The Heart of Hell

by Alen Mattich

  The blow had the effect of an explosion that struck every nerve and yet somehow failed to crush della Torre into dust. The old man’s open palm was heavy — big and flat, and coarse with age and manual work. When it struck Marko’s cheek, the force almost caused him to lose his balance.

  His father stood there, struck dumb, rooted like an ancient vine, staring at della Torre with horror.

  Neither man said anything. For a long time they didn’t move, and then della Torre’s father turned back towards the house. The son lit a cigarette and then followed.

  THEY LEFT THAT afternoon. The parting was strained. There was no mention of what had happened in the vineyard between della Torre and his father. The two men shook hands. Anzulović took the wheel.

  As della Torre shut his door, his father passed a package to him through the open window. It was small but heavy. Della Torre didn’t know what was in it. It could have been a piece of his father’s cured ham, or the collection of baseball cards Marko had brought with him from America as a teenager. So he said an uncertain “thanks” and they drove off.

  They headed south, down through Istria along the coast road. It was a long time before della Torre spoke.

  “Dad always wanted me and Irena to come live with him. To leave Zagreb. Have lots of kids. Irena could work at the teaching hospital in Rijeka; I could stay at home, raising children and wheat, making wine. He said he’d build us a swimming pool and a tennis court and give it all to us.”

  “It’s funny, we get to an age and we think only of how to get rid of the things we’ve spent our lives accumulating,” Anzulović said. “For instance, I spend all my time thinking of how to get rid of my wife’s dog and my daughters so that I can have just a little peace before I’m too old to enjoy it.”

  Della Torre laughed despite himself. More than the joke warranted.

  He finally opened the package when they’d got past Rijeka. In it was a neat stack of six one-ounce Krugerrands and a thousand Deutschmarks.

  Between the wars, Piero’s father, della Torre’s grandfather, had saved up gold and silver coins. Whenever he had a little spare money, he’d buy gold and put it aside. When the war came, he didn’t touch the gold until he needed it to pay the Italians to get his brother-in-law out of jail. And then, after the war, when the Communists were shooting people with Italian surnames, he paid for the della Torres to be left alone so that he could keep at least some of their property. He’d been smart about how he paid bribes, because there was always a risk they’d take the money and shoot his family anyway. Smart and brave.

  Della Torre’s father had done what his own father had done and set aside gold, Deutschmarks, and dollars. Because one never knew . . .

  South of Rijeka, traffic thinned. They drove past Senj, which centuries ago had been home to the ferocious Uskok pirates, who’d terrorized both Venice and the Ottomans. Now it was a modest port town at the base of rocky white mountains. Beyond Senj, notices were posted on the sides of the road warning of mines.

  “If you need a piss, don’t pull over,” Anzulović said to della Torre, who was now driving.

  A police roadblock told them JNA artillery had targeted the coastal road towards Zadar. Effectively, Croatia had been chopped up. One part consisted of Zagreb and the main inland region that stretched from the Slovene border to the Vukovar war zone. It was connected to Zagreb only by the thread of small roads through hilly country as the JNA pressed against Karlovac. The main part of Dalmatia was cut off from the northern Adriatic by JNA artillery in the hills behind Zadar. And farther south, Dubrovnik was surrounded.

  The only way to Zadar was a little ferry across the narrow strait to Pag Island, a long ridge of white rock in the turquoise sea. But the ferry had recently been attacked by Yugoslav jets, making for a nervous crossing, crew and passengers watching the sky for enemy fighters.

  They drove along the island’s harsh stone-and-scrub landscape and then across a bridge back to the mainland, its checkpoint manned by three policemen keeping out of the wind in a parked Zastava.

  They didn’t stop in Zadar but carried on south, worried about becoming targets for the Serb artillerymen who’d carved out an independent territory in the mountains behind the ancient walled city. They passed occasional signs of war: a burnt-out building, a marked minefield, the empty road.

