The Small Boat of Great Sorrows

by Dan Fesperman

  “Find anything good?”

  It was Konjic, looming over his shoulder, curiosity having gotten the better of him. Vlado looked up from the old, familiar bed, clearing his throat.

  “Not much. But enough, I guess. A few memories of my parents.”

  Konjic beamed, as if personally gratified Vlado’s mission had been a success. “Please, when you are finished, I came to tell you that my wife has made coffee. My sons have gone out for cake. In honor of your return.”

  Vlado could have sworn that Konjic then made a slight bow, an oddly touching gesture by this man he barely knew. In the larger scheme of things these people owed him nothing. They’d have just as easily found a vacant apartment elsewhere. But if they wished to show their gratitude, he would accept it. So even though he had little time to spare, he said yes to their invitation. Or maybe he simply felt like being among a family right now, with sons and daughters and their parents, crowded together around a table to eat and drink.

  “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  They gathered in the kitchen, the children elbowing one another for position as everyone made way for their guest. The table was new, rough-hewn but sturdy, with clean lines and well-fitted joints. The one Vlado and Jasmina had owned wouldn’t have been large enough. Vlado rubbed his hands along the sanded, polished top.

  “I made it,” Konjic said proudly. “All with hand tools. Wooden dowels and my own joining. You can’t get things like screws and power tools anymore. Not without a lot of hard currency.”

  “It’s very nice work.”

  Konjic then got a look on his face as if a lightbulb had gone off in his head, and he leaped to his feet. “I almost forgot!” he said.

  He disappeared down the hallway. Following a brief metallic clatter he returned holding a battered toolbox that Vlado recognized as his father’s—his lone inheritance. It made him quail slightly to see it now, and he couldn’t help contemplating the destructive power of the hammers, the screwdrivers, the wrenches, even though he doubted the toolbox had even belonged to his father until well after the war.

  “It was my father’s,” he said faintly as Konjic set the box heavily on the end of the table.

  “Then you must have it,” Konjic said, beaming yet again, although the toolbox was undoubtedly one of his most prized and valuable possessions. Whatever those tools symbolized of his father’s past, they had at least built this sturdy and beautiful table.

  “No,” Vlado said, mustering a smile and shaking his head. “It’s yours now. I have no use for it. Please. You keep it.”

  Konjic nodded, not saying a word, as if sensing that there might be more attached to these objects than function and utility. He didn’t open it, nor did Vlado want to look inside. Instead he looked around the table and noticed the smallest boy watching him from the end, the one who’d played with his soldiers. Vlado smiled back.

  “I hope you’re enjoying those soldiers,” he said, wanting to change the subject. “I painted them all. But it was only a hobby for passing time. I don’t want them back. Too many memories of the war. So I am glad you can make some use of them.”

  “Tell him the story, Daddy,” the boy said. “Tell him about the soldier.”

  The father’s eyes were sparkling. Vlado wondered what this could be about.

  “Do you remember that morning, when you invited us in?” Konjic began.

  “Yes. The explosion woke me up. I wasn’t sure you were all okay, and I was worried there might be more shells.”

  “We went from here to the hospital. Just to check things out, like you told us. Everything was fine. Then we decided to get our food for the day. Bread, water, and rice. You know, the usual. So we divided up the chores. Nela and Mirela would stand in line for the rice, the two older boys would wait on bread. Me and this one here”—he mussed the small boy’s hair—“me and little Hisham would get in line for water.

  “That was when I looked down and saw Hisham playing with one of your soldiers. He had picked it up off the table when I wasn’t looking. I’d asked him to put it back, and I thought that he had.”

  Vlado remembered that he had thought so, too, even recalling that he’d been disappointed that the boy hadn’t kept it.

  “I almost said something about letting him keep one,” Vlado said, “but you seemed pretty stern about it, and I know how it is when you’re trying to discipline your children. You don’t want somebody else contradicting you. So I held my tongue.”

