Read The Last Compromise Online
Authors: Carl Reevik
The Last Compromise (35 page)
Anneli
had e-mailed her father about the letter right away, then she hadn’t heard from
him all day, and now he’d written her that long-awaited e-mail of his own.
What
a day. And what a week. Tomorrow she would call her father to seal their
agreement that it was finally all over. That the burden was gone. And what
comforted her even more than the relief itself was the fact that she hadn’t
just abandoned her father. It had turned out that he had managed to end it from
his side, too. She would leave her post at atomic energy with a clear
conscience, while her father had apparently reached some kind of understanding with
his associates. Some agreement. Some last compromise. Tomorrow she would call
him to find out what exactly it was.
Anneli
closed her eyes again, embracing her son with one arm. She grinned a little,
not in a smirk but in a mute giggle. Stavros Theodorakis will hang himself when
he’ll hear the news on Monday, she thought. In less than two months from now
he’ll be presiding over a unit with only two out of six posts actually filled.
She
heard her husband whisper to her son, ‘Hey Matti, come over here in the middle.’
The
boy heard it, moved over Anneli’s body and squeezed into the narrow gap between
his parents. Anneli made some space by moving closer to the bed’s edge again.
She turned around to face her husband and her son, who was now lying on his
back, trying to cuddle with both his parents simultaneously.
Her
husband’s eyes were open. ‘Good night, Anneli,’ he whispered.
She
smiled, reached over and raked her fingers through his hair.
‘I
love you,’ she whispered back. He took her hand and gently kissed her palm.
‘I
love you, too.’ He smiled and closed his eyes.
Their
son was breathing calmly.
She
looked at both of them for a few more moments in the gloom. Then she closed her
eyes as well.
Berlin,
Germany
Pavel
walked down the spacious avenue in the bright morning sun. It was the main
thoroughfare running in a perfectly straight line from the west, through the
lush parkland of the Tiergarten, through the Brandenburg gate and, after a
bend, up to Alexanderplatz in the east. He passed a crowd of tourists who were
just getting off their coach to take pictures. He checked for reflections in
its windshield. He kept walking past the trees of the Tiergarten to his right until
he had reached the granite plaza and turned right, slowly taking the steps up
to the monument. There were about fifteen people on the plaza, most were taking
pictures.
‘Good
morning Mister Hoffmann,’ Pavel said as he stopped next to the man who was looking
up to the statue. He himself looked up as well.
It
was the old Soviet monument to the unknown soldier. A towering granite pedestal
flanked by a pair of tanks and a pair of artillery pieces. A giant bronze
soldier stood on top of the pedestal, his face partly obscured by the shadow
from his helmet, his hand extended down as if trying to reach out to the
living. A monument installed by a victorious nation to remind Berliners of the
millions who had been shot and crushed and blown to pieces during the great bloodshed.
When they had built the Wall to divide the city, the monument had been effectively
a patch of East Berlin protruding into the West. The wreaths at the base of the
monument were still fresh. They were from the German government and the Russian
embassy, laid there in a joint ceremony to mark the anniversary of the end of
the war. With early May came the remembrance, and the hope.
‘Good
morning Pavel.’
They
said nothing for a while. They were both looking up, facing the monument and
the clear blue sky. The soldier was lit by the sunlight, although his face and helmet
and heavy coat remained the same dark bronze they always were.
Pavel
said, ‘Thank you for taking the Estonian’s phone. And for helping me out in
Luxembourg.’
‘Who
is the real Zayek?’
Pavel
waited for a moment. ‘He was a man from Bulgaria who had passed a European job
competition five years ago.’
‘Did
you kill him?’
‘You
saw the so-called spy in Luxembourg,’ Pavel said. ‘Would you kill anybody to
install a man like that?’ He paused. ‘No, the real Boris Zayek just died in something
unfortunate that had nothing to do with Luxembourg. But his identity and his
place on the reserve list were still fine. We just needed to find someone very
quickly at the time. Also to see whether it would work at all.’
‘What
was the unfortunate thing that killed the real one in Bulgaria?’
‘One
of our embassy cars in Sofia ran him over. He died on the spot. An accident,
but we used it. Our people put him in the boot, drove him for three hours to
the Danube, chopped his head and his hands off, and dumped him in the river.’
Hoffmann
let out some air through his mouth, the thin stream of air formed into a little
melody by his lips, not strong enough for an actual whistle.
He
asked, ‘So why did you do the Luxembourg thing now?’
‘Romanian
police dug him out last month. We had to assume it’s him. At some point someone
will make the connection. A DNA test matched to samples from missing persons or
from their blood relatives. First in Romania, then in other countries. Our useless
guy in the Commission would have been lost anyway, but that way at least we
could scare them all a little. And I think we did. You and I, we did.’
They
stood in silence for a while. A pigeon had sat down on the soldier’s helmet.
Pavel
turned away to face Hoffmann, and asked, ‘Did this Commission man Tienhoven
really die of a heart attack?’
‘Yes
he did.’
Pavel
looked back up to the soldier. The pigeon had flown away.
He
asked, ‘Do you want to work for us, Hoffmann?’
Hoffmann
lowered his eyes. Below the soldier, on the granite pedestal, shone the golden
emblem of the old Soviet Union. A star, oars of wheat, a sun rising. A hammer
and sickle imposed on a globe. ‘No. Do you want to work for us?’
Pavel
took a breath, relaxing his lips. ‘The world hasn’t changed much, has it?’
Hoffmann
didn’t reply.
‘Goodbye
Hoffmann.’
Pavel
walked away, turning into the avenue and heading back the way he’d come.
***
Hoffmann
kept standing right where he was, looking up to the bronze soldier. ‘Did you
hear it?’
‘Yes
Frank, I did.’ Hans came to stand next to Hoffmann, taking a wireless earphone
out of his left ear. ‘The real Zayek has parents in Bulgaria. For five years
they had no idea where he was. Not dead, not alive.’
‘You
want to let them know?’ Hoffmann already knew the answer.
‘Let
the German embassy in Sofia request the Romanian police file and give it to the
Bulgarian authorities. Thank you.’
Hoffmann
nodded. Then he looked at him. ‘See you, Hans.’
‘See
you.’
Hoffmann
turned around and walked away. Hans didn’t move, and looked up to the statue.
Beyond
the monument, beyond the green treetops, the mighty glass cupola of the German
parliament building was shining in the bright glow. The German colours and the blue
European flag with its golden stars were flying at the entrance. Families,
tourists, business travellers and visiting students from abroad were queuing to
get a chance to walk around the cupola, and to see the city from above. To see
the streets, the landmarks, and the countryside somewhere in the far distance.
▪
Carl
Reevik is the pen name of a Brussels insider who wrote several books on EU law
and policy.
The Last Compromise
is his debut novel.