The Pelican

by Martin Michael Driessen

  “Good idea! I’ll do that,” Andrej said.

  But first he went in search of Marković, whom he found tinkering with a moped.

  “A beaut, isn’t it? For my daughter. She’ll be turning sixteen in a few days.”

  “Sure is,” Andrej said, letting himself be hugged and clapped on the back. “Careful, my shoulder …”

  “How are you? All patched up? You were always injury prone, if I remember, and of course you shouldn’t go riding into moving cars.”

  Marković had been a midfielder for Dinamo, the team for which Andrej, for lack of anyone better, had been made goalkeeper.

  “Can you help me get this thing up on the stand? The back wheel’s wobbling.”

  “I can try.”

  “I’ll lift it,” Marković said, taking off his nappa jacket, “you just slide it underneath. There we are. To je gotovo.”

  He fumbled in his toolbox in search of the right wrench. “She’ll love it. A real Simson Schwalbe. Usually only the college students in Berlin and Zagreb ride these.”

  “Nice color, too, that green,” Andrej muttered. “Say, Marković …”

  “Yeah?” he said, a cotter pin clamped between his teeth.

  “Did you take my mailbags with you that day?”

  “Me? How do you mean?” Marković asked as he wriggled the back wheel off the axle.

  “I’d put something personal in the side pocket, and thought that if you had found it …”

  “Nope. I had my bus route to do, so I couldn’t also be worrying about your things. I did hold on to that guy with the illegally parked Volkswagen until the police arrived.”

  “Yes, I heard. Well done, man. But do you know who did take my mailbags?”

  “No idea,” Marković said, sitting on the driveway, legs spread and the wheel on his knees. “Schmitz, maybe. He offered to finish your route. Lame old Schmitz, of all people! He needs a cane just to hoist himself up off the toilet. Look at that, will you, I’m going to have to replace all these spokes.”

  “Schmitz? Not Tudjman?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” replied the bus driver. “Why don’t you ask them? Drop by any Saturday afternoon, everyone who was there will be at the café then.”

  “I’ll do that, for sure.”

  Andrej sat at the harbor for over an hour. He had treated himself to an ice cream sandwich and threw the last bits of the wafer into the water. After licking off the wrapper, he tossed this, too, into the water, watching as the silver foil slowly disappeared, surrounded by a school of tiny fish. Just like a sinking shipwreck gets attacked by sharks, he thought.

  The metal of the mooring bollard on which he sat was agreeably warm, and he was in no hurry to resume his pursuit. Better to think things through first. Old Schmitz was certainly an odd bird, but he was a charitable fellow; you’d never suspect him of stealing money. He had to be clever about broaching the subject, so that Schmitz would not catch on and would perhaps point him in the right direction.

  The ferry from Ancona, which served the town on a weekly basis during the summer months, and in low season just once a month, was approaching the dock at the far end of the boulevard. It was a massive white vessel with tall smokestacks, and it always attracted a lot of attention. The ice cream man started pushing his cart toward the dock; the hotel, the restaurants, and the owners of vacation bungalows would be sending pitchmen armed with brochures and business cards—doubtless in vain, because aside from the trucks only a few cars drove over the apron ramp, and these were mostly en route to somewhere else and only used the ferry because of its handy and affordable connection from Italy.

  Andrej, too, often went to watch, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the newest model Lancia or Ford, but he could spot them from where he now sat.

