The Heart of Hell

by Alen Mattich

  They ate an indifferent meal of oily potatoes, boiled greens, and fried fish in the hotel’s dining room, in Grimston’s company. The American alternated easily between Russian, English, German, and a rudimentary Serbo-Croat.

  Anzulović filled the silences by talking about the local hero, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, of whom Grimston was ignorant.

  “Sir Fitzroy,” Anzulović said, mauling the name as he struggled with his English-German hybrid. “He was model for James Bond. Was English officer, friend of Tito, helped the Partizans during war.”

  Grimston feigned interest.

  All the while della Torre wanted to bring up Libero, but he didn’t.

  Back in his room, he lay on a dented mattress covered by a brown polyester blanket. Libero, Irena, and Strumbić nagged at him. There was nothing he could do about the old man now. Irena would be leaving Vukovar soon. But he could still intervene with Strumbić.

  He dressed quickly and slipped his Beretta into one coat pocket and a box of shells into the other. He filled his shoulder bag with some changes of underwear and a couple of shirts and the money his father had given him.

  He lay on the floor by the door and listened. For a long time, he heard nothing. He tried not to gag at the smell of cigarette smoke and cooking oil that had seeped into the carpet. Then he heard it. Footsteps. A shadow passed by his door.

  He opened the window. The moon’s soft light was enough for him to trace a path through the otherwise dark town. The streetlights were no longer on, for fear of drawing the interest of distant gunners and because there was no fuel to spare. He stepped onto the roof. The curved pantiles were slick with evening dew, but his sturdy British shoes gave him enough grip to scale the ridge. He made his way to the end of the building and realized there’d be no easy way down, no obvious handholds. The hotel had been built from smooth stone with microscopic joins. It’d be a long fall to a hard landing if he slipped.

  If the Americans were guarding the hallway, they’d have some presence in front of the building as well, even assuming he could find some way of scaling the wall. But then another idea came to mind.

  The rear slope of the roof was much shallower than the front; della Torre had little difficulty keeping his balance. The back of the building faced one of Korčula’s narrow alleyways, no more than two metres wide. The building opposite was at roughly the same level, also with a nearly flat tiled roof.

  Della Torre shoved his gun and box of bullets into the clothes in the shoulder bag and, whispering a small prayer, threw it over the gap to the opposite roof. The bag rolled and then slid back slightly but stopped well before the roof’s edge. He reversed a couple of steps and, knowing the smallest slip would leave him a puddle of blood and bones on the street below, he made the short sprint and leap.

  He cleared the distance easily, but his momentum caused him to tumble forward. The tiles complained, clattering with the force, though none broke or dislodged. But on landing his arm had hit the bag and sent it sliding sideways. For a moment he winced at the thought of losing the gun and the gold, but the bag stopped.

  He rose to a crouch and, in slow steps, ever ready to fall to his hands and knees, he scooped up his haversack and slung it back over his shoulder. From here, the trick would be to find a way down. He could break open a roof hatch, but he didn’t know what sort of reception he’d get. Too many police and militiamen with guns and raw nerves were billeted around the town.

  But where he was going would be safe. If only he could get there without breaking his neck.

  Like Dubrovnik, but on a smaller scale, Korčula was built around a central main street, with narrow alleys running off it like fishbones. All but a few were an easy jumping distance, needing little run-up. The heights of the buildings didn’t vary greatly, and it wouldn’t be difficult to trace a path across them. In theory it would be an easy passage.

  But, from his time in the commandos, della Torre knew that theory and practice overlapped only at the narrowest margins.

  The next roof nearly proved to be his undoing. It was steeper than the one he was on, and older. The tile he put his foot through upon landing might well have dated from the sixteenth century, when the house was built. The shards went crashing onto the paving stones below, while more tiles threatened to crumble under his weight. His foot was wedged under the battens supporting the tiles, one of which had broken and was now acting as a trap. He breathed hard, waiting for the alarm, but none came.

  Pushing his boot up against the wooden fragments threatened to impale his foot. Somehow he couldn’t twist around, either. The bag, which he’d slung over his back with its strap across his chest, had worked its way to the front and was now in the way. Della Torre sweated with the effort of trying to extract himself.

  In the end, he managed by dislodging another couple of tiles and, doubled over, slowly working his foot free. He edged up to the ridge to catch his breath. By now the moonlight was fading. He had to hurry if he was to avoid being trapped on the rooftops in total darkness.

  The next roof was slick, and he almost lost his footing, but his boot caught a metal support. He broke a few tiles on the landing. This time the noise set a dog barking, followed by a man’s voice swearing at it to shut up and then cursing the cats that infested the town.

  For a while della Torre feared he’d reached a dead end — the subsequent roof across the alley was too high to jump to and the adjoining one was also out of reach. But he found a series of attic vents in a wall and used them as footholds to climb the neighbouring building. And from there he made his final crossing.

  He counted the houses. It was hard to be sure. He scrambled to the one he prayed was right, and after a long search by feeling in what had become almost complete darkness, he found the roof hatch.

