Yalta Boulevard (24 page)

But almost nothing they did was secret, at least to the East. The Office of Policy Coordination was riddled with leaks, including the famous Kim Philby; and in the end its leader, Frank Wisner, had a mental breakdown, living out his final years with the English until paranoia and mania finally led him to end his own life two years ago.

That evening in 1952, Brano had been on the reception committee when Lytvyn and his partner descended through the birches into a ring of well-informed soldiers. He’d been an amiable prisoner, answering questions with the carefully constructed cover story Brano and his associates had already been briefed on. But, with time, Lytvyn did deliver his secrets, as they always do; his partner, however, didn’t survive the interrogation. Once it was over, Lytvyn was put to work in the eastern mines. Then, like many, he was released in the ill-planned amnesties of 1956. After that, he must have found his way here.

“He’s got a lot of stories,” said Ersek. “But these stories have made him a dribbling wreck of a man.”

“I imagine,” said Brano. “Who’s the best?”

Ersek didn’t hesitate. “Filip, hands down. Filip Lutz. You heard of him?”

Brano, smiling slightly, shook his head.

“But even the great Filip Lutz,” said Ersek, “even he suffers from the condition all these exiles share.”

“What’s that?”

“Insufferable goddamned nostalgia.”

And as if on cue, someone put a coin into the jukebox and the bar was filled with a melody Brano knew, played on strings, the prewar national anthem that had been banned in 1947. A couple of drunks in the back stood up on wobbly legs, glassy-eyed, and placed their hats over their hearts.

2 APRIL 1967, SUNDAY
•

“What do
you think, Brano?” Ludwig spoke today without inflection.

“About what?”

“The Carp. You spent a long time there Friday night, talked to a lot of people.”

“It’s good to talk with your own kind sometimes.”

“Any of them old friends?”

“I did recognize a couple faces, but I don’t think I ever knew them.”

“And no one approached you.”

“Just to introduce themselves. We’re a polite people.”

Ludwig nodded into his whiskey. “But you did it the smart way.”

“Smart?”

“You told them the truth. Or a kind of truth. It surprised me at first—I thought you’d arrange some innocuous cover.”

“Too complicated,” said Brano. “Thanks for the mail, by the way.”

“Mail?”

Brano reached into his pocket and brought out the pamphlet
A Communist War?
Ludwig raised his eyebrows as he accepted it.

“Your reading materials are improving, Brano.”

“You didn’t put it in my mailbox?”

Ludwig shook his head, smiling as he read. “The Committee for Liberty in the Captive Nations? When I give you political tracts, they won’t be from American fundamentalists.” He shook his head. “Maybe Friedrich did it. He’s quite the churchgoer. But these people …”

“What about them?”

Ludwig handed back the pamphlet. “Unimportant. They want a war to eradicate communism. Not a cold war, but a hot one.”

“Everyone has an opinion.”

Ludwig nodded.

“Tell me something,” said Brano. “Why did you bring me here?”

“To the Mozart?”

“To Austria. I don’t have much useful information for you, and we both know my people won’t contact me while you’re watching. You’re spending a lot of resources on an operation with little payback. It doesn’t make sense.”

Ludwig emptied the whiskey into his mouth and signaled the waiter for another. “What makes you think we were responsible for bringing you here?”

“I know the Americans arranged it—Jan Soroka went to their embassy—but I haven’t seen an American since I arrived. Just you.”

Ludwig shrugged. “All I had to do was clear our side of the border and share the information on Hungarian border movements—times and locations—so you and the Sorokas could walk through. Pretty easy. In return, I got you.”

“For how long?”

“That’s for me to know, Brano. Let’s change the subject, shall we?”

“As you like.”

“Remember Erich Tobler on Hauptstraße?”

“Of course.”

“Well, we’ve had a pretty extensive talk with him. At first he said he didn’t know Bertrand Richter. He’d never heard of the guy.”

“I remember.”

“He stuck to his story a long time.”

“So he’s stronger than you thought.”

“Well, not so strong.”

“No?”

“We became a little inventive with him, coming up with persuasions. And, finally, he did admit to the murder.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is, Brano, I don’t believe him. He doesn’t know any of the details of the killing. He can’t verify a thing.”

