by Alen Mattich
The boy looked up at him, too stoned to be properly petulant. His eyes were bloodshot. The Montenegrin bent down and lifted the boy up onto his feet. He wasn’t heavy. The Montenegrin wasn’t rough, but he was firm enough to let the boy understand there was no point in sitting back down.
The boy struggled into his heavy black coat and pulled on his hat. The Montenegrin handed the boy his duffel bag. He put his suitcase and the garbage bags onto the landing, and then went back in to give the door handles and the light switch a last wipe.
The stairwell was cold after the warmth of the apartment.
The boy carried his own duffel bag, the red and green-checked blanket hanging over his shoulder, while the Montenegrin took his suitcase and the two garbage bags.
They went down without seeing anyone and loaded their things in the car. The boy sat in the passenger seat, bundled up in his coat, blanket over his knees, shivering with cold. The Montenegrin turned on the engine and pulled away. It was less than an hour since Olof Palme had died.
ZAGREB, AUGUST 1991
Della Torre wished he’d kept his apartment a little tidier, but Rebecca didn’t seem to mind. Or not too much, anyway. Though she asked whether he’d ever washed the floor. He was sure he had, but he couldn’t remember when.
Rebecca had given him a lift back to Zagreb. The Yugo wouldn’t start, wouldn’t even turn over. It was a crap car, but he’d never known it to die so completely.
The trip in Rebecca’s rented Golf was considerably more pleasant than the one to Istria had been. He was thankful Rebecca ran the air conditioner the whole way, indifferent to how much fuel it consumed, though della Torre could have done without her music or her refusal to allow him to smoke in the car.
But when they got to his apartment, della Torre felt a ripple of shame. It had the same bachelor mustiness, clutter, and slow decay as his father’s house. He didn’t often have visitors.
“You can put your things in this room. In theory it’s my study.”
“It’s where paper comes to die, isn’t it,” she said. The room was taller than it was wide. Faint, diffuse light filtered past the sides of the blinds, making it feel cave-like. Stacked files on a long desk and a tall bookcase overflowing with volumes and yet more files only added to the oppressive gloom.
“Well, I suppose some of these things could do with a bit of clearing out.”
“Don’t tell me, you inherited the talent for stacking from your father.”
“Anyway, the sofa folds down like this.” Della Torre pulled a lever by the side of the sofa and pushed down on the back. Nothing happened. “Like this,” he said, with effort. Once again he failed.
“Want me to try?” she asked.
Together they got the back of the sofa down, making a mostly flat surface. In Yugoslavia, sitting rooms almost always doubled as bedrooms, and everyone had at least one of these sofas.
“I’m sure it’s more comfortable than it looks,” Rebecca said.
“Oh, you can lie on it for minutes at a time,” della Torre said. “I’ve got to go into the office. I’ll give you a spare key. I’d say help yourself to anything in the fridge, but I wouldn’t vouch for it.”
“I can fend for myself.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“I’ve got some people to see as well,” she said.
“Do you know where the university is?”
“I’ve got a good map. Though I might just take it easy this afternoon,” she said.
Della Torre felt guilty about leaving her so abruptly.
“I don’t think I’ll have that much to do in the office. Really, it’s just to check in. I’ll be back in a couple of hours and maybe then I can show you around town a little.”
“Sounds nice,” she said. She broke into that smile of hers and gave him a peck on the cheek. He detected a faint scent of jasmine on her skin. Not perfume. Perfumes, even the expensive ones, made his eyes water and itch. Maybe it was her shampoo or a lotion. “And thanks for letting me stay.”
“Oh, don’t thank me. You can thank my father,” della Torre said on the way out.
• • •
The fan in Anzulović’s office was running full tilt. He’d sold the office’s portable air conditioners cheaply during the late winter months, when he needed the cash to keep Department VI’s employees paid.
“I’m thinking that maybe it was a mistake selling all of the cooling units,” he said to della Torre by way of a hello.
“You think?”
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to let a couple of people starve instead. You know, the useless time-servers.”
“I could have given you some names.”
“You’d have been top of the list.” Anzulović was slumped in his chair. Boxes were stacked on one side of the office and out into the hall.
“Looks like the move’s on,” della Torre said.
