The Small Boat of Great Sorrows

by Dan Fesperman

  “This is my daughter, Mr. Pine,” Vlado said. “Sonja, who I haven’t even said hello to yet.”

  He coaxed her out with a smile, but she wasn’t yet ready to forgive Pine, who had taken her usual spot on the couch. It was where she and her father always sat at this hour to read, and she held a storybook in her right hand.

  “We’ll do that later,” Vlado whispered, switching to his native tongue. “Go on now. I’ll come and get you.”

  She turned, casting a parting glance of cool appraisal toward the couch.

  “She’s nine?” Pine asked.

  “Just turned it.”

  Pine had learned that either from Jasmina or from a file, and Vlado wondered uneasily what other information he’d dug up.

  “Oh, and one bit of housekeeping,” Pine said. “Before we continue, I have to ask that you keep the details of our meeting entirely confidential, no matter what you might decide to do. For reasons of operational security.”

  So here it comes, Vlado thought, worried again.

  “I suppose I can agree to that.”

  “Good. In that case, how would you like to go back to work? Real work, I mean. Police work, like you used to do. A temporary job only, I’m afraid. But it could lead to something permanent, if you decided that’s what you wanted.”

  Vlado tried not to show his relief, lighting a cigarette then offering one to Pine, knowing the American would probably refuse.

  “No thanks. Don’t smoke.”

  “Investigative work? I hadn’t heard you were short of help at the tribunal. And it’s not like I could just pull up and move to The Hague, if that’s what you’re saying. But what exactly are you saying?”

  “You wouldn’t be working at The Hague. You’d be going back to Bosnia. Only for a few weeks, at the most. Then, later, for good. If you wanted.” Pine glanced toward Jasmina in the kitchen. “Which you’d have plenty of time to think about, of course. And we’d help with resettlement. Housing. Plus a regular job, doing what you did before. Investigations. In a jurisdiction that would actually be glad to have you.”

  “But not working for the tribunal. That part would only be temporary, as you said.”

  “Yes. A one-time job, I’m afraid.”

  This got stranger by the minute. Vlado wondered which police jurisdiction in Bosnia would actually be glad to have him, or if such a place existed. Pine wore a little smile, as if sharing an inside joke about the way that Vlado had left things in Sarajevo. There was no sound from the kitchen, but Vlado sensed Jasmina’s presence just beyond the doorway. She’d be listening with her mouth set firmly and her hands still, wondering what was about to happen to the little world they’d made in Berlin, which, on balance, was comfortable enough. Safe enough, too. If there would be a problem in taking this assignment, Jasmina would be the reason. Like many Bosnian women strewn across Europe by the war she had somehow blossomed on the barren soil of abandonment, spreading shallow but hardy roots in an unwelcoming land. Vlado had seen it happen in plenty of these families, the women picking up confidence while the menfolk, suddenly adrift, wandered and drank, sliding off toward melancholy and dreams of home.

  “Maybe we’re not too eager to go back,” Vlado said for her benefit. “And maybe you’d better tell me a little more about this one-time job.”

  Jasmina had moved to the kitchen door, wearing an expression that let Pine know she wished he’d never come. Vlado, however, was transformed. The sagging man of ten minutes ago was now edging forward in his chair.

  “Of course you’d always be free to stay here, once our work was done,” Pine said, perhaps playing to his audience in the kitchen. “The Germans have assured us of that. And either way you’d be well compensated. If you took the assignment.”

  Vlado blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. These past few years he had tried to think as little as possible about his old line of work. Burning your bridges and nearly getting yourself killed can have that effect. But it wasn’t hard to recall the buzz of putting together an investigation, peeling away the wrappings until you found the prize at the center or, sometimes, found nothing at all. Guessing and arguing with colleagues as you went, like scientists waiting for the smoke to clear in a beaker. That sort of business seemed a long way from here, another distant land with its own hills and valleys, and he’d pretty much given up hope of returning.

