associations. You’re erasing your past. Even in America. Why?”
Michalec set his cigarette hand against the table and scratched his scar. “Mr. Lukacs.”
Gavra nodded.
Michalec put out his cigarette. There was a studied look on his weathered face, but then the smile returned. “It’s funny. Nikolai thought you were in Yugoslavia; so did I. Kolev turned out more wily than we thought. Then the Atkinses ended up on a plane with you. Rather beautiful coincidence, don’t you think?” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you think you know about my past is beside the point. The only matter of importance is that you are here and that your country requires your help.”
A series of rebuttals came to Gavra. What do you know about my country? You have no idea what my country needs. I’d help my country best by killing you. They were all childish taunts, so he remained silent for a moment, then said, “What kind of help?”
Michalec stood. “Can you walk now?”
With Balint now following them, Gavra and Michalec continued down the corridor, passing soldiers Gavra could now see were all officers. Their faces were flushed, as if they were scared. Then he saw Nikolai Romek, also fitted out in an army uniform, walking past, but the Ministry colonel was involved in reading papers and didn’t notice him.
They turned down another corridor, which was lined with classrooms marked by numbers. Odd on the left, even on the right. They stopped at number 6, which was open, and through the doorway he saw chairs with attached desktops, the kind children used. They had once been arranged in perfect rows when recruits attended lessons but now were disordered. The desks were occupied by old people, about fifteen of them, some talking animatedly, others sitting quietly with their thoughts. Through a far window, he saw black tree branches and faint light-it was dawn.
When Michalec stepped through the doorway, the conversation stopped abruptly and they all looked up. Among them sat Harold and Beth Atkins, both breaking into huge smiles. Harold came over, grabbed Gavra’s hand, and started pumping it. “You feeling all right? Better now?”
“Don’t crowd him, Harry,” said Beth.
Harold returned to his wife, and Michalec continued to the wide lecturer’s desk at the front of the room. On the large, dirty blackboard someone had written:
AIMS END STREET FIGHTING
UNITE FACTIONS CENTRAL CONTROL OF UTILITIES
INSTALL BUREAUCRACY
SECURE DEMOCRACY
Balint urged Gavra forward until they also reached the desk at the front. Michalec said to the room, “Once again, I thank you all for traveling so far.” He patted his hands together to applaud their long journeys, and they briefly applauded themselves.
One of the old men in the back called, “Viva la revolucion!”
The others laughed, and even Michalec smiled. But Gavra didn’t. He started to understand, and the understanding frightened him more than the confusion had.
“I have to be brief,” Michalec said, then gestured toward Gavra. “You all know why this young man’s here. But he doesn’t know. Not yet. As we discussed before, we’re going to take this slowly. We’ve got…” He checked his watch. “Nearly twenty hours to bring our man to our way of thinking.”
“And if he doesn’t?” said an elderly woman at the front. Her accent was strange; Gavra couldn’t place it.
“We’ll deal with that when it comes. It won’t change our plans.”
She nodded very seriously, as did a few others.
“But I wouldn’t worry,” said Michalec. He winked at Gavra. “I have great faith in Mr. Noukas.”
That provoked another round of applause and brought on the nausea again. What he understood was that he was standing among emigres who had returned home after decades away to assist the revolution. Unlike Gavra, and unlike me, they felt it was in their power to change a foul regime; they felt it was their duty. He should have been overcome by admiration for them, but he couldn’t manage it. There was something wrong here. Their euphoria felt like hysteria, and he knew that hysterical revolutions were the bloodiest.
Then he considered the writing on the chalkboard. Practical reasons for whatever they were doing. There was nothing hysterical there-the list concerned the stabilization of the country. Rearranging the bureaucracy so that utilities would continue to work and people wouldn’t be killed in the street.
Michalec said, “I just wanted you good people to see him, and remember his face. His face is our face.”
That last line revived Gavra’s panic. “No,” he said aloud.
The crowd looked at him expectantly.
“No,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I’m not any part of this.”
“Give him time,” Michalec told them.
Involuntarily, Gavra tried to run, but Balint was prepared for that. His big hands caught Gavra’s shoulders and pulled him sharply back. He stumbled but didn’t fall.
Michalec said, “Now to our lessons,” and the people laughed.
As he was guided back out to the corridor, some came to shake his hand again, and Gavra, bewildered, let them do it. Then the old man who had shouted Viva la revolucion raised two fingers to Gavra’s forehead and muttered a blessing in Spanish as he marked the cross on Gavra’s body.
SEVENTEEN
Surprisingly for a man as old as myself, I slept for eighteen hours. I suppose it was my body’s attempt to fight back. Keep me knocked out so I would stop putting it through so much. It was a good try.
I woke early on Saturday to Karel’s swarthy features hanging over me. Shocked, I pushed back, eyes wide. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He sighed heavily and stepped back. “Sorry.” He settled in a chair that Lena had bought in Bern, Switzerland. “Gavra’s still not back.”
I closed my eyes. “Did you try the station?”
“I called yesterday. Someone told me he’d left long ago and then told me to stay inside.”
It didn’t sound good, but neither he nor I could do anything about it. I forced myself into a sitting position and rubbed my temples. “Can you make some coffee?”
“Already did.”
He left the bedroom without closing the door, so I hobbled over to shut it, tripping on the files scattered on the floor. Everything ached. Karel returned with a steaming cup of acorn brew and set it on the drawers, watching me pull on pants.
“Well?” I said, frustrated.
“What are we going to do?”
“Just get out of here, okay?”
He shrugged but did as I asked.
I drank the wretched coffee quickly, then went to brush my teeth. Karel was in front of the television again. On it, soldiers were stepping carefully through a destroyed room, lifting gold objects-vases, paperweights, a large golden frame around a sentimental painting of the First Family-and showing them to the camera.
“What’s that?” I said.
“It’s the presidential palace. They got into it late last night. Just look. Food rationing for us, and they’ve got a whole room made out of gold. Bastards.”
I couldn’t look. Seeing the luxury of the Pankov lifestyle made me sick, like everyone else in the country, but the sickness didn’t fill me with Karel’s self-righteousness.
One of my most vivid memories is from just after the war, along St. George Boulevard, which would later be renamed Mihai and is now called something else: a stunned, topless woman in rags walking along the Tisa. She was covered in bruises, and her head had been shaved. Across her breasts, in red paint, her self-righteous abusers had written COLLABORATOR.
