Yalta Boulevard (22 page)

“It’s about imprisoning people in apartments?”

“Not that literal, Brano. Come on. It’s from just after the war, a kind of spy movie. Takes place in Vienna. And while Graham Greene was writing the script, he lived in the Hotel Sacher and came here each day to take notes. How do you like that?”

“Graham Greene,” said Brano. “I believe he’s a good friend of Kim Philby. Maybe I should see his film.”

Ludwig crossed his arms. “Unfortunately, the place I’d rather take you has been closed since the war. The Café Central. I think you’d prefer it there. Your proletarian hero Comrade Trotsky used to play chess on those tables.”

Brano tapped the table with his fingertip. “He’s no hero of mine. Trotsky was a class traitor who deserved what he got in Mexico.”

Brano was pleased to see that the Austrian didn’t know whether he should take the comment seriously. “You know,” Ludwig said finally, “something’s bugging me.”

“What’s that?”

“Our old dead body, Bertrand Richter.”

“I told you what I knew.”

“Of course you did. But we picked up the guy you said killed him. What was his name?”

“Erich Tobler on Hauptstraße.”

“Right, right. Well, the thing is, he’s never heard of Bertrand Richter.”

“And you believe him.”

“I don’t know what to believe, Brano. I’m of half a mind that you’re the one who killed poor Bertrand. But Erich and I have more talks scheduled. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“I’m sure you will, Ludwig. You know what you’re doing.”

The smile returned, broad and toothy. “You’re quite a charmer today, Brano. It’s nice to see that side. Go on. Enjoy the day.”

“I’m curious about something.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s Easter Sunday, and you’re here with me. Don’t you have a family to spend the day with?”

Ludwig’s smile faded. “I don’t think we’re here to discuss my personal life.”

Brano nodded at his empty coffee cup. “Will the Second Republic take care of this?”

“Business expenses.”

“I guess that’s one advantage.”

Ludwig squinted as Brano stood and picked up his book. Then he nodded as he got the joke.

Brano walked back home slowly, watching churches along the way spill the faithful into the empty streets. The sunburned shadow remained a half block away, leisurely wandering, and at Web-Gasse 25 Brano noticed a second shadow sitting in a new Volkswagen across the street. An old man with a thick, white mustache and beard, to compensate for his decaying hair. The old man looked vaguely familiar—perhaps a face from West Berlin. He watched Brano unlock his door and go inside but made no move.

Ludwig’s shadows were more conspicuous by the minute.

Through the holes in his mailbox door he spotted a letter. He retrieved the unstamped envelope as an old woman nodded a
Grüß Gott
at him on her way out, and in the elevator opened it. Inside was a yellow English-language pamphlet published by the “Committee for Liberty in the Captive Nations,” titled
A Communist War?
Below the title was the image of a hammer striking a sickle.

He opened his door, then went inside and locked it. He took the pamphlet to the living room and tilted it in the sunlight, looking for invisible indentations that weren’t there. He sat on the sofa, smiling as he read, for it was clear then that Ludwig, or his bearded associate, did have a sense of humor after all.

A COMMUNIST WAR?

Dear Friend,
There is much talk these days of an impending war between Red China and the Soviet Union. Optimism, to be sure. Such an argument encourages the feeling among Leftist professors that détente with the Soviet Union is the best course of action, to prepare for a war against the Red Chinese. Is this truly the best course of action?

THE HYPOCRISY

What these communist/détente sympathizers forget is that war between two communist powers is, by their own logic, impossible. Communists believe war is caused by the retention of profit by a small group of capitalists, leading to the roller-coaster ride of inflation and depression. The moneymaking machine of war, they say, is the one thing that can repair a capitalist depression
.

Therefore Communism, not burdened by profit, cannot lead to war
.

The academics had better reread their hero, Karl Marx!

THEN WHY TENSION?

There are many reasons for the present tension between these two godless nations, and I will mention just a few:

1) The truth is that these two communist powers are, in fact, “capitalist.” That is, a small group of men hold the wealth, leaving the great masses with next to nothing
.

2) Just this year Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist leader, spoke angrily against Red China for blocking arms shipments to the North Vietnamese Communist aggressors. It seems that while both Brezhnev and Chairman Mao wish to “bury” Capitalism, they cannot agree on the proper method
.

3) The Soviet Union, desperate to keep its hold on World Communism, has united the Communist Parties throughout the world in an attempt to end the other, Chinese, form
.

RABID DOGS!

What the Leftist professors will not tell anyone is that these are the precise reasons why détente must
not be
followed. At this moment we have two communist giants glaring at one another like rabid dogs, and this is when it is most important to
act
. The Captive Nations of Eastern Europe, so long under the boot of the Soviet Menace, must be set free of their chains!

Be one with us, and appeal to President Johnson to push forward efforts to roll back the Iron Curtain
.

God bless America
.

Dr. Ned Rathbone
The Committee for Liberty in the Captive Nations
December 18, 1966

30 MARCH 1967, THURSDAY
•

Day 11. The Subject began Thursday with the same routine as previous days. The Subject’s regularity has been a source of surprise, only interrupted by occasional visits to bookstores (often loitering in the political section). This agent has, however, noted an increased level of drinking. The Subject’s one or two evening beers have turned into two beers at a bar, followed by a bottle of wine from his 24-hour local, brought back home to drink in front of the television
.

Perhaps the drinking explains the acts of 30 March
.

This agent stood beside the flak tower at the corner of Eszterházy Park as the Subject read on his usual bench and, at noon, urinated on his usual tree. Rather than returning to his seat, he walked down Windmühl to Fillegradergasse, then, just before the Hotel Terminus, jogged up the steps leading to Theobaldgasse, turning left on Mariahilfer (effectively doubling back on himself). This agent, fearing he would lose contact, jogged as well. The Subject turned right at Stiftgasse, then took another right on Siebensterngasse. This agent rounded the corner as well, but found the Subject staring at him through the rear windshield of a taxi that was pulling away
.

