36 Yalta Boulevard tyb-3 Read online

  36 Yalta Boulevard

  ( The Yalta Boulevard - 3 )

  Olen Steinhauer

  Olen Steinhauer

  36 Yalta Boulevard

  PRELUDE

  15 AUGUST 1966, MONDAY

  It was the smell that would stay with him when he remembered this moment: grassyes, and flowers. Strong, musty. Then a glut of syllables. Rough tones. Eyes still closed, he tried to manage the sounds into words, then sentences.

  “ Stehen Sie auf! ”

  Guttural, crisp. Behind the voice, birds twittered.

  And in his head something thumped, but the pain was manageable; he could hold it in his hand and squeeze it into submission.

  “ Sie sind Nicht tot, oder? Nein.”

  Pressure-fingers gripped his shoulder, then shook. First hesitantly, then with confidence.

  “ Kommen Sie.”

  He waited, because… he didn’t know why. He only knew he should wait, a few seconds, before opening his eyes and proving that he was, in fact, awake.

  Now.

  A bright sun and, as he suspected, grass. His cheek was buried in freshly trimmed blades, arms spread out. Hovering above, a heavyset man in a strange uniform smiled and scratched his mustache.

  “ Da sind Sie ja. Stehen Sie jetzt auf.”

  German, Austrian accent. There you are. Get up now.

  The policeman helped him up, straightened his jacket, and brushed him off with quick, economical slaps.

  “ Bitte schon, mein Herr. 1st alles in Ordnung? ”

  He nodded. “ Alles in Ordnung.”

  He could speak it, but the language wasn’t his.

  They were standing in a grassy semicircle bordered by geometric bushes that caged flowers. Roses or carnations-he couldn’t quite focus yet. Beyond the policeman were trees, a young couple walking hand in hand, students lying in the grass reading, and a white-bearded old man leaning against a tree, staring at them.

  “Drunk?”

  He shook his head. “ Nein.”

  “Name?”

  He opened his mouth. The policeman waited, blinking.

  “Documents? You have documents, ja?”

  He patted his pockets and glanced behind himself: a small Greek temple with a statue on a plinth-a young, naked man looking to the side. In his breast pocket he found a typed card with a name.

  The policeman squinted at it. “Bertrand Richter?”

  “ Ja.”

  “This is a library card. Anything else?”

  He shrugged. “Sorry. At home.”

  “What are you doing here, Bertrand?”

  He had no idea. “I was out late last night. I guess I fell asleep.”

  The policeman smiled again. “You have an interesting accent, Bertrand.”

  “I travel a lot.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I buy and sell Persian rugs.”

  “I see.”

  The policeman considered him a moment, glanced into the sun, and returned the card. “Be a little more responsible in the future, Bertrand.”

  “Of course. I apologize.”

  The policeman smoothed his mustache with thick fingers. “Don’t apologize to me. It’s Vienna that doesn’t want drunks littering its parks. Need help getting home?”

  “No. No, thank you.”

  He did not sell Persian rugs, and his name was not Bertrand. Although he could not remember what his name was, he was sure that this was not it. He walked south through the park-der Volksgarten, he remembered, Garden of the People-toward the spires of the Hofburg Imperial Palace rising above the treetops. The vast square in front of its arc was speckled with tourists and businessmen drifting past the statue of a man on a rising horse-this, too, he knew: the monument to Archduke Charles.

  He knew Vienna, its geography and its histories-that much was apparent. But this was not his home-walking its streets gave him a vague sense of agoraphobia, and the German he spoke was strange, from somewhere else.

  Just past the archduke he turned left, entering a tunnel that burrowed through the palace, where statues of long-dead royalty looked down from crevices, making him think of old wars on horseback.

  And for a reason he could not place, those statues filled him with disgust.