  He sighed, already sensing the weight of a decision. If his life was about to pivot, he hoped he had the energy for it, the resolve, and he recalled his sense of premonition from earlier in the day, down in the bunker. Walk through a door into 1945 and this is where you came out—into a room where a tall American arrived bearing gifts, offering to usher you back through another door you hadn’t entered in years.

  “Maybe you had better tell me about this assignment.”

  Pine looked awkwardly around the room. “I’m afraid your wife will have to leave first. Some of this isn’t supposed to go beyond you and me. Not for now, anyway.”

  “It’s all right,” Jasmina said briskly, striding past with a tight smile. “I’ll go read to Sonja.”

  They waited until they heard the door of the girl’s room snick shut. Sonja, who’d been eavesdropping from the hallway, complained noisily at the injustice of it all. Vlado and Pine looked back at each other, leaning forward with forearms propped on knees, a hint of conspiracy in the air.

  “There’s a suspect we want to bring in,” Pine said, almost in a whisper. “Have wanted to for some time. A Serb general, Andric. Heard of him?”

  “Yes. From the massacre at Srebrenica. His name comes up around here now and then. All their names do, if you talk to the widows. And going after him would only make more widows. He’s protected. It would be suicide.”

  “Which is why we’re letting the French army do it. He’s in their sector and they’ve promised to take care of it. He’ll be their first arrest, but at least they’ll be starting off with a bang. After two years of letting him drink coffee right under their noses, of course.”

  “That’s a pretty big deal if you get Andric.”

  “It won’t be easy. Especially when the French like to think Belgrade still has a soft spot for them. The timing’s tricky, too. Bad time to go stirring up Serbs, with Kosovo ready to blow sky-high next-door. But that’s where we come in. We provide the consolation prize. A suspect from the other side—a Croat from the American sector— to help balance the scales a little. Unofficially, of course. That way the Serbs don’t feel so singled out, which helps keep the French happy, diplomatically speaking. And if the French stay happy, maybe they’ll go after more suspects for us, further down the road. But our part of the deal looks a whole lot easier than theirs, ’cause our man’s been out of action for fifty-five years.”

  Vlado knew right away where that kind of math led. “A suspect from the Second World War?”

  “Yes. From Jasenovac. Heard of it?”

  “I should think so.”

  It was like asking a German if he’d heard of Auschwitz. In the Balkans, Jasenovac was the darkest stain of the Second World War, perhaps of any war. It was a concentration camp where, depending on whose history you were reading, anywhere from 20,000 to 600,000 people had died—Jews, Gypsies, and Muslims, for starters, plus a few thousand political dissidents and assorted others from Hitler’s roster of “undesirables.” But the great majority of the victims had been Serbs, killed not by the Germans but by their local collaborators, the ultranationalist Ustasha, a faction of Croatians ruled by puppet dictator Ante Pavelic. All of which explained why the death toll was still a matter of debate. In that war the Croats had been the reigning villains. In the latest one, the Serbs were the ones with the bloodiest hands. And in both conflicts, bitter ethnic arguments had at times masqueraded as scholarly debate over body counts and degrees of cruelty. Depending on your ethnic vantage point, Jasenovac was either the great blot of Croatian guilt or the overblown lie of Serbian propaganda. The outside world had pretty much settled on the former ve
rsion.

  But if the death toll remained in doubt, there was nothing ambiguous about methodology. The killings at Jasenovac had been brutal and blunt, a crude Balkan antidote to German industrial precision. The locals had done things their way, using bludgeons, knives, axes, and pistols, often employing an inordinate amount of time. It was a genocide of gouging relish that had shocked even the Nazis, whose officers had huffily written Berlin to complain about the barbarity. Not that their letters did any good. Hitler seemed to like the idea of an ally willing to show some initiative. Besides, even the local Catholic church had tacitly endorsed aspects of the project, with the priests and bishops of Zagreb lining up in support of the new regime.