  It was bolted from below.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, wondering where he might find a lever to pry it open.

  He got his fingers underneath the lip and heaved. The hatch groaned but didn’t give. It was a modern replacement: he could feel the raw zinc edges bite into his flesh. He was cautious about the force he used, knowing that if it gave way suddenly, he’d likely pitch himself down the roof and over the edge.

  But accidentally cracking a tile at the edge of the hatch gave him an idea. Once he’d worked that one loose, he eased the next one free, and then the one after that, until he’d made a big enough hole to get his arm underneath, between the wooden battens, and unbolt the hatch.

  He slid into the roof space, careful to stay on the ceiling rafters. He flicked his cigarette lighter for a quick look around and found the hatch into the main part of the house. From there he slowly let himself down so that he was hanging above the floor below.

  His arms weakening, he dropped as softly as he could, but he couldn’t avoid making a thump. He stood dead still for a long time, hoping the noise had passed unnoticed, but he was out of luck. Torchlight shone from the floor below; footsteps followed. The beam blinded him after the darkness, and he smiled as fetchingly as he could.

  “Signor della Torre?”

  “Nonna, my apologies for dropping in at this late hour. I’d forgotten something, you see.”

  “But how did you get in?”

  “You gave me the key, remember? I’ve left it downstairs. I forgot this little bag,” he said, patting the holdall.

  “But why are you up here? Your room is downstairs.”

  “It’s the dark,” he whispered soothingly. “I was disoriented.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “I have that sometimes. Not knowing if I’m going down or up. It’s a shame you missed the brodetto. It will be good tomorrow too.”

  “I will be sure to come back. The meal we had at the hotel was terrible.”

  “Oh, serves you right. Foreigners cook at those hotels. They don’t know anything about food.”

  “But I think it’s time I went, Nonna. It wasn’
t my intention to disturb you.”

  “Before you leave, I must give you back the money you and Signor Anzulović left. It is foolish to be throwing that kind of money at an old lady. You young need it more than I. I have my widow’s pension, and that’s sufficient.”

  “You hold on to it, Nonna. And tomorrow get a workman to look at your roof. I think there are some loose tiles. Spend the money on that.”

  “Oh, mamma mia, you got all the way up there?”

  “Maybe you should guide me out.”

  “But won’t you stay the night? It’s so late.”

  “I really must leave. My apologies for waking you.”

  She led him to the front door, where he again whispered his apologies while she waved away his intrusion, as if such things happened all the time.

  Della Torre had hardly stepped out of the house when he tripped over a cat making a dash across the alley. It yowled as he stumbled, falling heavily onto his knees. He swore and then laughed with relief that it hadn’t happened up on the roof. He guided himself by running his hand along the walls and carefully toeing his way to avoid raised cobblestones and doorsteps.

  He found the Citroën where he’d left it at the edge of town. For a while he wondered whether the Americans might be watching it. But this wasn’t a big island. There wasn’t really anywhere to run, and they couldn’t have been expecting him to make an escape from the hotel.

  He drove out of the town and along the coast road, and then found the rough track. He parked at the gate to the little farmhouse, and then for a long moment sat in car, wondering what exactly he was doing.

  The iron gate creaked as he pushed it open just wide enough to slip into the courtyard. The gravel crunched underfoot. There was barely a ghost of light, only enough that he could make out the house in the darkness.

  Far away, where the peninsula joined the mainland, he saw points of brightness, the small red twinkling of distant fires, and it struck him that the Serbs were burning houses.

  He found the door and knocked on it. There was a window cut into it, the pane protected by a grille of wrought-iron foliage. A light shone on him almost immediately.

  “I have your thousand Deutschmarks,” della Torre said.

  THE BEAM OF light was on him for a long time before she said anything.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  She unbolted the door and opened it, switching off the flashlight. A feeble kerosene lantern glowed in the stark hallway. “There’s no power at night up here,” she said. She wore a heavy linen dressing gown over her long linen nightshirt. Her hair was loose and untidy with sleep. “Come into the kitchen.”The room made up much of the ground floor, with a tall ceiling, a fridge, an old-fashioned wood-burning stove, and a table covered with the blue-checked oilcloth found in almost every household in the country. Pots and pans hung from butcher’s hooks along an iron rail fixed to the wall.

  “I heard your car. Not many come along here at night.”

  “I’m sorry for showing up so late, but I want to take you up on your offer. Straight away,” he said.

  Her chin jerked up slightly with surprise. “We couldn’t go now. We’d have to wait for daybreak.”

  “Can we get set up so we can leave at first light?” he asked.

  “It depends on the wind. And I’d need to stock up with petrol and water. A few provisions, too. It’s hard to know what we’ll need.”

  “Petrol?”

  “In case the wind dies or we get hit with a storm. It’s useful to have access to the engine.”

  “We could siphon some out of the Citroën, if that’s good enough. How much would you need?”

  “Thirty or forty litres.”

