by Alen Mattich
“Is that why you’re finally willing to go back to Zagreb?”
“It gets tiring being hated. Being called a traitor for trying to remind people that they aren’t enemies, that they’ve got far more in common with each other than they do with some of these strangers who have come from god knows where. I’d be able to cope with that. Most of the death threats are from cranks anyway. Old men or students who have been whipped up into a froth. They’re usually drunk when they write. You can almost smell it on the paper. But it’s become different lately.”
“How?”
“How? Horvat has made it plain he wants me buried.”
“I met him last night.”
“Did you?” Rejkart turned to look at della Torre.
“He seems to have convinced himself I’m a friend.”
“For goodness sake, let him believe it. A worse enemy you couldn’t imagine.”
“What about the Serb nationalists?”
“Oh, they’re bad too. But they’re not the ones doing most of the stirring here. It’s the Croats. The Serbs don’t need to. They’ve got a huge army just across the river.” Rejkart pointed across the flat land to where, in the distance, a line of trees marked out the Danube. “They’re waiting to be provoked into using it. And for some reason Horvat wants to accommodate them.”
“And you’re doing your best to be the peacekeeper.”
“I feel like I’m trying to plant carrots in the middle of the O.K. Corral. I’m a coward for wanting to get out. But if I stay, I know I’m a dead man. If I go, maybe they’ll forget about me. Maybe the next guy won’t be hated so much.”
“Only because he won’t work as hard to keep the peace.”
“Because the peace can’t be kept.”
• • •
They drove back to the office without incident and then sat in the car in the police parking lot, under the half-shade of a withered tree, the engine off. The day’s heat was already stifling, the open windows offering little solace.
Rejkart closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. “I hate going into the office. I hate the telephone. I hate how it rings. How every time I pick it up, the only alternative to bad news is worse news.”
“Was this worse? I mean earlier. It didn’t look like a pleasant conversation.”
“It wasn’t a pleasant conversation.”
Della Torre stayed quiet, not wishing to rush the youthful chief of police.
“Anzulović said he wanted to know what was happening. The unvarnished truth,” Rejkart began.
“Yes.”
“He trained me at the Zagreb force. Always took an interest in me. Helped me out here whenever he could.”
“Yes, I owe him one too. Or maybe a dozen,” della Torre said.
“That call was from the other side.”
“Other side?”
“Other side of the river. Serbia. A friend of mine is a senior police officer there. Officially, I can’t speak to him. But the phone line is still open.”
“Do you think no one else is listening in?” della Torre asked, incredulous at the risk Rejkart was taking. He’d have been surprised if the policeman’s office wasn’t bugged by the Croat nationalists, but it was a nailed-on certainty that any calls he received from Serbia were being monitored.
“Of course other people are listening in. People on our side and on theirs. What can I do? Nothing. But we keep in touch because people have been going missing and sometimes we know something about it.”
“Somebody’s gone missing?”
Rejkart put his head in his hands.
“Ten days ago, about twenty of our police and thirty or forty civilians we know about, but probably more, all Croats, disappeared from a Serb pocket on this side of the river.”
“And your friend knows what happened to them.”
“No. But his officers found the bodies of four of our policemen and as many civilians in a ditch. Not far from where you were with Boban yesterday evening, on the opposite side of the river.”
“A house or something in a copse by the river, on the Serb side?”
“That’s it.”
“Shot?”
“Through the eye.”
“And the others?”
“He doesn’t know, but I’d be surprised if they don’t turn up in the same condition. There’s a Serb paramilitary called Gorki, Darko Gorki, who’s said to be operating there. Ever heard of him?”
Della Torre nodded. “Yes. He’s a criminal. Has a long record. Did time in Belgium and Sweden, I think. Maybe France. Wanted in Switzerland for armed robbery. Suspected of murder too. Fitting name.” The root of Gorki meant “bitter gift.”
“How have you run across him?” Rejkart asked.
“The UDBA used him. When the UDBA had dirty jobs in other countries, they tended to use Yugoslav criminals, organized crime or mafia, professionals rather than just amateur know-nothings. He’s one of the criminals the UDBA found handy.”
“He killed people for the UDBA?”
“Not that I know of, but he’s well liked by people in Belgrade.”
“Seems that he’s being given free rein,” said Rejkart.
“Like Horvat.”
“No. As far as I know, Horvat isn’t operating death squads. He’s running guns out of Hungary, supplying them to Croatia out of a sense of patriotism, he says. Though if you ask me, he’s pretty patriotic to his wallet. His people have been involved in the occasional shooting, but we haven’t any reason to believe they’re doing the systematic killing.”
“Maybe that’s coming.” Della Torre offered Rejkart one of his Luckys. “What do you do about the bodies your friend found on the other side of the river, and the other missing people?”