This agent immediately telephoned his superiors
.

“Innere Stadt, you said?”

“Yes. The center.”

“But where in the center?”

Brano looked back at the sunburned man dwindling to insignificance. “Turn here. Right. Then go to the Westbahnhof.”

“Westbahnhof? That’s not in the center!”

“Please, just do it.”

Brano paid the driver and jogged into the modern, airy train station. There were three people in line at the ticket counter. The heavy woman in front of him wore a kerchief around her head and leaned on a cheap, heavy bag, much like the fat provincial women of Bóbrka, sweating beneath too many layers of skirt. Soon he was at the window.

“Salzburg,” he said. “First class.”

The clerk looked at a list of cities and numbers on the wall. “It’s leaving right now.”

“I’ll make it.”

“I doubt it.”

“Just let me worry about that.” Brano glanced behind himself, then handed over his money.

Ticket in hand, he ran up the stairs to the second level and paused, looking back again through the windows that covered the front of the Westbahnhof, his thumping heart reminding him he was old for this kind of action.

Then he spotted it: the gray Renault that parked along Europaplatz. Two men bolted out the back and across the concrete toward the station.

Instead of approaching the platforms, he exited left beneath a sign that said
FELBERSTRAßE
. He jogged through the station’s parking lot, north along a back street, then, panting, caught a tram along Lerchenfelder Gürtel. The car was tight with warm Viennese, and when he began to laugh involuntarily, many turned to look at him.

He got off at Gablenzgasse and returned on foot, taking the narrow backstreets overlooked by dirty buildings and shops, until he was back at the corner of Tannengasse and Felberstraße. Across the street an old woman moved slowly with her cane; on his side a drunk counted coins.
“Funfundsechzig … siebzig
.” When the woman had finally made it to her door and the drunk had shuffled past and disappeared around the corner, Brano turned to face the wall.

He counted three bricks from the bottom, then five bricks from the edge. The brick left gray marks on his fingers, and he had to use a key from his pocket to loosen it, but after a minute he was able to pull it out of the wall.

The back of the brick had been chiseled away, so that a small space remained between it and the next layer of brick. In that space lay a ring with two keys.

Number 20 Felberstraße was covered with a fine layer of soot from the train yard across the street. The tiles in the wall of the foyer had cracked a long time ago, and in those gaps spiders built webs. As he entered the second set of doors, an old man leaving the elevator held it open for him. “
Grüß Gott
,” they said to one another.

It was a small wooden elevator from before the First World War, with the name of a Budapest company on the plaque above the buttons. At the third floor he got out and closed the doors behind himself; the elevator returned to the ground floor on its own.

The apartment was to the left, and in the dark corridor he leaned close and listened, then used the key.

During his time as
rezident
, safe houses had been minimalist affairs—a mattress and a telephone. Nothing else was required. But Josef Lochert, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to decorate. He stood in a comfortable living room not so different from the one where he’d been imprisoned in the suburbs. A sofa covered with a lace blanket sat across from a television, and a china cabinet held trinkets of a life that was still being lived.

Then he understood.

“Peter?”

He looked toward the closed bedroom door.

“Peter?” the woman’s voice repeated. “Peter, you didn’t forget my chocolate, did you?”

Brano stepped back toward the front door and opened it.

“Peter, you better answer me now, you understand?”

On his way out to the street, he passed a fifteen-year-old with a large bar of chocolate in his hand. Brano smiled at the boy, who looked back curiously.

Farther north, Brano found a post office with a row of public telephone booths. He approached the woman at the desk and asked if he could place an international call. She accepted his deposit of schillings and the telephone number, and told him to wait in booth number 5.

He went in and leaned against the glass door, looking out at Viennese talking into their phones, Viennese in line to buy stamps, and sullen Viennese women behind the counters who took envelopes and gave out change.

The telephone rang.

“Hello?”

There was a series of clicks, followed by a long hiss through which he could barely hear a telephone ringing. Then a faint woman’s voice, in his language, said, “Importation Register, First District.”

“Regina, it’s Brano.”

“Hello?”

He raised his voice. “Regina! It’s Brano!”

“Oh, Brano! Where are you?”

He sighed, wanting only to listen to Regina Haliniak’s comforting provincial accent. But he said, “I don’t have time to talk. Can I speak to the Comrade Colonel?”

“Colonel Cerny?”

“Yes.”

“One minute.”

The phone clicked four times, then began ringing again.

“Brano? You’re on a clean line?”

“Public telephone, I think it’s clean. The Felberstraße safe house is no longer safe. Lochert must have sold it for another.”

“Right,” said Cerny. “Where are you?”

“Where do you think?”

“Don’t be smart.”

“I’m not being smart, Comrade Colonel. You’ve kept me in the dark. You wanted me in Austria from the beginning, didn’t you?”

He heard Cerny’s long sigh as static. “Brano, everything has gone to plan. Now hang up and return to your apartment on Web-Gasse and await further instructions.”

He almost didn’t say the words, but they’d come to him so many times over the last week and a half that by now there was no holding them back. “Have you abandoned me?”

Another pause. Brano glanced up at the man in the next booth, who was sinking down the wall, crying into his telephone. Cerny said, “Comrade Sev, you will receive your orders when I want you to receive them. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel. I just felt—”

“I don’t care about your feelings, Brano. Not at this moment. I care about the security of socialism. You’ll learn everything you need to learn, but only when you need to learn it. And stay away from our embassy—your presence is not their business. Are you reading the
Kurier?”