by Alen Mattich
“Dubrovnik seems . . . pretty civilized for a war zone.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll get worse. The Serbs are getting irritated at the resistance. Country boys don’t like the rich cosmopolitan folks down here.”
“Sounds like you’ve been discussing it with them.”
“I have.”
“Why do I believe you?” asked della Torre.
“Because it’s true.”
“So if you can get out and in, what are you doing here still? What’s your scam?”
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” Strumbić said. “People are worried. They’re short of water and other necessities or they want to get out. I happen to know how to help them.”
“You’re profiting from their misery.”
“Do you think they’d be better off with their pearl necklaces and diamond rings?”
“Julius, you haven’t got an ethical bone in your body.”
“Ethics? You’re talking to me about ethics? What are the ethics of bearing false witness against a dear friend who’s saved your life on at least one and possibly three occasions?”
“Look,” della Torre started, and then ran out of steam.
“Gringo, I don’t hold it against you, though you’ve complicated my life,” Strumbić said. And then, after a long drag of his cigarette: “So you sailed here?”
“I did.”
“Got past the patrol boats?”
“Eventually. You don’t sound surprised.”
“The woman’s done it twice before. Never stayed, though. Turned right around and went back. Fetched up at the end of the promontory, where the navy boats don’t dare get too close for fear of the offshore rocks. In and out. She works with a couple of old-time smugglers. They signal each other between the islands.”
“You know this?”
“You think there’s anything that happens in Dubrovnik that I don’t know about? I’ve been trying to work out how to get in touch with her. So I guess I owe you some thanks for fixing up a meeting. This is even better. Normally when you do business you don’t get to see the other side’s tits. At least, not right away.”
“You amaze me, Julius.”
“Even after all these years?”
“I suppose not.”
“That’s better,” Strumbić said. “So why are you here, other than to apologize?”
Della Torre fell silent.
“What did Brg say?” Strumbić pushed.
“You know I saw him?”
“Gringo, I know how many times you’ve taken a shit since you got here and how hard you wiped.”
“Somebody on your payroll at the town hall?”
“You might say I still have a way with the ladies.”
“No,” della Torre said. “Not the secretary?”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s an idiot.”
“Gringo, why do you only ever see the worst in people? Did Brg tell you I was in his jail for a couple of weeks and he didn’t realize it?”
“Yes,” della Torre said.
“But you’d have known anyway, since I expect my wife passed on my message.”
“Julius, I thought it meant you were safe in London. How the hell was I supposed to realize you were in Dubrovnik?”
Strumbić let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I always figured you weren’t nearly as clever as you’re made out to be. Nice to have that confirmed. Well, you found me anyway. Now what?”
“Now the Americans are coming to look for you.”
“Let them come.”
“They have some serious people, Julius, and some serious money to spend finding you. And they really want you.”
“They going to sail too? Or take a submarine? Or maybe they’ll buzz in on those little James Bond helicopters.”
“They’ll be in the flotilla that’s coming to break the blockade.”
“Well, when they get here, I’ll start to think about leaving. But right now Dubrovnik suits me. Looks like you’re not doing too badly either. Even in these hard times, the Argentina’s not cheap.”
“The company’s paying for it,” della Torre said.
Strumbić laughed and then coughed. “I know what that means. It means you sign a chit, the hotel presents it to the military, and the military says, fuck you. Bet the manager’s pissing in your soup every night. Listen, Gringo, I’d love to chat all night but I’m a busy man.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Do you seriously think I’d tell you that?”
“No.”
“Then don’t ask.”
“Julius, we need to talk. Seriously. We need to think about some things. These Americans are going to keep chasing us until they’ve got us. They’re going to hunt us to the ground.”
“So why haven’t they got you yet?” And then Strumbić answered his own question: “Because they’re using you to find me. Well, it didn’t work so well for them when they tried to use you to get the Montenegrin.”
“These people aren’t going to make the same mistakes.”
“We’ll see,” Strumbić said, rising. “We’ll continue this conversation later. But right now I have business to attend to.”
“How am I going to get in touch with you?”
“You’re not. I’ll find you.”
IF MIRANDA HAD noticed Strumbić ghosting through their hotel room at night, she said nothing the following morning. She and della Torre breakfasted and lounged as though on holiday. Apart from the occasional rumble of distant heavy guns and the few forlorn refugees who’d found accommodation at the hotel, they’d never have known they were in a city under siege. The JNA and Serb artillery men left the old city and its immediate suburbs alone in the daylight hours, and at night would lob shells only at pockets of illumination.
There was no sign of Strumbić the following day. In the evening, as della Torre and Miranda were finishing dinner on the terrace, Steve Higgins stopped at their table.
“I owe you a drink,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t keep our date.”
“Thought you might have had a better offer,” della Torre said, looking up. “Miranda, meet Mr. Steve Higgins. A Canadian newspaperman and all-round cowboy. Steve, Miranda Walker.”
“Won’t you join us, Mr. Higgins?” she asked.