  He emerged on another square and sat in the shadow of a white church beneath a high clock tower, then touched the throbbing sore spot on the back of his head. Underneath, the hair was stiff from dry blood. In his jacket pocket he found a slip of white paper, folded in half, with barely legible handwriting: Dijana Frankovi c, followed by a telephone number.

  He stared for a while, but could not remember her.

  There was a telephone booth on the other side of the square, and he briefly considered it. But he felt that he should not call the number, and he was clearheaded enough to follow his muted instincts.

  Between the church and the gloomy Raiffeisenbank, he followed Kohlmarkt down to Graben, a pedestrian shopping street choked with outdoor cafe tables where all of Vienna, it seemed, stared at him. He entered a cafe at random and found a bathroom with three sinks. Beside him, a businessman in a clean suit checked his straight, white teeth in a rusting mirror, then left.

  He splashed water on himself and stared at his wet face. Round but thin, with three moles on his left cheek. He tried to guess his own age-somewhere in his forties, perhaps. He felt much older.

  He removed his jacket, then rolled up his sleeves. That was when he noticed the blood smeared down his right forearm; it wasn’t his blood. He washed it off.

  It seemed that at this point he should panic, but he took in each new piece of information as if it were part of a checklist on a clipboard. Don’t know my name. Check. Woman’s phone number. Check. Don’t know age. Check. Someone else’s blood on me. Check.

  He went through his pants, and in a back pocket found another slip of paper-small, one inch square, a dry-cleaning ticket:

  321

  HOTEL KAISERIN

  ELISABETH

  A phone booth directory told him that the Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth was not far away-down Graben, then a right at the high, corroded Gothic of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. He paused at the Huber Tricot clothing store, but by now the path was coming back to him. Left, just a few doors down, past cigarette-and gold-sellers’ storefronts. Weihburg-Gasse 3. The Kaiserin Elisabeth was plain-faced and white, the glass awning held together by an iron frame. A thin bellboy in green stood before the wooden doors, hands clasped behind his back. “ Gru? Gott,” said the bellboy.

  He nodded a reply, then went inside.

  The narrow entry was lined in marble-to the left, an alcove with elevator and stairs; to the right, a reception desk, where a woman read a book. She smiled at him as he passed.

  His instincts kept him shuffling ahead, beyond the desk. Which was strange. A reasonable course of action would be to approach the desk clerk and ask the simple questions: Do you recognize me? and What is my name? But, as with the phone number still in his pocket, he could not bring himself to do what was reasonable.

  Through double doors he found an empty sitting room, where a regal patterned carpet stretched beneath a domed glass ceiling. In a portrait above the cold fireplace, Queen Elisabeth looked as if nothing could amuse her. He settled on one of the padded chairs arranged around polished coffee tables and flipped absently through a copy of the day’s Kurier.

  He could wait here for hours-but for what? Perhaps nothing. He read that a German writer named Pohl had just died; the Americans had begun broadcasting on Radio Free Asia; and in the back, a concerned reader had written in to protest U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of war in Vietnam.

  But none of these could compare to his mystery. He folded the newspaper as t
he double doors opened, and the bellboy walked up to him. His loose blond hair hung low over his bright blue eyes, and his smile seemed completely insincere. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I just wanted to get my key.”

  The boy winked. “Let me take care of that for you.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  He followed the bellboy back into the lobby and watched him approach the desk. “ Drei-zwei-eins.”

  The woman set her book aside and reached back to the wall of slots. She handed over a key on a weighted ring and an envelope.

  The bellboy gave him both items, saying of the envelope, “This was left for you last night.”

  “By whom?”

  The bellboy looked back at the desk clerk. She said, “I wasn’t here last night.”

  The bellboy shrugged. “Would you like me to accompany you, sir?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “ Gru? Gott,” said the bellboy.

  He took the elevator up three floors without opening the envelope. His patience was a surprise. The natural impulse was to rip it open, but instead he slipped it into his jacket pocket and walked down the hallway to the door marked 321.

