Victory Square Read Free Page B

was in the lounge, sipping acorn coffee with one of the receptionists, a pretty girl from Vranov named Margit. “Bernard.”
    The big captain was surprised to see me. Surprised and embarrassed. Embarrassment looked funny on a man his size. He stood up, mustache twitching. “Chief.”
    “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got a corpse to look at.”
    “Oh!” said Margit.
    I led Bernard down a pea-colored stairwell to the second underground level, where I signed out an unmarked Militia Karpat and took the wheel. Once we’d turned onto Lenin Avenue, I broke the silence by asking about his wife: “How’s Agi?”
    “Good.”
    “The portrait’s today, isn’t it?”
    All he did was nod at that, which annoyed me. Today was the most important commission of Agota’s career—a large-format photograph of our Great Leader. He said, “She’s taking Sanja to Ti-sakarad this afternoon. Doesn’t want to wait for me.””Surprising,” I said, without a hint of surprise.
    Bernard Kovar was married to, and had a baby with, Agota, the daughter of my oldest friend, Ferenc Kolyeszar. Famous Ferenc. For the last thirty years, due largely to his literary career, Ferenc had been living in internal exile, first in Pocspetri, then in Tisakarad, forty-five minutes from Sarospatak. By now Ferenc was internationally famous; even the French had praised his “dissident” works.
    Agota moved to the Capital five years ago and, as her symbolic guardians, neither Lena nor I really approved when Bernard and she became an item. To us, he was still too young, at thirty-seven, to have an adult relationship with a woman ten years his senior. Despite that, they married, and nearly every day I found him flirting with another receptionist.
    We turned onto the roundabout at Victory Square. To the right, the high columns of the Central Committee Building rose up. In front of it, a bronze Vladimir Ilyich, jacket raised in a permanent breeze, pointed to the gray sky.
    I suppose Vladimir’s gone by now.
    “You’ve got a nice family,” I told him.
    “Christ, Emil. Can’t a man flirt?”
    I turned up Yalta Boulevard, then passed the high glass tower of the Hotel Metropol. Ahead, at number 36, two uniformed Ministry guards stood on the right side of the road, outside Ministry headquarters, waving pedestrians to the opposite sidewalk. “Just watch out,” I said. “It’s not only me you’ll have to answer to.” No?
    “Lena will have your balls.”
    Bernard groaned.
    When we climbed out, a guard waved at us, saying, “Nothing to see.”
    I flashed my Militia certificate. “Comrade Colonel Romek called me.” I said it as if the colonel and I were very old friends, then noticed the corpse. It was lying on the cracked sidewalk, covered by a simple white sheet. “Why’s the body out here?”
    The guard shrugged. “Orders.”
    Unbelievable. I approached Yuri Kolev’s body; his shroud rippled in the frigid breeze. “Go ahead,” I said to Bernard. “Let’s see him.”
    He crouched and pulled back the sheet, and when I saw the dead, gray-bearded face it came back to me: a loud, drunken old man from Brano Sev’s retirement party, who ogled Agota all night. I even remembered the man’s bitterness when Agota walked over to Bernard Kovar and asked him to dance.
    “Do I know this guy?” said Bernard, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think I know him.”
    “I hope you do,” said a calloused voice. We turned to find a small man in his fifties, with a thin gray mustache and brown suit, smiling. He stuck out a hand. “Nikolai Romek. Remember now?”
    I did. Yet another Agota-admirer from that party. Lena and I had had our hands busy keeping these men off of her, only to fail with Bernard. “Good to see you again, Comrade Romek. Meet Captain Bernard Kovar.”
    Romek smiled but didn’t offer his hand. “Of course. I remember.”
    “You going to explain this?” I said.
    “Explain what?”
    “You’ve taken Kolev out of his office and left