Quickly, she took out her own phone, entered Marco’s number and pressed the green button. But by now the voicemail on Marco’s phone was saying that the number was temporarily unavailable. Milena quietly cursed.
‘Did he hang up?’ Diana ripped off a piece of kitchen towel.
‘Do you know where he might be?’
Diana blew her nose and shook her head.
‘Do you have his address?’
‘Danube Street. But he only goes there to sleep.’
Milena took out her notebook.
‘He’s getting his passport today.’
‘His passport?’ Milena looked up in surprise.
‘And then he wanted to celebrate.’ Again, Diana was overcome by tears.
‘Why celebrate? Is it his birthday?’
‘He wanted to celebrate getting his passport. After all, he’s a Kosovan Albanian. Didn’t you know that? Don’t look at me like that. He just wants his passport. It has nothing to do with the death of Goran’s parents.’ Sniffling, she reached for her phone. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’d like to call my mum now.’
On the way to her car, Milena lit a cigarette. She was thinking about the message Marco had written on the signed photograph: ‘Sorry. One day I promise I’ll explain everything.’ What did he mean? That he was a Kosovan Albanian?
She tried one more time to reach him – but in vain. Then she called Siniša – equally unsuccessfully. After the tone, she left a message on his voicemail. ‘Listen, Siniša, we’ve got to find a young man called Marco Begolli as quickly as possible. I think he knows where the files of old man Valetić are, and that he’s trying to do a deal with the guy who threatened me at Božović’s party.’
Milena thought for a second and then continued, ‘I can’t get hold of Marco on the phone, but Diana Adamac said that he’s getting his passport today. That would mean that he could be sitting in the offices of the immigration police in Sava Street, so we might be able to pick him up there. I’ll definitely try anyhow. Could we meet there? I’d feel better if you were with me, just in case there’s trouble with the officials there or I need your help in some other way.’ She extinguished her cigarette and said, ‘It’s only a hunch. But just in case: Marco’s in his early twenties, with dark hair and a well-groomed beard. And he has a scratch on his face, on his cheek. Call me. I’ll go now.’
The traffic on Liberation Boulevard was stop-start, and Sava Street was at the far end of town. Milena drummed nervously on the steering wheel and flashed her lights, and at a snail’s pace the car in front of her pulled over to the right. She accelerated, tried the flashing-lights trick again and thought: a Kosovan Albanian at the offices of the Serbian immigration police – it sounded like a joke. Especially if that Kosovan Albanian thought he’d be issued a Serbian passport there. That was a pipe dream. In reality, it was never going to happen.
Milena changed lanes. Her head was still ringing with the music that she had heard when she telephoned Marco, from the funfair in the background, and she thought of what Adam had said the other day: ‘Riding a carousel is for babies.’ Vera had been inconsolable.
Milena thought for a moment. Then she reached for her phone and redialled. ‘Siniša, before you set off, please call me back.’
Gripping the steering wheel tensely with both hands, she took the roundabout exit that led in the opposite direction, to King Milan Street, back towards the centre of town.
32
The generator was making quite a racket. It smelt strongly of diesel and urine, and there was litter everywhere beneath the bushes. Marco followed the cable – most likely a highvoltage one, with fluorescent tape wrapped around it – then stepped across a trailer coupling and squeezed through the gap between two caravans. A thought shot through his head: if they jumped him here, if some guys roughed him up and forced him to hand over the material, nobody would notice or pay the faintest bit of attention in a place like this.
The cable snaked around a wooden barrel and disappeared under a stack of pallets. The perfect spot.
‘If you’re looking for the toilets…’ A guy in a striped T-shirt, who was leaning against some scaffolding, pointed to the left with his thumb.
‘OK,’ Marco shouted. As the guy disappeared around the corner, he added, ‘Thank you!’
Marco looked around, took the envelope out from his jacket and shoved it into the small gap. Third pallet from the bottom, fourth hole – he made a mental note to commit that to memory. With his hands in his pockets, he sauntered back the way he’d come.
