His first day at work: Leo’s hands were covered in flour and his face was hot from the ovens. Taking out a batch of newly baked loaves, he heard Filipp call out:
– Leo, you have a visitor.
An immaculate Frol Panin entered the bakery. He surveyed the premises with condescending good humor. Leo observed:
– No request we can’t accommodate: rye with coriander seeds, or sweetened with honey rather than sugar. Kosher, or oil-free…
He took one of the still-warm loaves, breaking it, offering it to Panin, who accepted, taking a bite. The man who’d betrayed him and who’d collaborated with his enemies showed no embarrassment, no guilt or shame, chewing contentedly:
– It’s very good.
Panin put the bread down, dusting the flour off his fingers and checking that Filipp was out of earshot:
– Leo, no one is going back to Stalinism. There will be no more mass arrests. The camps are closing. Interrogation cells are being ripped out. These changes are in progress. They will continue. But they must continue in secret, without any admission of wrongdoing. We shall go forward… without looking back.
Despite everything, Leo couldn’t help but admire Panin. He could have arranged for Leo to have never made it out of Budapest. Yet Panin weighed up every decision on a purely practical basis. He did nothing out of malice or spite. With the uprising defeated and Fraera dead, Leo was an irrelevancy and so he’d been allowed to live.
– Frol Panin, what do you want from me? You won.
– I would argue that we all won.
– No, I lost a long time ago. I’m just trying not to lose anymore.
– Leo, whatever you may think of me, my decisions were always for Leo interrupted:
– The greater good?
Panin nodded, adding:
– I want you to work for me. We need men like you.
– Men like me.
Leo let the phrase hang before asking:
– You’re going to reopen the homicide department?
– No, we’re not ready for that yet.
– When you are, I’ll be here.
– Baking rye with coriander seeds?
Panin smiled:
– Very well, I hope one day I can be of some help to you.
It was an apology of sorts: a secret apology. Leo accepted the gesture:
– There is one thing you could do for me.