Laika had fallen out of favor with Katarina. It was not clear why, but from one day to the next, she would have nothing more to do with her. Katarina was entirely obsessed with a boy band whose outfits included caps and unbuttoned shirts, and she insisted on emigrating to America—to Orange County, to be exact. Now Josip actually did have the time to care for Laika, but the dog had started to get on his nerves. She was so skittish that she constantly trembled, her eyes bugged out of their sockets, she visibly lost weight, and she’d forgotten she was housebroken.
He suspected that in his absence his wife mistreated her, which would be very much like her, but he could never catch her in the act.
Now that Andrej had betrayed him by taking over his job, Laika had become a kind of specter that he would just as soon banish from his life.
Everything would have been different if Andrej had taken the trouble to broach the subject with him; then, Josip would have given him his blessing. Nothing in life stayed the same forever, and just because he was on the wrong side of history did not mean he should begrudge the fortunate ones their due. He would have supported Andrej with sound advice and technical assistance. He would have given him his cap.
Josip was so offended that he considered renewing the blackmail, although now there might not be any point in doing so. Andrej was, after all, no longer a postman; he had another employer and there was a different set of rules. And if you have lost someone’s affection and, on top of it, the power to hurt him, then you were nowhere.
He did not relish trying to talk Andrej into taking his dog back, so he tried Jana by telephone, but this was not a success.
“I’m not a dog person,” she said firmly. “And besides, it’s wartime. If they attack Zagreb, what am I supposed to do as a single, defenseless woman? How can you even ask me something like this, Josip?”
He apologized and considered taking Laika into the hills and shooting her with his old army revolver.
But after he had counted the remaining cartridges, and Laika started to perk up after a few days, he thought better of it.
He put on her leash and took her to the harbor.
Under the clear blue sky, onto which a few clouds were added as decoration, the town basked in the embrace of the bay, just as stately—if you disregarded the concrete crust of the housing tract just outside town—as on the old color-enhanced postcard he had at home, where the hillside was still wooded, albeit in an implausible shade of green. Die ‘Grande Dame’ der Adria, it said in florid letters underneath.
But the situation was more serious than people said. The fishing boats rocked on a stinking carpet of oil in the harbor. Ropes that drooped from the mooring posts and rings into the water were covered in muck until far above the surface. Nets unlikely ever to be mended were piled up on the quay like rotting, dredged-up cadavers. There were dead pelicans, rigid and black, as though mummified for the afterlife. A pelican chick—already one of nature’s ugliest creations imaginable—stood on the dead body of its father or mother, itself black with oil up to its beak, like a child after a costume party gone badly wrong.
The same tidal filth that had covered the ropes and the hulls of the boats in muck had left a broad, filthy stripe along the quay and the stone blocks at the foot of the pier, as if the entire inlet was a discarded frying pan never to be washed again.
Josip regarded the coast as a whole. The black stripe reached as far as the eye could see. His town, once a fine lady clad in white, now had to endure the hem of her skirt being covered in sludge.
Without checking whether Andrej was home or not, he tied Laika to the bars of the basement window. The dog was no longer his problem.
Laika was not too afraid of artillery fire, as long as it was far enough away. She had already lived through so much. She had, however, developed into an extremely pessimistic dog. The girl did not want her anymore, and now she was back to where she had been at first. But she was outside, and it was cold. If she sat, the chill of the paving stones crept into her hindquarters, and if she stood, the wind battered her rib cage. Fortunately she was tied up, so she didn’t have to figure out where to go. It was frustrating that she could not get to the paper sacks and cardboard containers from the grillroom that had blown across the waterfront, with their tempting scraps of meat and sausage; the wind swirled them around just out of reach. She licked her lips and coughed a few times, surprised by the hoarse and violent hacks. Out in the bay a ship was on fire, and columns of smoke rose from beyond the housing blocks on the outskirts of town. The blast of gunshots in an unpredictable pattern made her nervous. She was afraid that in all the tumult, her masters had forgotten about her and that no one would ever feed her again. She barked now and again, but no one heard. Maybe better this way, because you never knew who would come. A car crept by, piled high with chairs and other household goods, so that it resembled a moving pyramid of furniture, followed by two boys on a motorbike towing a cart loaded with suitcases and bags, but she did not think these were people she would know. She trotted back and forth, shivering, and choking herself every time the leash pulled too tight.
