Convinced of their solitude, Gavra placed Lubov on the den sofa across from a massive television. “Don’t tell me you live alone in this place.”
He shrugged, the fear apparently waning. “It’s what they gave me.”
“Who?”
Lubov stiffened, then mumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, you know who gave it to me.”
“Pretend I don’t.”
This seemed to confuse the man. He opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “Who are you?”
Gavra showed him the pistol again. “Right now, you talk. Afterward, I’ll speak. Okay?”
“The Americans,” said Lubov. “CIA.”
“They gave you this house?”
“And the name.”
“Why?”
“It was part of the deal. I answer their questions; they give me a new life. How did you find me?”
“From the beginning,” said Gavra, pulling up a chair. “Your real name.”
“Lebed Putonski.”
“That’s a good start. Where did you make the deal with the Americans?
“Stockholm.”
“Why were you in Stockholm?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“I want your version of the story. Why were you in Stockholm?”
Lebed Putonski pressed his fingertips together, as if praying. “This was almost a decade ago. I was there to oversee things.”
“You were the Stockholm resident?”
Putonski shrugged. “Of course. There’s a reason the Ministry keeps watch on its own residents. We start to enjoy life. We start thinking maybe we’d have a better time somewhere else. And then we do.”
“Why not just stay in Stockholm?”
“I was recalled. I guess the Ministry wasn’t happy with my work, or maybe they suspected what I was thinking. Fair enough.” He shrugged again. “I was a desk man, been one all my life. Can’t say I really understood half of what I was doing. So…” He squinted at the pistol. “So I contacted the Americans, spent some weeks at Lang-ley, and then I moved here. Now, eight years later, you’re pointing a gun at me. Why?”
Gavra didn’t understand it either. This was just another old man who’d gotten tired of the intrigues and breadlines. He wasn’t an ideological turncoat, and the information he, after prodding, admitted to giving the Americans was hardly explosive: the Central Committee’s position on its fraternal relations with Sweden, in-country troop sizes and distribution, and some real gross domestic product numbers. All Putonski had wanted was an easier life, and here he’d gotten it.
The telephone rang.
“You expecting someone?”
Putonski shook his head. “Maybe it’s my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Maureen.” He paused. “Everyone gets lonely.”
“She’ll expect you at home, yes?”
Another shrug, then a nod. “Detention was almost finished.”
“Okay. Come on.”
He walked Putonski back up the stairs to the kitchen and took the telephone on the seventh ring, holding it to Putonski’s ear and keeping his head close so he could hear as well.
“Mr. Shevchenko?” said a man’s voice. American.
“Yes?” said Putonski.
“Mr. Shevchenko, there’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you. Your friends from the west need some information.”
Putonski’s eyes went wide, and Gavra nodded at him to continue. “What’s this about?”
“Let’s talk in person. You’ll stay at home?”
Putonski interpreted Gavra’s second nod. “Yes.”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” said the man. “We should be alone, understand?”
“Of course,” said Putonski, then the line went dead. “I’ll bet it’s about you,” he told Gavra. “You better get out of here.”
“Who was it?”
“Who do you think? CIA. I haven’t heard from them in five years, then you show up, and suddenly they want to discuss something.”
“You don’t know this man?”
“Five years is a long time. They change personnel.”
Gavra stared at Putonski a moment, thinking this through. His real purpose here, as he understood it, was to protect this math teacher. Yuri Kolev wouldn’t have spent the money and effort to send him to the other side of the world if the threat to Putonski weren’t real. Now an unidentified voice wanted to meet Putonski alone.
“Come on,” said Gavra. “We’re leaving.”
FOUR
While Agota told Magda and Ferenc about her adventures photographing Tomiak Pankov, I sat with Bernard at his desk, Sanja on his knee. He fumbled with his daughter’s wispy blond hair and said, “Why are you driving her?”
“What?”
“Agi can take the train. You don’t need to bother.”
“It’ll be nice to get out of the city.”
“And go see Ferenc?”
I shrugged in a pretense of stupidity, but I think he knew what I was up to. He also knew why I wasn’t going to discuss it with him. A couple of months after he and Agota married, a man from the Ministry for State Security arrived in the office. He was one of those small, petty clerk-types who sweat a lot. I was on the phone at the time and watched him go to Gavra’s desk, introduce himself, and then ask for Bernard Kovar. Gavra took him over to Bernard’s desk, where the little man congratulated him on his marriage. Bernard, unsure, thanked the man and then acquiesced to a coffee. The three of them were gone for an hour.
I cornered Bernard that evening. He was scared but wouldn’t tell me what had happened, finally getting angry and telling me to keep to my own business. So, the next day, I cornered Gavra, who was more open. The Ministry was making a deal with Bernard. His father-in-law, Ferenc Kolyeszar, was of particular interest to the security of our socialist Utopia. Perhaps Bernard could share some of his insider knowledge with them, now and then.
“He said no, right?” I asked Gavra.
Gavra rocked his head from side to side. “They’ve offered passports for both him and Agota.”
“So?”
I was being naive, I know, because they weren’t just offering Bernard and his new wife the freedom to visit other countries; they were also promising not to harass them in the future. So, inevitably, Bernard made the occasional report to Yalta Boulevard. I knew it, Gavra knew it, and even Ferenc knew it, because I told him. Ferenc assured me that he and his son-in-law, despite their mutual annoyance, had come to an agreement. Ferenc wrote Bernard’s reports for him. In exchange, Ferenc promised never to tell Agota what her husband was up to.
Despite this, I wasn’t going to burden Bernard with information he didn’t need to know.
“Yeah,” I told him. “It’ll be nice to see Ferenc again.”
