The Pale House

by Luke McCallin

  “Say what you like about the Serbs,” he whispered, his words a bitter echo of that night Bunda had brought Reinhardt here. He twisted the cork out, lifting the bottle, turning it to the light. “They make the best slivovitz.” That challenge in his blood rose high, deafened him, and he tipped his head and sucked the bottle tight to his mouth, upending it. His mouth flooded, swelled, burned. He gagged, choked, flung the bottle away, and spat after it, the slivovitz spraying in crystal droplets through the heavy air. “Bastard!” he grated, as the bottle broke across the wall in a shatter of glass, and he did not know if he talked of himself or , but he felt that challenge inside him subside and he knew, somehow, he had won something of a victory, if only against himself.

  His feet crunched across the confetti spread of the smashed bottle as he walked slowly over to that second door that had caught his attention the last time he was here. The door was locked. There was no answer to his call, and he stepped back and fired a burst from his StG 44 into the lock. He shoved the door open through a smell of sawdust, then recoiled at the stench that flowed out over it. He waited a moment, hitched his assault rifle over his shoulder, and drew his pistol, crooking his arm across his nose.

  The room was dark, curtains drawn against the pale dawn. There was a desk and a bed, a fireplace heaped with ash. A chest stood on the desk, a red chest, and what little light there was glinted across an array of small bottles and vials scattered around it. He swept the curtains back and dust and motes erupted up and circulated into the light, the shadows darkening the creases and curls of the body that lay beneath the window.

  Reinhardt knelt by it, turning the body’s head toward him with the back of his thumb. It was the soldier who had accompanied Jansky here that time Reinhardt had met him downstairs. The soldier who had been working up in the penal battalion’s office the first time Reinhardt had gone up there and had been carrying the red chest that now sat on the nearby table. His throat had been cut, and his face hung slack above the blackened crescent that slashed across his neck.

  Reinhardt coughed, gagged on the smell, and hauled himself up and away, breathing deeply through the thick serge of his coat. He paused by the fireplace and pushed the muzzle of his pistol through the humped ash, raking back a collection of pieces and shards of . . . something. He knelt, fingering through them, lifting one, turning the edge of thick cardboard against the light, squinting at the darkened tan of its color. He took one of the soldbuchs from his bag, comparing it to the shard he held. His eyes swiveled to the case, back to the fireplace. He rose and pawed through the bottles and vials and powders that lay around and inside the red chest. He ran a soft brush across the back of his hand, pressed a stamp against a scrap of paper, thinking he had never in his years as a policeman come across a more complete forger’s kit. He understood, now, the clerk’s nervous nature, and why he had never seen him parted from that chest. He must have been a forger, a master at his trade, scooped up by those behind all this and now discarded.

  He left the offices, walking back outside into the corridor, opening doors at random, but found nothing and no one. There was no sound, no movement. The house was empty, as if it had never been inhabited, used, and misused. He came down the stairs slowly and hesitated at the doors that led, he thought, out into that courtyard, down into the basements, and he backed away, feeling cheated.

  There was nothing.

  Reinhardt went back outside, blinking in the gray glow, watching the Miljacka spill past, watching a body undulate its way downstream, catch on a rock, and flop itself free. He ignored Benfeld’s eyes as he threw his assault rifle back into the car, paused, and then wormed his way back inside.

  “Anything, Benfeld?”

  “Nothing, sir. Just a lot of noise.”

  “We’ve got to go a bit farther.”

  “As you say, sir.”

  “You fought in many cities?” Reinhardt asked as he hauled the armored door shut.

  “I’ve done my share of street fighting, sir,” Benfeld answered.

  “Keep those eyes peeled, then.”

  Not that he needed to say it, but seconds later he felt the turret traverse, and the car juddered to the recoil of the machine gun, spent shells sparkling into the panzerfunkwagen’s interior. Benfeld said nothing, and Reinhardt asked nothing as he turned left into the angular warren of the Austro-Hungarian city, winding his way right, then left. The streets were still empty, but the pressure of eyes was stronger here, and then he was flooring the accelerator as windows exploded in puffs of smoke, and the car’s armor rang to the percussion of metal. Benfeld cursed as he ducked out of the turret, but in seconds the danger was gone, and Reinhardt had wound his zigzagging way to the blank entrance he was looking for.