She was used to waiting, but this was taking an awfully long time. A few pelicans waddled onto the square and tried to snatch the swirling cardboard food containers, without success. They looked strange, too, more black than pink, and they appeared to move more uncomfortably than usual, even though they were not tied to a leash. One even kept falling over, and had trouble getting back up; one wing flopped anemically to the side, even though these creatures had two of them. Laika, a thoroughbred racing dog, observed the pathetic action with contempt. It stank of oil everywhere, which masked all other smells. The one pelican ended up just lying there, and its fellow animals abandoned their efforts to find food among the whirling litter. They stood almost stationary, occasionally lifting and then lowering a pitch-black foot, or they turned their heads, which in some cases were still pink, and looked surprised at the sight of their sticky plumage.
Things were not good.
Fortunately the tall one came along, the one who belonged to this house. She did not know if he would be happy to see her, but she wagged her tail just to be on the safe side. He said something she didn’t understand, but it did not sound friendly. He opened the front door and went inside without taking her in with him.
Andrej realized he had made a mistake. It was a stupid detail, really, certainly now that the country was at war, but he should have talked to Tudjman before taking over his job. Everybody made mistakes. He felt that on important matters he did make wise decisions: he was dutiful to the fatherland; he would participate the next day in shooting practice with the militia; he had, on the people’s behalf, assumed responsibility for the strategically vital funicular; and he had lent his friend Josip Tudjman money. And earlier, too, he had given up his beloved greyhound for the benefit of Tudjman’s mentally disabled daughter.
This reminded him that Laika was still tied up outside. He slid the flowered curtain aside and opened the window. The stench of oil wafted inside, and just at that moment, the rumble of a distant explosion along the coast rolled in. Laika stuck her snout through the bars and gave him a pleading look, her eyes bugged out as though she feared some terrible misunderstanding.
“Relax,” he said, “I won’t leave you there forever.”
He wondered if it was better to have the window open or closed. Open, he decided, figuring that explosions caused shock waves, and the Serbs were unlikely to use nerve gas.
He decided to be magnanimous. Tudjman was a has-been, after all, and had been pushed to the sidelines while he himself might very well be poised to become a war hero. Old Schmitz thought so, too. Maybe as a sharpshooter, if he proved to have some aptitude for it tomorrow.
It was all about some archaic convention, like asking a girl’s father for her hand in marriage. Andrej had ruffled Tudjman’s feathers by taking over the funicular without first asking his permission. He would do so now, and even offer his apologies. He brought the dog
inside, put on his coat, and left.
Tudjman’s wife answered the door and said that her husband, who was a monster and had abandoned his wife and daughter just as the Serbs were on their way to ravish them, had just gone out. Probably off to his floozie. Andrej offered a hurried apology and headed for the bus station. It was exciting to walk through the familiar streets and alleys now that they might become a battleground, for the enemy’s advance seemed unstoppable. Word had it that Dubrovnik had been destroyed, Vukovar surrounded, and that the United Nations had sided with the Serbs by calling for an arms embargo. Goran Kostić, the grocer, had fled with his family, as did the Orthodox priest. The church had been repurposed as an improvised recruiting station, with a large white banner bearing the slogan za dom spremni outside. As he passed it, Andrej glanced condescendingly at the young men waiting in line to volunteer; he, after all, had enlisted long before them. He had shown his true colors early on, and after the war he was sure to be decorated for it.
Marković swerved up on the green Schwalbe he had once bought for his daughter; it looked absurdly small now, with this burly man dressed in army fatigues on it. A heavy machine gun was slung over his shoulder, and his face was painted with black combat stripes.