  The room was large and clean but lived-in. He crossed the carpeted floor to an empty suitcase in the corner and found that the wardrobe was filled with clothes. Inside the envelope was a wallet-old, the leather well worn-with money, schillings and koronas (these pink and pale-blue bills began a trickle of associations), and a faded photograph of mountains he knew were the Carpathians.

  There was no other identification in the wallet, but details were beginning to come to him. This room was familiar, and this—

  He crouched beside the wardrobe and reached beneath. His fingers found it quickly, and he was soon peeling off the tape that attached a maroon passport to the underside of the wardrobe. He opened the passport and found a photograph of himself with his three moles. Above a name.

  SEV, BRANO OLESKY

  Even now, with the evidence in front of him, his name was strange, three words that could not quite fit in his mouth. He was forty-nine years old. His country-he was an Easterner, and that felt right. But not comfortable. He stepped over and locked his door.

  A passport, a wallet, and a phone number, which he took out of his pocket and read again. Dijana FrankoviC. He lifted the phone.

  It rang seven times before he hung up, and with each muted buzz another fragment came to him:

  A party in a large, smoky apartment, full of people.

  Him with a drink in his hand, asking a short, wrinkled man, Have you seen Bertrand? The man shakes his head and walks away.

  A crowd of young people cross-legged on the living room floor around a long-haired man strumming an acoustic guitar. Everyone singing in unison: Love, love me do. You know I love you…

  A drunk woman with striking brown eyes edged in green, and black hair pulled behind her ear. Bertrand? she says. / tell him go to hell. Da. He is boring.

  Awkward dancing-him with the brown-eyed one, who whispers into his ear. Brano Sev, I am in the—

  Again with her, but the air is fresh, her arm linked with his as they make their way down the sidewalk. “ Zbrka,” she tells him, is Serbian word what mean… confusion. Da. What is confusion of too many thing.

  Then blackness, but her voice: You want I should read your future?

  He cradled the receiver and closed his eyes, trying without success to dredge up more.

  In the shower he examined himself. There was no more blood but a remarkable number of scars. A long white thread etched down his right thigh, and there were two punctures above his left breast. Drying himself in front of the mirror, he found more marks on his back and a knot of white tissue on his shoulder. He wondered how he could have earned these.

  Then the telephone rang.

  “Herr Sev?” said a woman’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “This is the front desk. A gentleman is coming up to speak with you.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. But I felt you should know… he told me you had left town, and he was here to collect your things.”

  Brano Sev was suddenly aware of his nudity. “My things?”

  “Yes, sir. I told him you were in your room, and he seemed very surprised.”

  “Thank you.”

  He dressed quickly, slipping his wallet and passport into his pockets. He was buttoning his shirt when the rap on the door came.

  “Yes?”

  A hesitant, deep voice, but not German. It was his own Slavic tongue. “It’s me, Brano. Let me in.”

  “Who?”

  A pause. “You’re not going to pull that code-word crap with me, are you? It’s me, Lochert. Now open up.”

  Brano unlocked the door and stepped back. “Come in.”

  He was faced with a tall blond man with a thin, halfhearted mustache above pursed lips. “Well?” said Lochert. “You want to hit me or something?”

  “Should I?”

  That seemed to relieve the visitor, and he closed the door. “Look, Brano, I don’t know what happened last night. I guess we were attacked. But at least Gavrilo’s dead.”

  “Who’s Gavrilo?”

  “What are you getting at, Brano?”

  “Just tell me who Gavrilo is.”

  Lochert blinked a few times. “ GAVRILO is the code name for Bertrand Richter.”

  Brano reached into his pocket and handed over the library card. Lochert examined it.

  “Yeah? And?”

  “Why is Bertrand Richter dead?”

  Lochert rubbed the edge of the card with a thumb. “What’s going on, Brano?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “What do you mean you don’t remember?”

  “Just what I said. I don’t remember a thing. I woke up in the Volksgarten this morning and I don’t know how I got there. I’m not even sure who I am.”