  He wore white shorts and a white short-sleeved shirt, which, together with the white bandage around his head and his tall posture, gave him an exotic, maybe even princely, air. And indeed, it looked as though he were holding court; townsfolk came over, one after the other, to congratulate him on his recovery, even people whom he didn’t think knew him. An older woman pulling a plaid wheeled shopping cart stopped and said she hoped he would soon be delivering her mail again, because it just wasn’t the same when someone else did it. A tanned, wiry old man who rented out his fishing boat for day trips came over and shook his hand. Andrej was getting more attention than ever, and he soaked it up. It was as if the town finally recognized him as a truly singular local son. Were it not for the unanswered conundrum of the missing envelopes and the fifty-pound note he might have been completely happy. The sky was blue and cloudless; only the faraway southern horizon was hazy, auguring rain. A small group of pelicans, apparently just arrived from Africa, stood stock still and stared vacantly into space, fortunately not too close by. The cable car was stationary, too, the car up top on the right-hand side. Josip Tudjman was a man of habit. Andrej had placed his sandaled right foot against a hawser that stretched to a floating dock, to which a row of small motorboats was moored. The rope tautened and slacked with the gentle swell of the water in the bay, making it look like he was operating the foot pedal of a huge nautical organ. A boy in a Pioneer’s uniform, complete with blue cap and red neckerchief, approached. Like Andrej, he wore short pants. The boy saluted and said: “Hello, mister, where’s your dog?”

  “You know my dog?” asked Andrej, smiling.

  “Sure I do. The English racing dog. We threw the orange ball for her that time, remember? But of course, that was before I took the Pioneer’s oath. Now I’m my troop guide.”

  “Good for you, son. What’s your name?”

  “Mirko, sir.”

  “That’s a fine name. And when did you take your oath?”

  “Last year already, sir. We stand firmly behind the ideals of our Socialist Republic! Smrt fašizmu!”

  “Attaboy! I did my part, too.”

  “Were you in the Great Patriotic War?”

  “No, I’m not your grandpa! But I was a striker for the national soccer team, when we played in the World Cup.”

  Lies, in a way, are so much more personal than the truth, Andrej mused.

  “And you beat the Germans?”

  “Of course. 16 to 1.”

  “So they did score one goal against us? How did that happen, sir?”

  “The goalie was blinded by the sun. He dove to the wrong corner.”

  “Bad luck, eh, sir. But we showed them a thing or two, didn’t we?”

  “Absolutely. Keep things up and you’ll make the fatherland as proud of you as it was of me. Then you’ll be a champion, too.”

  “You bet, sir. That’s my plan. Only I have so much homework, and I still don’t have my own room.”

  “You will, sooner or later. And at the rate you’re going, one day you’ll be as tall as I am.”

  “How tall are you, sir?”

  “About two and a half meters, my boy.”

  “Wow. And where is your dog?”

  “Staying at a friend’s. But when I get her back, we’ll throw the ball for her again on the beach. Deal?”

  “Yessirree! I salute you, and pledge to do my best.”

  Andrej responded to the salute by bringing two fingers to his bandaged head. The boy turned on his heels and marched off through the group of pelicans, who grudgingly made way for him.

  The faded posters in Schmitz’s shop window were not much of an advertisement for Agfa film. The door was open, and Andrej had to duck so as not to bang his head. Old Schmitz was reading a newspaper that lay open on the counter.

  “Andrej! Dear boy!” he cried. “Let me embrace you!”

  “Careful, my shoulder … ,” Andrej said, averting Schmitz’s grip.

  “Ach, man, you’re so tall I can barely reach your waist,” Schmitz laughed and pressed his face against Andrej’s chest. “Are you on the mend? You had me scared out of my wits.”

  “Doing well, don’t you worry.”

  Andrej patted the diminutive old codg
er on the back and looked benignly down at him. Sometimes he enjoyed his above-average height.

  “Did you see it happen?”

  “Oh, yes. I was sitting outside the café. When I saw you lying there I thought, ‘My son is about to die.’ You’ve always been like a son to me, you know. I was the first to visit you in the hospital, too, remember? Probably not, you were still unconscious and hooked up to all those tubes. Did you like the carnations?”

  “Beautiful, thank you,” Andrej replied, without the faintest recollection of any flowers. “How’s business? By the way, do people ever pay with foreign cash, or just dinars?”

  “Well, foreign currency, that’s only once in a blue moon. Sometimes a few German marks.”

  “No British pounds?”

  “I’ve got one in the cash register.”

  “May I see?”

  “Of course. Have a look.”

  The Queen smiled out from a one-pound note. “Please bring me to Miss Joyce Kimberley at the Hotel Esplanade,” she seemed to be saying. Andrej slid it back under the clip.

