Liberation Movements (12 page)

What did
I do between noon and five, waiting for my second meeting with Brano Sev? That was just five hours ago, but standing here by the carousel, waiting for Istvan Farkas to collect his baggage and feeling naked beside a group of women covered in black with only slits to reveal their eyes, I’m having trouble remembering. Yes—I walked. I walked from the Metropol, up Mihai Boulevard, along the concrete landing that borders the Tisa, stopping to look now and then at the high cranes leaning over the broken roofs of the Canal District. Tomiak Pankov’s celebrated project to clean, scour, and rebuild that oldest part of the Capital meant nothing to me. Then I turned onto the small side streets and found a bakery with a few rolls left in the window, eating them as I continued westward, unable to look at the people I passed. This troubled me, that I could not relegate the events of seven years ago—relegate Peter Husák—to a small room in my head, a small room that could be managed and dealt with constructively. Instead, I was left numb, standing at the edge of Victory Park with half-eaten rolls that I let fall to the grass. I worried that the memory of Peter Husák was killing me. I even considered finding Aron and talking to him. After three years of marriage, perhaps, I could finally tell my husband the story that made me cold in bed and ruptured any chance we had of marital calm, or children. But the secret had gone on too long, and now not even honesty could save us.

Once we’ve bought Turkish lira at an exchange desk and then purchased visas, Istvan says, “Ready?” When he smiles, it’s a trembling, proud smile, as if he’s hiding a present behind his back. Or a triumphant smile. With only a few words, he’s gotten a woman to come to his hotel with him.

We take a taxi through the dry evening fields surrounding Atatürk International, the static of the driver’s radio broken now and then by Istvan’s innocuous observations: “It’s lucky we met, isn’t it?…You haven’t had a
gyro
until you’ve had one here…There’s an excellent bar at the hotel, so we can have a decent nightcap.”

The main roads take us through European Istanbul, toward a place the signs call Beyo
lu, and the old city grows around us. Istvan points to the right, into a dark spread of lights and roofs that dwindle toward a glowing dome with six pointed spires.
“Sultan Ahmet Camii,”
he says, and the driver perks up.

“Evet,”
he says, then switches to English: “Blue Mosque. You tourist?”

I nod in the direction of the lights but am distracted by my own reflection in the window.

We cross a bridge, and I say, “This is the Bosphorus?”

“The Golden Horn,” Istvan corrects. He again points to the right. “The Bosphorus is over in that direction; on the other side is Asia.”

“Asia,” I say.

“You’re on the very edge of the continent.”

When we finally arrive at the Hotel Pera Palas, I’m stunned. It’s an enormous, lavish structure, lit up like a church. Under the high ceiling, the marbled lobby is full of grandiose columns and velvet carpets. Men in suits and ties sit in formally arranged leather chairs and read newspapers, sipping tea from glass cups.

The clerk remembers Istvan from a previous visit. “Mister Farkas, we have been expecting you,” he says in English.

Istvan glances back at me with a smile—I’m to be impressed. “Good to be back. Perhaps you have a spare room for my friend?”

“Reservation?”

I open my mouth, but Istvan says, “I’m afraid not.”

The clerk, whose mustache looks like it was stolen from a much larger man, makes a face, then shrugs dramatically. “If only I could. There is a convention in town—
Greeks,
” he whispers.

“Is that so?”

“I am afraid, yes.”

“It’s no problem,” I say, because a part of me has been wishing that circumstances would stop me at some point and force me to return. Not that I don’t want to go through with this, only that I’m searching for some sign, some direction.

Istvan holds up a finger, asking for my patience. He signs a piece of paper and takes his keys, then steps back to me. “I don’t know how you feel about it, but my rooms are always too large. They treat me well. And so, if you’re not concerned for your safety, I’d be honored if you would stay in my room. There’s a large couch for me to sleep on.”

“I couldn’t.”

“It’s up to you,” he says, leaning close. “But rest assured that this is no inconvenience for me. In fact, it would be a pleasure.”

Despite the surprising aura of shoddy decay above the ground floor, our room is in fact two decomposing rooms, a bedroom and a living room. I pull back the curtains and find a terrace that overlooks nighttime Istanbul, the barrage of lights and sounds drifting up to us. When I tell him it’s beautiful, he nearly blushes. “I’m lucky the comrades feel their salesmen should maintain an air of sophistication. Do you feel like a drink?”

I’m standing out on the shallow terrace, wondering which of those lights is Peter Husák.

“The bar’s just downstairs.”

I turn back and give him a smile. “Just let me wash up first.”

Gavra buzzed
a whole row of apartments on the large panel by the front door. A cacophony of puzzled who’s-theres sputtered out as he tugged the handle, waiting for that one innocent to let him in. Then he flew through the foyer and up the stairwell, pausing on the second floor, where the dead stranger with the wide hat and the foreign accent lay, blood pulsing from a hole in his trachea. Gavra sprinted on.