“It’s Steve. And I’d love to, if you don’t mind. Can I buy you some drinks?” He flagged the waiter.
“I’ll have an amaro,” della Torre said.
“They’ve got some old brandies, unless you’d rather a cocktail,” said Higgins to Miranda. “I know it’s after dinner, but they make a decent Bellini here.”
“Why don’t you get me what you’re having,” she replied.
“I’ve developed a taste for the maitre d’s slivovitz. It beats the usual embalming fluid,” Higgins said.
“You’re a connoisseur of embalming fluid?” Miranda asked.
“Best to get a head start. Just in case,” Higgins replied with a smile.
“So where were you this time?” della Torre asked, offering Higgins a Lucky.
“Better not,” Higgins said. Della Torre shrugged and lit his own. “I was wandering around.”
“Discovering what?”
Higgins grinned. “Well, for one thing, the ships are coming. Down from Rijeka. The convoy should arrive in the next few days. Mesić is on one of the boats.”
“Really?” della Torre asked, sitting back. Mesić was one of the rotating presidents of Yugoslavia, the one who had represented Croatia until Croatia declared independence. “I don’t know if that makes it more or less likely that they’ll be able to break the blockade.”
“There are European Community observers on it too. And a bunch of journalists,” Higgins added.
“You’ll be getting some competition, then,”
Miranda said.
“Had to happen,” said Higgins. “It’s been a nice clear run so far. And the demand is picking up. People have holidayed in Dubrovnik. They find it hard to believe this beautiful place can be a war zone, so they’re interested. And some of them are politicians.”
“But nobody holidays in Vukovar,” della Torre said.
“The pictures from Vukovar are shocking, but people think of it as far away — Cambodia or Ethiopia, except with white people. So they find it easier to shrug off.”
The waiter brought their drinks. Miranda took a swig of the slivovitz, grimacing slightly. “I could probably clean my brushes with this,” she said. “In all my years here, I’ve never quite gotten used to it.”
“Don’t feel the need to finish it,” Higgins said.
“Seems a shame not to see it through,” she answered.
“You’re British, but it seems you speak the language well.”
“Passably. I’ve been here five years and used to come on holiday before that. But when you find yourself alone in a foreign country, it’s very hard to survive without learning the language.”
“Well, I’m managing somehow.” Higgins laughed. “But only just. I have to say, the translators and fixers aren’t all I could wish for. The ones I get always turn out to be spies, though I’m not sure who for. Or they’re using me somehow. So how long have you known Gringo?”
“Gringo,” she repeated, a half-smile on her lips as she looked at della Torre.
“That’s Mr. della Torre’s nickname,” Higgins said. “Didn’t you know?”
“Mr. Gringo hired me to get him to Dubrovnik and back. We’re waiting for another passenger. That’s about as long as I expect to know him.”
“Oh, I thought . . .” Higgins began, then shrugged. “So you’re at a loose end for now.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, maybe — if you’re for hire while you’re waiting — I could pay you to do some of my translating,” he said, suddenly embarrassed as he looked at della Torre. “It’d be easier to interview refugees, women, and children, with a woman than with a supercilious waiter.”
Della Torre shrugged as if it were of no concern to him.
“You can pay me whatever rate you pay your regulars,” she said.
Higgins smiled at the deal he’d struck.
The evening grew chilly, but they sat on the terrace and drank as the sun sank slowly across the horizon, guttered, and disappeared. War seemed so far away, yet there it was, in the grey hulls on the water and hidden in the mountains. They drank and talked, unperturbed by the occasional sound of distant gunfire.
The next morning he was woken by a loud, long, unrelenting knock on his door. Della Torre couldn’t remember having gone to bed. He opened the door to Strumbić, who was holding a near-full cappuccino and grinning at della Torre’s miserable appearance.
“Don’t you operate during civilized hours?” della Torre asked, his mouth dry and fuzzy. He pointed to the coffee. “That for me?”
“No.”
Miranda sat up in bed, momentarily oblivious to the fact she was naked.
Strumbić grinned. “Hello, miss,” he said in his heavily accented English, not trying very hard to suppress his leer.
Miranda sank back into bed, covering herself.
“Julius,” della Torre said, “Miranda Walker.”
“British?” Strumbić said, sticking with English. “Always new woman for Gringo, eh?”
Della Torre grimaced.
“You won’t mind if I don’t get up just now,” she said, replying in the same language.
“It vould make me very happy, but I understand,” Strumbić replied. And then, shaking his head sadly, all the while keeping his eyes on her: “Vat kind of man take his woman to war zone?” As if to say he would never do such a thing. And then, with a sigh: “I vait for you on terrace. I have coffee, you get dressed, then we go.”
“Go?” della Torre said, his head heavy and painful.
“We have discussions,” Strumbić said. “I vant also to talk bizniss with Miss Walker, but maybe another time.”
“I speak Serbo-Croat,” Miranda said.
“Ah, excellent. Well, it was nice to have met you. Gringo, I will meet you downstairs.”