‘Under Branko’s Bridge,’ Nat had said, but he hadn’t mentioned the fairground. A few businessmen were there on their lunch break, shooting at plastic rabbits. Teenagers were riding the dodgems to the beat of pop music from the nineties, and grandmas were plying their grandchildren with candyfloss and then watching them get sick on the carousel. There was a particularly dense crush of people around the ticket office for the Octopus ride. Marco gave the teenagers a wide berth, climbed the steps up to the drinks pavilion and ordered a Coke.
He might be new at this game, but he wasn’t an idiot. The material was now safe; only when Nat presented him in person with the passport was he going to get the documents. There was no reason to be nervous. But he still couldn’t control his shaking, and the old geezer clutching his beer glass and gawping at him didn’t help matters.
Eventually, Marco found enough small change, paid, grabbed his drink and walked down to the river. Don’t run, amble. The din of the fairground was ebbing away, and Marco grew calmer. Everything was fine. He looked at his watch.
He’d have bet on Nat coming down to the promenade on his bike, but equally wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d come down the river aboard a speedboat à la James Bond. He still didn’t get Nat, couldn’t quite make out whether he was a playboy, a weirdo, a bit of a lad or a criminal. This whole thing about pretending to be a foreigner with his suit, dress handkerchief and gelled hair – who was he trying to impress? And then there was the accent. During their last phone conversation, Marco had casually asked him, ‘Where exactly are you from, did you say? From the States?’ But Nat hadn’t graced this with a reply. He hadn’t even reacted.
Marco put down the bottle, leant against the wall and hoisted himself up. From up here, he could survey the whole promenade: to his left, the bridge; to his right, the fairground; and the river straight ahead. A river cruise ship putt-putted downstream with flags flying and passengers sitting in their deckchairs, drinks in hand, letting the banks of the old town drift past them like some charming film.
Let them enjoy their film and their fun time, Marco thought, though the sight of it wounded him to the quick, given that he wasn’t sailing to new ports himself and didn’t have the luxury of choosing between several options. It was paradoxical: he came from a country whose only achievement was independence, but it was that very achievement, the Kosovan citizenship of an Albanian, which marked him here as a dubious subject, a smuggler of weapons, drugs or people. He was unwanted all over the world and condemned to a life in a cage. Every opportunity lay outside that cage. He had to cheat officialdom, steal documents, betray friends and, assuming all went well, come to terms with his family calling him a traitor, because he’d dared to declare his allegiance to the enemy by acquiring a Serbian passport. But what could he do? Marco turned the empty bottle in his hands.
April twenty-first would be the day when Marco Begolli set the course of his new life. He’d show them all, especially his brother, the firstborn, who hadn’t achieved anything but was nevertheless admired by the whole family. One day they’d all come crawling and meekly ask Marco for help, for money, and he’d give it to them, quietly savouring every minute. He wouldn’t utter a word in reproach, because by that time he’d have left all this behind him, the cage called Kosovo and all the places where he had been humiliated. He would happily be living somewhere where nobody was interested in whether he was a Kosovan Albanian or a Serb, or a homosexual or heterosexual or wha
tever.
He looked at his watch. Six minutes to go, and still no sign of Nat. Instead, he noticed the guy in the striped T-shirt who had spoken to him up near the pallets. The guy was smoking and pretending to be cool, or at least that was how it seemed to Marco.
He rubbed his moist hands on his trouser legs and decided to believe in coincidences when from the other side, the direction of the fairground, a different guy came running down. A gentleman, a toff, Lord Muck or just some pompous git – Marco couldn’t decide in a hurry. In any event, the man had silver hair, an open coat and a silk scarf. He was on the phone and glancing around like he’d been given a puzzle to solve.
Marco jumped down from the wall and strolled towards the bridge. It was only a test. He forced himself to walk slowly, looking to his right over at the benches and litter bins, and to his left at the river and the opposite bank. As he’d feared, the man with the silk scarf was pursuing him.
Marco quickened his step; though the sun was in his eyes, he could make out two figures under the bridge. Was it a trap? Marco clenched his fist in his trouser pocket.
