Olen Steinhauer - The confession

Leonek looked at me. I shook my head. “We’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, he was the only one I’d told about the four soldiers taking those little girls into the synagogue. There were a couple other witnesses, but they kept quiet. I can’t blame them, particularly after all that’s happened to me.”

“But you saw it?” asked Leonek.

“I saw enough. They took the girls in there, and I heard them scream. I tried to find some help, but everyone was too frightened. I was, too, or else I would have gone into that synagogue. I told all this to Osip. He knew some of these men. He thought I should go to the Militia about it. But I wasn’t sure. I mean, I didn’t know who I could trust and who I couldn’t. Finally, this Malevich guy started asking questions. He didn’t get anything until he finally came across Osip. Osip told him about me, and he set up a meeting that same night. At the Tisa. Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “With that fog, I knew something had to go wrong.”

“So you showed up,” said Leonek.

“I showed up, all right. And I found him. He was on the bank, waiting. But Osip had never really described what he looked like. He’d only told Sergei what I looked like. So I came closer, to let him get a look at me, and Sergei did see me. He started to step forward, then a man’s voice called his name. I could tell this was unexpected because he quickly stepped back into the fog and looked away from me. It was thoughtful of him. The last act of his life was to save mine.”

Leonek leaned back, hands on his knees, and nodded. “And you saw what happened afterward.”

“I had no choice,” he said. “I was afraid that if I started walking, this second guy would hear my footsteps. And I didn’t know anything about him. So I stood a little bit away, not moving, and watched a tall man-Kaminski-come over and start talking with Sergei.”

“What did they say?”

“I don’t know. It was all in Russian. I know some now, but back then I didn’t know any. Kaminski was very calm, it seemed to me. And at first Sergei was calm, too, but then he wasn’t. Because Kaminski had a gun on him. He must have told Sergei to lie on the ground, because that’s what he did. He lay facedown, and not once did he look in my direction. Then Kaminski squatted and shot him in the back of the head.”

I remembered it myself. The thick fog and the sound of the gunshot echoing off the water.

“When the Russian heard more footsteps, he stood up. That’s when I recognized him, from the Jewish quarter. Then he pocketed the gun and ran off. I did, too.”

Leonek was flexing his hands in his lap, staring. He looked at me. We were both remembering the running footsteps that echoed back at us as we stood over Sergei’s dead body, immobile.

“My mistake was that I told Osip about it. He didn’t turn me in, nothing like that. But somebody must have suspected he knew something-he was dead a week later. I didn’t know if they knew about me or not, so I kept myself hidden just in case.”

I said, “You stayed in your apartment with Antonin and Zoia.”

“They were the only ones who knew where I was, so it only made sense that they had turned me in.”

“They weren’t the only ones,” I said. “Louis knew.”

Louis was pouring himself a second shot, and at the sound of his name spilled some on the table. He started shaking his head vigorously. “No. That’s not it. That’s not how it was at all.”

Nestor stared at Louis.

I said, “Louis didn’t turn you in on purpose. But whenever he came into town he notified the Office of Internal Corrections. He also told the office who he was going to meet. But Louis couldn’t know that the man who killed those girls and Sergei not only ran this office, but had also probably learned Nestor’s name by beating it out of Osip Yarmoluk before killing him. With all this information, Kaminski didn’t have to track Nestor down at all. Didn’t have to kill him. All he had to do was plant a couple anonymous accusations against him, then connect him with a foreigner coming into town. That’s all that was needed.”

“But I didn’t show up!” said Louis. “They had nothing on him!”

Nestor, sunk deep into the sofa, arms crossed over his chest, stared at Louis. “Accusations were enough back then.”

Louis’s face was red and damp. “You don’t understand! I tried to get him out. I tried.”

“You did,” I said, then turned to Nestor. “He’s not lying. He went straight to Yalta Boulevard, to Kaminski’s office, when he found out. Kaminski didn’t even open his door.”

Nestor said to Louis, “But why would you tell them anything in the first place?”

Louis chewed air, eyes rolling as he tried to find the right words.

“He was an informer,” I said. “It was his job to tell them when he was in the country. All for the glories of world revolution.”

Nestor stood up and went to the bathroom. Leonek stood too, as if to follow, then settled back down. He looked at me and shook his head. “Christ.”

There was a knock at the door. I pulled out my gun and stood beside it. Leonek had his gun out as well, and Louis shrank into his chair, terrified.

“Ferenc?” It was a woman’s voice. A high squeak.

I put my gun away and opened the door a little. Claudia peered up at me. “Hello, Claudia. I don’t have a lot of time-”

“It’s not that,” she said, and glanced down the stairwell. “I just thought you should know. There was a man here last night.”

“A man?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “A Russian. He knocked on your door, I could hear him from downstairs. Loud, that one. Loud.”

“Do you know what he wanted?”

“How should I know? But he was calling your name. He said he knew you were in. Then he left.”

“That’s all he said?”

“That’s it. You weren’t there, were you?”

I shook my head.

“That’s what I thought. I’d heard you go out earlier. But I wasn’t about to open my door and tell him. I’m not that kind, you see.” She smiled and patted my hand on the door to assure me of this.

“Thank you, Claudia. I appreciate it.”

She tried in vain to peer past me into the apartment, then rocked back on her heels and shrugged. “We’re neighbors, Ferenc. It’s nothing.”

After I’d heard her footsteps descend the steps and her door open and shut, I sat across from Louis. “Did you tell them about this trip?”

“Them?”

“Yalta Boulevard.”

He shook his head. “I stopped that after my last visit. They’ve tried to get me back, but I haven’t done anything for them since.”

Leonek pocketed his pistol. “Louis checked into the Metropol, and the hotel sent in the daily registration report. Of course they know he’s in town.”

I walked over to the radio set. “And when Kaminski went to Louis’s room, the lock was broken and the room was empty. But he didn’t think to check for our names on the register.” I looked at Leonek. “The three of us were very close to death in that hotel.”

He had been in there a while, so I knocked on the bathroom door, then opened it. Nestor was on the edge of the tub, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He looked old and exhausted. I came in and closed the door. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” That’s when I realized he’d been crying. He said, “It’s just that I’ve ruined everything. I thought that when I got out of the camp I could make everything right. I would make some justice where there hadn’t been any before. But look at what I’ve done.”

I sat on the toilet and folded my hands on my knees. The bathroom was very white, and it hurt my eyes.