“What are you doing here?” he yelled, still sitting on the moped, which angrily spat out puffs of exhaust. “Tomorrow—target practice. I’ll be your instructor. Take no risks! Go home!”
“I’m looking for Tudjman,” Andrej said. “I’m headed for the bus station.”
“There are no more buses, man!” Marković shouted. “This is war! Await orders!”
Andrej saluted in a way he thought was appropriate, but he did not go home; he went back to Tudjman’s house to leave a message for him.
Katarina looked eccentric in her short white dress and ludicrously high platform shoes. Moreover, she was wearing makeup and there were spangles on her face and arms. She flailed wildly to ear-splitting pop music Andrej had never heard before. The whole scene made a strange impression on him indeed.
“Katarina,” he shouted, “what happened with Laika?”
“Who cares,” she shouted back in English, and began making bizarre gestures as she danced, including sticking her tongue way out of her mouth.
“Haven’t you got anything better to do?”
“I hate the war,” she shouted, and screeched atonally along with the music: “I think you’re a superstar …”
Andrej grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward him. She pressed her pelvis against him and dangled her head backward. It was the first time a female had ever come so close to him, and it unnerved him.
“Do you want me, do you want me?” Katarina crooned.
“Stop it,” he said sternly, pushing her away.
“Oh, you’re so ugly,” Katarina sang as she flung her hair wildly about.
“I need a pen and paper,” Andrej said. “Where can I find them?”
“In Papa’s desk,” she answered in the brief interval before the next booming number began.
He sat down at the small writing table in Tudjman’s room and opened the drawers in search of writing paper and a pen. In the left-hand drawer he found an assortment of office items: paper clips, postage stamps, thumbtacks, pencil stubs, foreign coins, and keys. They were neatly sorted in small round plastic boxes, giving the collection the orderly look of a laboratory or pharmacy. The coins—German groschen, French francs, and Dutch dubbeltjes—were probably tips from the cable car that Tudjman was unable to exchange. Tudjman apparently had a taste for sheep’s cheese from the island of Pag, as the containers were all of this sort. He took a pencil stub and began writing on the back of an electricity bill:
Dear Josip. I’m sorry if I insulted you. I did not mean to. We live in fast-paced times, and I had to accept the job immediately. Of course I wanted to bring it up with you first, I know how much the job meant to you. I hope that you …
Realizing that what he wanted to write would not fit on the back of the bill, Andrej opened the right-hand drawer in search of a sheet of paper.
Mostly what he found were more bills. He slid them aside and felt deeper in the drawer.
There were some empty, postmarked envelopes, and at first he thought Tudjman saved them for the foreign postage stamps, but suddenly his big, searching hand froze in midair.
It was the envelope that had betrayed him. His hand descended upon the spread-out papers like a woebegone animal that sinks to the ground to die, but then wills itself to move again.
Using his middle finger, he slid the envelope out from under the others. Airmail, addressed to Joyce Kimberley, c/o Hotel Esplanade.
In the next room, Katarina cranked up the volume even louder and screamed ecstatically along with the lyrics “I need you.”
It was Tudjman. Josip Tudjman, his only friend, had been blackmailing him all these years.
Josip went to Mario’s place. Andrej’s betrayal had cut him to the quick, and now he wanted to know how things stood between him and his brother-in-law: Mario, his comrade-in-arms in World War II; Mario, who was born on the same day as him, whose house he had helped build, and who was married to his wife’s sister; someone with whom for years he had daily or at least weekly contact, and with whom, since the ransacking of the Serbian grocer’s, he had not exchanged a single word.
Just as he reached the driveway the big Chevrolet Impala pulled out, loaded, it appeared, to the brim. It looked as though the entire family was in the car. Josip waited next to the right-hand eagle, correctly assuming that Mario’s son would be at the wheel and Mario himself in the passenger seat. The car stopped; he bent over and saw only the backs of heads and averted profiles, except for the inquisitive little faces of the youngest children, who still had no concept of right and wrong.