  As the countryside flattened to sandy soil and pine trees, vineyards and olive groves, and the mountains receded, della Torre and Anzulović relaxed. The coastal cities on the way were under threat of naval bombardment and more limited blockades, so they skirted Šibenik and Split and instead stopped in small hamlets for food and fuel. Sometimes the going was slow, though most of the traffic was heading in the opposite direction, refugees travelling north from the battles around Dubrovnik.

  Della Torre and Anzulović stayed on the road after nightfall, using their military IDs to get around the militia roadblocks. The militiamen were nervous about letting them through, for fear the Serb gunners would pick out the car’s headlights and target them. But della Torre wanted to press on, and Anzulović offered no resistance.

  They arrived at the small port town of Ploče in the early hours of morning. It was as far south as they could get by car. Beyond it, the JNA had broken through to the coast in their encirclement of Dubrovnik.

  The previous day, Ploče had been bombed by the Yugoslav air force. Della Torre could smell the crushed concrete, melted plastic, burnt wood. The fear.

  The town was in complete darkness. As they approached the town’s harbourside square, a trio of local policemen flagged them down at pistol point. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” one swore at della Torre, pointing his flashlight into the car.

  “Looking for a hotel.”

  “I’ve seen some stupid tourists in my time, but I think you take the cake. There’s Serb artillery not fifteen kilometres away. Might sound far to you, but they can drop a shell into your lap from there. Which I wouldn’t mind at all, except if you’re in my town when they do it. Verstehen?”

  Della Torre showed him his credentials, which he’d kept in easy reach.

  “It says ‘major’ here. Major what? Fuckwit?” The cop was insensible with outrage and didn’t care who he was talking to.

  “Your point’s taken, officer,” della Torre said, tired and growing irritated himself. “Show us to somewhere we might stay for the night and we’ll switch off the headlights.”

  “You’ll switch them off now or I’ll shove this flashlight up your ass.”

  Della Torre recognized that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this man by pulling rank, and not just because the cops had their guns in hand while his was still in his bag. He switched off the lights.

  “Now, officer, maybe you can tell us where we can park the car and find a bed. You do that nicely and I won’t bother finding out your name.” Della Torre left the rest of the threat unsaid.

  The cop, for his part, was pulled back by a colleague, who took over.

  “Here’s fine. This is the main square. I’ll take you to a place that has rooms.”

  Della Torre more or less left the car where it was, and then he and Anzulović followed the cop, leaving his belligerent partner behind.

  The owner of the little hotel was reluctant to open up. Still addled with sleep, dressed in an undershirt and a loose pair of trousers, he finally directed the men to a room with two single metal-framed beds and a tiled floor that was designed to be cool in the summer but right now felt icy under sock feet.

  Della Torre tried to find out what the charge would be, but the owner just said: “You’ll pay what I ask.”

  “Friendly sort of place,” Anzulović said five minutes later, as he pulled the sheets up to his chin.

  “Guess getting bombed makes a person a bit tense.”

  Anzulović grunted agreement, eyes shut.

  The owner of the hotel
was no more welcoming in the morning, telling the men they’d have to get their breakfast at a café on the square. But the price for the room was modest, and the beds had been comfortable enough.

  Ploče was a lovely harbour town surrounded by high hills; ornamental palm trees were planted along the waterfront. A handful of buildings had been damaged in the raid; according to the man at the tobacco kiosk, all the destruction was readily visible from the square. Della Torre didn’t think it was too terrible, certainly nothing compared to the pictures coming out of Vukovar. But it had clearly shocked the locals.

  Ferries still ran to Korčula, but the normal schedule had been abandoned. Now they went when their captains thought the navy would leave them alone and the skies did not seem conducive to raids by Yugoslav fighter bombers.