“Not worried about being seen?” della Torre asked.
“Not at this time of the morning. The people who watch like to stay up late and sleep in.”
Della Torre stumbled into the bathroom and then remembered there was no water for a shower. He couldn’t face going down to the pool to hose himself down. At least the hotel laundry was operating efficiently.
“There’s something oddly . . . compelling about your friend,” Miranda said.
Della Torre shook his head in wonder. “I should despise him, but all I can ever manage to do is admire him. He’s like all of the wonders and exhilaration of life poured into the corrupt body of a fat, middle-aged bureaucrat.”
She laughed and lay back in bed. “Well, don’t keep him waiting.”
When della Torre arrived Strumbić had drained his coffee and was lost in a cloud of smoke. His face was fleshy, the jowls heavy, the hair more grey than brown. His eyes were as washed out as the early morning sky, and he had the look of a man who spent his life drinking and smoking. But his skin was lightly tanned, and he looked as well as della Torre had ever seen him. Better, perhaps.
It felt odd to della Torre to be sitting down at the very table he’d risen from only a few hours before. Coffee and fresh rolls replaced the slivovitz and salty pretzels and slivers of cured ham, and Strumbić now stood in for Higgins. Though the Canadian was at least half a head taller, twenty kilograms lighter, better-looking, and younger, the men shared a similar vitality.
Strumbić hurried the waiter, who was bleary-eyed with the earliness of the hour, and then hurried della Torre too. When della Torre had finished his croissant, Strumbić led him out of the hotel to a double-parked Mercedes that had left barely enough room for other cars to pass.
“Why are we driving?” protested della Torre. “It’s only a fifteen-minute walk.”
Strumbić gave him a baleful look. “It’s a Mercedes,” he replied by way of explanation, opening the front passenger door, an awkwardly genteel gesture that made della Torre think of a taxi driver. With no traffic this early, the drive to the old town could be counted in seconds.
“Who’d you steal the car from?” della Torre asked.
“Steal?” Strumbić threw his hands up dramatically.
The narrow, twisting road was built into the hillside, with massive stone buildings landward and sharp descents towards the sea. Della Torre winced, clinging with one arm to the overhead strap. But just as it seemed the car was about to run into a metal bollard, Strumbić steered away, accelerating at the same time.
“I borrowed it.”
“Borrowed?”
“Rented,” Strumbić said, without elaborating.
“I’d hate to see the terms,” della Torre muttered.
Strumbić parked by the old town’s landward gate, a tall arch set into a sloped wall as big as a tilted field. The citadel was bound by two bastions and the sky, as permanent and unyielding as childhood dreams.
They walked through the side alleys off the Stradun, the broad central promenade that joined the harbour with the town’s grand northern gate. They were under the huge east walls. The tall, narrow houses made a canyon that ended at a man-made cliff-face of neatly chiselled white stone.
Small children were up early while their parents slept. Laundry hung high above the narrow width of the alley, like row upon row of prayer flags.
Strumbić set a brisk pace, skipping down the frequent flights of steps, turning a corner and then heading up along another alley that was so narrow they could only just walk abreast. They went up a series of short
flights of steps rising from the Stradun to the city walls. Strumbić already had the keys in hand when they arrived at the heavy riveted wooden door of a stone house, which had a massive ornate iron lock and a more modern one above it. Strumbić furtively opened up and quickly ushered della Torre in, switching on a flashlight the moment he’d shut the door behind them.
“Helps having a locksmith as a friend,” he said. “There’s no fear of the owner showing up, but there’s no point in letting anyone else know the place is occupied.”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” della Torre said.
“Nope. This is just a house I found so that we’d have a bit of privacy. Haven’t used it before.”
“How many of these places do you have?”
“A few. I’m thinking of buying one or two permanently. They’re going pretty cheap, though I think they’ll get cheaper still. Downside is making sure the people selling it actually own the fucking place.”
The entrance hall was narrow and Strumbić immediately climbed the stairs at the back. The alleyside windows were all shuttered, and the place smelled of ancient dust. They made their way to a top-floor sitting room with a rooftop terrace that extended the full length of the house and of the one behind it, giving the property a unique private outdoor space stretching from one alley to the next. Della Torre leaned against a wrought-iron rail, stunned by the view of Dubrovnik’s rooftops, the pantiles a warm flame of burnt oranges, faded reds, and deep ochres, and beyond that the church towers, city walls, and sea. A modest jungle of potted citrus trees and palms lined the terrace.
“Not bad, eh? Not sure there’s another rooftop terrace like this in the city. Nobody can destroy our architectural heritage for his own satisfaction like a Communist big shot. I can’t offer you coffee or anything, because I have no idea where anything is or how it might work,” Strumbić said.
He took out his pack of cigarettes as della Torre settled into a white garden chair under the eaves of the neighbouring house. Broken clouds were floating overhead and the air was fresh, but Strumbić’s attention was on della Torre.
“So talk, Gringo.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“Why don’t you start with why the Americans are after me.”