  “I’m not so keen on foreign money,” Schmitz said, pointing to the newspaper. “When you see what all is going on in the world …”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Israeli soldiers siccing dogs on Palestinian demonstrators! Just look at this photo. I’m telling you, they should never have been given their own country. As long as there are Jews, there’ll be no peace.”

  “Ohhh,” said Andrej, against his better judgement, “I think they deserved a chance. After all, they nearly got wiped out here.”

  “Nearly, yes. And if we’d had another two years, it would have succeeded, too. And if the world wants to give them a chance, why Palestine, of all places? Why not Madagascar? Hitler even offered it to them!”

  “Maybe because they wanted to return to their Holy Land?”

  A peeved Schmitz glowered at him through his thick glasses.

  “I’ve explained it to you a hundred times, Andrej. If everyone insisted on returning to where they were before the Great Migration—and that’s even more recently than when the Jews left Palestine—”

  “—then the world would disintegrate into utter chaos,” Andrej interrupted. “I know how you feel about it.”

  “If those Jew-friends are serious about it, then let them put their money where their mouth is. Instead of stealing land from those poor Arabs they should give up some of their own land. Let the Jews have Florida! There are plenty of them there already, and they’ve got palm trees there, too.”

  “Great solution. But listen, about my accident … I want to thank everyone who was so quick to help. That was pretty much everybody at Café Rubin, right? But who did what? For instance, who took care of the mail that was still in my bags?”

  “Gee, son, I really don’t remember. It was so chaotic … I offered to deliver the rest of your mail, but you know I’ve got a bum leg … I suppose it was Mario.”

  “Who?”

  “Mario. You know him, don’t you? Tudjman’s brother-in-law. The one with the villa. The two of them stopped your arterial bleeding. Nobody knew what to do. Neither did I—it was so awful to see you lying there, the tears ran down my cheeks. And it took the ambulance an eternity to arrive. Mario and Tudjman—they saved your life.”

  “And I’m going to give them a special thanks. But what about after that? I mean, who took my mailbags?”

  “Really, son, I just don’t know anymore. We all did what we could. Knević, Marković, the waiter … Some people, to be honest, were just underfoot. But why don’t you just drop by the café on Saturday afternoon? Everyone will be there.”

  “Will do. And, dear Papa Schmitz …”

  Andrej bent over the old man, hugged him, and planted a kiss on his bald crown.

  “Thank you for the flowers.”

  Mario was the manager of the local Avis rental car franchise and had built a one-story house up on the hill just to the north of the funicular. Rebar jutted out of the flat rooftop for new concrete that would never come, for he had requested and been granted a subsidy for a two-story house, but as is it sufficed him and his family. There was a large television antenna on the roof, and a plastic swimming pool for the grandchildren on the terrace.

  The gravel driveway was flanked by white pillars with eagles, each clasping a blank shield.

  Mario drove a full-size Chevrolet Impala, the flagship of the Avis fleet, but it was not parked in the horseshoe bend in front of the house.

  Andrej wiped the sweat from his upper lip with the sleeve of his best shirt and walked to the front door, gift in hand. This consisted of six miniature bottles of whisky from the duty-free shop that he had been saving for years, because he did not drink. Quite a stylish gift, in his opinion. He rang the doorbell; inside, an electronic rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again” echoed, but no one answered.

  A uniformed postman came cycling up over the white gravel. He was tall and sat upright, giving Andrej the strange momentary sensation that he was looking at himself. It was the same high, sturdy bicycle he’d once had.

  The postman elegantly circled the small horseshoe driveway, got off, and rested the bicycle on its kickstand. It was a young man with glasses, and at second glance a head shorter than himself.

  “They’re on vacation,” the man said.

  Holding the envelope between his thumb and middle and ring fingers, he lifted the flap of the letterbox with his index finger and deposited it with a nimble flick of the wrist, just as Andrej himself always did. A seasoned colleague.

  He looked at the bandage on Andrej’s head and exclaimed, “But … I know you! You’re Mr. Rubinić!”

