The Heart of Hell

by Alen Mattich

  She went, crouching, clearly nervous, holding her bag out in front of her as a tightrope walker might hold a balancing pole.

  Della Torre followed, stepping onto the plank from one of the flimsy wrought-iron chairs. He pitched forward, the deep defile opening directly below. The chair hit the terrace’s terracotta tiles with a clatter, and for a moment he thought he’d lost his footing. He stared down past the plank’s rough wood, expecting to see the alley’s stone steps come rocketing towards him. But his other foot swung forward and he found himself firmly planted on the board, though he could feel it strain and bow slightly under his weight. He paused, his eyes fixed on the specks of red paint that had once upon a time dribbled along the board, telling himself to follow those drips like a trail of blood. Don’t think, he told himself. Just move your feet, one after the other. He was a step or two away from the opposite side when he heard the sound of the terrace door breaking open. Arms grabbed at him, pulling him into the house.

  “Come on, Gringo, help me pull this board through.” Strumbić was straining in the half-light, manhandling the ancient plank back into the house. In all, it must have been the best part of five metres long. It filled the length of the room, a bedroom with cots and mattresses stacked along the side to give them passage.

  Two men stared back at them from the terrace. They were clean-shaven, their hair neat, their eyes hidden by Ray-Ban aviator glasses. Their checked cotton shirts and tan chinos told della Torre they were Americans. One pulled a radio out of a belt holster and spoke into it.

  “Let’s go, Gringo,” Strumbić said, shoving him and Miranda down the winding wooden staircase through the tenement, curious faces peering out from each room.

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Strumbić pulled out a roll of creased and worn banknotes and distributed some to the children who’d assembled there.

  “There’s more if you go around the corner,” he told them. “There are some Americans making a movie. You can’t miss them. If you annoy them enough, they’ll give you money to piss off.”

  They emerged in a side alley with a dozen or so children, who immediately ran off. They hurried down its steps, wary, watchful, quick when crossing the narrow intersections. When they reached the Stradun, Strumbić made them run across, his grip on Miranda’s wrist the whole while, pulling her along. Now and again she half tried to pull her arm away, but Strumbić was both stronger and more determined. Pigeons exploded into the air like pheasants at a shoot. Strumbić led the way into a warren of medieval canyons, some so narrow that two people could barely pass each other, and along one of the seaward alleys towards the northern walls.

  Here della Torre could smell the sharp salt tang of sea, the smell of shellfish that lived and died along the rocks at the base of the citadel’s massive walls.

  They came to a decrepit house that looked long abandoned or left in the care of elderly, infirm tenants. Strumbić paused and looked around, and when he was satisfied they were alone, he let go of Miranda’s wrist and unlocked the door. He ushered them in, bolting the door behind them, and only then relaxed, bent against the wall, holding his thighs and sucking in air.

  “Fuck,” he said, panting, gasping his words. “They were supposed to take a couple of hours at least to track you down. They must have had somebody right on your heels. Did you see anyone?”

  “No,” said della Torre, exhaling painfully with each word. “We were in such a hurry to get to the house that we didn’t think to look. But I thought the whole object was to be found.”

  “Yes, but only after I’d had time to finish setting everything up. Sweet fucking Jesus. Did you chain the door when you went in?”

  Della Torre shook his head.

  “Well, never mind, if they had somebody who knew how to pick locks, they’d also have found somebody to break the chain,” Strumbić said.

  “I told you they were serious. And good. The guy running the show, Grimston, isn’t playing around.”

  “I take it this isn’t part of the plan,” Miranda said. She was less winded than the men, though there were fine beads of sweat on her brow and top lip.

  “Yes, I organized things so I’d have to spit up a lung along the way,” Strumbić said, dripping irony with each exhaled breath.

  “What now?” della Torre asked, trying to defuse Strumbić’s obvious anger.

