Bobby rose slowly and found a light switch by the door, and the twilight sprang away again. Irina was shaking her head, her mouth turned down. “I knew that something happened with that orchestra. He didn’t like to talk about them, ever. But I did not know it was this.”
“My God,” Bobby said. “It must have been very dangerous for him to see those things. What happened to him afterward? Did he tell you?”
Irina and Angelov were looking at each other, and Alexandra saw Angelov drop his gaze. Bobby translated for Alexandra. “He says there is more, but that he is not sure whether he should tell us.” Then Angelov turned, pointed. Bobby looked at her. “He says to put the bag on the table and open it.”
Alexandra obeyed. After a moment, the artist stood and drew the urn from its wrappings. “Yes, he carved this,” Bobby said. “He says that Stoyan asked him to make it, and in a special way.”
Angelov touched the border of leaves and flowers, raised the polished lid. Alexandra had not seen the urn open in several days, and she had never seen it completely bare of the velvet casing. She felt a surge of unease, as if there really might be a life inside. Angelov lifted out the plastic bag, its burden of gray and white ash shifting around inside, and placed it very gently on the table. Then he put his hand inside the empty urn and turned it. He lifted it again and pressed one side of the bottom, and she saw almost before it came apart that there must be another box fitted below, a sliding base nearly invisible except to the hands that had built it. Angelov set the top of the urn aside and showed them the separated box, with its own lid; his worn-down fingers shook. He stopped, spoke to them, and Bobby told Alexandra: “He says he is breaking a promise.”
The lid of the box flew open. Inside sat a folded wad of paper, thick, yellowing. They all looked at it in silence.
Then Irina said, “My God.” She leaned forward. “Does my sister know about this?”
“Ne,” said Angelov. He picked it up, carefully. “Only me.” Alexandra saw that his face had gone pale. He opened the folds of paper; they were thin—crinkled like old typing paper, and covered with a beautifully consistent handwriting in Cyrillic. He spread them flat on the table.
“There is a title,” Bobby told Alexandra. “It says, ‘A confession, by Stoyan Lazarov.’ Then there is a year—‘1991.’ He wrote this just after the changes.” He was looking hard at the top of the page. “Above that, in a different ink, it says ‘Only Milen Radev knows’—but as if the sentence was not finished.”
Irina seized Alexandra’s hand and gripped it so that it hurt. “Milen Radev? What else does it say?” she asked.
Angelov spread the first couple of pages out for them. “It is a memoir, I think,” Bobby said. “It seems to begin with—this is very strange. It begins with the story he has just told us, about the killing of the violinist in Stoyan Lazarov’s orchestra in Sofia.”
Angelov spoke and Bobby listened for a moment, nodded. “Stoyan asked him to make this box, to hide the story in it, and never to tell anyone unless a life depended on it. Now he wants me to read this to you. He says that his life does not depend on it, but ours might.”
1949
I had known something would happen, but I hadn’t known what.
The knock at our door around midnight was almost a satisfaction, the closing chord to what had been hovering in my dreams all night. I moved as close to the back of Vera’s neck as I could risk without disturbing her. She twisted drowsily, and I said, “No, no, just sleep—let me see what it is.”
The knock came again, more sharply. I pulled on my old sweater, which I used for a bathrobe. I went around the sheet that served as our bedroom partition and through the front room to the apartment door. I opened it quickly, so that I wouldn’t have extra time to think. There was no question of my not opening the door. That would only make things worse.
Three men stood in the hall, dressed in plain jackets and with ordinary black hats on their heads, no uniforms.
“Citizen Stoyan Lazarov?” one said. I realized instantly that it had been some time now since anyone had addressed me formally as anything but comrade. I had already been demoted from the Revolution.
“Yes,” I said. “Can I help you?”
A second man laughed shortly and they all stepped forward, so that I had to step back to let them into the apartment. The last one shut the door behind him. The one who had spoken stood right in front of me, a little too close, willing me not to move, which I didn’t. The other two went swiftly around our front room, pulling books off the few shelves, pushing the kitchen things here and there in the corner where we cooked, looking even under the stove lid. I couldn’t tell whether they were searching for something in particular or just making a mess of my possessions.
As I’d feared, the noise had brought Vera from bed; she lifted the cloth that served as our bedroom door and stepped out among them, all too beautiful in her faded gown and ruffled long hair. I tried to move toward her, but the ape in front of me clamped a hand on my arm to keep me where I was. Vera looked at the disorder, at the two men searching through our things, then at me, and fear leapt into her face. She crossed her arms tightly and stepped back toward the bedroom. I swore to myself that if any of them touched her I would fight back until they killed me, but after a glance or two they returned to their work.
“Just books, comrade,” said one of the searchers to the man who held me. “Some fascist books.” He held up a history of music I’d bought in Vienna, in German, and a French novel saved from my mother-in-law’s library. “Fascist propaganda.”
“The roman is in French, in fact,” I said. “An entirely different language.” Vera gave me an imploring look.
“Shame on you,” said the man who held me. I saw that, weirdly, he was serious. “Hoarding dirty fascist propaganda.”