  “Of course I’ve heard of it,” Vlado said. “My mother’s Catholic. She was more interested in religion than nationalism, so she was always ready to admit that Jasenovac was something horrible. Her parents were a different story. Her father put me on his knee to tell me all about the lies of the Serbs before I even knew what a Serb was. He’d point to Orthodox priests in their beards and black frocks as if they were vampires who’d just stepped out of a tomb. I used to have nightmares about them snatching me in my sleep. But mostly it sounded like a lot of old people getting too worked up over things that didn’t matter anymore. Then the shells started falling in ’92, and I realized maybe I should have paid closer attention.”

  “You and everyone else with any sanity. Well, the fellow we’re after can tell you all you’d ever want to know about Jasenovac. Ran a guard unit there, right in the thick of things. There’s an interesting file on him back at The Hague. You’ll be reading it soon enough, I hope.”

  “I’d be more interested in finding out how he managed to avoid being caught after the war.”

  “That’s not a bad tale, either. Up through Austria and into Italy. Hid out at farms and monasteries awhile. Then a DP camp, a big holding pen for displaced persons, before he ended up in Rome. Stayed in Italy more than fifteen years, with a lot of help from some church people, a bunch of Croatian priests who ran a little operation on the Tiber. Ever heard of the ratline? Laundered Western money paying for forged documents and freighter rides to Argentina. Seems that the Brits and we were already more worried about Stalin than a few leftover Nazis. We figure he made his way back to Yugoslavia in 1961. Living under a new name and doing okay for himself. These days he’s a pretty successful businessman. Gas stations. Beer and liquor. And still pretty active. Lately he’s been winning economic-development grants from the European Union. Brokers stolen cars on the side.”

  “Then why do you need me?” Vlado asked. “This one sounds solved. Sounds like what you need is an armed escort. A bodyguard. You’ve got a name for it in the States, I’m sure.”

  “A marshal, you mean, or a process server. Yeah, we could use a few thousand of those. It’s generally not our job to pick these guys up anyway. Ever. Then again, we’re not really supposed to be handling cases from the Second World War, either. I guess you might say all of it’s a little unorthodox, or even off the books. SFOR is who normally picks up our suspects—the peacekeeping forces—but they usually say no thanks whenever we ask. They like to keep things quiet, not stir them up. But this guy’s in his seventies, off in a backwater. His security’s decent, and he’s pretty careful, but if our plan works, using force shouldn’t even be an issue. And that’s where you come in.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You’d be working undercover. Posing as an expat Bosnian who’s just returned, which will be true enough. You’d carry in the bait. Lure him out in the open where we can pick him up with as little fuss as possible. Preferably at his favorite café. That way he comes along nice and quiet so nobody gets hurt, as we like to say.”

  “Why an expat? Why not a real local? Buy off somebody from his village who he’d really trust.” Vlado realized he might be talking his way out of the job, but the strategy didn’t add up. “In fact, I’d say you’ve got a few million locals to choose from without flying me anywhere, or a few thousand, even if you’re just talking about policemen. One of the local constables would probably do it for a few cartons of cigarettes.”

  “The local constable is one of his top cigarette distributors.”

  “Which I should have guessed,” Vlado said with a smile. “You can tell I’ve been away from home too long.”

  “Look,” Pine said, “let’s just say we have our reasons. Good ones. Some of which we can’t get into right now because of security considerations.” It was a line that immediately put Vlado on his guard. But Pine quickly moved on. “Another reason is the bait. It has to come from an outsider, but one with some local connections, and you’re the perfect match.”

  “What’s the bait?”

  “A demining concession. Mine removal. He’s been wanting a piece of the action for a while.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the most desirable work in the world.”

  “You’d be surprised. It’s lucrative business. Everybody and his brother wants a piece of it. Warlords, crime lords, mayors, police chiefs.”

  “Which covers at least two people in every municipality.”

  “You got it. But in this fellow’s case, he’s always stayed out of local politics, unless you count the bribes and the vote fixing for some of his buddies.”

  “Forgive my ignorance, but how much money can you make digging up a few hundred mines? Or even a few thousand?”