Brano put his chin in his hand. Ludwig looked very tired, as if he’d spent the whole week working on poor Erich Tobler. “You know,” he said, “I once interrogated a man in East Berlin, at the Gedenkstätte Hohenschœn-hausen.”

“The Stasi’s interrogation center.”

“Yes. We suspected he had killed one of our men not far from the Brandenburg Gate. He told us he didn’t even know the man. Then, after a while, he told us everything. He had killed the man, and he offered details of the killing. As with Erich, the facts didn’t match, and we were sure he was just giving us what we wanted to hear so the interrogation would end. But we were wrong. He’d planned everything; he’d had his layers of cover carefully set up. After we let him go, he killed another of our operatives—this time there were witnesses—and …”

“The man you told me about. The one you killed.”

Brano shrugged.

Ludwig accepted a fresh whiskey from the waiter and held it beneath his chin. “Unfortunately, we can’t follow the matter any further with Tobler.”

“He’s dead?”

“Let’s just say he’s disappeared.”

The jukebox was playing very loud rock-and-roll music. Brano didn’t recognize the tune, and he didn’t think he wanted to know it. Ersek Nanz was at the bar with a fat man who needed a shave. Ersek swiveled on his stool, already drunk, though it was only eight. “The mysterious Brano Sev. Where have you been?”

“Here and there.”

The fat man turned in his chair to look at Brano, using thumb and forefinger to adjust his wire-rimmed glasses, while his other hand clutched a newspaper.

“Meet my best and brightest,” said Ersek. “Filip Lutz.”

Filip Lutz cocked his head and stuck out a big, wobbly hand as Ersek leaned close and whispered something into his ear. Lutz’s eyes widened. “The spy?”

“Ex-spy,” said Brano. He’d expected Monika would spread the word, but he hadn’t expected it to come back to him so soon.

Lutz wouldn’t release his hand. “We, my man, must have a talk when I’m sober. I want to know your whole story.”

“It’s not very interesting.”

“They’re all interesting,” he said, letting go finally and waving to signify the entire bar. “All of them. I’m collecting stories from everyone, for a new book, called
Escape from the Crocodile.”

“Crocodile?”

“You know that nightclub in the Capital? The one all the Russians go to?”

“Ah,” said Brano. “I see now.”

“Not bad, eh?”

“Not bad at all,” Brano lied.

“Tomorrow, you come to the Café-Restaurant Landtmann—you know it? By the Burgtheater.”

“I know it.”

“That’s my office. Can’t stand to make my own coffee. You come by any time you like and tell me your story. It’s a deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

“Monika,” said Ersek, “set our friend up with a palinka.”

“Did you see this?” asked Lutz. He handed over yesterday’s
Kronen Zeitung
and pointed at a photo on the front page of four young men with outlandish scarves around their necks walking away from an airplane. The headline:
ROLLING STONES EHER ZAHMER
.

“They’re a musical group, aren’t they?” asked Brano.

Lutz glanced at Ersek, then laughed. “You really haven’t been out long, have you?”

Brano shrugged, which allowed Lutz the opportunity to launch into a monologue on the cultural relevance of the Rolling Stones’ appearance in Vienna. “It’s the new generation making itself heard. And it doesn’t matter how poorly these kids play their instruments. They’re becoming the mouthpiece of the world.”

Ersek said, “I give rock and roll five more years at most. At
most.”

Brano’s palinka arrived, and Lutz proposed a toast to the children of the world, but Ersek refused.

“They want to destroy European culture, and I can’t toast that.”

“They are European culture,” said Lutz.

“My sister,” said Brano, “thinks European culture is Christianity.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Ersek.

“They call it the Dark Ages for a reason,” Brano said.

“You’re right,” said Lutz. He looked at Ersek. “He’s right. Christianity just slowed culture down.”

“Exactly,” said Brano.

“It was capitalism that got Europe on its feet again.”

Brano looked at him.

“Burgeoning middle class and all that. Who do you think commissioned the best painters of the Renaissance, Nanzi?”

Ersek shook his head. “Christ, I don’t care. Let’s just toast something. How about your new car?”

