Chapter 6: Murder
December in Bucharest is bitter cold, and January is worse, with the icy strong crivetz blowing hard across the steppe. Marina walks home from the Ministry on feet she can barely feel. She lets herself into her flat, stumbles into the kitchen, and boils a great cauldron of water. She strips off her stockings and suspends her feet above the cauldron, bathing them in steam. She lowers her toes into the cauldron, a centimeter, two centimeters, massaging her icy veins, as Cezar, blessed with a fur coat like a Russian bear's, sniffs around the rim.
The doorbell rings, which is most unusual on a Monday night. She stumbles to answer it, barefoot, rejoicing in the renewed feelings in her toes. Viktor stands there shivering, in an aviator's cap, arms crossed with his hands in his armpits, a soft-sided briefcase swinging beside him.
"I tried to Floo you," he says, "but the Network wasn't working. May I come in?"
She lets him in. They kneel on the wooden floor, facing each other, and she wonders why he's here. He looks so strangely at home, sitting on her living room floor, dipping his hands in the battered cauldron from the old Vasik homestead. Marina likes her privacy. She doesn't have friends here often, especially men. Slovadan has been here of course, Charlie a few times, Fergal once, but mostly she goes to the reservation. At home, she likes her privacy.
Just when she's starting to think that it's cozy to have a guest, just when she's starting to enjoy the fact that he came, he opens his briefcase and tosses a brown paper file on the sofa between them. It is stamped, "Secret and Confidential," and again, "Top Secret," and again, "Bulgarian Ministry of Magic."
"The Ministry's reopening the Dobrega case," says Viktor, not smiling. "I'm not allowed to show you what's in the file, so I'll just tell you what I know and we'll call it an interrogation."
Marina inclines her head. The mood is ruined.
"Stefan Dobrega was your tutor," says Viktor in a crisp impersonal voice.
She nods.
"He was murdered."
She nods again.
"You did not tell me this," says Viktor tartly.
Well, no.
"I would have liked to know."
She is very sorry. But Viktor—reality check. "There isn't a witch in Romania who didn't lose someone in the war."
"I know that," says Viktor. "But in this case, it was you."
She nods morosely.
"I read the transcripts of the original interrogations," says Viktor, more gently. "It sounds like you were close."
Marina says miserably, "We were." They were. A teenage orphan misfit, hungry after an isolated rural adolescence for any taste of life, and an eccentric tweedy old scholar who embraced her as the granddaughter he never had. "That's why I fell off my broom."
Viktor looks a question.
Marina sighs and braces herself for the telling. "I started an internship at the dragon reservation when I was eighteen. I left when I fell off my broom. They told you, didn't they, Slovadan and Charlie?"
Viktor smiles wryly. "They told you weren't supposed to fly alone."
"I can fly," says Marina indignantly. "I mean—not like you—but I can fly. I come from a dragon-keeping family," she points out. "Everyone flies."
"And you fell off your broom?"
"It was just the second week of the internship. Slovadan and Charlie took the entire class of first-year interns out to the Hungarian Horntail sector for an aerial overview. We were flying low to the ground, and one of the second-years zoomed up behind us suddenly and started shouting that Stefan Dobrega's corpse had just been pulled from the Danube. He didn't know that any of us knew him. He just thought—famous wizard—Transylvania's native son—." She shrugs. "And I got light-headed and fell off my broom, right onto the back of a Hungarian Horntail. I slid to the ground and it started pawing me and sniffing and—well, Charlie did a fantastic dive and snatched me up like a Snitch and flew me back to the compound. I wasn't much hurt, but no one would believe that, they all thought I must be traumatized and terrified and fragile, and so—well, I quit."
"I'm sorry," says Viktor. "That's not the way Slovadan tells the story."
"He doesn't understand," says Marina quietly. "He didn't know Stefan the way I did. Slovadan was the main reason why I quit," she adds after a minute. "I could see he would never get another full night's sleep in his life if I kept working with dragons."
She thinks of her father, the way Slovadan did when she fell off her broom, and she wonders if Viktor understands. It was Slovadan who was traumatized, not her. She watches Viktor, and she sees him remember, and she is content.