  He twisted out of the car to the sound of heavy street fighting, the wind and distance ruining any appreciation of how far away it was, but dark silhouettes dashed across the mouth of a cross street a few hundred yards away. Reinhardt hesitated, then turned and ran inside, clattering upstairs. He paused, breathing heavily, then knocked softly, then again, harder.

  “Go away!” came voice, thread-thin through the door.

  He knocked again. “Suzana. It’s Gregor.”

  The door opened a sliver, and he put a hand to it, firmly, sliding his way inside, pushing it shut behind him. stood there, her eyes wide, flashing from his helmet to his webbing, to the assault rifle on his shoulder.

  “Reinhardt. Gregor. I thought . . . What—what are you doing here?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Are you all right? Is someone . . . is someone after you?” she rushed, her eyes flickering from him to the door as if she expected it to burst open.

  He lifted his arms slowly and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I am fine. I am fine.”

  “Then what?” she breathed. And then she shook her head, and she pulled him to her. His arms went tight around her, his equipment pressing between them. “I was so worried,” she whispered.

  He turned his face into her hair, eyes closed, taking in all he could of her.

  “I need your help,” he said again.

  “What?” she said into his throat.

  “I need you to take me to .”

  shifted her head, pulling it back. “To Valter? I don’t know . . .”

  She stiffened, made to step away, but he held her, gently.

  “There’s no time, Suzana,” he said.

  “I don’t . . .” she said again.

  “You do,” he said, quietly.

  “No.”

  “Suzana. How many people in this city know Valter’s real name is ?” She said nothing, her eyes fixed on his. “I know, Suzana. Your work? The things you said about the city? About the Ustaše? How the people respond to you?”

  “I . . . that’s . . .”

  “The things we said last night?” She blinked. “The theater?”

  Something shuttered across the light in her eyes, and they gleamed coldly back at him. “What do you want?” she managed, finally.

  “ asked me something,” Reinhardt said. “He asked me about the Ustaše. What the future held for them.”

  “And?”

  “And now I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I will tell . When you take me to him.” She firmed her lips, those eyes staying flat and cold. “Suzana, there is not much time. I know you are working with the Partisans. I beg you. Please. Trust me.”

  She took a long breath in, then nodded, her face softening. “I am sorry, Gregor,” she said, quietly. “Please understand, trust is not so . . . easily . . . won these days.”

  Reinhardt opened the door as she lifted her coat from a hook, then stepped out onto the landing. The light was dim, the shadows long and deep.

  “Is it far?” he asked.

  “Not so far,” she answered, as she clos
ed the door. “But Valter will be on the move, today, and . . .” She stopped, wide-eyed again, as Reinhardt raised his hand. He went still, freezing in place. There was a creak of wood, and the shadows at the end of the landing bunched and moved, and Bunda stepped out of the darkness.

  Reinhardt’s guts tightened with a visceral clench and that primeval gibber started up at the back of his mind at the sight of the huge Ustaše. It was the creature at the cave mouth. It was the arrow surge of ripples across dark waters. It was, he knew now, the watcher from the darkness, the one he had felt on the street, just earlier that morning. They recoiled backward from the size and power and the stink of him, begrimed, bloodied, smoke-darkened, his teeth gleaming across the blunt line of his jaws.

  “What’s this I ’eard about Valter, then?”

  Bunda surged into motion. Reinhardt pushed back inside the apartment, yanking the door shut behind her. He hauled the assault rifle from his shoulders, but Bunda was too close. He swung the stock up at the Ustaša’s head, but it thudded into Bunda’s palm as his hands seized the weapon. Reinhardt did not even try to wrestle for the gun’s control. Something took over, some battlefield reaction to move toward the enemy, and he ducked down, under Bunda’s arms, and butted his head up. He felt the crown of his helmet burst across Bunda’s jaw, heard the clack of teeth, and Bunda grunted. Reinhardt’s arms reached up and he clawed his fingers into Bunda’s eyes, feeling the giant’s head rock back and shake from side to side.