  Andrej shook the outstretched hand and asked, warily, “You haven’t taken over my route, have you?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Rubinić, I’m only filling in until you’ve recuperated. It’s a great honor. I’ve even just delivered a letter to your house!”

  That letter, written in block letters on thin paper, read:

  ANDREJ RUBINIĆ. YOUR CRIMES HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED. TO AVOID LEGAL ACTION, PUBLIC DISGRACE, AND DISMISSAL FROM CIVIC SERVICE YOU MUST PLACE THE SUM OF 3000 DINARS ON THE 15TH OF EVERY MONTH, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, AT THE LOCATION SPECIFIED BELOW. STICK TO THESE INSTRUCTIONS AND YOU WILL REMAIN A POSTMAN PROVIDED YOU NEVER AGAIN PILFER ANOTHER’S PROPERTY. YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE. TAKE IT, OR THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE YOUR OWN DOING ENTIRELY. A FRIEND.

  Under this was a primitive sketch and directions to what appeared to be a pylon on the uninhabited hills above the town.

  Andrej felt sick to his stomach and lay down on his bed. Fate was playing a cruel game with him. Who was it? Mario? That seemed unlikely, as he was on vacation with his family, and the letter had been posted in town the day before.

  Of course he could come up with three thousand dinars a month if necessary, and from the looks of it, he had no other choice. If need be, he could always tighten the screws on Tudjman.

  He was overcome by a suffocating, impotent fury against the stranger who did this to him. There should be a law protecting people like him, people who acted in Yugoslavia’s best interests, who safeguarded moral decency, and who took in defenseless, abused dogs. Andrej resolved that if he ever got his hands on this bum, he would give him a taste of his own medicine.

  Andrej slept until the sun rose over the mountain ridge and snuck up, so to speak, on the town from behind. He struggled out of bed, made tea, and opened the window. The chain he had always used to lock up his postal service bicycle hung uselessly on one of the bars. The stench of kitchen garbage from the neighboring Portabello Grill told him that stray cats had torn open the bags.

  The steadfast rock formations on the outlying islands were lit up by the early-morning rays of sun, while the town and the bay remained cloaked in the shadows of the night.

  That afternoon he went to fetch Laika. He went when Tudjman would be at work, because he did not fancy an encounter with the man he was blackmailing, who had also been so helpful after hi
s accident. He was, of course, well acquainted with the narrow alley where Tudjman lived. The ribbon of blue sky above was crisscrossed with a tangle of wires and clotheslines. Other power lines, some twisted into skeins as thick as a fist, were attached to the walls with large brackets.

  It was dead quiet; all the shutters were closed. On one of the highest clotheslines, a pair of dark trousers dangled by the pant legs; it made Andrej think of Il Duce, whom they had strung up upside down after the war. He sympathized with dictators and felt that, no matter what, you must never humiliate great men, certainly not after they were dead.

  Tudjman’s wife opened the door. She was a small woman, and Andrej automatically crouched a bit and bent forward so he did not come across as such a giant.

  “What do you want?” she asked brusquely, her rubber boots planted wide on the flagstone floor.

  The grotesque fantasy that she was the madam of a brothel shot through Andrej’s mind, that he now had to tell her what his preferences were, and how much he was prepared to pay—although he had never been in a brothel before, and Mrs. Tudjman in no way fit the picture of a loose woman.

  “My dog,” he said.

  “Dog? What dog?”

  She looked at him with her unnervingly bright-blue eyes, and Andrej thought that although she wasn’t a whore, she was surely a fearsome sight.

  “Laika,” he said, and as proof he held up the thin leather leash he had brought along.

  “You’re not from the vice squad?”

  Could she be, after all … ?

  “Because of my husband. He is an animal. No woman is safe around him.”

  “No, I’m not,” he said.

  She began shifting from one foot to the other and looked up at him with an enigmatic smile.

  “I know who you are. You’re the great grenadier.”

  “I’m the postman.”

  “Not when you’re in uniform. Then you’re the dashing soldier all the girls dream of.”

  She suddenly twisted a quarter turn, making way, and in doing so stomped her rubber boots on the stone tiles and assumed a military posture.

  “You may advance!” she cried.