  “Which was the right thing for you to do. But little Hisham here, when no one was looking he took one anyway. And as soon as I saw it I said, ‘No. You must return it now.’ So Hisham and I walked back to your apartment. You were gone, but the door was unlocked, so he put the soldier back on the table with the others. I saw to it myself. By then of course we were a good ten minutes late for getting in line for water. And then what do you suppose happened?”

  Vlado shook his head.

  “We arrived at the water line to find that a shell had landed, only five minutes earlier. Four people were killed, including two boys. So, you see, if it had not been for your soldier, well, that might have been us standing there. Your little man in blue, Mr. Petric, he saved our lives. So whenever Hisham plays with them, they remind us of the war, but they remind us of you, too, and all of the memories are good ones.”

  Konjic nodded curtly, as if that was his final word on the matter, and even though Vlado knew that a dozen other events had played equally important roles in that single moment of fate, he felt that the scales had finally begun to rebalance in his favor. In the wake of his departure one child had died. Earlier today a colleague had died as well. But now, at least, there was this child who had lived, sitting at the end of a table built with his father’s tools, grinning, icing on his cheeks.

  “Thank you for telling me that,” Vlado said quietly, placing his empty cup on the saucer. “And thank you for all of this, too.”

  They didn’t talk much after that. Mostly a lot of smiling and laughter over silly things the children did. A half hour later Vlado rose from the table.

  “I’d better be going. There’s a lot of work to do.”

  The family escorted him to the door, waving good-bye as if he were an old friend who’d come bearing wondrous gifts. It was a better homecoming than he ever would have expected, and not until he was halfway down the hill to the Holiday Inn did he remember the photo stuffed in his pocket. He quickened his pace, rubbing the edge of the envelope with his fingertips, wondering what might be waiting for him, if anything, at Uncle Tomislav’s house in Podborje. Perhaps the tribunal was finished looking for Pero Matek—he’d know for sure this evening—but he wasn’t finished, and Podborje now seemed worth a visit.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Janet Ecker’s flight was nearly an hour late, leaving them barely enough time to make the scheduled meeting with Harkness and LeBlanc at the Holiday Inn. Janet had to brief Vlado and Pine on the ride from the airport.

  “First things first,” she said to Pine. “Contreras wants you to stay on the case.”

  It was a surprise, but a good one.

  “Officially, of course, we’re not calling it a manhunt. For the record, you’re pursuing leads on the whereabouts of a material witness. One who just happens to have murdered a colleague. But with that in mind . . .” She pulled an envelope from her briefcase. “You’re ticketed on a noon flight tomorrow.”

  “To where?” Pine asked, sounding on edge.

  “Rome. Both of you.” She looked at Vlado. “As long as you’re still along for the ride.”

  Vlado nodded. Anything to keep him in pursuit of Matek.

  “Why Rome?” Pine asked, a stirring of interest in his voice.

  “Someone there you need to see. Robert Fordham. Army counterintelligence. Or used to be. He was Matek’s handler in postwar Rome. Vlado will need a visa, of course. The Italians promise to have one ready by tomorrow morning.”

  “What about Andric?” Pine asked.

 
; “We’ve got a dozen people on it. Chances are he’s in Serbia by now, anyway. As for the rest, Spratt’s got somebody flying down to handle arrangements for Benny. He’s got family back in New York. They’re going to fly the body home. There will be a memorial service next Friday in The Hague.”

  That silenced them for a moment before Pine spoke up. “I still don’t get our priorities, though. Personally, I’m all for it. After what happened to Benny, there’s no one I’d rather pursue more than Matek. But if I’m some tribunal bean counter, I’d be saying, wait a minute, we’re throwing an awful lot of limited resources after some old guy who’s not even ours to try. Even for murder.”

  “Somebody may yet say that. But for the moment the only one who wants us off the case is Harkness. That’s the word, anyway. So be prepared for a lecture.”

  “I thought this was all his idea? His and LeBlanc’s. And now we lose a good man and he expects us to just drop it? What the hell’s up with that?”