  “Seems a lot.”

  “That’s what I need.”

  “I’m sure I’ve got that much left in the tank. We filled up before Ploče and I haven’t driven the car much.”

  There was something odd about the conversation. About how coolly she was accepting his sudden appearance.

  “You don’t seem particularly surprised that I’ve come back, or at how late I’ve shown up,” he said.

  “Since the war started, the unusual has started to become rather routine.” She looked at him with detachment. “Not that long after you left yesterday, a couple of men came around. The one who talked spoke Serbo-Croat badly and with a strange accent. Russian, maybe. His English was better. He didn’t introduce himself, just asked why you’d come.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Yes. A few people know I’ll sail them places for a price.”

  “Not in the militia or the police.”

  She shrugged. “No one would have suggested me if you asked to be taken to Dubrovnik. Everyone assumes it takes a fast boat.”

  “But it doesn’t?”

  “No, you just need darkness, silence, and a decent wind.”

  “Have you done it before?”

  “I told you, Mr. della Torre, I’ve sailed that route many times.”

  “Since the blockade?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “So what did you tell my American friend?” he pressed.

  “He didn’t sound like much of a friend. More like a policeman,” she said. “I told him that it was foolish and dangerous enough to try the trip in a speedboat. He seemed satisfied with the answer, but he asked me to let him know if I heard that you’d found somebody to take you. He said to call him at the hotel and that he’d make it worth my while. Tempting, except I haven’t got a phone.”

  Della Torre pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. “Do you mind?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like one?”

  She hesitated and then pulled one out. He lit both. She went to the crockery shelf for a china saucer, which she placed between them as an ashtray.

  “I’d offer you a cup of tea or coffee, but it’ll take a while to get the stove going,” she said.

  “That’s okay.” He would have loved a hot cup of coffee. Or some sleep.

  “I’ll brew some up on board the boat. It has a little kerosene stove,” she said. “Assuming you have the money.”

  From the inside pocket of the shoulder bag, he dug out the thousand Deutschmarks his father had given him, fanning them out across the table. She counted, checking the notes against the light, feeling them for the quality of the paper. “This will get you there and back, not including incidentals.”

  “I’ll make sure you’re paid the rest when we find our other passenger,” he said. “And I’ll cover whatever expenses we accrue on the way.”

  “You said there would be someone else coming with us from Korčula.”

  “I changed my mind. It’s just me and the fellow we’re picking up in Dubrovnik.”

  She sat, smoking silently, apparently lost in thought.

  He could see the outline of her breasts against the thin material of her nightshirt. She noticed and gave him a critical look. He averted his eyes, but she made no move to pull the dressing gown more tightly around her. She seemed un-shy.

  He got up as if to stretch and looked around the room. There was a shelf laden with pots, bowls, and jugs. The forms were rough and looked as if they were still part of the earth. The glazes had been allowed to run, mingling in earthy oranges and reds, deep greens, and the grey blue of winter skies.

  On a table in the corner was a small stack of precise drawings of Dubrovnik and Korčula townscapes, finished in washes of watercolour. Propped up on the floor were a couple of paintings, landscapes in rich, deep colours, nearly abstract in their composition but still recognizable.

  The two styles — the precise draftsmanship of the architectural drawings and the raw pottery and paintings — stood in sharp contrast.

  “Yours?” he asked at last.

  “The pe
n-and-watercolour drawings sell, the rest I just do. I have a kiln in the back, fire it with wood. The pottery studio’s in a shed. When I say ‘sell,’ I mean used to,” she added. “Lately my output has slowed to mostly pen-and-ink drawings on ordinary paper. Materials are hard to come by . . . and expensive.”

  “I guess the money you make from me will come in handy,” he said.

  “Mr. della Torre, the money will be the difference between my staying here and having to leave. For at least the next few months.” She smiled back at him.

  “Call me Marko. Maybe we should get started.”

  “I’ll find you a couple of jerry cans and a hose. You can siphon petrol into them from your car while I get myself organized here.”

  “Is there somewhere I can hide the Citroën where it won’t be obvious that I’ve come here?”

  “There’s a grove down the hill with an old barn. It has a roof and was reasonably clear the last time I looked. You can leave the car there.”

  By the time he got back to the house, his mouth tasted of gasoline fumes. He’d filled both twenty-litre metal jerry cans nearly to the top. He didn’t have to wait long for her to get ready.

  “I’m a little short of food. I’ll bring some cookies, crackers, and salami, but that’ll have to do until we can find a shop,” she said. She added a couple of heavy ten-litre plastic jugs full of water to the bags that were by the door. “Right. We’ll put these things in my car. Follow me down to the barn, and then you can ride with me after that.”

  The Citroën trundled slowly down the track behind Miranda’s Fiat. She indicated at the turning, drove behind a clump of pines and cypresses, and pulled over.

  “In there,” she said, pointing to an old cinder-block barn in the path of her headlights. Its doors were missing, but the corrugated iron roof remained.