“There’s no propaganda here,” I said as clearly as I could. “I returned to Bulgaria even before the war started. Besides, propaganda makes boring reading.” I wondered why I was talking this way, but couldn’t stop myself.
He shook me by the arm. His fingers were beginning to burn my skin. “In any case, you’ll need to come to the station for an identification check. Don’t bring anything except your card—it won’t take long.”
“I’m in my nightclothes,” I said.
“Well, dress, damn you.” He pushed me toward the bedroom. “And don’t touch her. Sit over there, please, comrade,” he said to Vera, pointing at a chair. She went to it, trembling. “And be fast, you.”
I went into our bedroom, behind the sheet—although it was terrifying to be out of sight of Vera for even a second—and dressed as quickly as I could. Something made me reach for my violin, which I always kept near me at night, and push it under the bed. I hoped they would not search the bedroom—we didn’t keep books there, so they might not be curious and perhaps the instrument would go unharmed. But I wanted it hidden.
I emerged in my street clothes and bent to kiss Vera as I passed her in her chair, although the head thug swatted at me. She was straining not to cry in front of them; her knees shook visibly. I got my shoes on somehow, next to the front door of the apartment, and kept my eyes fixed on her, my face turned toward her, until they made me stumble out the door. They shut it quietly enough behind me, perhaps not wanting to alert the neighbors on our hall. I didn’t know why they should take this precaution, since they’d been throwing things around inside. But no doors opened; no one looked out to see who we were or where we were going. We clumped down the stairs without speaking. They had not handcuffed me or shown me a gun; I suppose they knew I would go without a struggle. Outside, the sky was dark, and a couple of streetlights glowed near the bridge. I wondered for a moment if they planned to tie me up and throw me into the river, or beat me up in an alley, but instead they marched me in silence toward the police station, which was only eight blocks away.
Fog had wormed into some of the chilly streets, and I could see my breath imitating it in miniature and hear our footsteps on the
pavement as if we were far away from ourselves. One cart passed us, horse-drawn, a delivery wagon. The driver’s head was down; he seemed asleep in his seat. There were no lights on in the house windows and I wondered if I would ever see lights again. I knew what they would tell me I’d done wrong. And I knew what I had really done wrong. I talked silently with myself about what I would say when they questioned me. There was the matter of the truth, and then there was the matter of Vera, and what might happen to her if I told the truth.
When we reached the police station, they walked me in a back door. I had been inside the building several times before, on the first floor—for my registration and Vera’s and to get our identity cards, after the war; and then once to report the death of an elderly neighbor, whom I’d found lying peacefully across the threshold of his apartment one floor below us. I thought for a moment of his little smile, his look of having chosen to nap in an unusual place. I had heard the thud in the hall and come out with my violin and bow still in my hand. Vera and I had taken him back into his apartment and placed him on his bed, since the neighbors who shared his apartment were all at work and his wife was long gone. Vera had cried over him, although we had known him very little. And I had walked to the station to tell the young officers on duty: a death quietly accomplished and duly reported. I wondered who would report mine if I one day slumped over my threshold. I hoped I wouldn’t have my violin in my hand, at least, so that it wouldn’t be damaged, and that Vera wouldn’t be the one to find me. I hoped she wouldn’t worry herself sick while I was at the station. When they released me, I would walk straight home—walk, not run, but swiftly.
The station was dimly lit inside, rationed power for the small hours, and a guard sat half-dozing behind the desk. He didn’t look like the young man who’d come with me to see my peacefully sleeping neighbor. He nodded to the officers and one of them adjusted his grip on my arm, but no one spoke. They led me to a stairway at the back of the entrance. My stomach began to quiver at the realization that we were going down rather than up. For some reason, I had expected to be taken to an upstairs office for questioning. I knew better, of course, but at these moments you try not to actually remember what you’re remembering, to forget the whispers you’ve heard. The staircase was dank, the walls stained with moisture, as if we were entering a cave. Our footsteps were shuffling and soft. I wanted to turn and run, but I told myself I was not going to do anything in front of them that could either be interpreted as fearful or make them hold me any longer than necessary.
At the bottom of the stairs there was a small damp hallway, and one of the men produced keys and unlocked a door. He opened it and I stood there a moment, not wanting to enter unless I had to, and wondering if they would lock me in there if I did step inside, and for how long. The man seemed to be waiting for this, or for any sign of hesitation. It happened so quickly that for a moment I wasn’t sure where the blow had come from. The side of his hand crossed my nose with numbing force, as if a train had whipped past my face. The pain seemed to arrive even before the blow. I saw comets and clouds around me and I felt myself sway. A sense of liquid coming from my nose and dripping, with its taste of rust, into my mouth, was more surprising to me than the pain. Most surprising of all was the clarity of my thoughts: I had not been hit since fifth grade, when Dimitar from the next street over had punched me in the mouth for liking his sister. I’d punched him back, if ineffectually. Before and after that, no one had ever hit me. This time my arms hung stunned at my sides. My parents didn’t believe in striking children, and since childhood I had lived in a world of musicians, who did not hit each other even if they longed to, for fear of injuring their own hands.