  “We’ll be fine here for a little while. We should be able to hold out for most of the day. They can’t get lucky twice, can they? How big a crew could they possibly have? I didn’t see anyone on our heels,” Strumbić said. “A dozen local cops would take at least a couple of hours to find this place. A bunch of foreigners who don’t know the town — well, let’s just say we can relax for now while I figure some things out.”

  He led them to a gloomy little kitchen at the back of the house, barely illuminated by a narrow light well. Strumbić pulled out a chair for Miranda and with a firm hand sat her down. He pulled down three dusty glasses, filled them two-thirds full with yellow liquid from a plastic jerry can, and then topped them up with water from a second can.

  “Gemischt,” he said, referring to the wine-and-water mix. “Nothing quenches the thirst better.”

  They drank it down, then he poured them each another and then lit a cigarette.

  “Fuck me,” Strumbić said.

  “How did you get that massive plank up that house?” asked della Torre. “I can’t believe it fit the staircase.”

  “It didn’t. I got one of the Albianians to hoist it up onto my terrace and then fed it across from there so that it was in the room waiting for you. Don’t worry. I tested it out before inflicting it on you.”

  “You mean you walked across yourself?” Della Torre was impressed. Strumbić wasn’t one to take unnecessary risks.

  “Of course not. What do you think I am, a fucking idiot? Got one of the Albanian kids to give it a try. They’ll do anything for money. Figured if he didn’t splat neither would you. Silly little bastard decided to watch his piss fall four storeys when he got halfway across. Just as well it was too early for people to be wandering around.” Strumbić wiped his hand across his face and shook his head. “Whatever happens, we’ve got to hold the fuckers off until tonight.”

  “I thought the whole intention was for them to find us.”

  “It was, Gringo. You were there to tease them along, make them think you’re running. But it was supposed to be a show, not a fucking edition of Jeux sans Frontières,” Strumbić said, referring to the absurd pan-European game show everyone watched. He smoked the cigarette down, lost in thought.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Strumbić said, stepping out of the room.

  “Being chased around Dubrovnik wasn’t part of the deal,” Miranda said after he’d gone. She spoke mildly, but there was steel in her words.

  “I know. Charge him more. He’ll be good for it,” della Torre said.

  “He seems intent on getting us killed.”

  They heard the sound of a flush from down the hall. Della Torre expected Strumbić to come back quickly, but he didn’t. Instead, his footsteps climbed the stairs and moved about in the room above. And then, with alacrity, he charged back down.

  “They’re here,” he said.

  “What?” Della Torre stood up, horrified.

  “Up. We’re going.”

  Miranda rose. Della Torre saw the anxiety briefly etched into her expression.

  “How do you know?” della Torre asked.

  “Because I know. Because the mirror in the bathroom is angled so you can see a crack between the shutters, and I could see enough to get me curious,” he said, in no mood to elaborate. “Up. You first, Gringo. Lady, you next. I’m at the back.”

  The stairs were wooden and ancient; they complained under the unaccustomed weight of bodies. Plaster, which had fallen off in broad patches to reveal bare stone wall, crunched u
nderfoot. The higher floors of the house had clearly long remained uninhabited.

  “Back bedroom,” Strumbić said. He shut the door behind them — a flimsy defence, della Torre thought, but then he saw that it had hidden a ladder. Now that he was listening, he could hear sounds coming from outside. Somebody was working away at the shutters on the ground floor.

  The back bedroom had a low ceiling built into the sloped roof. A skylight let in dirty daylight. Strumbić pushed it open and leaned the ladder against it.

  “Up,” he said.

  Della Torre climbed up onto the roof. The rear pitch rose from the city wall, forming a narrow gulley, which meant they were out of sight of anyone in the street or the houses opposite. Moss and grass grew in patches between the roof tiles.

  Miranda followed him up, and then Strumbić, who pulled the ladder up after himself. He shut the skylight with a kick and then braced the ladder between the roof and the city wall.

  The sound of splintering wood echoed up from the alleyway and through the house, an odd stereo effect that della Torre didn’t waste time contemplating.