‘Mr Begolli?’ a voice called out behind him.
He threw away the bottle, vaulted the benches and litter bins and started running up the embankment.
‘Stop!’
Marco grabbed at tufts of grass and small shrubs, slipped on sand and gravel and heard the man behind him swear. He finally made it up the hill on all fours, where he stopped, puffed and looked around.
The man with the silk scarf had slipped and fallen and the guy in the striped T-shirt was helping him up. Marco didn’t have time to weigh up whether the men were together, whether they were Nat’s people or policemen in civilian clothes and whether it would be a mistake to try and retrieve the material now, the papers he’d just stashed away. At least he still had a head start.
He stumbled towards the main road; now he was coming from the opposite direction, he had to stop and get his bearings again. He decided he was heading in the wrong direction and lost precious minutes. Finally, though, he found himself back by the cable with the fluorescent tape round it, heard the hum of the generator and squeezed himself through the gap between the caravans. There, he stopped and cursed silently.
In front of the pallets stood the woman from the Zeppelin. Denim jacket, white trousers and a mobile phone pressed to her ear: Milena Lukin.
‘Hey there!’ she called over to him. She took the phone from her ear, and approached. ‘I wasn’t sure I noticed where you went just now, up on the street. I called out and was hoping I’d be able to head you off here. My colleague meant to –’
‘Colleague?’ Marco’s head was spinning. This woman showed up everywhere: in the club, at the politician’s party, on Diana’s phone.
‘I’d hoped to find you here.’ She extended her hand like they were best friends, but her phone started ringing again. Marco stepped back.
‘Don’t run away,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve got to talk to you – it’s not good news, I’m sorry to say.’ She stepped in front of the pallets and spoke quietly into the phone. ‘Siniša? I’ve got him. What?’
Various possibilities raced through Marco’s mind: was she working for the immigration police, for the secret service – for Nat, even? And what about the two men – the guy with the silk scarf and the man in the striped T-shirt? He broke out in a sweat. He thought he’d been clever by hiding the envelope here, but maybe the material was gone already. Third pallet from the bottom, fourth hole.
‘I’ll be in touch.’ She slipped the mobile into her bag, zipped it shut and said, ‘I’ve got some sad news for you.’
Taking a step forward, Marco came up to her and suddenly shifted his weight.
Without warning, he jabbed his elbow into her stomach. One lunge, and he had the envelope.
He tried to jump back over the trailer coupling and slip away between the caravans, but she seized his T-shirt and shouted, ‘Goran Valetić is dead!’
He toppled over and she asked, ‘Did you hear what I said?’
He rolled onto his side, and clutched the envelope close to his chest. His shin hurt and he felt sick. ‘I don’t believe a word you say,’ he told her. ‘You’re lying.’
She took him by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me.’ Her face was very close to his, and her voice was trembling. ‘Goran was found in the woods, hanging from a tree. He’s the third person to be murdered. Do you want to be next? Look at me when I’m talking to you, and stop treating me like your enemy.’
‘OK,’ he answered hoarsely. ‘I’ll give you the material. But you have to promise me something.’
‘What?’
‘Get me a Serbian passport.’
33
Siniša drove along King Alexander Boulevard with one hand on the steering wheel, and said, ‘I hope you haven’t promised this Marco Begolli too much. Even I can’t work miracles.’
Milena did not answer. The papers from the envelope Marco had given her lay on her lap: newspaper clippings, texts and correspondence, partly held together with paperclips, and all neatly filed in see-through folders – just as Slavujka had predicted.
Siniša shot her a sideways glance. ‘Café Little Prince?’
‘No, the office. We’ll have some peace and quiet there.’ Milena shook some letters out of the folder and read: Application for a reconstruction grant. She leafed through it. Submission to the office of the Commissioner of the UN Interim Administration. The following page read: To the Ministry for Labour and Social Welfare, Priština, Republic of Kosovo… She muttered to herself, ‘Goodness me.’