  Starting early in the day, more and more people gathered at the dockside, most of them from the surrounding countryside, fleeing the war. But they all wanted to go north. The only craft they saw leaving Ploče’s harbour that morning was a small, colourful sailing boat, which they watched in a desultory way, a modest relief from the boredom of waiting. Towards midday, a ferry loaded up with most of those waiting on the dock and headed gingerly towards Split, hoping the Yugoslav naval ship visible offshore would leave them in peace. Those waters weren’t blockaded yet.

  It was late afternoon before della Torre and Anzulović, along with a dozen other passengers who’d spent the day waiting, were collected by an ancient car ferry. It felt like boarding a ship in Southampton after the sinking of the Titanic.

  They gave their tickets to a crew member, who handed them each a stub of a receipt badly printed on rough grey paper and drove the Citroën up the ramp. Before they knew it, the boat trembled and moved off.

  “It looks like they’re serving drinks,” della Torre said, surprised to see the ship’s bar open.

  “Coffee?”

  “More like wine. Want a glass?”

  “Bit early, isn’t it?” Anzulović replied.

  “To be drinking?” della Torre said in surprise. This was a country where, as often as not, people woke to a shot of slivovitz.

  “No, for stupid questions,” Anzulović said.

  “That’s almost funny.”

  “It’s from an American sitcom. You know how I know it’s funny? Because every time they repeat it on TV, you can hear people laughing on the soundtrack,” Anzulović said, deadpan. Maybe everything was equally funny to him. Or equally serious.

  They drank watered-down white wine alongside a trucker and a heavyset middle-aged woman wearing a dark blue sweatshirt that said Hot Babe in English.

  Hot Babe and other absurd sweatshirts meant something more than misappropriated language. They spoke of family abroad, of money to buy imported goods, of something different and exotic, if only a change from patterned polyester. It had been a long time since della Torre had found the slogans worth noticing.

  The long, stony Pelješac peninsula slid past, a narrow band of white shoreline separating the green-blue waters from the brown-green brush. It was a line of limestone where sun, short tides, and storm waves gnawed away at even the hardiest flora. Higher up, scrub dominated, including thorn bushes, rosemary, lavender, stunted pines, and olive trees, wild and in groves.

  The ferry’s leisurely passage belied the constant uncertainty. Would they be attacked from the sky, or by one of the big grey ships etched on the horizon?

  They rounded the end of the peninsula, and there was the narrow Korčula channel. The stone citadel jutted from its island promontory. Beyond, the high, massive mainland range was unflinching, like Odysseus standing before blind Polyphemus: a white bastion at the harbour entrance, white stone walls and palms, red-tiled roofs stacked in layers towards the central hill. Venetian, not Ragusan — Ragusa was Dubrovnik’s ancient name — but for all intents and purposes Dubrovnik’s twin, in miniature and in spirit. As they approached, the evening light turned the city pink, as if the red had run from the rooftops to stain the walls below.

  There was a little water traffic. A couple of open-decked fishing boats, looking more like whalers, motored from somewhere along the coast.

  The dockside was full of people, as busy as a city-centre train station at rush hour. All wanting to escape the war. How often had they heard rumours of a boat and stood there waiting, only to be disappointed?

  The ferry’s diesel smoke billowed as its engine revved hard into the moorings. Iodine shore smells mixed with salt and rotting fish. Warps were cast over to a shoreman, who tied the ferry to the iron bollards. Hopeful passengers moved slowly out of the way, but there was little pushing or shoving. There’d be enough space to take them all, though not their vehicles too.

  A supply truck moved off first, reversing down the open ramp as people dockside made way to let it through. The captain strode aft, expressionless in his short, dark coat, a white and blue peaked cap covering most of his black hair.

  They drove off the ferry, squeezing past old women and young women and children and some men among them too. Most looked tired, their possessions packed in boxy suitcases and big woven polyester bags. The refugees stood patiently but were already staking out their places on the boat.

  And then della Torre and Anzulović found themselves standing next to the Citroën at the edge of the old town. They left the car in a quayside parking space and went to find somewhere to stay. It surprised them that so many places were full. Refugees.

