by Alen Mattich
“They were . . . available. The people I once knew are retired or dead.”
“They were as expendable as I was. And after they’d killed me, who would you have hired to eliminate them in turn?”
The old man shrugged.
It both bemused and horrified della Torre to be discussing his own assassination attempt so dispassionately with the man who’d arranged it. His sore elbow twinged. His left arm would always be weak. For the rest of his life, he was told, he’d have problems fully extending it.
“Why?”
“Why?” Dragomanov shrugged silently.
“What is Pilgrim about?”
Dragomanov remained silent.
“I’ll help you,” della Torre said. “Pilgrim was your code name for Olof Palme. You sent the Montenegrin to kill him. His murder had something to do with nuclear centrifuges that were sold to Belgrade and then shipped on. That much I know. I can guess why you wouldn’t want me to know about it; after all, the Palme murder is still a mystery. It’s never been connected to UDBA or Yugoslavia. So you want to keep it secret. But why did you order the killing? And why do the Americans care so much about the Pilgrim file?”
Dragomanov watched della Torre with hooded eyes, his fingers nervously skittering over a belly pregnant with disease.
“Mr. Dragomanov, what I told you were facts. The Americans are going to come here this afternoon, for what you think is an interview or a conversation or maybe just to pay you off. But they’re going to kill you. They sent a team to kill the Montenegrin during the summer, and when that failed they sent another, bigger, more professional team. They are hunting us all down. And when they’ve bagged those of us at the periphery, they’ll set their sights on the only person who knows the whole story. Tell.”
“Foolish boy,” the old man said, his voice gathered from deep within him, carrying surprising strength. “You know nothing of my relationship with the Americans. Your suppositions about Pilgrim are meaningless.”
Strumbić spoke up from a corner of the room. In his hand he had a large syringe and a needle in its sterile packaging.
“Cirrhosis?” he asked.
Dragomanov shrugged.
“This for the nurses who come?” Strumbić continued. “How often? Once or twice a day?”
“Mornings and evenings,” Dragomanov said.
“I guess they must take good care of a high-ranking member of the Party. Even though the Party’s dying. Bar’s shut, everyone who’s got a warm woman is already gone, and the only ones left are the sad fucks who are too drunk to find their way home and can’t afford the hookers. It was a ball while it lasted, though. So long as you were invited and didn’t have to be carried out prematurely, feet first. How many of your long-ago friends did you sacrifice for the good of the nation?”
Dragomanov gave Strumbić a supercilious smile.
“Sorry, one should never talk politics when one is threatening people. Waters down the message. I’ll get back to my point.” Strumbić made a show of removing the needle from its package. “Actually, the point is water. Do they use these to drain your belly? I bet those nurses of yours would never think to piss in a syringe. Terrible for a cirrhosis patient if he were accidentally injected with it. Piss, that is. Especially when he’s already retaining so much water. And then of course making the already weak kidneys and liver work extra hard. Probably wouldn’t be very comfortable. Agonizing, really. Wouldn’t take much to trigger organ failure. They can keep you alive for a while on dialysis. Not so sure what they do when the liver finally packs it up.”
The nature of Strumbić’s threat dawned on both della Torre and Dragomanov at the same time.
“I’m sure much worse has been done in the name of the state. But I’m no hypocrite,” Strumbić continued. “I won’t pretend to have higher ideals when I torture an old man. I propose to do it not in the interest of creating a universal socialist utopia but for my own benefit.” Strumbić looked at him coolly. “You will answer my colleague, and you will do so as efficiently and thoroughly as he demands, or you will die in great discomfort. But before you do, there’ll be plenty of time for you to beg to tell us what we need to know.”
Strumbić spoke almost jocularly, the way another man might tease a colleague over how badly his soccer team had done over the weekend. But Dragomanov knew the threat was real. And the horror on his face came from knowing he’d met someone exactly like himself.
He raised a handkerchief to his lips, coughing again. The crumpled, yellowed square of fine cotton trembled as he lowered it to his lap.
“You are correct about Pilgrim.”
“Why was he killed?” della Torre said.
“Because he was about to put a stop to the centrifuge exports. The parts were built across Europe, in the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, and they were assembled by a Swedish firm. A German manufacturer found out where they were going; he’d been asked by the ultimate recipient to make some alterations. He met Palme at a dinner celebrating Swedish-German industrial cooperation and told him about what was happening to the centrifuges, and Palme got in touch with our embassy to demand an explanation.”
“What was happening? What’s important about the centrifuges?”
“They were nuclear centrifuges, shipped to Yugoslavia supposedly for our civilian nuclear program. To build our power plants and some for research. The Swedes had agreed to the deal under American pressure. The Americans said that it was important for us to develop our nuclear industry so as not to be dependent on Russian gas. We only needed a few hundred, but we were getting thousands. So the rest we shipped on for American goodwill and a bit of profit. Anyway, the Swedes should have known that they weren’t just for nuclear power. We ordered far too many. But the money was good, their businesses were happy, and the Americans were encouraging. Yugoslavia, after all, was non-aligned. And even if we were building the bomb, it would be to protect us from the Soviets, so no one complained.