On the third floor, looking up to the fourth, he spotted Mas at the top of the stairs with a pistol lengthened by a long silencer screwed to the end of it.

“Ludvík Mas!” he shouted.

Mas looked down, perhaps surprised, his comical mustache twitching.

Gavra raised his Makarov. “Put it on the floor and walk down here.”

A trace of a smile flickered across Mas’s face. He aimed between Gavra’s eyes and descended a step, speaking calmly. “Comrade Noukas, we can both die on this stairwell, or we can both survive the night.”

He descended two more steps. He said, “I suggest you speak with Comrade Sev before you pull that trigger.”

“Who’s the man downstairs?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

He was two steps above Gavra, their pistols pointed at each other’s faces. Ludvík Mas lowered his, but Gavra didn’t shift his aim.

“I’m going now, Comrade Noukas.”

“You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ll do no such thing. Speak with your superiors.” He paused, then added, “Faggot.”

He passed quickly, trotted down the next flight, and was gone.

Gavra stood with his gun by his side, feeling suddenly cold, then continued up. In answer to his knock, Adrian opened the door. The butcher’s face, at first hesitant, lit up and even smiled when he registered who his visitor was. But Gavra only said, “I need to use your phone.”

During the twenty minutes they waited for Brano Sev, Gavra smoked three cigarettes. Adrian poured them each a vodka and sat across from him on the sofa. Absently, Gavra said, “Thanks,” and threw back the shot.

“You’re sure he’s dead?” asked Adrian.

Gavra looked at him.

“From the door,” he explained. “I could hear everything.”

He nodded.

“Who is he?”

That question stunned him, because in his distraction he hadn’t thought to check this. He bolted out of the apartment. His feet clattered down the stairs. After a few minutes, he returned with a wallet and a passport, frowning. He sat again in the chair and asked Adrian, “Do you know a Maxwell Palmer?”

Adrian shook his head. “Can I see?”

Gavra showed him the bland photo in Maxwell Palmer’s passport. The face was also unfamiliar, but Adrian frowned at the cover. “Why is there a dead American here?”

He wanted to be open with Adrian Martrich, to let him know that the man who killed the American was a state security officer, and that he suspected the next target had been Adrian himself—but Ludvík Mas’s confidence made this difficult. Mas was part of that shadowy world of the back offices of Yalta, like Room 305, the source of puzzling commands and sudden bursts of retribution. Room 305 was the last office Gavra wanted causing him trouble.

So he held his tongue until Brano Sev arrived, the gray hair behind his ears wet, as if he’d been called from the bath. He nodded imperceptibly at Adrian, then turned to Gavra. “Comrade Noukas, can we talk?”

In the corridor and down the stairs, Gavra told him every detail of the story, omitting only Mas’s final word,
faggot.

Brano looked through the dead American’s papers. “So it’s Maxwell Palmer tonight.”

“You know him?”

“His real name is Timothy Brixton, CIA. His cover is as a television salesman.” Brano paused. “What was Brixton doing here?”

“He came alone, and an old man let him in.”

“A contact?”

“No. But Ludvík Mas was following him. And he had a key.”

“He would.”

Brano squatted to stare at the hole in the dead American’s throat. Blood covered Brixton’s clothes and congealed on the stairs. Gavra could still smell the potassium nitrate from the shot that had killed him.

“You say Mas was heading to Adrian Martrich’s apartment?”

“Looks that way. But when he saw me, he left. It seems clear enough that Ludvík Mas also murdered Doctor Arendt and Wilhelm Adler, and that his next target was Adrian Martrich.”

“Is it clear?” Brano began going through the dead American’s pockets. “But Timothy Brixton was here for a reason as well.”

“Are you going to talk to Mas?”

“I’ll certainly try,” said Brano.

“He’s our prime suspect.”

Brano came up with some loose change and a key from the Hotel Metropol.

“Can you tell me?” Gavra asked.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“Mas seemed to think you would know.”

Brano stood. “I can find out. Let’s get someone to clean this up. And, Gavra?”

“Yes?”

“Keep this quiet. It’s not the kind of thing Katja should know about.” Brano handed over the Metropol key and squinted at the top of the stairs as something occurred to him.

“What?”

Brano shook his head. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Just make sure Comrade Martrich survives the night.”

We’re on
velvet-seated stools at the Orient Express Bar of the Pera Palas, surrounded by pink-tinted walls. Past Istvan, at dark corner tables, men in loosened ties with fuming cigarettes huddle over drinks, and the occasional tourist family tries to rein in their children. This is so different from the bar where I last met Brano Sev.

“Spies used to come here,” says Istvan.

“That so?”

“Mata Hari, Kim Philby. Back when spying was still glamorous.” He winks when he says that, and, as he slides a glass with clear liquor in front of me, adds, “Agatha Christie wrote
Orient Express
in one of their rooms.”

“Thus the name of this bar.”

“Exactly.”

I look at my glass as he pours cold water into it, the mix turning milky.

“
Rakı,
Turkish brandy,” he says. “Is that all right?”

