The Confession (23 page)

I have
to step back and apologize for the details. They are uncommon for a confession, and I only use them after the greatest deliberation. But to understand all that follows, the whole web of circumstances must be explained, because otherwise nothing can really be understood.

We smoked in bed. At first we were too exhausted to speak, and the only sounds were our breaths. She crept away while I stared at the ceiling, where little spots were moving rapidly, joining, separating. I was not thinking of what we’d done; I wasn’t thinking of Magda. I was too exhausted. Vera returned with the wine bottle and our glasses.

“Well,” she said, standing naked and smiling.

I accepted a glass. “Well.”

She sat beside me, back against the headboard, and took a sip. “What did you think, Ferenc?”

“I’m speechless.”

“That pleases me.” She rubbed her wrists and lit another cigarette. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting. Much longer than since last Christmas. Karel—well, that’ s what happens in a marriage, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Repetition. The same two positions. Then one. You start to do it just because the other one happens to be in your bed. Boredom. There’s no other reason.” She took a drag and exhaled it into the air. “What about you and Magda?”

“We haven’t had sex in over a year.”

“What?”

The ceiling was moving again. I’d said too much. But no—after what we’d just done, how could that be too much? I felt something huge shift inside me. The world was an entirely different place.

“Oh,” she said as she stroked my cheek. “You’re crying.”

She held me until it passed. I never suspected such patience was in her. Her bony chest was against my nose. She still smelled of lavender, but now it was mixed with the smell of me.

I’d seen a man buried that day, a man who’d witnessed a hundred years of what humanity can do to itself. Now I was in a married woman’s bed, weeping. This is what humanity can do to itself.

I did
not forget where I was, but that morning it was still a surprise to see Vera’s sleeping face behind the nest of her black hair. I started to dress.

“You’re going?”

“To work.”

She got up on an elbow to watch me tie my shoes. “Should I ask?”

I looked at her.

“If you’ll be coming back. Karel’s out until Friday.”

I didn’t know if I would come back, if it was a good idea or a horrible one, or if by tonight I’d even want to. “You’ll be here?”

When she shrugged, the sheet came off her shoulder. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

I kissed her forehead, then, almost as an afterthought, her lips.

Georgi was waiting for me on the front steps to the station, hat in his hands. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep, and I assumed I’d missed a party. We shook hands.

“I’ve got worries, Ferenc.”

He took a folded envelope from his pocket and handed it to me.

It was a summons to appear, the next day, at the state security headquarters on Yalta Boulevard. The reason:
DOCUMENT CHECK
.

I took him to a café and fed him brandy. “It could be nothing, Georgi. You know this. It could just be a document check, like it says.”

“Don’t tell me that. Rubin Blazkova—you know him? A forger, but that’s beside the point. He received a summons two weeks ago. No one knows where he is anymore. You’ve got to help me.” He could hardly hold his glass.

It surprised me how calmly I was taking it. I suppose I was trying to counterbalance his fear with cool, rational words. When I sat in certain positions I could smell Vera on me, and I wondered if he could smell her, too. “I’ll come by tonight, okay? This isn’t until tomorrow morning, so I’ll work on it today.” I patted his cheek. “Don’t worry so much.”

“I’m a poet, remember? I can’t take torture.”

“Nobody can take torture, Georgi.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” He finished his drink and shook his head. “I don’t want to end up like Nestor Velcea.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“I don’t want—”

“Nestor Velcea—you
know
Nestor Velcea?”

He shrugged. “Of course I do. Didn’t you meet him?”

“What?”

“He was at that party, a couple months ago. When Louis was in town—that’s why he was there, to see Louis. The two of them go back a long way.” He paused, looking at me.” I’d never met Nestor before, just heard of him. Friend of a friend, you know. He was in the camps—
that’s
where I don’t want to end up.” I must have done something shocking with my face, because he leaned forward, for the moment forgetting his own terror. “What is it?”

All I could manage was: “Friend of
what
friend?”

“Well, the poet Kaspar Tepylo, of course.”

Brano Sev
was at his desk. I pulled up a chair.

“Ferenc,” he said.

His flat, round face was eternally young. He was somewhere in his forties now—none of us knew his exact age—and in those years all his deeds had done nothing to his face. It must have been useful for him, having an innocent face to hide his corrupted hands. “Listen. I have a friend who’s been called in for a document check. I want to know what this is about.”

He considered the directness of my request, turning it over in his head, looking for motives. All state security men work the same. “That’s confidential information.”

“It’s important I know.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s my friend.”

“And what would you do with this information?”

I paused. “Ease his mind.”

His fingers stroked some blank papers on the desk. He sniffed the air—perhaps he smelled Vera. “Let’s suppose it is what the summons says: a document check. Then everything is fine. But if there is something more involved, something that takes a longer time…if that’s the case, then what will you do?”

I was walking into a trap. I could see this. But I couldn’t just stand up and leave. “I’d tell him to prepare himself.”

“That’s a lie, Ferenc. We both know it. You would advise him not to go, perhaps even to leave the country. It’s what you did to Svetla Woznica.”