  They were directed to the local police station, which doubled as the militia headquarters. After considerable deliberation among the militiamen, they were given the address of a pension in the heart of the old town. It was a simple townhouse, with worn tile floors and ceramic stoves fuelled by scraps of wood. But the rooms were clean, the sheets crisp, and each bed covered by an eiderdown in a lace-fringed cotton counterpane. The place was run by an old lady in a black head scarf and black dress, eyes lost in the depths of a round, wrinkled face like a shrivelled apple. She said they could call her Nonna, “grandmother” in Italian.

  Once they’d negotiated a price, she cooked a simple supper, which they ate at the kitchen table. They sat at a corner table covered in checkered oilcloth, with a built-in bench that ran along two sides, helping themselves to slices of bread and cheese while the old woman stood beside a shallow soapstone sink, preparing food on a wood-burning steel and enamel stove. She served a soup with fine homemade vermicelli noodles, and fillets of indeterminate fish with a lukewarm potato salad dressed in oil and vinegar, raw onions, and a cabbage salad.

  “Don’t eat in the restaurants,” Nonna said. “You never know what they will feed you. I will cook for you.”

  Although it had largely been a day of waiting, della Torre and Anzulović were exhausted and retired soon after eating.

  The next morning della Torre went to find out what he could about blockade runners. The sergeant manning the desk at the police station shrugged and told him there’d been no boats that day or the day before, and he wasn’t sure when to expect one. He said one or two speedboats based in Dubrovnik had ventured out to fetch water — the city had been relying on its ancient cisterns since the JNA had cut off the watermains, as well as the electricity. But none had come as far as Korčula.

  “Could anyone be persuaded to take me?”

  “Take you?” The captain looked at him, distrusting, wondering what sort of idiot or madman had been foisted on him. “Why?”

  “Because I need to go to Dubrovnik.”

  “Mister — I mean Major — they’re negotiating passage for a humanitarian convoy. Who knows, maybe in a week you’ll be able to go and not get shot at on the way. Though I’m not sure the folks in Dubrovnik need outsiders giving them advice as much as they need water and ammunition. And I’m pretty sure they don’t want tourists.”

  The convoy of ships Grimston had spoken about still hadn’t set sail. Everyone was waiting for it, but
no one knew when the negotiations with the Yugoslav forces would be resolved.

  “What I’m going there for isn’t particularly your business, if you don’t mind my saying,” he replied. “And I haven’t got time to wait for this mythical convoy.”

  “Suit yourself. You can go and ask the fishermen. They might know.”

  He walked back into town along the quayside. People were about, either loitering or hopeful for another ferry to the mainland. He spotted a fisherman working on the inboard engine of his open boat.

  “How hard would it be to hire a fishing boat?” della Torre asked.

  “Depends how much you’re willing to pay,” the man said, casually looking up. “And where you might want to go. Orebić” — he pointed to the small town on the peninsula across the channel — “would cost you thirty Deutschmarks. Might be able to get you to Ploče, but that’ll be expensive. Depends how many people, but if there’s four or more I could do it for a hundred and fifty.”

  That didn’t sound too unreasonable to della Torre, given this was a time of war, until the man added: “Each.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “It is. Most of us don’t like to leave the inshore waters. Too many patrol boats keen on target practice.”

  “What about Dubrovnik?” della Torre asked.

  “Dubrovnik?” The man looked up again, incredulous. “What is this? That hidden-camera show where they make you look stupid?”

  “Honest question,” della Torre said.

  “Honest answer? Not if you promised to make me as rich as Rockefeller. Hard to spend it when you’re dead. Try some of the other guys. You might catch one who’s been drinking.”

  “Anyone else making the trip? I hear there are blockade runners.”

  “People who want to be fish food.” And then, softening his stance, he said: “There’s one or two who might give it a try. You get people desperate for money. But nobody I could point you to.”

  “If you change your mind . . .”