I answer by draining the anise-heavy liquid, and Istvan, seemingly impressed, calls for another.

He talks to me like a man trying to sell something. He tells me about electric fans. “The real symbol of the twentieth century. Man over nature. When nature makes you hot, you beat her to the ground with one of these. The next step is climatization, what the Americans call ‘air-conditioning,’ but we’re not yet ready for that much control over nature.”

“You’re very philosophical for a salesman.”

“You’d be surprised. Salesmen are some of the most philosophical people around. It’s the long hours alone, stuck with your own thoughts. And the hotels, which, even if they’re as beautiful as this one, begin to look the same. The world begins to look the same. And you start to wonder how different we all really are, and why we do what we do. That’s really all of philosophy in a nutshell.”

“The
why.
”

“Yes,
why.
That’s the basic question of philosophy.
How
is a question for science.”

“Maybe you should write this down.”

“I know my limits.” He takes a drink and cocks his head, and in this light I can see his scalp through his thin hair. “So why are you in Istanbul? Obviously not business, or you’d have a reservation.”

“I just wanted to see it. Istanbul.”

“And what do you do back in the Capital?”

I’m not sure at first if I should answer, but then it seems that there have been too many secrets around me, and I don’t want this to continue. “I’m a militiawoman.”

Istvan inhales, bobbing impressed eyebrows. “I’d never have guessed.”

“Why not?”

He answers as if he’s standing behind a podium. “From my experience you can tell the Militia type pretty quickly. They walk like they’re being watched all the time. They give off this silent-but-judging aura they want everyone to notice. As if what’s going on in their heads is for them, and only them, to know about.”

“Isn’t everyone like that?”

“You’re not.”

I smile, lean closer. “Then tell me what I’m like.”

He peers at me over the rim of his glass, his eyes twinkling—he likes this. “Well, you’re average height, so you don’t stand out that way. You’re not overly muscled, which would also stand out on a woman. But you’re fit. That could mean any sort of job.”

“You’re just describing my body.”

“Have to start somewhere. So…you do have a habit of taking in a place when you enter. Like this bar. When we came in, you immediately looked to your left and right, to see what was on either side of the door. Usually people look ahead, to where they want to end up. But you’re careful.” He shrugs. “I suppose that’s the training.”

I sip my
rakı
and wait for more.

“You know how you look,” he says. “In that way you’re self-conscious. But not in the way most militiamen are. You’re self-conscious the way beautiful women are. They know that when they enter a room, eyes will turn to them. They know that because of this they have some power.”

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“I’m just telling you what I see. When we were on the plane and I started to speak with you, you acted as if I were asking for your phone number. Because you’re used to this. So you went out of your way to ignore me, even though I was sitting next to you.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because at that moment I really am.

“I’m not offended; it’s a common thing. It’s how beautiful women protect themselves. Why should they have to lose their anonymity just because of the way they look? It’s unfair, so you have to fight it.” He looks down at my empty glass. “You want another?”

“Water,” I say, and he orders this from the bartender, as well as another
rakı
for himself. Then he measures me with his eyes.

“Now that you tell me you’re a militiawoman, it starts to make me wonder. In France I’ve run into a couple of policewomen, but they tend to shape themselves into men. Short haircuts, a kind of forced machismo. Partly so that the public will take them seriously; partly so their co-workers will stop trying to kiss them. But your fingernails—you keep them painted and long. Your hair is well cared for. And you use makeup.”

I instinctively touch my cheek.

“You must have a difficult time in the Militia office. What department?”

“I’m a homicide inspector.”

He takes another breath, very affected. “Now, that’s interesting. What made you want to track down murderers?”

No one has ever asked me that before, so I don’t have a pat answer ready. I’ve only been asked, by my worried family, why I’d want to work with Militia oafs—and by my frustrated husband, why I’d want to risk my life. But homicide in particular?

It’s the same reason I’m here in Istanbul.

I say, “Some years ago, my fiancé was murdered.”

“Did they catch his killer?”

I shake my head.

“So you do this in order to avenge him.”

“Perhaps.”

He drinks his
rakı
and considers that. “What about the abstract stuff?”

“What?”

“The state—defending the order of the state and all that?”

“Of course. That, too.”

“But not really.”

I pause, then shake my head.

He takes another sip. “What if he was caught? The murderer, I mean. Let’s say you caught him and he was sent to some work camp. Let’s say he’s sent to dig the Canal. What would you do?”

“I’d be happy.”

“But would you want to leave your job?”

“I don’t follow.”

He smiles. “It’s simple, Katja. If he’s the reason you wanted to become a homicide inspector, and you took care of that reason, would you still want to be a homicide inspector?”

I can feel myself flushing, because I don’t like this question. It sounds too much like a question Aron might pose.
If you left the Militia, would you then have my baby?
But I know the answer to this what-if. “I don’t know how to be anything else,” I say, though I’m not sure he believes me. I’m not sure I believe myself.