In the silence that fell between us the shock settled into my bones. Nothing I did was a secret, nothing had ever been. I looked into his eyes, but couldn’t keep up my strength. He had the ability to hold a stare indefinitely, and I imagined, as my stomach turned over, that this was the way he looked at his victims in the interview room.

“Ferenc,” he said quietly, “maybe the fear has gone to your head. I wouldn’t assume to know what you’re feeling. But I am aware of everything you do. This thing with the Woznica woman was child’s play to figure out—her release form and a few questions at the train station were all it took. I know, but more importantly, so does Comrade Kaminski. I’d worry less about your friends and more about yourself, and your family. This friend of yours, this Georgi Radevych? He’s a drunk and a fraud, certainly you can see this. He’s loud and stupid. You’re not stupid, Ferenc. You’re just confused.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but he was turning away from me again, opening a folder.

I leaned over the toilet bowl and waited for the sickness that didn’t come. I couldn’t still myself. Then I sat down and tried to breathe regularly. There was graffiti scratched into the gray-green paint of the stall, and I focused on the men with enormous penises and large-breasted women bowed to service them. I closed my eyes.

When you know you are being watched, every movement takes on great significance. My stumbling walk down the corridor to the bathroom had been on a stage, with a crowd of thousands watching. Bent over the bowl, there was laughter, and when nothing came, hoots and catcalls. I was never alone, and never would be.

I called
a friend of Leonek’s with connections to Yalta Boulevard, but he could do nothing. So I took a long walk through the city, trying to work out the puzzle of the impossible. And I ended as I began: powerless.

I wanted to just call him. He would have understood. But Georgi deserved better. When he opened the door it was hard to look at all the hope in his face, so I turned to the floor. When I looked back, the hope was gone.

We got drunk. There was a long night ahead of us, so we tried not to drink too quickly, but once we’d started there was no stopping us. I held up a finger and said I needed to call home, because I’d stayed out last night and had forgotten to let Magda know.

“Slept somewhere else?” Georgi frowned.

“Where were you last night?” said Magda.

“Busy. A case. Sorry I didn’t call, it was irresponsible. But I’m not going to be home tonight either. I’m over at Georgi’s.”

“That’s fantastic.”

“He got a notice.”

“A what?”

“He has to go to Yalta Boulevard tomorrow. A document check.”

“Well, I,” she began, then inhaled. “Oh Christ. You don’t mean…”

“I’m going to stay the night with him. Look, it’s probably nothing.”

“Yes. Yes, right. I hope so. Can’t you do anything for him?”

“I’ve tried.”

“Give him my love.”

It was the first time in memory she’d ever offered Georgi such a thing. But Georgi smiled when I delivered it, and said, “I always liked that woman. Haven’t I always said that? Because it’s true.”

“You’ve always said it.”

“But listen. Was it Vera last night? I can see it was Vera. I might be going off to some cold prison, but you and Magda need to make up.” He raised his glass. “For the good of the country.”

“You should be talking to Magda about this.”

“It’s a two-sided thing, a marriage.”

“You’ve never been married.”

“True, true.”

“Anyway, I’ve been trying for too long. As far as she’s concerned, we’re no longer man and wife.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “She
told
you this?”

“She’s sleeping with my oldest friend, isn’t that enough?”

Georgi, for the first time in his life, had nothing to say.

I brought the brandy from the kitchen. We went at it.

He was resolute in his doom. I admired him for it, and told him. He grimaced. “You know, this is the way heroes go down. They smile agreeably as they’re led to the wall. They sing a song as the bullet comes at them.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m past the terror. You should have seen me this morning.”

“I did see you this morning.”

“I mean after I talked to you. I threw up in an alley and wept on the tram. You know what I wanted more than anything? A wife to cry to. That’s what I wanted. Why can’t I settle down? What’s my flaw?”

“You’ve got no flaws, Georgi.”

He winked, then leaned forward and tapped my knee. “Fill me up, okay?”

We drank until early morning, then slept where we sat. He cried a few times when he was very drunk, but held on for most of the night. After a short rest, we had coffee, and he leaned his head on my chest a moment. I put my arms around him. No tears, just a momentary loss of strength. He washed himself thoroughly, because, as he said, he didn’t know when he’d get the chance again. Then I drove him to Yalta Boulevard, number 36. An unassuming beige façade: a prewar administrative office. The only difference now was the crest above the door—the hawk with its head turned aside—and the simple sign:
MINISTRY FOR STATE SECURITY, CENTRAL
.

A handsome, uniformed guard standing just beyond the heavy wooden doors read Georgi’s summons. He smiled serenely and told me I could not enter. I started to protest, but Georgi squeezed my arm. “Let’s not make trouble.” He kissed my cheeks and passed through the inner doors alone.

I waited in the car, watching women pass in their winter scarves, and kept looking back at the door with the hope that he would come bursting out, grinning with wild relief. Maybe I could have sent him out of the country. Buying someone passage east was no problem, but Georgi would have only been safe in the West. That was beyond my means.

After a half hour, I started the engine and drove.