"Slovadan doesn't like to see me take risks," she says. "He never seems to realize that I might mind the risks he takes."
Viktor is silent for a minute. He puts his hand on hers. "I will let you take risks," he says, as intently and as earnestly as if it were a proposal. "I would like to see you fly."
She nods. They look into each other's eyes and they almost kiss but the brown paper file hovers between.
And it's not going to go away.
Viktor sighs and picks it up and says, "There was a joint investigation five and a half years ago, the Romanian and Bulgarian Ministries together, because the body was found in the Danube, between two jurisdictions. They ruled he was killed in a duel, probably with a Death Eater. The report makes him sound very naïve."
"It wasn't a duel," says Marina.
"No," says Viktor, "I didn't think so. For one thing, I would assume that Stefan Dobrega was way too smart to get mixed up in a duel with a Death Eater."
"He was brilliant," says Marina. "He was the most brilliant man I ever met. He was 102 years old and he knew enough to pick his battles. And anyway, he didn't believe in dueling. He was developing a whole new system of practical defense by transfiguration. Even if he had gotten waylaid by a Death Eater in an isolated locale, he would just have turned him into a rabbit or a guinea pig."
Viktor raises an eyebrow.
"Stefan had a whole theory," explains Marina. "Not many people knew about it—actually, I don't think anyone knew the details other than the housekeeper and me. But, basically, Stefan always told me that if I was in a tight corner, I should transfigure my attacker into a small, herbivorous animal. Transfiguring the attacker into an animal would muddle his ability to think as a human being, slow down his intellectual reflexes, and limit his foresight. Herbivorous was essential because herbivorous animals generally lack the attack instinct—I mean, one obviously wouldn't transfigure an attacker in a lion or tiger—"
Viktor nods.
"And choosing a small animal would make the attacker less dangerous. Oh, and of course, no opposable thumbs, no wand."
"Some wizards can do magic without wands," points out Viktor.
Marina scoffs. "There isn't a witch or wizard in eastern Europe who could have taken on Stefan without a wand. Unless you're suggesting that he encountered Voldemort personally?"
"No, Voldemort was in England on the date in question," says Viktor. "I already checked that. Assuming Professor Dobrega had his wand with him—"
"He wouldn't have needed it," insists Marina.
"Transfiguration is hard—"
"Stefan developed techniques for wandless transfiguration. It was part of the defense system."
Viktor looks skeptical. Marina smiles wryly. "Look at Cezar's scratching post, okay?" she says, pointing at the carpeted post that Charlie built to Muggle specifications, copying a pet store flyer that Wilhelmina brought from England on one of her visits. She bites her lip, tosses her head slightly, and the scratching post turns into a bonsai. Viktor stares.
"I've never seen anything like that!" he exclaims. "You learned that from Stefan Dobrega?"
Marina nods. "And I'm not even very good at it. I can only do small objects; I've never done a perfect human transfiguration without a wand."
"Why a bonsai?"
"Oh—I read a book once," says Marina, embarrassed. Impulsive transfiguration can be a little more revealing of oneself than one means it to be. "I mean, I'll probably never go to Japan—"
Viktor murmurs something that sounds like, "We'll go funny noon." Or maybe, "We'll go fairly soon." Or possibly even, "We'll go for the honeymoon." But Marina can't quite believe that he said that. She stares at him. He rouses himself and says, "Stefan Dobrega knew this technique?"
"He was a genius at it. He turned me into a deer once, almost before I knew what was happening—he had a good reason to," Marina adds hastily when she sees Viktor's expression. "Look, Stefan said it was best to have the experience, just once, of being transformed into every animal in one's transfiguration repertoire, just so one knew how it felt. Then one could judge best which one would wish to face as an opponent. He had a definite preference for rabbits. If he encountered an opponent unexpectedly, with or especially without his wand, with time to think or especially without it, he would have transfigured the attacker into a rabbit. I know it," she asserts. "I just—knew him. That was his reflexive instinct, and he practiced it so often that I can't imagine he would have done otherwise. Of course, eye contact is essential to wandless transfiguration. If Stefan were set upon suddenly from behind—"
"He wasn't," says Viktor with quiet conviction. "I read the autopsy report. He saw what was coming."