“Nothing. I can’t do anything yet. I see the families every day and I tell them I’m doing everything I can. I don’t know what to tell them. We won’t be able to recover the bodies. Officially, the Serbs won’t help us. They’ll deny everything. And if our nationalists find out, they’ll want retribution.”
“So you sit on the news.”
“Yes. For now. I don’t know.” He was silent for a long while and then he sighed, opening the car door with the deliberate movements of a man more than twice his age.
They stepped out of the baking car. Della Torre walked the police chief back to the front of the station, where their cigarette butts joined an army of yellow filters in a waist-high planter that might once have held a rose bush. They shook hands, Rejkart finding a smile from somewhere, sending his warmest regards to Anzulović. On the way back to the Golf, della Torre noticed Horvat’s man, the same one, Zdenko, loitering in the shade in sight of the police station.
Della Torre stopped for gas at a lonely station in the middle of the plains, halfway along the highway. He bought only enough to get back to Zagreb. He’d have filled up the tank, but when he pulled out his UDBA petrol card, the attendant sucked his teeth and said, “Sorry, we don’t take cards.”
“It’s not a credit card,” della Torre explained. “The police will pay you back.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Yes, they will.”
“Nope. Bunch of Serbs came through a couple of months ago. Tried the same thing on me. Haven’t seen a dinar yet.”
“But it’s an UDBA card,” della Torre said with frustration.
“Well, I can see it’s not American Express.”
“Don’t you know what this card means?” Della Torre used to hate it when UDBA officers threw their weight around. But that was when they hadn’t needed to.
“Means you got to pay for your gas like anybody else.”
He ostentatiously wrote down the man’s details, the name of the gas station, the time. He even demanded the man sign it. The attendant obliged while chewing on a bit of straw. Maybe there was somet
hing in della Torre’s manner that told the man the sheet of paper would just be filed in a wastebasket.
Faced with spending his own cash, he asked for the minimum. Besides, gas stations in Zagreb were still honouring the UDBA card. But he was so irritated with the man that he didn’t buy a drink at the station shop. He suffered with thirst until he found a roadside shop that sold him a couple of Capri Sun juice bags and a box of pretzel sticks.
He was glad to get away from those benighted lands in the east. He was glad that Rejkart was moving back to Zagreb. He’d liked the man from the start. Then again, he wouldn’t have wished Rejkart’s impossible job on anyone. At least not anyone with a soul and a conscience.
He thought about dropping the car off at Irena’s apartment but then remembered about fixing the bullet hole first. Somebody in Zagreb would be able to do it. He drove over to his apartment, pulling up on the wide pavement. The one-way street had three lanes and parking spots herringboned on either side. Not for the first time, he felt grateful for the Austro-Hungarians’ foresight in planting trees along the road. Now giants, the horse chestnuts gave enough shade to ensure the summer heat didn’t cook his brain while he walked around town. Or even just crossed the pavement to his building.
There was no sign of Rebecca. He called out into the empty apartment and then wandered from room to room. She’d taken all her things. He went through the dirty laundry basket, where he kept his precious documents hidden. They’d been undisturbed. His service Beretta was there too.
His buzzer rang. The automatic unlocking system no longer worked, so he had to go down the high, echoing stairwell to answer it himself. The front door was missing its glass. Irena was standing behind the wrought-iron grille work.
“Hi,” he said, opening the door. “I only just got back.”
“I know.” She didn’t look happy. “What happened to my car?”
“Umm, there was a little accident.”
“I’m listening.”
“Want to come in?”
He smiled at her. Irena’s anger expressed itself in cold blankness. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but della Torre had come to know the look well. In one sense it was a relief that she wasn’t one to cause scenes in public. Or in private, even. But he hated that look, which reminded him of an empty white Venetian carnival mask. It kept from him her warm humour, the gentle irony in her eyes, everything that had made him fall in love with her nearly half a lifetime before.
“I have no desire to join your ménage. What happened to my car?”
“I’m alone. Promise.”
“Your strumpet already gone?”
“She’s not my strumpet.”
“Ah, so you admit she’s a strumpet.”
“No, I meant she doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Which is why she wanders around your apartment naked.”
Where most Yugoslav women he’d ever met used emotional levers freely — weeping histrionics or outright rage — Irena limited herself to cutting sarcasm.
“I’ll explain, Irena. But not on the pavement . . .” And then, trying to turn things back at her: “Maybe you ought to justify a thing or two as well.”
He walked back up the stairs to his apartment. The thick walls and terrazzo of the hallway made the building cool, even in the heat of the afternoon. Irena followed him.
“Would you like a coffee?” he asked when she sat down at the little oilcloth-covered table in his narrow kitchen. The window was shuttered against the sun, though enough hazy light filtered through the slats.
She didn’t answer, nor did he wait for her to before putting a pan of water onto the ancient gas burner.
“What happened to my car?” There was still that ice-cold anger.
“Someone shot it.”
“Someone shot it?”
“That’s why it has a hole. How did you know I was back?”
“Who shot it? Why?”