  “Go, Gringo. Just get the fuck up there.”

  Della Torre climbed, uncertainly. The ladder creaked. He wondered if its rungs would hold. When he got to the wall, he swung his bag over the parapet, took a grip on the stone, and with a heave dragged himself up, his arms straining, feeling the cold, weathered stone against his face. A young couple, there to enjoy the small measure of peace afforded by the heights in the increasingly crowded city, stopped to watch. Della Torre ignored them, turning to grab Miranda’s bag and help her up as well.

  When it was Strumbić’s turn, della Torre pulled until he felt the full agony of lifting the other man’s weight, fearing he’d herniate himself, that his weak elbow would give.

  “Jesus, you need to go on a diet.”

  “Shut the fuck up and pull.”

  As he finally hauled Strumbić over, he realized he’d been lifting the ladder as well. Strumbić had hooked his foot under the top rung and now pulled it up after himself.

  “God fuck their mothers, but these guys are starting to bother me,” Strumbić said, shaking the strain from his arms. Without bothering to look where it might land, he heaved the ladder over the other side of the city wall onto the rocks below.

  Strumbić led the way again with a firm hold of Miranda’s wrist, half-dragging her and ignoring her complaints.

  The walls rose to ever more exhilarating heights, as if they were on the edge of a chalk cliff. They pushed past people out for a morning’s stroll or there to see where the Serb gunners were now aiming their shells. At a bastion as big as the keep of a castle, Strumbić stopped at the top of a spiral staircase.

  Della Torre looked around. Men running towards them from both directions along the high walk. Leaning over the parapet, he could see people running towards the base of their tower. They were being bottled up.

  “Julius, they’ll be at the bottom by the time we get down the stairs,” della Torre said.

  “Just do as you’re told, Gringo. Follow me. You too, miss — wouldn’t want to leave you behind.” He still had his hand on her wrist.

  They wound their way down the stairs. Midway, Strumbić stopped by an iron gate covering a niche in the wall, half-­hidden in the landing’s deep shadows. He let go of Miranda, took hold of the bars, and with a mighty heave dragged the gate open and stepped aside.

  “You first, Gringo. Just keep going until I tell you to stop.”

  The space was narrow and completely dark, smelling of salt and piss. It led deep into the city walls, back in the direction from which they’d come, descending shallowly all the while. Della Torre stooped but still banged his head with every other step, muttering imprecations the whole way. There were no hand grips, but the passage was narrow and he could steady himself by flattening his hands against the walls.

  “Faster,” Strumbić said. Some shaded light reached him.

  “Give me the flashlight up here,” della Torre called back over his shoulder.

  “You don’t need it. You just keep going.”

  Della Torre could feel they’d stopped descending. He remained in a crouch, his back aching under the strain. The sides of the passage brushed his shoulders. His bag bounced against his back as he made his jagged progression; it felt like a hand shoving him along, pushing him deeper into the unfathomable darkness. He could hear voices far behind them and knew it was their pursuers.

  “Stop, Gringo,” Strumbić called. Della Torre turned with difficulty in that confined space. He could hear Miranda’s breathing, feel the warmth of her body in the dark cold of the passage.

  Strumbić was on his knees next to an arched opening, shining the torch along the floor towards another, similar opening ten metres back in the direction they’d come from, trying to decide between the two. He reached into his pocket, took something out, and rolled it into the opening directly beside him. They heard the faint ring of metal hitting stone.

  “Must be this one,” he muttered. “Okay, Gringo, down you go.”

  “What?”

  “Down, Gringo. You heard me.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. Go. It’ll be hands and knees. But move. Now.”

  Strumbić backed off, shining the torch at the same spot. Della Torre was about to go headfirst when Strumbić stopped him.

  “Backwards.”