  Lochert cleared his throat and pursed his lips again. He sat on the bed. “Amnesia?”

  “Yes. Amnesia.”

  “You don’t remember me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Amazing.” Lochert stood again. “Incredible!” He walked to the door, then back, tapping Bertrand Richter’s library card against his thigh. “Okay, right. Don’t worry about anything, Brano. Where’s your phone?” Before he could answer, Lochert had found it and was dialing. He covered the mouthpiece with a hand and said to Brano, “Pack.”

  Brano stared at him.

  “ Pack. You’re flying out of here.” Lochert uncovered the mouthpiece. “Yeah, it’s me. I’ve found him. No, but you won’t believe the condition.” He waved a hand at Brano and said to him, “Come on.”

  Brano emptied out the wardrobe as Lochert spoke.

  “Exactly… Two o’clock, TisAir. Right. The main terminal.” Then he hung up. “The ticket’s being reserved. All you have to do is pay for it.”

  Brano stopped packing. “Where am I going?”

  “You’re going home, Brano. Where you belong.”

  They took care of the bill together, the flaxen desk clerk watching carefully. “A receipt, please,” said Lochert, and she made one out under his name, Josef Lochert. The bellboy opened the front door and nodded courteously when Brano handed him a tip.

  When they got into a white Mercedes parked farther down Weihburg-Gasse, Brano noticed the plates. “Diplomatic car?”

  Lochert started the engine. “Useful. I can speed if I want.”

  Brano watched the city slide by as they made their way along the Ringstrasse past enormous Habsburg monoliths. They didn’t speak for a while, until Brano asked, “Did I kill him?”

  “Bertrand?”

  “Yes.”

  Lochert stared at the road a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, of course you did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Brano, he was a traitor. Don’t become moral on me, now. That man got what was coming to him.”

  “But how was he a traitor?”

>   “He was selling us out to the Austrians. We used the code GAVRILO because we didn’t know who he was. Is that clear enough?”

  “Who’s we?”

  Lochert tapped the wheel and looked over at him. “You really don’t remember a thing, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Both of us work for the Ministry for State Security, on Yalta Boulevard.”

  “The Ministry for…” Tourists jogged across the road in front of them. “I’m a spy?”

  Josef Lochert laughed a loud, punchy laugh. “Listen to you! Major Brano Oleksy Sev asking me if he’s a spy!”

  “What about Dijana Frankovic?”

  He licked his lips. “She’s nobody, okay? A whore. And trouble. Forget about her. And stop with the questions. You’ll get all your answers soon enough.”

  Lochert dropped him off at the Flughafen Wien departures door and handed his bag over from the backseat. Brano placed it on the curb. “You said it’s reserved?”

  “Yeah,” said Lochert from inside the car. “Hand over your passport at the TisAir desk. It’s the two o’clock flight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have a good trip, Brano,” he said. “Now close the door.”

  Brano watched the Mercedes drive away.

  The airport was cool, with a vast marble floor leading to a row of airline desks. He waited behind a businessman arguing with the young woman standing under the TISA AERO-TRANSPORT sign, until the man, frustrated, walked off. The woman smiled at Brano.

  “May I help you?”

  “I have a reservation.” He handed over his passport. “The two o’clock flight.”

  The woman examined a list on the desk. “I’m afraid there’s no reservation for you, Herr Sev.”

  “But my friend made the call.”

  She read over the list again. “No, there’s not one here, but it doesn’t matter. There’s a free seat.”

  He paid for the ticket, handed over his bag, and asked for the bathroom. “Just past the lounge,” she said, pointing.

  He lit a cigarette as he passed tired-looking travelers sitting with their bags, some reading newspapers, others books. Beside the bathrooms was a line of pay phones, and he considered trying Dijana Frankovic’s number again. Much later, he would wonder if calling again would have changed anything that followed. But there’s never any way to know these things.