  “Maybe you should ask him. But something about this seems to have him spooked.”

  “What do we say when he asks what we’re doing next?”

  “We mention Rome, and that’s it. And we don’t back down on anything.”

  They arrived at the Holiday Inn with only minutes to spare, hustling upstairs to a small conference room where the two envoys were waiting. LeBlanc sat calmly to one side, with a prim smile that was almost a smirk. Harkness wore tweeds. He really did bring to mind a British country gentleman, Vlado thought, hoping there would be no further asides about Popovic. They seated themselves around an oval table, Harkness striding to one end as if he were the master of ceremonies.

  “Something to drink, gentlemen?” he asked. “And lady, of course.” Vlado half expected gin and tonic to be in the offing, given the man’s bearing, but a bottle of mineral water was the only drink in sight.

  “I’d like to begin by expressing my sympathy,” Harkness continued. “I suppose we’ve all learned a sad and costly lesson this morning, and on two fronts no less.”

  “And what lesson would that be?” Pine asked sharply.

  “That this is still a very dangerous place, for one thing. But also that the tribunal, for all the growing up it’s done, really isn’t equipped for the manhunt business. We never should have pushed you into that role. Our apologies. And our deepest condolences on Benny. He was a splendid fellow.”

  Presumably he was also speaking for LeBlanc, although it wasn’t clear from the Frenchman’s expression whether he shared Harkness’s willingness to accept blame. Janet and Pine were tight-lipped, and Vlado couldn’t help but contrast the chilly atmosphere with the warmth of the home he’d visited—his own home, he had to remind himself—only a few hours ago. He also wondered at the way Harkness had taken charge, as if the operation were his to run.

  “Obviously,” he continued, “our main priority now is Andric, despite the personal stakes involved. I plan on having a word with Contreras first thing to make sure he’s on the same page. State has been informed, of course, and that’s their position as well. If we’re going to have police searching half the rail stations and airports of Europe, we might as well focus on the bigger prize, notwithstanding this morning’s events in Travnik. And not to mention the obvious problems of jurisdiction and authorization.”

  “Actually,” Pine said, color rising, “this meeting is only a courtesy, and our marching orders from the tribunal make it clear that Vlado and I are to keep pursuing leads on Matek. Janet will back me up on that.”

  “ ‘Jurisdiction be damned,’ ” she said. “Contreras’s own words, as of this afternoon.”

  “He’ll come to his senses soon enough,” Harkness said, polishing his glasses with a handkerchief, “either once the sting has worn off or when he’s got another dead operative to answer for. Let’s just hope it’s the former, not the latter.”

  “We’re not operatives,” Pine said, redder still. “That’s your world. We’re just investigators and prosecutors. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d just threatened us.”

  Now it was Harkness’s turn to get angry. He slapped his glasses on the table almost hard enough to break them, then leveled a pink finger at Pine.

  “Not a threat. Not in the least. Benny Hampton was a good man. No one here disputes that. But lurching into matters that are none of the tribunal’s damn business is hardly a fitting memorial and can only create more problems. Pursue this if you want. Just don’t expect the same enthusiasm from the State Department when it’s time to pony up for another tribunal budget. And that is a threat. At this point anything that drains resources from apprehending Andric is a waste and a hindrance.”

  “As if none of us knows where Andric has gone,” Janet said.

  “To Serbia, you mean,” said LeBlanc, who up until now had been content to watch the Americans rip into each other. “It would only make sense. Milosevic is taking everyone he can and sending them toward Kosovo. A cable this morning—and I’m sure that Monsieur Harkness has received the same information—says they’ve just moved another twenty thousand.”

  “Why, Guy, I thought the Serbs were your friends,” Harkness said, affecting a bluff manner. “And while we’re on the subject, you’re not going to tell us someone on your side didn’t tip off General Andric, are you? I wasn’t going to bring that up out of politeness, but with you so certain about his current destination it seemed appropriate.”