  Della Torre took a deep breath and did as he was told. He could only just crawl in the space. Any narrower and he’d have had to slither on his belly. He moved centimetre by centimetre into the darkness. The passage was smooth and smelled of damp and sea. At first there was just a gentle slope, but it quickly steepened so that he slid as much as he crawled. Sweat poured off him, stinging his eyes, making the cold clamminess of that narrow sewer bite into his bones. Fear gripped him. Had the city’s medieval rulers created these chambers in the fortress walls so that enemies could be lost forever, to starve in the darkness, to be entombed alive?

  And then the passage turned suddenly vertical, and he plummeted along glass-smooth stone. He clawed at it with his fingernails, desperately searching for purchase, but there was none to be had. He was falling into the deep.

  HE HIT THE hard ground with the force of a falling brick. But somehow he avoided doing himself obvious damage. Before he’d had a chance to register what had happened, Miranda’s bag hit him, followed immediately by Miranda, who landed with a cry of surprise. An instinct of self-preservation made them roll away just in time to avoid taking the full force of Strumbić’s weight.

  “That comes straight out of the fairground in hell,” Strumbić said, coughing and raising himself slowly, obviously sore.

  They were on a stone ledge about five metres wide and of indeterminate length, in a half-built cave-like room suffused in a faint blue light. Della Torre crawled to the edge of the floor and saw that the light was coming up through water three metres below.

  “Careful you don’t fall in. Once you’re in the water, it’s impossible to climb back out,” Strumbić said.

  “Where are we?”

  “Shh. We’ll talk later. Just sit back and leave it for a little while,” Strumbić whispered. He took della Torre’s and Miranda’s holdalls and positioned them on the floor directly below the hole.

  They sat in complete silence, hearing only the echoes of their own pulses, the rhythm of their breathing, the smooth wash of water rising and falling against rock. And voices from far above.

  After a while they heard another clink of metal on stone, and then a faint thwack as something hit Miranda’s bag. Strumbić held his hand up, commanding absolute quiet from the others. Della Torre fought not to breathe normally. They waited. Every few minutes Strumbić checked his watch, and then, after they heard no further sounds from above, he reached over and picked up the coin, shining his torch on it.

&
nbsp; “Abraham Lincoln,” he said.

  “Where are we, Julius?” della Torre asked.

  “The water dungeon. It’s not widely advertised in the tourist brochures, seeing as it’s dangerous. Which is how it was intended to be. People got shoved down here. Eventually they’d get desperate enough to swim for it and drowned. Used to be an iron grille down there. The Italians yanked it out during the war. You get divers exploring sometimes. .”

  “How do you know . . .” della Torre began and then stopped himself. “How do we get out?”

  “We say ‘open sesame.’ Oops. Didn’t work. I guess we’re stuck,” Strumbić said. “The Italians knocked a hole in the wall. There’s a door not many people know about, just over there. Only we’re not going to use it just yet.”

  “Mr. Strumbić, I get a little nervous in spaces like this,” Miranda said. “I’m not enjoying the games you’ve been playing. However much you’re willing to pay, I’m losing interest in the commission. Can we please leave?”

  “Nope,” Strumbić said. “No one’s going to bother us here. It might not be as comfortable as one of the houses, but hey, this was only ever the third-choice backup to a backup. It’ll give me a little time to think about what we’re going to do.”

  Della Torre lay back on the smooth, flat stone, contemplating the hole from which they’d dropped. It wasn’t much more than two metres above the floor, though the ceiling rose in an arch until it melded into the rough crags of the cave. He reached for a cigarette, but Strumbić stopped him.

  “They’ll smell it up there. The acoustics are tricky, but the smoke goes right up. Or so this very nice archaeologist who gave me a private tour told me.”

  Strumbić sat against the wall with his chin on his knees. “What troubles me,” he said, “is how quickly your American friends keep finding us. They were meant to take most of the day tracking you down to the first house. The second place, I was sure no one had followed. They were completely lost in the alleys on the land side of the city. Even if they had watchers on every corner of the Stradun, they’d have had their work cut out.”