. “I apologize. Some of our customs people get a little overzealous.”
“It’s no problem,” said Beth, smiling.
Harold didn’t smile. “Well, that’s not the end of it.”
“What?”
“They left Beth’s suitcase in Frankfurt. I mean, all we did was change planes!”
“Did you talk with the TisAir people?”
He shoved a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the luggage area. “She doesn’t give a damn.”
“Moment.” Gavra marched off to deal with the luggage girl, whom he found flirting with one of the border guards. When he returned, having received a written assurance that the suitcase would be sent to the Metropol, his face was red from shouting. He was embarrassed by his loss of control. It was Lena’s death, he told me later. He didn’t know how much it was affecting him until he found himself shouting at all the wrong times.
The American couple didn’t seem to notice. He carried their one suitcase out to the curb, where unofficial taxi drivers stood around smoking in the darkness. When they saw the couple, they rushed forward, saying, “Taxi, taxi?”
A few stern words from Gavra, and they backed up again. He turned to Harold. “These guys will rip you off. I’ve got a car here. Please, let me drive you to your hotel.”
“That’s too much,” said Harold warily.
Beth knocked his arm. “We’d be much obliged.”
They sped down the Ml in the beige Citroen Gavra had bought a few years before-he was proud of it. Beth sat erect in the backseat, gazing out the window at passing fields just visible by the highway’s lamps, while Harold worked up the nerve to say what was on his mind. “So, what was that back there?”
“What do you mean?”
“At customs. You showed them a card. I saw the look on their faces. They were scared.” He paused. “Really scared.”
“You think so?”
“I know it.”
Harold was staring at him now, and Beth’s voice floated up. “Don’t pry, Harry.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Atkins,” said Gavra. “It’s a fair question.” He accelerated past an apple truck with Czech plates. “Fact is, I work for the Ministry for State Security.”
“State security?” said Beth.
“He means the secret police,” said Harold.
“Those guys at customs were hoping you’d give them a bribe.”
“A bribe?” said Beth.