  But then Bunda’s fist piled into the side of Reinhardt’s head and his vision starred as his helmet spun away. He kicked at Bunda’s groin, scrabbling for his pistol. Bunda grunted again around the thud of Reinhardt’s knee, twisting and taking it on the inside of his thigh, and he slammed Reinhardt against the door, a web of cracks splintering away from the lock. Reinhardt felt the wood sag, and Bunda slammed him into it again. Reinhardt felt the twist of tension in the way Bunda held him, and knew a punch was coming but could do nothing except duck his head and lift an arm, and still the punch almost flattened the back of his head against the door. Bunda hauled him to the side and smashed the door open with his foot. The door crashed back against the wall and Reinhardt staggered backward inside, his arms windmilling for balance, and his pistol knocked against something and fell. There was a shattering pain in his knee as Bunda’s kick swept Reinhardt’s legs from under him and he crashed to the floor. Instinctively he rolled away, taking a second kick in a glancing blow across his back. He fumbled across the floor, then felt Bunda’s hands come down on his shoulders and he was lifted, swung across the room to crash headfirst into the pile of boxes and belongings from previous house.

  He had never fought anyone like this. Never. Dimly, from somewhere far away, he heard screaming, and he turned his head, seeing Bunda laughing as he held her hand high and plucked Reinhardt’s pistol from her grip. Still laughing, he backhanded her across the room to sprawl akimbo beneath a table. Summoning up a strength he hardly felt, Reinhardt drew his bayonet, forcing himself to his knees, to turn and face the giant.

  Bunda’s smile stretched wider as he looked at Reinhardt, at the bayonet that wobbled a child’s scrawl in the air. He drew his spiked club from his belt, flicked it spinning into the air, caught it, then whistled it at Reinhardt’s head. Reinhardt ducked, feeling the iron weight of its passage, but then the club was coming back and it buried itself in his shoulder. He screamed as he was knocked to the side, the bayonet clanging away somewhere into the bloodied darkness of his vision.

  Reinhardt felt himself pulled across the floor and a band of ice went around his wrist. He felt a slap across his jaw and he gasped and wretched as Bunda poured slivovitz over his face. He spluttered back to life, one wrist manacled to an iron heating pipe that ran around the bottom edge of the room. Bunda smiled at him, his huge hand wound into Reinhardt’s gorget.

  “Wake up, Reinhardt, there’s a good boy. Wouldn’t want you to miss the show.” Bunda tipped more slivovitz over Reinhardt’s head, and it ran biting across his wounds and into his eyes. Bunda threw the bottle away, cocked his head at Reinhardt. “What did I say to you that first time, Reinhardt? You remember? ‘This ain’t the place it used to be,’ I said. There’s no rules now but what we make. Ain’t no gettin’ around that. Ain’t no gettin’ away from that. Ain’t no gettin’ in the way of it, neither. D’you remember? You do. I know you do. Bloke like you, he remembers things like that. What else did I say? D’you remember?” He pinched Reinhardt’s jaw, shaking it from side to side with every word. “You do remember, don’t you?” Bunda said, pursing his lips in a mother’s mimic to a child. “I said she was fucking royalty. I said she was ours.”

  “No,” Reinhardt slurred. His free hand came up, fingers arrowed at Bunda’s eyes, but it was slapped away.

  “Yes, Reinhardt,” said Bunda, the light of madness in his eyes. “I said she’s ours. I should’a said, she’s mine. I deserve ’er. Fucking royalty. Airs and fucking graces. No time for the likes of me. but what’s the point of being me if you can’t take what you want, when you want it.”

  “NO!”

  “YES! And a traitor as well. Fucking around with Partisans. I’m going to ’ave ’er before I leave this shithole, and you’re going to watch.”

  Bunda stood, towering to his feet, and strode across the room. He pulled out from under the table, slapping away the life that came back into her. He hauled her to her feet, turned her, and bent her over the table. She really struggled, then, understanding what was to happen. Her back bowed up, hands flailing behind her until he cuffed her head down, and it thudded into the tabletop.

  Reinhardt heaved himself against the manacle, helpless as Bunda lifted her skirts, tore away her smallclothes. He stood back, a broad smile across his face.

  “Wasn’t I right, Reinhardt? Is that not one regal-looking backside?” He slapped her, her flesh quivering away from the strike of his hand.

