him that Frank Jones and his Virginia driver’s license weren’t a lie. He
was
American. No one from Gavra’s country could master the accent and idiomatic phrases as well as he had.
Before dying, Kolev had told him two things. One, that Lebed Putonski’s life was in danger. Two, that he got his information from a contact in the CIA. Were those two facts linked? Had Central Intelligence ordered Putonski’s murder?
Hours later, with Beth Atkins’s head sliding dangerously close to his shoulder, Gavra went back to this slow line of reasoning.
Lebed Putonski was a defector, brought into the United States by Central Intelligence, protected for eight years, and then killed by his protectors. Why? Why now?
Beth Atkins’s head touched down on Gavra’s shoulder, but he didn’t move.
Back up. Lebed Putonski and Yuri Kolev knew each other after the war, when they shared duties on a public tribunal, sentencing prisoners to work camps and executions. Afterward, Putonski had become a Ministry bureaucrat, working his way up to Stockholm resident, passing on information from their local agents and relaying orders from home.
He unconsciously rubbed his eyes, and that movement woke Beth Atkins. She smiled and apologized for falling on him. “Can’t you sleep, dear?”
He shook his head. “I have a lot on my mind.”
She gave him a self-consciously sad expression. “You worried about your country?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”
Beth patted his arm, whispering, “Me too,” as if it were a secret.
Then she closed her eyes and returned, magically, to sleep.
EIGHT
•
In the
car, Katja said, “Where’re we going?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh no,” she said, because she did know.
“I need to try. It’ll be quick.”
“That
may not be up to us.”
I turned off of Lenin Avenue and took a side street to Victory Square. “Does Aron think you’re being overcautious sending him away?”
She grunted loudly. “That’s a funny one.”
“Oh?”
She gazed out at the vacant streets. “Aron’s… well, he’s been weird over the last half year. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
She was silent a moment, but when she spoke it came out as if she’d been wanting to say this for a long time. “He’s paranoid, Emil. Or he’s seemed so for the last six months since his dad died. He thinks the world’s about to end. He’s gotten obsessed with the news, and every time something happens, it’s just more evidence that God’s hand is upon us.”
“What? He’s religious?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just like a … a premonition. I’ve had to listen to it every damned night.” She went into an imitation of Aron’s rants, citing a wide range of events: the collision on the River Thames of a pleasure boat and a barge, which killed fifty-one, the Tiananmen Square massacre that resulted in at least four hundred dead, the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco that killed sixty-three, and even a report in the Soviet media that an alien spacecraft had landed in Voronezh. Last November’s explosion in a Krosno fertilizer plant, which
The Spark
blamed on “Polish counterrevolutionary terrorists,” disturbed him, as did the murder of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan in August. “He was shocked by it, as if the man were a close
friend.”
And of course there were the changes occurring everywhere around us in our corner of the world. Each event became evidence for his unfocused paranoid thesis:
The world’s collapsing from every corner.
“You should’ve seen him in October, when the bulldozers were tearing down that old Calvinist church in our district. We could see it from the bedroom window. First he screamed about how he was going to kill Tomiak Pankov, then he just sat there for hours, watching the machines. I said to him,‘But you’re not even religious, Aron.’And he gave me that look. It’s a look I
was
American. No one from Gavra’s country could master the accent and idiomatic phrases as well as he had.
Before dying, Kolev had told him two things. One, that Lebed Putonski’s life was in danger. Two, that he got his information from a contact in the CIA. Were those two facts linked? Had Central Intelligence ordered Putonski’s murder?
Hours later, with Beth Atkins’s head sliding dangerously close to his shoulder, Gavra went back to this slow line of reasoning.
Lebed Putonski was a defector, brought into the United States by Central Intelligence, protected for eight years, and then killed by his protectors. Why? Why now?
Beth Atkins’s head touched down on Gavra’s shoulder, but he didn’t move.
Back up. Lebed Putonski and Yuri Kolev knew each other after the war, when they shared duties on a public tribunal, sentencing prisoners to work camps and executions. Afterward, Putonski had become a Ministry bureaucrat, working his way up to Stockholm resident, passing on information from their local agents and relaying orders from home.
He unconsciously rubbed his eyes, and that movement woke Beth Atkins. She smiled and apologized for falling on him. “Can’t you sleep, dear?”
He shook his head. “I have a lot on my mind.”
She gave him a self-consciously sad expression. “You worried about your country?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”
Beth patted his arm, whispering, “Me too,” as if it were a secret.
Then she closed her eyes and returned, magically, to sleep.
EIGHT
•
In the
car, Katja said, “Where’re we going?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh no,” she said, because she did know.
“I need to try. It’ll be quick.”
“That
may not be up to us.”
I turned off of Lenin Avenue and took a side street to Victory Square. “Does Aron think you’re being overcautious sending him away?”
She grunted loudly. “That’s a funny one.”
“Oh?”
She gazed out at the vacant streets. “Aron’s… well, he’s been weird over the last half year. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
She was silent a moment, but when she spoke it came out as if she’d been wanting to say this for a long time. “He’s paranoid, Emil. Or he’s seemed so for the last six months since his dad died. He thinks the world’s about to end. He’s gotten obsessed with the news, and every time something happens, it’s just more evidence that God’s hand is upon us.”
“What? He’s religious?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just like a … a premonition. I’ve had to listen to it every damned night.” She went into an imitation of Aron’s rants, citing a wide range of events: the collision on the River Thames of a pleasure boat and a barge, which killed fifty-one, the Tiananmen Square massacre that resulted in at least four hundred dead, the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco that killed sixty-three, and even a report in the Soviet media that an alien spacecraft had landed in Voronezh. Last November’s explosion in a Krosno fertilizer plant, which
The Spark
blamed on “Polish counterrevolutionary terrorists,” disturbed him, as did the murder of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan in August. “He was shocked by it, as if the man were a close
friend.”
And of course there were the changes occurring everywhere around us in our corner of the world. Each event became evidence for his unfocused paranoid thesis:
The world’s collapsing from every corner.
“You should’ve seen him in October, when the bulldozers were tearing down that old Calvinist church in our district. We could see it from the bedroom window. First he screamed about how he was going to kill Tomiak Pankov, then he just sat there for hours, watching the machines. I said to him,‘But you’re not even religious, Aron.’And he gave me that look. It’s a look I
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