Ouch.
Marina didn't read the report. She recalls the blur of officialdom, of interrogations and police reports, of mean-spirited editorials and invasive press coverage, that swallowed up her nineteenth birthday, but she never read the autopsy report. Tomas Cioran read it and told her what he thought she needed to know. She wonders how much mercy mingled with discretion in his summary.
"Well, then, it was someone he trusted," asserts Marina.
Viktor opens the case file and pulls out the list of Stefan's friends and intimates, compiled by the joint investigative committee in the aftermath of his murder. It is not a long list.
"No," says Marina quietly.
"No?"
"I know or knew every person on that list personally. No."
"You think—what do you think?"
"I think it was someone in the Ministry," says Marina.
"A Death Eater in the Romanian Ministry?" says Viktor. "One of the ones who's in custody now, or—"
Marina shakes her head.
"Which?" says Viktor.
"Neither," says Marina. "There wasn't a Dark Mark. I don't what the Bulgarian Death Eaters were like, but the Romanian ones threw the Mark around for fun, even when they hadn't accomplished anything. If they had actually succeeded in murdering Stefan Dobrega there would have been Dark Marks from here to Timisoara."
He eyes her with the utmost pity and horror. "You think it was our side," he says quietly.
She bows her head. That's exactly what she thinks.
They are silent.
"Of course, if the Ministry's voluntarily reopening the case—" says Marina after a minute.
"The Bulgarian Ministry is reopening the case," says Viktor with emphasis. "The Romanians didn't want to."
Then it is pretty much as she thought.
"Marina," says Viktor quietly, "if you already know this, why are you still working there? They're not even paying you."
She says quietly, "Viktor, when they're not paying me, why do you think I stayed?"
He flinches but says nothing. Slovadan would flip if he ever realized why Marina is still working for the Ministry, but Viktor is true to his word, and he gives no words of caution. "All right," he says quietly. "Tell me everything you know."
They sit up till nine o'clock, till ten o'clock, till half-past twelve, going over every page in the case file, every detail of Marina's teenage memories, every minute aspect of Stefan Dobrega's life. He asks about Stefan's household, his relatives, his friends, his enemies, his correspondents, his political allegiances. Cezar is fast asleep, eyes knit shut in his squashed furry face, curled against Viktor's thigh and purring throatily when Viktor finally shoves the bulging file in his briefcase and says, "Marina, is there anything else I ought to know?"
"No," says Marina, "no, I don't think so."
"I don't just mean about this," says Viktor. "I mean about anything."
She considers. He knows about her father and her mother. She has told him by now about Andrej, Marko, and Pavel. He found out for himself about Stefan Dobrega, and she has told him enough tonight for him to understand why she fell off her broom.
"No," says Marina, "no, I think that's everything."
Viktor reaches out to hold her, thinks better of it, trails his hand along hers. He looks at her thoughtfully and says, in his accented but precise Romanian, "The future will be better."
She thinks, promise me. Make it real. Each time, I thought, this is it, this is the end, I have hit bottom now and the pendulum will swing. And the pendulum always swung back to death and disaster and pain . . . She wonders who she would be now, what her life would be like, if she had been born Bulgarian, a pureblood, a Krum.
"They told me," says Viktor, "well, Charlie told me that you get depressed sometimes, that he thinks you regret—do you . . . ?"
She considers. There have been good things in her life. There are good things in her life. It's just that they've come at a very high price.
The sad truth is, she owes most of the best things in her life to her parents' untoward ends. She and Slovadan, who are five years apart in age and not much alike in temperament, would never have been so close if they had come from a happy home. In the wake of her mother's suicide, she was educated gratis by people who felt sorry for her. She is probably the only witch in Europe who ever got two years' private tutelage from Stefan Dobrega. Even Stefan's murder had its uses, in driving her off the dragon internship, where she had landed mainly because it was the path of least resistance, and into jobs where her intellect, her initiative, and her internationalist impulses would have freer reign.
Viktor is a good thing, she thinks suddenly.
The price of Viktor is the end of solitude.
"I know it's a mirage," says Viktor, "but as well one can know another person, I want to know you."
"You will," says Marina. "You do."