Olen Steinhauer - The confession

I didn’t want to argue. “What about Nestor?”

“That was what I didn’t know. I didn’t know there had been a witness to the synagogue murders-no record was kept of it in our files. And I certainly didn’t know how Kaminski was connected to those girls. One expects more of state security.” He shook his head. “But Kaminski finally admitted it all. In the interview room.”

“Oh.”

“I might have turned a blind eye to some of this, but I could not allow that Kaminski had killed Stefan. That was entirely beyond imagining.”

“Where is he now?”

Sev looked at his own fingernails, which were very clean. “He’s dead, Ferenc. His body was found in the Tisa. He’d been shot in the back of the head.”

I leaned forward, not quite understanding. “He-”

“Don’t ask, Ferenc.”

I took a deep, wavering breath as I leaned back again.

“Nestor Velcea is in a work camp in the east. He’s a miner. And now to you.” He straightened in his chair. “I’ve spent the last months arranging an amnesty. It was not easy. I couldn’t defend your actions on November the sixth, but I did talk with them in more depth about the situation with the Woznica woman. Emil was useful in this, as he knew the whole story. I was hoping that Malik Woznica himself could verify some facts, but he has not yet been found.”

I noticed my cold hands were beginning to shake.

“The best I could arrange was internal exile. You won’t be allowed in the Capital again, not without proper authorization.”

I remembered to say, “Thank you.”

“One condition.”

“What?”

“A confession. It’s bureaucratic, a simple thing. But they want an in-depth confession of your crime, as well as a full report on the case. You will deliver this to me.”

“And what will you do with it?”

“I’ll put it in your file. Type it up in the proper format, numbered, and wire me when you’re finished. That’s all they want.”

Later, I would think about how he used the word “they” instead of the more appropriate “we,” but at the time I just looked at my hands, at the red and black sores that covered them.

He said he would be back in a week with the release papers, and that in the meantime I should stay alive. I asked him how I should go about doing that. He shrugged. “Work hard.”

Over the next week I saw two more inmates shot, one of them Tibor Petrescu. He was killed in the wheatfields at twilight, on our way back to the camp. That day Tibor’s wheelbarrow had slid back on top of him, crushing his leg, and he spent the rest of the day up by the truck, helping collect sand that spilled out. In the fields he fell three times, and Cosmin, without hesitation, walked over and put a bullet in his head. He knew that Tibor and I had been friends, so he tossed me the burlap sack, and said, “He’s all yours, Kolyeszar.”

I collected Tibor as well as I could, at first trying not to look at the hole in his forehead. But then, as I folded his legs to make him fit into the bag, I paused to look directly into his face. He’d made it through a lot, but in the end a wheelbarrow signified his death. I hadn’t told him or anyone else about my impending release, because I didn’t want to face their agonizing, jealous stares, but I wished I had told him.

The next morning, which I later learned was the twentieth of February 1957, Cosmin came into the barracks before wake-up and called my name. Everyone moaned, half-awake, and I climbed down. “Now!” Cosmin shouted, and I hurried over to him. He quickly swung his truncheon against my arm, sending a bright, wakening pain through me. “Let’s get going.”

I followed him to the front gates, where a guard handed me a clipboard with a form on it. I couldn’t read it in the darkness, but signed where he pointed a finger. He lifted the sheet and had me sign another. Then a third. Cosmin grabbed my shoulder and pushed me forward as the guard opened the gate. “I better not see you again,” he whispered in my ear.

The gate closed behind me.

What I hadn’t seen in the darkness was a white Mercedes moving slowly up the long dirt path from the main road. Its lights leapt as it bumped along. Then it stopped about ten yards from me, and the driver’s door opened. A figure stood up and waved.

My legs no longer supported me. It was Emil.

“ Jesus, Ferenc. What did they do to you?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t even smile. Because I knew this must all be a dream. And I would wake soon to the bugle call and rotting mattresses and truncheons.

The female desk clerk at the Hotel Elegant-not Tania-was reluctant to give us a room when she saw me, and Emil had to use his Militia certificate to persuade her. “Don’t destroy the place,” she said as she handed over the key.

I took a long bath. Emil had been speaking ever since he picked me up, pausing only to puzzle over my silence and try to think of something else to say, but I hadn’t heard a word. The water blackened very quickly, so I emptied and refilled the tub. My sores hurt when I squeezed them dry, then scoured them. My hair had been shaved again the previous week, but the lice had returned to infest the little hair that had grown, so I used a razor to shave it off again. As I dried I caught myself in the mirror and understood Emil’s horror.

He was talking again when I came out, something about how he’d had to drop the Malik Woznica case because there were no clues, but I only said, “Did you know prisoners built this hotel?”

They were the first words I had spoken, and by the look on his face I knew they were the wrong words. “No. I didn’t know that, Ferenc.” He spoke the way one speaks to an injured child.

“I’ve got to admit,” I said, trying to sound human again, “I haven’t heard a thing you’ve said all this time. I’m sorry.”

He dropped onto a bed. The sun was beginning to shine through the cheap curtains. “I didn’t say anything important. Anyway, I bet you’d like to sleep on a real mattress.”

“Oh God,” I said, and fell into the other bed.

When I woke up, groggy and aching but rested, it was nighttime. Emil was out, but by the time I had gotten up and washed another time, he appeared with a small suitcase. “What’s that?”

“You’re not going to live in those striped rags, are you?”

Inside were clothes I could hardly remember after these months of prison garb. They were clean and pressed-perfectly. “Where did you get them?”

“Magda packed it all.”

“Did she try to come with you?”

He looked at the bed. “No. I suppose she didn’t think she could take it.”

“Leonek?”

“What?”

“Is she with him?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Ferenc. No one tells me a thing.”

“But you’ve seen them together.”

He looked away, nodded.

I didn’t ask anything more, because a part of me knew this all along.

In my clothes again, I almost felt like a man. My face was still battered, but my suit covered the sores, and when I walked the chafing reminded me that I was back with the living.

In the hotel restaurant I ate too much and had to vomit in the bathroom. When I returned I passed Tania at a table with a camp guard. She noticed my face and muttered something to the guard, who looked at me and nodded. But as I sat down I realized that she had no idea who I was.

The next morning we drove south, to Pocspetri. Emil didn’t tell me until we were halfway there that Lena had lost the child. “Emil. I’m sorry.”

He tugged down the sun visor. “I suppose we should just stop trying.”

“Has she been checked out by a doctor?”