Mario lowered the tinted-glass window and looked at him.
“Josip,” he said.
“Mario.”
“We’re taking the women and children to a safe place,” Mario said. “I suggest you do the same with Ljubica and Katarina. My son and I will come back tomorrow. I’m too old for active duty, but I’ll help train the younger recruits. And what about you? What are you doing?”
“I’m here to congratulate you,” Josip replied. “Today’s our birthday.”
They had celebrated their mutual birthday together dozens of times—as young men in uniform, as newlyweds with their wives, and many times thereafter; often at Mario’s home, but at Josip’s, too, at first, or in a small restaurant on the harbor that had since gone out of business. Josip recalled one such celebration in particular back in the sixties, when they stood, arms draped over the other’s shoulders, and watched as Ljubica, still pretty and gay, and her sister Marija danced for them. They both wore high heels and polka-dotted sundresses that they hitched up to show off their legs in seamed stockings, and the evening sun poked through the grapevine on the trellis, and he and Mario knew without having to say it out loud that they were the two luckiest men in all of Croatia. And later, there were the big family parties, where Mirko, and later, Katarina and Mario’s children, sat on their mothers’ laps. They had celebrated together every year. Recently, though, since his wife had become such a crackpot that even Marija could not deal with her, they usually did so on their own, on the terrace outside Café Rubin.
“Today’s our birthday,” Josip repeated.
Mario turned away. “I know. Best wishes, Josip.” The window slid up, and the Chevrolet pulled out of the driveway.
Andrej plotted his revenge. He removed the photographs from the cupboard and spread them out on the Formica-topped kitchen table. All of them, including the very first one he had taken of Josip’s reply to the personal ad. They were dated, so Ljubica could see how long that caring husband of hers had been cheating on her. Of course, Katarina too would be hurt when the truth came out, he was aware of this, but that was collateral damage, and it paled in comparison to the catastrophe he would unleash on Tudjman, the man who had made his life a living hell
. The fact that he had learned to live with it did not lessen the heinous injustice. He would destroy Tudjman. He even went so far as to circle the most incriminating details with a red pen: the visible garters on the legs of the woman Josip Tudjman had always boasted about but had never introduced him to, and the uniform trousers around Tudjman’s ankles. Andrej would show no mercy. Where had his goodness gotten him? He had been cheated and wronged; Tudjman had betrayed his trust. And to think that in all his benevolence he had even lent the man money. He licked the envelope with the tongue of a Stalin. Even if Tudjman’s wife was too stupid to read, the pictures said it all. He even imagined that Tudjman might hang himself.
Laika began whimpering nervously when he prepared to leave, and he gave her a few hard smacks.
“Quiet, you!” he snarled. “You don’t know how important this is. You don’t know anything at all, you stupid bitch!”
Just then, the face of a young Pioneer with a blue cap appeared between the bars of the window.
“Mr. Rubinić, Mr. Rubinić!” the boy shouted breathlessly.
“What do you want?” Andrej growled as he knotted the drawstring of his jogging pants.
“They said for you to come right away, for target practice.”
“Oh, yes, I’m coming,” he said. “Mirko, isn’t it? Say, you can do something for the fatherland, too, my boy. Are you willing?”
The lad, his blue eyes radiant, delivered the familiar slogan.
“Take this letter and give it to the wife of Josip Tudjman. Make sure no one sees you. It’s top secret.”
Target practice was held on the field at the dog racetrack, where Andrej had not been in years. The young men had to make do with just one AK-74, the Kalashnikov belonging to Marković. The weapon had a folding buttstock and a thirty-round magazine. They took turns practicing its assembly and loading, adjusting the fire selector for automatic and semi-automatic, and the use of the sight. Andrej was jittery, all the more so because he had to go first.
The Pelican Page 13