  “Bunda, stop. STOP.”

  “Why the fuck would I, Reinhardt?” He shrugged out of his jacket, winding his massive shoulders out of his braces. “Lie still, you,” he said to , striking her head back down. He fumbled at his trousers, letting them crumple down around the trunks of his legs.

  Reinhardt laughed, forcing it out around the fury that constricted his throat. “Is that all you’ve got?” he cackled, hoping to goad Bunda back over to him. “Big man like you? And there I was thinking it was true what they said about men with big feet.”

  Bunda reddened, but stayed where he was. “Funny man, Reinhardt. I’m going to fuck every ’ole in ’er, now. You tell me ’ow funny you find that.” He turned and planted his fists into hips, but she arched up, kicking, twisting, screaming, and Reinhardt echoed her, spinning, planting his feet against the wall, heaving against the bind of the manacle. It gripped tight, a fixed point to the sliding swirl of horror that cascaded through him. He pulled harder, yanked like an imprisoned animal, the bones of his hand blaring in agony. Behind him he heard Bunda swear at to lie still, but still she fought back, trying to slump herself off the edge of the table, although every movement weakened her. There was a meaty slap and made a little sound and Reinhardt knew her fight was over as Bunda laughed and his world began to crack, his vision fracturing into kaleidoscope blurs, and in one of them something moved.

  He lifted his head, seeing Neven walk quietly over to Bunda, his uncle’s heavy butcher’s blade in his little fists. The boy paused behind the bunched strain of Bunda’s legs, and then with both hands he stabbed and swept the knife across the Ustaša’s left hamstring. Bunda gasped, jerked sideways, and Neven drew the blade across the other. Bunda’s legs bent, quivered, and red lines opened across them. Thin, at first, then suddenly wide, blood sheeting out. The Ustaša grasped the table for support, and Neven drove the knife into his back, beside his spine.

  Bunda howled, one arm swinging back as he arched himself around, searching for the source of the agony that tore at him. His fist ca
ught Neven across the head and the boy was dashed to the floor, but Bunda’s legs were going, going, and the giant toppled like a falling tree, bellowing, and his hand grasped for the knife where it stood proud from his back.

  Heaving himself forward against the agony of his hand, Reinhardt hooked his fingers over Bunda’s brow and dug as hard as he could for the eyes. Bunda bellowed again, his hands coming up, squeezing and tearing at Reinhardt’s fingers, but Reinhardt pressed tighter, dug deeper, hauled harder than he had ever done as staggered back from the table, dipped to the floor, and rose with Bunda’s club in her hands. A step, two, and she swung the club down into Bunda’s groin. The giant went rigid, his scream cracking against his throat as his hands flailed wide and screamed in counterpoint as she sawed and heaved at the club, back and forth, as if loosening a stake from the ground. She ripped it free, as if from the grudging earth, flung it away, and collapsed to her side, reaching for the still form of Neven.

  Blood pumped from between Bunda’s legs. Reinhardt felt him weaken, the life flowing out of him, and then Reinhardt tipped slowly to his side, bile rising in his throat, and he vomited weakly. His breathing came high and hoarse but that primeval gibber in his mind began to calm and he lifted his head, wiping his hand across his mouth. Never. Not the trenches. Not the darkened streets of Berlin. Not the shattered battlefields of this war. He had never felt like this, fought like this, but the creature at the mouth of the cave was gone.

  “The keys,” he whispered to . “Please . . .”

  She moved after a while, then dragged Bunda’s jacket to her and pushed it over to Reinhardt. He found the key, holding his hand to his chest a moment after he freed it, then crawled over to .

  “Suzana,” he whispered. He touched her arm, and she shuddered up and away, a frozen angularity to her. Her eyes were wild, her mouth wide, but then she focused, her gaze clearing as she stared at Bunda’s body. Reinhardt turned and saw that Bunda was still alive, looking at them, his eyes dark pits in the pallor of his face. Bunda looked down in incomprehension at the carnage of his groin, and then the thread of his breath went taut, stopped, and the blackness of his eyes fell in and away. sighed out, and she relaxed slowly into Reinhardt’s arms, the two of them clinging to each other as Neven stirred, and the sound of battle filtered in from outside.