Lie in the Dark vp-1

by Dan Fesperman

  Vlado checked his notebook. “Art was moving out of the museums, you said, trickling away a piece at a time.”

  “Yes, and strictly by the book. Certainly not just anyone could come in and ask to ‘borrow’ a painting for the rest of their lives. You had to have some connections, or some weight with the party. Some asked but were turned down. I got to help decide who was worthy, which of course meant certain advantages for me. Bartering points. This carpet you see. That chair you’re sitting on. One could do quite well in my position while still assuring that the art was safe, catalogued, and insured and carefully accounted for.

  “After awhile we even discovered a nice side effect of the practice, apart from our own enrichment of course. We found we were creating room for our own new artists. Most museums will send items off into storage to do that. We, on the other hand, were able to keep our patrons happy by putting art in their homes while also giving our brighter young artists someplace to hang their work. The irony is that as some of them became popular, a few pieces of their work ended up being ‘loaned out’ as well. So, you see, art begets art as it moves and shifts.”

  “It sounds like a lot of volume you’re talking about.”

  “By the late eighties, close to a thousand pieces, I’d say. And as each piece moved somewhere it became a part of my domain. We’d take the card out of the central file, place a red circle in the upper corner of its inventory card, next to my signature, and place it in the transfer file. And even though I was still based here, Belgrade never did get control of it. I think partly because no one really wanted to fool with it once it became too big and unwieldy. Once Pencic died I was the last one left who could really trace the whole thing back to its beginnings. So, I was curator of the world’s most scattered collection. The shepherd, if you will, of all our country’s wandering lambs.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever get a little concerned about all this? Having so many pieces-what, more than a thousand, you said? – all over the place like that.”

  “What was there to be concerned about? A thousand is a drop in the bucket compared to the national inventory. And it had all happened too gradually to alarm anyone. And let’s face it, Mr. Petric, how many people except for a few bent old eccentrics really know enough about a museum’s inventory to notice if a piece here and there has been removed. So, anyhow, everything progressed smoothly, my empire growing all the while.

  “Then the war began brewing. A vague sort of edginess crept in. I slowed down the movement, put a halt to it, in fact. Because if anything we wanted to start putting some of our better museum pieces in more secure locations. Bank vaults, that sort of place. So we shifted our energies. And it was at about this time that I got a visit-here, not at the office-from a most unusual patron, more so even than you or Mr. Vitas.”

  “And when was this?”

  “March of ninety-two. Just before everything went to hell. It was a general, a brigadier in the Yugoslav People’s Army. A General Markovic. He is now somewhere up in the hills near here, I am told. His men shell us every day”

  “A Serb, then.”

  “Yes, a Serb. And he had suddenly become very interested in the world of art, and in my scattered little collection in particular. In an official capacity, of course. He said he was representing ‘government interests.’ I must say that he wasn’t at all the sort of man you would ever bump into in the galleries of the National Museum.”

  “What did he want to know?”

  “Everything. He’d had a look at the transfer file already, either that or someone had told him about it, and he knew damn well what the red circles meant. He wanted a rundown of every transfer item in the city, a summary on location-how scattered, how easy to find, how resistant owners might be to ‘protective removal,’ what our recordkeeping was like, what the insurance companies knew. And values, he wanted to know what sort of stuff had the best value. Or, as he put it so disingenuously, which items needed immediate attention if we were to save them from the war, if a war indeed began. Did he ask about technique, about the merits of different schools, the value of a landscape as opposed to, say, some abstraction that might signify something larger, something visionary, some totem or talisman? Hell no. It is like I told you, this man was a businessman.”

  “Did he ever bother to explain his interest, other than saying he represented the government?”

  “Oh, his motives were all very patriotic, of course. He said that he and his superiors feared war would begin soon, so they wanted to get a handle on this very vulnerable portion of our national artistic heritage-the whereabouts, the values, the scope of it all-so that once things got rough he could make sure it was all protected. He said that people at the very highest levels had expressed their concern and put him in charge of protection.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Would you? This big philistine with garlic and slivovitz on his breath? Not for a moment. Not a word of it. If someone had been interested in protection it would have come through official channels, and there would have been visits to the museum, not to my home. There would have been forms to sign in triplicate, memos to circulate and meetings to hold. It would have been more red tape than you’d care to imagine, and it all would have been bungled very nicely, by all the proper channels, so that the art would have been in exactly the most vulnerable location possible at the time the shooting started.

  “The general, on the other hand, was interested only in speed, efficiency, and, if you ask me, stealth. Does that sound like an official government operation to you? No, he was a mercenary, a silk-lined old Bolshevik who only wanted to know more about value and marketability. A capitalist in training looking for his big opportunity, the sort of accident that has been waiting to happen to this country since Tito died.”

  “Then what did you tell him?”

  Glavas sat up straight in his chair, pulling the blanket around his shoulders.

  “Everything I knew. Places, values, estimates on how much he might be able to round up and in what period of time. Whatever he asked tor, really.”