“But the German industrialist found out that the centrifuges were going to Pakistan. The stupid Pakistanis may have thought they could assemble their own centrifuges from components at a smaller cost, so they started asking the German manufacturer for specifications and tolerances and other details. But the German went to Palme and told him, and Palme came to us and threatened to end the supply agreement. We stalled until we could make the Palme problem go away. The industrialist was killed the same night as Palme, though no one noticed. The perennial problem of dying on the same day as someone more famous.”
As he spoke, Dragomanov watched Strumbić prowl around the room, fingers flexing with agitation. Age had withered his self-control. In his prime he’d been famous for his sang-froid. In negotiations he’d faced down both the Nazis during the war and Stalin after it. But now, as death approached, even without Strumbić’s help, he feared for every lost moment.
“So we were shipping centrifuges to Pakistan to help them build the bomb?” della Torre asked.
“Yes.”
“But where do the Americans fit in?”
“The Americans? But that’s why we were doing it. They requested our assistance in the matter. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. The Americans were encouraging the Pakistanis to help with the guerrilla warfare. The Pakistanis didn’t want the Soviets on their border but led the Americans to believe that they would tilt in the Soviets’ favour. India already had the bomb. Pakistan wanted one. But they needed vast amounts of technology they couldn’t develop or build at home, and which international non-proliferation agreements prevented them from buying directly. So they negotiated. And the Americans thought, well, if they have the bomb, they can at least defend themselves from further Russian encroachment. The Americans bought the right to send equipment and advisors to the Afghani mujahideen across Pakistani territory by allowing the Pakistanis to build the bomb.”
“And you helped the Americans.”
<
br /> “Yes.”
“Why?”
“It is always good to have powerful friends,” Dragomanov said. “That is perhaps something you have learned by now.”
“There were rumours you’d been a spy for the Americans.”
“A spy? Stupid stories. I didn’t need to spy for anyone. I was Tito’s conduit. How do you think Tito survived the break with Stalin? How do you think Yugoslavia was richer and better off than Hungary or Romania or Bulgaria? I won’t even mention that benighted Albania. We made deals, we negotiated, we were . . . flexible with some of our ideals. For the greater good.”
Della Torre inadvertently looked towards Strumbić. Yes, flexibility, adaptability, fluid morality, malleable ethics, pragmatism — those were the secrets of Yugoslavia’s putative success. An evolutionary response that eventually became instilled in its people. It was funny to think of Strumbić as representing the pinnacle of Yugoslav humanity, but maybe that’s what he was.
“I helped to arrange things for our American friends.”
Della Torre digested the implications. Dragomanov had secured the purchase of highly restricted technology by Yugoslavia and had then arranged its secret transfer to Pakistan as a favour to the presidency’s — or was it Dragomanov’s own? — American friends. And when Palme had threatened to halt the shipment of centrifuges, Dragomanov had offered the Americans a solution.
“Including assassinating the Swedish prime minister,” della Torre said.
“One man’s death. Well, two. There was the German as well . . .” Dragomanov began. “Odd, isn’t it. Kill a vicious dictator, and the revolution that follows will cause untold misery. Kill a Western politician, and all that results is a stack of Ph.D. theses and conspiracy theories. Tito died a natural death, and slowly the world he built crumbles. Palme is killed, and . . . nothing.”
“Just another dead man,” della Torre said.
“And what do you propose to do with the information now?” Dragomanov asked. He had recovered his composure. “It’s worth less than you think.”
Strumbić had been studying the room in a desultory way.
“Where’s the key to the safe?” he asked.
Dragomanov paused, and then said, “In the top right drawer.”
Strumbić contemplated the desk for a moment as if slow to understand. Then he opened the drawer. He removed the keys.
“Now, where’s the safe?”
Dragomanov nodded to a cupboard at the base of the bookshelves behind della Torre. Strumbić stepped around the desk and then stopped. He continued walking, behind della Torre to a corner of the room opposite the window overlooking the spreading chestnut tree.
“Not there,” Dragomanov said. “There.”
Strumbić ignored him.
“What are you doing? I said there.”
Strumbić stopped at the corner stove. It was like any other ceramic stove in the country, tall and broad and decorated with green tiles. The lack of gas pipes told that it hadn’t been converted but was kept in the old style, fuelled by scraps of wood in its small, low firebox. Utilities weren’t always reliable but wood could often be collected cheaply, and it burned, leaving barely a dusting of ash. The complex system of flues would dissipate all the fire’s energy into its brick-and-mortar structure, so that the exhaust gases, when they finally climbed the chimney, would be no warmer than a man’s breath. It was eminently practical, efficient. Another technological gift from the distant Swedes centuries before.
Strumbić put his hand on the stove and contemplated it.
Dragomanov rose from his seat, his face flushed, tiny rosettes of colour high on his yellow cheeks. “I said it was —”
“I heard you,” Strumbić said. “Sit down and calm yourself. I just wanted to warm my hands first. The keys are small, and I’ve got problems with my circulation.”
“Oh,” Dragomanov said. “Well, you won’t get any heat out of that. Hasn’t worked in years.”