“Some Serb. In Vukovar. Actually, he was in Serbia and I was parked by the Danube on our side near Vukovar. And he shot at me.”
“So why does the car have a hole in it, and not you?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like Volkswagens.”
“Some Serb just randomly decides to take a shot at you and hits my car instead?”
“It might not have been random.”
She stared at him. Her eyes were green like jade. There was a little high colour in her cheeks. He hoped it was the heat.
“Do tell.”
“I was with some policemen from the Osijek force and, well, it seems that the Serb’s been shooting at them for a while.”
She nodded. “So you thought you might like to stick my car in the way.”
“They didn’t tell me not to park in front of a bullet.”
“Marko, why is it always you?”
“A combination of suave self-assurance, good looks, and intelligence? Look, they were very apologetic and assured me they’ll fix it.”
“They who?”
“The Osijek police. Not the Serb. All you need to do is drop the car off at their garage and they’ll sort it out. Make it look like a brand new Zastava.” He paused. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had company. Remember?” she said.
Her tone had softened a little. But only a little.
He got up to make the coffees. Three big teaspoons of instant into each cup, then half-fill each with boiling water.
“Irena, why do you have to go to Vukovar? I mean, it’s not safe and it’s just going to get worse.”
“They need doctors. They need doctors who don’t have families to worry about.”
“You mean if we’d had children, you wouldn’t be going?”
She didn’t answer.
“Irena, it’s a lost cause,” he said. “When the Yugoslav army decides it’s had enough with this whole Croat independence thing, it’ll take them fifteen minutes to flatten Vukovar on their way to Zagreb. The place has forlorn hope written all over it. And it’s full of idiots trying to provoke the army into doing something sooner rather than later. You’re going to be needed here.”
“I’m only covering for six weeks. That’s it. They’re getting bullet-wound cases and I need to develop some skills if I’m going to be of use to anyone.”
“Is that the only reason David’s coming? To teach you how to deal with bullet wounds?”
“He’s coming to help train some of us.”
“Bit of entry and exit, eh?”
“Don’t be vulgar,” she said, sharply. “You of all people have no right to be saying anything in that respect. What happened to your redhead? You know, the one who only wears clothes to cover up her shoulders. I never figured you for being partial to redheads.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know you’re partial to them?”
“I’m not. I don’t know what happened to her. She disappeared.”
“Had her fill, did she?”
“Now who’s being vulgar? Besides, we were talking about Vukovar and you.”
“How did you find out?”
“I have my ways. Remember, I’m a secret policeman.”
“How could I forget? How did you accidentally stumble on this information? Or was one of your friends snooping through my apartment?”
“Of course not.” He hated the implication that he’d spied on her. He had no doubt that the UDBA had spied on her. Had spied on them both. But not at his instigation. “Your friend at the hospital told me. A boy, a young cop I was with, was injured, and she heard my name. Though I can’t remember hers. I think she ran the emergency room.”
“Miljenka Boštrić?”
“That’s right. She heard my name and, well, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. So how long’s David going to be there?”
�
��Not long.”
“He can’t get there through Belgrade. I don’t think they’d let him across the border.”
“He’s flying to Zagreb. I’ll pick him up.”
“Long round trip.”
“We might stay in Zagreb. But frankly, that’s none of your business.”
“Well, you’re still my wife.”
“I thought you said ex-wife.”
“Slip of the tongue,” della Torre said, sipping his coffee. “He staying long?”
“Until he leaves.”
“None of my business?”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry about the car. I’ll pay to get it fixed. I mean, if the Osijek cops don’t.”
“You will pay,” she said with finality. She finished her coffee and stood up to leave. “Can I have the keys.” He fished them out of his pocket. “But at least I’ll find the tank’s full.” She caught the expression on della Torre’s face. “Won’t I?”
“Umm. I meant to. They wouldn’t take my card and I didn’t have much cash . . .” he stammered.
Irritation forced Irena’s eyes shut. She put her hand on her forehead and then looked at him. “You’ll pay for that too.”
He walked her down the stairs to the front door.
“I can’t convince you not to go to Vukovar, can I?”
“No. I’m committed.”
“Then will you at least be careful?”
“Only because you asked nicely.”
“Irena, you know I mean it. We may have our . . . difficulties . . .”
“Only in actually managing to get divorced.”
“I still love you,” he said.
“I know,” she said, and gave him a little peck on the lips.
She walked towards the car, stopping to contemplate the driver’s-side door before unlocking it. She was about to get in when he called to her through the ironwork grille.
“I forgot to ask,” he shouted to her.
“What?”
“How did you know I was back? I’d only just arrived.”
“You were waiting at the traffic light. I was just heading up to the hospital from the university and saw you there. Made an idiot of myself trying to catch your attention,” she said and then, after a pause and not bothering to lower her voice, as she might have done once upon a time: “You know, Marko, for a secret policeman, you seem pretty oblivious most of the time.”