  An awkward silence followed. From the beginning of this operation Vlado had wondered about the exact nature of the work done by Harkness and LeBlanc. When he was a teenager it had been popular to label all visiting Americans as CIA agents. Every Brit was MI-5, and all stray Russians were of course KGB. It had been more of a game than a belief, to the point of becoming a silly cliché. When the Olympics had come to Sarajevo in ’84 his friends had made a game out of “tailing” certain athletes and tourists through the evening bar scene, pretending they’d actually identified an operative. But with LeBlanc and Harkness, Vlado sensed, the parlor trick was far more sophisticated. On the one hand, they seemed to do everything but nudge and wink to convince him that their connections ran deeper than the mere diplomatic world. Yet, they prattled on with straight faces about their bosses at “the State Department” or “the Foreign Ministry.” It was unnerving, mostly because he wasn’t sure whom he was dealing with—the representative of a nation or of some agency with a more secretive agenda. Or perhaps with these two, he thought, the stakes were personal.

  “Maybe you guys could argue later,” Janet said. “But until we hear otherwise—from The Hague, not from Washington or Paris— we’re still on the Matek case. This is a briefing for your benefit, not a planning session for you to direct.”

  “All right,” Harkness said. “I’ll play along. And what might your next move be in this vital pursuit of Matek? As a courtesy only, of course.”

  “We’re thinking Rome as a possible destination.”

  Harkness chuckled mildly, then sipped his water with a satisfied slurp. “You’re not really going to waste your time talking to that old windbag Bob Fordham, I hope?”

  Janet flinched but said nothing.

  “I know he’s on all those old cables. But the man has proven notoriously unreliable. It’s why he washed out, you know. No one could believe a word he said. The priority for all of us should still be Andric. And if I may add my two cents—merely in an advisory role, of course—then I’d say the key to finding Andric is finding Branko Popovic.”

  Vlado looked away from Harkness while trying not to show his surprise. He flashed on an image of Popovic’s body in the trunk, facedown like Benny’s, flesh pale and lifeless like Benny’s, the dark blood-stain across his back.

  “Now there’s a man with some real army connections who, if we find him, can help us,” Harkness said. “Not just with Andric but with Matek, too. Same shady friends. Just a rival ethnicity. And from what I’ve heard, certain parties have already been working on cutting an immunity deal in exc
hange for Popovic’s testimony. I don’t want to say it’s us and I don’t want to say it’s your people, Guy. It might even be all of us, under the auspices of the tribunal. Or so I’ve heard.”

  This was news to Pine, apparently. “A deal?” he said. “He’s been under indictment for more than a year, if that’s what you mean. A sealed indictment, granted. But there’s nothing beyond that.”

  Janet, looking pained, spoke up. “Actually, Calvin, there have been talks going on at levels well above us for quite some time. I can’t speak with authority, but Spratt and Contreras have wanted to reel him in for reasons other than prosecution. Popovic apparently knows things about a lot of higher-ups, and not just Andric.”

  “I won’t disagree,” said the Frenchman, still looking down at the table.

  “Excuse me,” Harkness said. “But might this be a good time to ask our Balkan friend Mr. Petric to leave the room?”

  Vlado didn’t like the sound of that, considering the subject. He wondered what more Harkness had learned during the past few days about Popovic, and what that might mean for him. There was no way he was leaving the room voluntarily, but he needed someone to speak up for him. When help arrived, it came from an unlikely corner.

  “Personally,” LeBlanc said, “I don’t see why anyone should have to leave.”

  “Personally, I’d agree,” Harkness answered testily. “Professionally, the smaller the loop the better.”

  “But Paul,” LeBlanc continued, with a look that said the conversation had gone right where he’d wanted, “as far as Vlado is concerned, all of this is personal. Or have you forgotten the connections that brought him to our attention? Don’t you think he’s earned inclusion?”

  Vlado hoped the only connection they meant was his father. Judging from Harkness’s sudden embarrassment, that seemed to be the case.