Read Online The Confession by Olen Steinhauer - Free Book Online

wonder.
    “Remember in August?” he asked me. “Just before your vacation. There was that Ukrainian. He came back from the camps and beat his son to death because he’d become a clerk for the Central Committee.”
    “Lev Urlovsky,” I said. “He was at the Vátrina Work Camp.”
    “Yeah.” He leaned forward. “When we arrested him, he showed no remorse. None at all. It was strange to see.”
    “After killing his own son?” said Magda. “That’s horrible.”
    “Ágnes,” I said, and it took a second for her to hear me. “Ágnes, take Pavel for a walk.”
    She sighed loudly, but got up and left the room. Pavel followed, nails clicking on the floor.
    “You don’t know,” said Leonek. “You just don’t know what they’ve been through. The Turks were going to take my father to prison, but they shot him instead.” His hands settled on the table, on either side of his plate. “Maybe he was lucky.”
    I heard the front door open and slam shut.

21
     

     
    The two wine bottles were empty, so I went to get another from the kitchen, and when I returned, Leonek was leaning back in his chair, legs stretched out beneath the table, frowning again. Magda shrugged. When I filled his glass, he took it absently and pressed it to his lips, but did not drink. Then he set the glass back on the table and looked at Magda. “I’m going to do it,” he said.
    I was almost afraid to ask. “Do what?”
    He turned to me. “I’m going back into the files. I’m going to investigate Sergei’s murder.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Why not?” He drank some wine. “I told you before, there are no more responsibilities for me. This is the only responsibility I have left.”
    “Who’s Sergei?” Magda asked.
    “You met him a couple times during the Occupation.”
    “My partner, Sergei Malevich.” Leonek put his elbows on the table. “He was killed just after the war. Shot in the back of the head.”
    “I think I remember. The Russian, right?”
    We nodded.
    “He was nice.” She looked at Leonek. “And it wasn’t investigated?”
    I spoke up. “He was looking into the rape and murder of a couple girls in a synagogue. We knew who had done it, everyone knew: Russian soldiers. But we couldn’t do a thing. Sergei was insistent, though.”
    “Because he was Russian,” said Leonek. “It tore him up that everyone in the Capital thought of Russians this way, as rapists and murderers.”
    Magda refilled our glasses.
    Leonek took another drink. “He wanted to prove either that the killers weren’t Russian, or that if they were, a Russian could bring them to justice. You remember that night?”
    I did.
    “He called me,” said Leonek, “then I called you. He wanted us to meet him down by the water. There was that thick fog, and by the time we showed up he was dead. It was unreal. We could even hear the gunman running away, but couldn’t see more than a foot ahead of us.”
    “Is there anything left of it?” I asked. “In the files. After so long, it’ll be hard to follow the leads.”
    “I can at least try.”
    “What about his family?” Magda asked. “Wasn’t he married?”
    “His wife and son, Kliment, moved to Moscow.” Leonek smiled. “Kliment became a militiaman too.”
    Magda stared at Leonek, cheeks flushed, and I realized then that she had been doing most of the drinking. She was a little drunk, and maybe I was too.
    Leonek looked into his glass, then popped his head up. “This is really good wine!” I guess he was drunk as well.
    I heard the front door open, saw Magda’s face turn to me, flushed and radiant, and that was when it bubbled through me, and over me.
    I was in the present. I was not thinking of later that evening, when we would be alone again and the strained silence would keep us far from the one sad subject that was the only thing we could ever think about. I was in the present, where I was generous and could forget a single night almost two decades old, because marriage and all the