One of the men shoved me forward and I walked so that I wouldn’t fall instead. Inside, the room was larger than I’d expected, and filled with a cloudy darkness that I feared was only my vision. I clamped my sleeve over the gush from my nose. The door shut behind me and the lock turned noisily. The darkness in one corner began to move—a boy stirred in his place on the floor and stood. Another man remained sitting, in dark coat and cap, his face shrouded, watching me. The boy spoke, but softly. “Are you by yourself?”
I wiped my nose and put a hand to the wall. It was hard for me to think, let alone to make sense of this question, with the ringing still around my head.
“By myself?” I said. “No. I’m with you.”
“No, no.” He raised a hand in explanation. “Did they bring anyone else in with you? They said they would deal with us when there were four of us.”
“I see.” He folded to the floor again and I slid down to sit next to him. Our voices had already dropped to a whisper. “What else did they say?”
“Nothing,” the boy said. “They brought me in from the street at midnight. My mother doesn’t know where I am.” He put his face in his hands.
“You’ll be back home soon enough,” I said, as much to myself as to him, and we both wiped our noses. The other man had not spoken at all, even in a whisper; I couldn’t see him clearly, but he seemed to be older than I, perhaps middle-aged, his face a half-disc under the shadow of his cap.
“They told us not to talk to each other,” the boy whispered, and we both stayed silent until there was a commotion outside the door. It was unlocked again and the three men reappeared, dragging someone who seemed very drunk.
“You fucking criminal,” said one of the policemen. The drunk man stumbled forward. He had blond hair and a flat face, and there was blood and dirt on his shirt, which had once been white. He also wore a white apron, like a waiter from better times—this, too, was stained. They pitched him forward into the room and the boy beside me ducked to keep clear. The policeman said, “What are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen a nemets before? A Hitler pig?”
“But I’m not German,” the man mumbled, in Bulgarian. He was so drunk that I couldn’t tell if he spoke with an accent.
“It doesn’t matter,” said another of the policemen. “German or Bulgarian, you’re a thief and a gambler. Get down on the floor. And you others, don’t think you’re too good for this kind of company. Actually, you should be cleaning his boots. At least he’s an honest criminal and not a spy. Unless he’s a German spy.”
The boy cowered against the wall. The man in the cap hadn’t moved, although the light from the door showed me the shift of his dark eyes. My face seemed suddenly to wake to its ordeal; I felt my nose begin to pulse with pain. The officers looked at us all. Then the biggest one, who also seemed to be the oldest, spoke. “The chief needs to ask you some questions, before anything else.”
Before what? I wondered. I had expected questioning, but what else would there be after?
He folded his arms, as if we were keeping him waiting. “Well? Who wants to go first?”
“Oh, just choose one,” muttered the policeman who’d called the blond man a fascist. The larger officer, who seemed to be their superior, either by rank or by unspoken agreement, ignored him.
“Well? Who’s first?”
Some part of me wanted to volunteer, since that might get me back to Vera more quickly and I was certain I could answer any question they put to me, except maybe the hardest one. Did you see anything unusual recently? Or, perhaps, Where were you yesterday afternoon? If I really had something to confess, it was not what they wanted to hear.
Suddenly the man in the hat got up, still without speaking. The three policemen looked at one another and the large one shrugged. Then they took the man away, locking the door behind them. It was almost dark again in the little room and at first I could hear the voices of the policemen in the corridor as they opened and shut another door, somewhere across the hall. Next there were some thumps and scrapes, like furniture being moved. Then a long quiet period during which I heard a murmur that gradually rose to yelling, against the closer sound of the drunken prisoner snoring in the corner. There was a smell like mildew all around us. The boy seemed to be trying to sleep, but he breathed unevenly and I doubted he’d been able to d
rop off, in his fear. The yelling was a sound of impatience, a scolding, not pain, and I began to wonder if the man in the hat had remained silent. Maybe he had something large to hide. So had I, I reminded myself; what would I say when my turn came? The something I had to hide was not a crime of my own. In fact, it was more serious; it was their crime. If the man in the hat had stolen something or really owned fascist propaganda, he might be keeping silent to protect other people.
Then came a sound worse than a scream: the wild groan of someone determined not to scream. I had heard that sound once before, as a child, when my aunt was giving birth with the doctor attending her in our family house. I was not supposed to be there, in the hall; I had come back in against orders, for a ball I wanted to take to the schoolyard. That loud animal moan through clenched teeth—I had sensed even as a child that the feeling behind it was not courage but a belief that screaming would make it hurt more, a conviction that once screaming began, it would never stop.
So this questioning was not merely questioning. Were they punishing the man because he’d remained silent? Or because of something he had already said? And what was the punishment? My hands and neck were bathed in sweat.
The boy next to me crawled closer, pushing against my elbow in the dark. I wished he would stay away so that I could focus on this new sound, but I let him rest there. God only knew what would happen to him when they took him in his turn; I resolved to go before him, at least.
The door across the hall was opened, roughly, and our door unlocked again. It was the largest of the policemen.