  Vlado was momentarily taken aback. He frowned slightly, prompting an impatient sigh from Glavas.

  “Why did you help him?” Vlado asked.

  “Why not? Why risk this man’s wrath. If I could have a friend in Grbavica with a war coming and the Serbs crouching to spring on the city like a cat, why not. And I am a Serb, Mr. Petric.” He leaned forward again, the blanket slipping. “Not a Serb patriot, or an Orthodox zealot or someone who still laments our glorious losses God knows how many hundreds of years ago on the plains of Kosovo. But still, a Serb, with an identity that I may need someday. That I needed then. And I will not squander the possible value of that identity, Mr. Petric, not for you and not for all the goddamned painted canvas in this city. Tell me, Mr. Petric, under these circumstances, would you? Toss away your security, I mean, by standing up for principle against some philistine in hopes of keeping a few hundred pieces of art from leaving the country?”

  “Is that what you think has happened? That this art has left the country.”

  “Has left or is leaving, take your pick. How else would you be able to profit from it. By selling it at the Markale Market, next to the potatoes and the plumbing joints? Prop it up on a card table with the insurance appraisal tacked to the frame? Use your head, Mr. Petric. Art may survive in a war zone, but the art ‘community’ that is supposed to protect it usually scampers away on the cowardly feet of foxes. A few diehards always stay to try to hold the old order together, or to try to ‘protect our heritage,’ as they put it. But the others get out while they can, using every connection available to them, leaving the rest of us to get ourselves killed. Like your friend Mr. Vitas.”

  “Is this what Vitas thought as well, that art was leaving the country?”

  “He suspected it strongly even before he arrived here, I believe, and once I told him of my chat with the good General Markovic he seemed quite sure of it. Or so I gathered from his questions.”
r />   “What sort of questions?”

  “He wanted to know about the current supply, about what might still be in the city from the transfer file. About what might have been moved since the beginning of the war, who had been in charge of moving it, who had been in charge of protecting it, if anyone. And who had been in charge of the records, or had access to them, besides myself. He asked if anyone had been in touch with the insurers, or if anyone from the U.N. had shown an interest. And he wanted to know what sort of market there might be for these items, assuming one could indeed get them out of the city, out of the country. In fact, he wanted to know very many of the same things as General Markovic, except he was obviously a few years behind.”

  “You don’t think he was involved with the general? Trying to find out if he’d been dealing straight with him, for instance?”

  “He could have been, I suppose. When I thought about it later I realized Vitas could have been simply following in the general’s footsteps to see if his story rang true. Wondering if he was being cheated by his partner in crime, so to speak. Yes, that occurred to me. It also seemed unusual that the chief of the Interior Ministry police would be doing his own investigation. I’m not in your line of work, of course, but I gather that the chief usually has someone lower down, like yourself, to actually go out in the field and get his feet muddy. Especially if they have to come some place like this. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure what to think. Vitas must have had a reason to handle the investigation himself, if that’s what he was doing. Or maybe, like you said, he was trying to check out his partners.”

  “No, I decided I didn’t really believe that. But he could have been trying to cut himself in on the whole scheme, I suppose, a latecomer who’d gotten wind of the scheme and wanted to make his own killing before the supply was all gone. That could explain his interest, too. Because he also seemed interested in learning how to pick up the trail, how to identify the traces of the items that had already moved, the sort of signs that might be left behind by this kind of activity”

  “And what kind of signs would it leave?”

  “Empty spaces mostly. Empty spaces on walls where paintings used to hang.” Glavas broke into a laugh, cackling and wheezing, motioning with his hands for another cigarette. He inhaled deeply, stifling another wheeze, then paused to catch his breath.

  “Empty spaces? That’s all?”

  “No. That’s only the most obvious sign. If you wanted to keep the appearance of propriety and cover your tracks, there would have to be new notations on the cards in the transfer files for every item taken. It would be simple enough in a war. ‘Destroyed, claim applied for,’ or, ‘Looted, claim applied for.’ All with dates since the beginning of the war, in buildings known to have been hit or attacked or seized by the wrong sort of people. That sort of thing. Or if you were simply too lazy and maybe a bit too greedy as well, there was an easier way altogether. You could just destroy the transfer files, then there wouldn’t even be any records to doctor. And eleven months ago that’s exactly what happened.”

  “Destroyed? All of them?”

  “Every last card. One freak shell through a window and then a fire. Or so they said at the museum. The fire was miraculously contained in one room.”

  “You sound like you think it was deliberate.”

  “Look at who was guarding the place. The same thugs who’d saved it. All of a sudden one morning everything in the file is gone, or rather, burned to cinders, yet not a single painting in the museum is damaged. tried raising a stink, and would still be raising one, but two days later I was sacked.”

  “Why?”

  “That bastard Murovic, the empty-headed young fool who took over the National Museum three weeks after the war began, right after the director was killed by a mortar shell. He hated all the old hands, and he hated worst of all the ones who knew more than he did, which was two strikes against me right away. Being a Serb didn’t exactly mark me for advancement, either. And with the transfer files gone, Murovic had the excuse he needed. I was obsolete without my collection.”