  “More than you’d guess. There are millions floating around. Some of it’s UN money. Some is from the EU. The rest, from various international do-gooders. Think of Princess Di. This was her pet cause. That made it glamorous, so now you’ve got donations from all over, well-meaning people handing it out wherever someone will take it. And if you’re the top local contractor for your area, you can usually pocket about half the grant for yourself, then pay the rest to a bunch of poor dumb farm boys who’ll work for cigarettes and a few D-marks. They dig ’em out the old way, with sticks and crowbars. Hand tools. Every week or so somebody gets blown to pieces, but so what. The boss has his cut, and the locals have a little hard currency and a big funeral with two lambs on a spit. And guess who gets to keep some of the unexploded mines if nobody’s paying close enough attention to your demolition program?”

  “Ah. Lots of money, and free weaponry, too.”

  “Which is why the UN has been wary about giving our man a piece of the action. But you’ll be arriving as his guardian angel, the new EU representative for demining operations in his region, with a slick new business card that will knock his socks off. He’ll figure that since you’re Bosnian, he might finally get an even break, because you’ll know how to do business the way he likes.”

  “With payoffs and kickbacks, you mean.”

  “Something like that. But you’ll learn everything you need to know in debriefings at The Hague.”

  “What’s his name, this suspect?”

  “Sorry. Still classified. Everyone and his brother knows we’re after General Andric because his indictment’s four years old. This indictment’s sealed. We don’t want to risk tipping him off and having our little bargain fall apart at the last minute. But he’s no one you’ve heard of, that I can guarantee.”

  “A location, then?”

  “A small town in central Bosnia. Sorry. That’s as specific as I can get for now.”

  “And you, Mr. Pine. You’re an investigator yourself?”

  “A lawyer, to be exact. I’m what the prosecutor’s office calls a legal officer, working with a team of about a dozen investigators, plus a military-intelligence guy. I do some interrogations, a little fieldwork, then usually I’m cocounsel when cases hit the courtroom, the one who can connect all the dots. But if you look at the last line of my job description, which my boss did just the other day, there’s also something about ‘undertaking such special assignments as may be required.’”

  “Which makes it sound like you’d rather not be here.”

  “Let’s just say I already had plenty on my plat
e involving the here and now without spending a few weeks on World War Two. And let’s just say this could all get kind of tricky if something gets screwed up. Which is why you really can’t be talking about this.”

  “What did you do before the tribunal? Your job back in the States.”

  “I was an assistant U.S. attorney. Drug cases mostly. Part of a DEA task force for a while. Mostly young American thugs, with the occasional South American and Nigerian for good measure. Sort of like working on an assembly line. Which is why I volunteered to come over here. A little like you, I guess. Another reclamation project a long way from home.”

  But did Vlado wish to be reclaimed, especially if it meant going back to police work in a country where the economy had gone to hell and half the population was still nursing a grudge? It was the sort of work that tended to turn honesty into a game, a series of bargaining sessions between integrity and expedience. If you weren’t careful, you soon found yourself slapping backs and buying rounds with all the wrong people.

  Nor was he yet convinced this invitation didn’t have at least something to do with what he’d gotten involved with here, a role that made him feel guiltier by the minute. So much for his reputation as the clean cop. He’d have to check a few things for himself before he could say yes. He would also listen to what Jasmina had to say. They could wait until later to decide on whether to move back, because that would be the tough part, the part with the arguments and the tears, no matter who prevailed.

  His gut told him that he wanted the assignment, and if spending a few weeks back in Bosnia cost him his construction job at Potsdamer Platz, well, there would be other holes in the mud to dig, in other parts of town that led to other regions of the past.

  Pine stayed for dinner. It went without saying unless Vlado and Jasmina wanted to violate every law of Balkan hospitality. They talked shop for a while, swapping tales of old colleagues and cases, stories full of humor and language that had to be edited for Sonja’s ears. Vlado cleared the dishes while Jasmina put Sonja to bed. The girl had stared sullenly at Pine throughout the meal.