Lutz raised his glass. “To my Fiat Dino. The most stylish creature to ever grace the motorways of Europe.”

Brano drank with them, lipping the bitter brandy. He cleared his throat. “Is it really so lucrative?”

Lutz furrowed his brow.

“Collecting exiles’ stories. A new sports car can’t be cheap.”

“I’m a busy man. I write my column for
Kurier
. Maybe you’ve read it.”

“Once or twice, yes.”

“I’ve got other projects in the works, though, more
active
journalism.”

“Shh,”
said Ersek. “The secret works of a mad genius.” He raised his glass to Filip Lutz’s mad genius.

Lutz winked at him. “I’m going to shake up a few Politburo lackeys before I’m done.”

“Oh?” said Brano. “How are you going to do that?”

Filip Lutz shrugged, the first and last sign of modesty that night. “You, like Ersek, will know when the rest of the world knows.”

“The whole world?” asked Brano. “You’re an ambitious man, Filip Lutz.”

“The only man in this bar,” said Ersek, “whose ambition matches his ability.”

“Come on, boys. I’m turning red now.”

So Ersek returned to his favorite subject, the incompetence of writers from their country, though Lutz shook his head. “You’ve never been there, Nanzi. You don’t understand where these people come from.”

“I don’t understand? Are you telling
me
I don’t understand?”

“Did you know,” said Lutz, “that the Americans have invented an oven that doesn’t use heat? It uses radiation—
micro
waves. That’s a culture worth studying, Nanzi. I don’t know why you bother with us.”

Ersek waved for another palinka. “An atomic bomb to fry a chicken?”

“They’re a bright people,” said Brano.

The jukebox was playing the old national anthem again. Lutz stared into his empty glass, then slid off the stool and stood rigidly, hands by his sides, and began murmuring the words.

Look! Look! The hawk is flying low
.

From the Carpat to the steppes, he marks his territory
.

Ersek winked at Brano. “Are you busy this Friday?”

“I’m never busy these days.”

The borders are ringed with fire!

“I’m having a party at my place, and you’re most definitely invited. Time to get some new blood into this dull scene.”

Brano thanked him for the invitation. When he looked back, he saw tears spilling from Lutz’s baggy eyelids as his lips worked out the words.

But we’d burn our great Tisa

Before we’d forsake our Land!

5 APRIL 1967, WEDNESDAY
•

Perhaps because
of Ludwig’s encouragement, on Wednesday Brano watched a film, an English film. It was dubbed into German and concerned an English spy who wore horn-rimmed glasses. From what he understood, the spy was in fact a thief who had been coerced into working for the queen under the threat of being returned to prison. He didn’t know if this was the filmmaker’s criticism of British intelligence services or simply narrative flavor.

Most of the action took place in Berlin, which was part of the title; some scenes were set along the Wall. He’d seen the Wall up close enough to know these scenes were filmed in a studio, but the effect was not bad. There was a Russian general who reminded him of the Comrade Lieutenant General he’d known before his last return from Vienna—all jokes, drinks, and backslapping, which cloaked his darker intentions. In fact, some of the more opaque scenes seemed, in retrospect, to have been comic, but Brano was unable to quite find the humor in them at the time.

Although he did not want to return to the Carp, he felt it was his duty. He was in a foreign city, and his only order—from both the Austrians and Cerny—was to wait. And there was always the possibility that useful information would pass by him, so he should be there to pick it up.

The world of the affluent political exile, it seemed to Brano, was cursed by two deficiencies: its miniscule size and its inflated sense of self-importance. While a great city surrounded them—be it West Berlin or Tel Aviv or Vienna—the exiles consistently walled themselves off from their new homes in well-heated bars and cafés and dinner parties, and occasional visits to the brothels; expatriate communities were always very masculine. In these small ponds, medium-sized fish seemed enormous, and the largest were those with the most fluid tongues. And because they lived outside their native language and country, these exiles no longer felt responsible for what they said. They lived entrenched in their narrow-minded theories and petty jealousies, never quite part of the real world. So they spoke endlessly, adapting to the quick-step of empty dialogue. And any words they uttered were assumed to be as valuable as a piece of china, pristine and vague.