  “What’s his role been in all this?”

  “Murovic? Not much until lately. The museum had been in total confusion anyway since the war began. For two months everyone was more or less in their cellars during the worst of the fighting. Then as they started climbing out, rubbing their eyes and shaking off the dust, that’s when people started to think they just might survive this. And then, too late, everyone began to worry about the art.

  “But by then Murovic and his young bureaucrats had the jump on me. He’d gotten back in there as soon as he could, staking his claim as acting director and bending the ears of whoever was left at the local offices of the Ministry of Culture. Meanwhile I was still out here in Dobrinja, unable to move. It was another six weeks before I could get into the city, and even then only by riding in a U.N. armored personnel carrier. In those days I stayed in the city a week or so at a time to work, then came back here in those awful rolling coffins. But by the time I’d first made it back into the city Murovic had convinced the ministry that I was a closet Serb zealot who couldn’t be trusted, and that furthermore I’d gone senile, wasn’t up to the job anymore, especially, as he put it, ‘in the chaos of wartime.’

  “I couldn’t deny I’d let things slide the last few years, either. I’d gotten lax, lazy. But my recordkeeping was still clear, and I still had the best institutional memory of the entire ministry. The last person Murovic wanted around was somebody who’d continually be correcting him and second guessing as he took over. But by my way of thinking, I could write down a quarter of the transfer file from memory right now, getting it down to the penny on appraised and insured value, and plenty of the locations, too. All I’d need would be a full week in a clean, quiet room, with good food and an unlimited supply of Marlboros.

  “Of course I told this to Murovic, but he just laughed. He found it quaint, wished me well in retirement, told me to stay out of harm’s way. He told me the U.N. would sort it all out eventually, and in a far more scientific way. Then he packed me straight off to Dobrinja, and there went my authorization for U.N. escorts into town. He’d exiled me as effectively as if he’d sent me to Elba. So here I am in my confinement, where, I regret to say, I have lost all touch with that insular little world called the art community”

  He paused, sinking back in the chair.

  “Another cigarette please,” he said weakly.

  Vlado tried to digest all he’d heard as he held out his lighter. Then a puzzle occurred to him. He flipped back through his notes a moment, then asked: “If the files were destroyed eleven months ago, what was Vitas doing with a card last Tuesday?”

  “Ah. That is exactly what I wanted to know. Because it was an original he had, not a copy. My very own handwriting right there on the back. He was very coy about it. Very foxy, yet still the courtly gentleman. He told me it would be better for both of us if I didn’t know. He sort of smiled when he said it. I asked if the rest of the files were still around, and he told me something very odd. He said they were in sate hands in unsafe surroundings. Whatever that means.”

  “You said he also asked you if anyone besides General Markovic had ever expressed an interest in the file. Other government people, or even U.N. people. Had they?”

  “No one to my knowledge. Perhaps you should ask Murovic that.”

  “Did either Vitas or Markovic mention other names, other possible contacts?”

  “Not one. As I said, Vitas was very careful. His questions told me little, and mostly he just sat and listened, nodding as if he’d known everything all along. And if he’d ever heard General Markovic’s name come up before, then you wouldn’t have known it from his reaction. He was as blank as a stone. Not someone I’d want to play cards with.”

  Vlado mulled this over for a moment, then offered another cigarette to Glavas.

  “So, then,” Vlado said. “Perhaps you can help me figure out where I might begin. Where I might go from
here. If the files are gone, or hidden, then I guess another possibility is in tracking down art that might be leaving. Assuming that pieces were still being taken, or that any have been taken at all, how would one go about getting a painting out of the city without arousing suspicions.”

  “Under conditions like these? Use your head, Mr. Petric. There has never been a better time. Half the city’s evacuated, or dead and buried. Buildings are destroyed or half wrecked. Even the Nazis didn’t have it so easy. At least with them, once the war was over we knew who had it, where to look for it. Under these conditions who’s to say where something might end up once it’s looted. There will be a thousand suspects to choose from. The Serbs will blame the Muslims, the Muslims will blame the Chetniks, the Croats, too. Everybody will blame everybody, and then you’ve got the gangsters, Zarko or Enko or any of a dozen hoods in this city alone. And if you don’t like your neighbor’s looks you can always blame him. I’m a Serb and know my stuff, so maybe someone will even think to blame me. Maybe they already have. Or maybe now someone will pin it all on Vitas. Dead men always have a knack for attracting blame.

  “The point is, there are a thousand built in excuses if you want to explain away a lot of missing art, and that gives you all the opportunity in the world for lifting, looting, or ‘misplacing’ any piece you might get your hands on. And that goes double for items from the transfer files, as long as there aren’t any records. Who can even say what’s been taken if you don’t know what existed to begin with? And even if that idiot Murovic ever gets UNESCO on his side, by then anything that turns up missing will be written off as a casualty of war. And whoever took it will be home free.”