Return to Leo (Part III)

“Well good,” Leo said, “for example you want to get rid of someone, basically murder them in cold blood. If you do this by yourself, then it’s almost certain, that they’ll catch you, and if they don’t hang you, then the rest or most of your life you’ll spend behind bars. And like this, thank you very much, you pay the mafia, for a couple of days you go away somewhere, you have an ironclad alibi, and they in this time take care of the guy. Your neighbor’s really bothering you and you have no energy for him. You kick his ass and soon this pest finds fifteen witnesses and drags you through the courts, even though around, everyone including the cops knows well what a son of a bitch this is. And like this, thank you very much, you pay the mafia, and first they tell him, that he has to be politer. If he doesn’t listen, then you go somewhere, get an alibi, and they’ll drop him such a bashing, that when after a long time he leaves the hospital, then he is an injured man. And what? As they say in the West,” and he said in English, “everybody is happy,” and continued: 

“Everyone who’s trying themselves to escape past the border, are naïve idiots. Now for a hundred such attempts at escape two succeed, maybe three, and not half bad if they catch you at the very beginning. You go then to a Polish prison usually with a three to five year sentence, you still have a chance, that for good behavior they’ll let you out a little early—and you’re free baron, only punished. But usually it ends much worse. Either you’ll step on some perfidiously placed mine, or you’ll get thoroughly ripped by specially trained for this dogs, who patrol the border regions, most often of the race of eastern German shepherds, which on chains attached to quarter kilometer wires, extended two, three meters above the ground, ran here and there dreaming only to attack someone. Or at the last length, with great joy you’ll get shot by an East German Grenzschutz, even more wicked than his trained dogs, and it won’t even help you that, for example, taking into account the hopelessness of the situation, you’ll stand politely with your hands high in the air. I’m telling you, two, three in a hundred, and the rest are lost. You, because you’re not stupid, on your own didn’t attempt an irresponsible escapade, only went with the matter to Bławat, who likes you, and Bławat directed you to me. Besides that you were able in a rather short time to organize such a pile of money, in which, I’ll tell you frankly now, neither Bławat nor me especially believed, and which very much impressed us. When only finally your situation clarifies with this damned army, and I hope that this will happen at most within a month, you come with the cash to me, and I direct you further. Further, not saying anything to anyone and not saying goodbye to anyone, on the appointed day and at the precisely appointed hour, you’ll go by yourself to this half-Russian town in which the Oberkommand is found, and punctually report where you’re supposed to, and they put you like some excellency into a swanky limousine. It won’t be any Russian auto. Most likely they’ll send you either a large black Tatraplan with a characteristic fin sticking out in the center behind the back windshield, or an even larger dark blue limousine Alfa Romeo. These autos won’t have any Russian army registration, and for it to be funnier, the Alfa Romeo will have Czech, and the Tatraplan West German registration numbers. If you’re very attentive, you might notice two Russian army cars convoying you in front and from behind at a large distance. You go a not whole four hours and even though your chauffer is completely untalkative, the journey even passes quickly, because at the numerous checkpoints they only gesture to drive on. Towards the end you will go off into a forest, through which for about fifteen minutes you ride now much slower. At the end of the road stands a Russian automobile, which the whole time drove ahead of you. The major and the captain are smoking cigarettes, the petty officer chauffer with the permission of the higher ranked relieved himself nearby. You get out of the car. One of the officers comes up to you with a map and shows you where you are. The map is still a post-German two hundred fifty, with the national border crudely drawn with a red crayon. With ease you read that to this border you have a fifteen minute walk. Just in case the second officer will also show you the direction. There are here no Grenzschutz, no dogs on wires, although the strained wires hanging over your head are noticeable, and no field mines. You wave goodbye, the officers salute, your recent chauffer waves his hand like you do. You disappear into the thicket, the whole time going in the direction of the setting sun, so there’s no discussion about mistaking your direction. This is all mafia, Russian mafia. The organization counts a scarce few, even though this seems unbelievable, higher officers or generals, who know well, what is eaten with a knife, and what with a fork, what wines are drank with what, and who are able without any problem to tell the difference between Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra singing. These, who will take care of you, do it in the context of their service, scrupulously executing only some secret and most often completely incomprehensible to them intelligence or counterintelligence commands and dispatches. Thanks to the Russian mafia you are already on the other side, which you will be able to tell very easily, by the different, because it’ll be Western, trash. On this other side you also have to be very careful. Over there, right away different kinds take you for revenue and before they finally leave you alone and let you live normally, at any cost they’ll try to turn your brain to water. These are primarily cynical, very well spoken in Polish scoundrels, with great power of persuasion. If you are stupid and weak, after long conversations with them you build a strong conviction that you came here only for this reason, to return by and by and actively fight with the existing in Poland horrible reality. They promise you gold mountains, they persuade you that the present state will only last another few months, and for sure less than two years, and then Poland, as once before, will be free and powerful, and you as a reward that you worked for them, will become for starters some Governor of Smolensk or even Vitebsk, because Poland, also thanks to you, will again be from sea to sea. In reality they’re only concerned with this, for you to express consent to work for them. If on account of total bedazzlement this kind of consent you finally express, right away they push you on this diversional espionage schooling. Mainly they teach there how to handle a short-wave transmitter, cryptography, some pyrotechnic arts, parachute jumping and other such things, constantly loading into your stupid head, what an epic mission you have to fulfill. Later, when they assert that you are already adequately educated, primarily in peasant attire, with a short-wave transmitter and other devices, on false papers they send you to Poland, called by them the old country, even though, any way you look at it, in Europe many countries were even several times older than Poland, which you not so long ago definitively crossed out from your list of interests, and now, like some drunk Hamlet, you ask yourself the immemorial question: ‘what the fuck am I doing here again?’ Suddenly you fully realize how stupid you are and what a dick you let yourself be made into. You have one more, last chance: at the nearest cesspit to drown your short-wave transmitter and other embarrassing to you gadgets and forget about your whole recent adventure, and try to start a normal life, even though here a normal life doesn’t really exist…”

It was approaching half to twelve, when Leo finished his so educational to me lecture.

“So I’m going to head out,” I announced, “I thank you very much.”

“Wait, we’ll leave together,” Leo said, pulling his lily suspenders up over his blue shirt, which he put on a moment ago, “let me just tie my tie, put on my shoes and throw something on my back. I invite you to the probery, we have to eat something and wash our throats out a little.”

Shortly we left.

Leo closed the entrance doors to every lock, and on his neck had today a new, unknown to me tie, bright light green, with a silhouette of a rider jumping over a hurdle, under which there was a large, even brighter writing, SARATOGA SPRINGS.