‘What did you expect?’ Siniša indicated, changing lanes. ‘Malcontents like Miloš Valetić are used to running up against brick walls.’
‘Just listen to this,’ said Milena. ‘A small sample: Dear Mr Valetić, regarding your case we hereby inform you that the Government of the Republic of Kosovo is neither empowered nor entitled to implement its own programmes for Serbian returnees –’
‘Of course they aren’t.’ Siniša glanced at the rear-view mirror. ‘That’s the wonderful thing about Kosovo: when push comes to shove, national politicians can always hide behind some decree or another issued by international organisations. KFOR, UNMIK, OSCE or whatever the hell they’re all called – you can always find a broad back to hide behind.’
‘– and politely points out,’ Milena went on, ‘that we can only assist the local authorities with advice and in a coordinating capacity.’
‘And you know what the biggest problem is in Kosovo? That everybody’s out for themselves. Be they minister or mayor – everybody looks after the interests of their own clan first. The international organisations have long since colluded in this old boys’ network. Sooner or later, almost every bureaucrat succumbs to the temptation to do a little private work on the side in Kosovo. Or take pay-offs for turning a blind eye – it’s a nice little earner on top of a salary that colleagues back home can only dream of. But of course, no one breathes a word about all this in public.’
‘For any further information/enquiries please contact the local authority representative in Ferizaj, at the Town Hall, on the Old Market.’
‘And don’t forget,’ Siniša said, indicating again, ‘the NGOs with their thousands of employees. They get on everybody’s nerves with their human rights demands and their concern for the environment; in reality, all their presence achieves is to drive the rents for offices and housing sky-high.’
Milena studied a pamphlet that was attached to the letter from the local authority with a paperclip. The image looked familiar: two youngsters in light blue shirts with epaulettes and dark ties smiling at the camera. The caption, in large letters, read: ‘Your security is our business.’
‘Isn’t that the company that employed Goran Valetić?’ asked Siniša.
The same folder contained another brochure. Resplendent on the front was a peony, with a beautiful landscape as its backdrop. ‘Returning home – some important tips and advice.’
‘I
think,’ Siniša pointed at Milena’s feet, ‘you’ve dropped something down there.’
Milena fished for a narrow envelope by her feet that was neither franked nor sealed. It contained two letters densely covered in blue ink. Although the handwriting was a bit wobbly, the determination of the person behind it was easy to sense.
34
‘What’s the matter, Miloš? What are you doing, sitting in the corner there, saying nothing? Are you brooding? Or are you writing?’
He straightened the small board, his writing surface, balancing it on his knees. His back hurt, and his eyes were burning. How many of these kinds of letters had he written in his life? With each one of them, he had made another enemy, and none of them had ever achieved anything. This one, he hoped, would be his last.
‘You’re ruining your eyes, Miloš. Light a candle. Do you hear me?’
He ran his fingers over the letterhead, on the fine, heavyweight paper, unscrewed the top of his fountain pen and began to write.
Dear Secretary of State, esteemed Dr Božović,
Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Miloš Valetić, I am seventy-two years old and, with my wife, I have returned a few weeks ago to our homeland, Kosovo. We are part of the EUfinanced returnee programme. We ended up in Talinovac, in a ruin without running water or electricity, and partly without walls, windows or doors. In my desperate plight I am turning to you as a fellow Serbian.
He bent forward to blow off the paper some dirt that had fallen from the crumbling ceiling, and continued.
I have been on the road a lot over the past weeks: I visited the town hall in Ferizaj, the Ministry of Works and Social Services in Priština and the High Commission of the UN Transitional Government. Everyone works in beautiful offices, and the car parks outside are filled with brand-new limousines, but it would appear that nobody has any money for the most urgent repairs to this building of ours. They say that the local authority has spent its funds, the ministry can only advise and the UN Transitional Government is not responsible for refugee affairs. All I am trying to do is to present the facts on the ground, to describe the situation and to suppress my anger and disappointment. But I cannot hide the fact that I feel helpless, powerless and abandoned.
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