“Room’s not too cold.”
“There’s an electric radiator behind the desk. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it.”
“Expensive way of heating a big apartment.”
“It’s only this room. The stoves work elsewhere.”
“Gas?”
“Of course,” the old man said, sounding relieved.
“I suppose, if it doesn’t work, you won’t mind my taking the top off then?”
Dragomanov jerked upright.
“Sit down. If I have to say it again, I’ll nail you to the fucking armchair,” Strumbić said as he gripped the top of the stove with both hands, the gun back in his coat pocket.
Della Torre was transfixed. Normally stoves would have to be chiselled apart, tiles taken off first and then the mortar knocked off the bricks. It was, he well knew, an expensive and slow business cleaning these things. But the tiled top came off easily and Strumbić placed it on the floor.
And there was the safe he was looking for. He turned the key, pulled a lever, and opened it.
“So, what am I looking for? Or shall we take the whole lot?” Strumbić said, removing box after box of files. The stove seemed to be a bottomless well of secrets.
Dragomanov shook with rage. And fear.
“Wait, you don’t need to tell us.” Strumbić passed a box to della Torre, clearly labelled Pilgrim in Cyrillic.
The storm within the old man had passed and now he sat there, drained.
“Those won’t do you any good,” Dragomanov said, waving his hand with a show of indifference.
“Why?”
“They are incomplete. Worthless without their other half.”
“There’s more?” della Torre asked.
“What sort of fool do you take me for? Do you really think I’d keep everything in one place?”
“Where’s the rest?”
“Ah, where no one — not you, not the Americans, no one — can reach it now. But later, when I need it . . .” He shrugged as if to say he wasn’t finished yet, not by a long shot.
“Where?”
The old man laughed. “Where no one can go just now. Where they’re safe from you, from the Americans, from everyone.”
“We’re not playing games,” Strumbić hissed, looming over Dragomanov so that there was no mistaking his intentions.
Dragomanov shrank back, but his knowledge gave him the strength of defiance. “In Vukovar.” He laughed with a sepulchral hollowness.
Della Torre and Strumbić looked at each other with a sense of defeat as the light rekindled in the old man’s eyes. In the middle of a bitter siege, a war zone of total destruction, Dragomanov was right to feel victorious.
Della Torre rose, feeling as ancient as the man he faced. “Can I ask one more question?”
Dragomanov looked up from his lap, his face yellow with sickness and a lifetime of nicotine.
“Why Pilgrim?”
“I explained —”
“No, why the name?”
“Oh.” Dragomanov’s breathing was shallow and laboured. “English is my favourite language, even more than Latin. Difficult to learn, but infinite. You can never properly appreciate Shakespeare in any other language.” He paused. “Palmer is an archaic word for pilgrim in English. Pilgrim, palmer, Palme.”
The buzzer at the door sounded. Dragomanov revived. His eyes were alert, and a faint look of satisfaction creased his face.
STRUMBIĆ TURNED TO the old man. “When did you say you were expecting the Americans?”
“In the afternoon.”
“Who else comes during the day?”
Dragomanov shrugged. “A neighbour, maybe.”
“The nurse?”
“Not now.”
“Someone to bring you lunch?”
“I fix my own lunch. There’s a woman who brings my shopping, but that’s not
her.”
“Who is it?”
“Ask,” Dragomanov said, suddenly insouciant. In that moment, della Torre could see a flicker of the once powerful man inside the fading carapace. The light, the force of charisma, the luck. Women had thrown themselves at him all his life, film stars and wives of famous Communists. Tito had retained his services for all those years when the dictator had broken with so many other ancient allies, exiling some, having others murdered.
“Wait here,” Strumbić said. He crossed the hall and went from room to room until he reached the apartment door.
The buzzer sounded again.
“Now that they know you’re here, you won’t get out,” Dragomanov said.
“They know we’re here?”
“I have no doubt. The guards downstairs are mostly for show, to keep the riff-raff out. But this building is under close observation. Because they’re as afraid of us as we are of —”
“The apartment is bugged,” della Torre said.
“Of course. And watched. They’ll know who you are by now.”
Why had he been so complacent? He picked up a pen and a yellow legal pad from the desk and wrote: What’s the other way out?
Dragomanov shook his head.
The buzzer rang again.
Strumbić slipped back into the room beside the front door and then heaved a massive walnut rococo side table with a marble top against the tall twin doors. Men began pounding and pushing from the other side. The wood creaked under their weight, the blows accentuated by their bellowed command to open.
“Time to go, Gringo,” Strumbić said, panting down the hall. “And bring all that Pilgrim stuff. If people are willing to kill for it, it must be worth something.”
Della Torre grabbed the files and turned away from the main entrance. The back end of the hall was a good thirty metres from the front, but still too close. The door cracked, split, was only just held shut by the marble console.
“There’s another staircase at the back, right? These rich places all have one. Mine has one,” Strumbić said. Big 1930s apartments like Dragomanov’s often had separate servants’ entrances through the scullery or a storage room with a separate, narrow stairway, so that the bourgeois owners wouldn’t need to pass each other’s servants in the public areas.