“Today or tomorrow, I’m told. I’ll believe it when I’m in the new building with all my stuff. Until then, we’re in limbo as far as I’m concerned.”
“You know where we’re moving to? Police headquarters?”
“No. They want us to be incognito, like a proper spy agency. It’s in a modern building on Ilica, south side at the corner of the square, with the women’s underwear shop on the ground floor.”
“Great. If we all wear trench coats, sunglasses, and hats, we’ll fit right in with the local perverts,” della Torre said.
There wasn’t much della Torre needed to pack. His filing cabinet was locked. He filled a couple of plastic crates with his law books, random items of stationery, a stapler, a calculator, and his electric typewriter. He’d long been promised a computer but ended up using the one in the secretary’s office when he needed to record data on a floppy disk. He wondered whether to take the indestructible rubber plant. He was sure somebody snuck into his office to water it; he could never remember doing so himself. He didn’t count the dregs of coffee or soft drinks he routinely drained into the soil.
“It’s got air conditioning,” Anzulović said, turning his face into the fan. “Anyway, I don’t feel like wasting precious energy talking to you. I’m glad you’re back. I won’t ask if you got anything.” He paused. “Did you get anything?”
“From the local cops? What exactly was I supposed to get?”
“Food poisoning, maybe. How the hell should I know?” said Anzulović.
“All I got was an earful about how the Istrian police are being pulled out and stuck on the front lines in Krajina, while their positions are being filled by the sons and brothers of Zagreb’s great and good.”
“You mean the ones who can’t get their kids out of the country to study in some third-rate Italian or English school.”
“Just so,” said della Torre, wishing he could somehow catch more of the fan’s breeze. The angle was wrong and he couldn’t see how it’d be right unless he sat between it and Anzulović. “Oh, I picked up an American.”
“A what?”
“An American. An American researcher who’d been staying at my father’s.”
“Americans. Had some here the other day. Kakav was showing them around. Not that I got an introduction. At least I think they were Americans. Looked it. Though they could have been Australian. Or Canadian. Pretty sure they weren’t Japanese.”
“Oh,” della Torre said, his surprise showing. It wasn’t so long since inviting Americans to the UDBA’s offices would have been as sacrilegious as herding pigs through a mosque. “So what does Kakav want with the non-Japanese?”
“We’re looking for friends everywhere, didn’t you know?” Anzulović said, shrugging. “Speaking of Kakav, he’s got something for you. I think I might have mentioned it last week.”
“All you mentioned last week was that he’d have something else for me to do once I got back from Istria. Am I supposed to wr
ite up that trip, by the way? If I am, I’ll have to be creative, because I’m not going to report the conversations I had.”
“If you want to write it up, go ahead. I don’t remember Kakav asking for a report. Just that when you got back he wanted you to go away again,” Anzulović said.
“Likes me around, does he?” della Torre said. “Let me guess. Back to Istria. He wants me to ask the cops there whether they like milk in their coffee.”
“No, you’re heading in the other direction. Vukovar,” Anzulović said. Vukovar was at Croatia’s eastern limits, on the great Danube River. Serbia was on the opposite shore. Conditions had become as tense there as they were in Krajina.
“Any idea what he wants me to do there? Or can I just go home and watch TV for a couple of days and pretend I’ve been?” Della Torre was unenthusiastic about making the trip. At the best of times it was a long drive, but the looming war meant having to negotiate traffic tied up by police roadblocks, dull scenery along the way, and crazy people when he got there.
“This time he wants you there for a reason. I think. Anyway, he’s got somebody he wants you to talk to. Or who wants to talk to you.”
“You’re keeping me in suspense.”
“Zlatko Horvat.”
“The pizza man?”
Horvat was an extreme specimen of an increasingly common variety of expat Croat. The kind who’d left the country decades before as poor nobodies, but through hard work and good luck had done well for themselves abroad. And all the time they were in America or Australia or Canada or wherever, nostalgia for the old country had festered and grown into a utopian nationalism. Networks of deracinated countrymen dreamt of what Croatia would be like without the Yugoslav yoke. And they, with their vast experience of how things are done in proper developed countries, could show their countrymen the way forward. So they came back rich, superior, and determined to meddle in politics.
“Yup.”
“What am I supposed to talk to him about?”
“The weather. How the hell do I know? You both lived in the middle of America. Maybe he wants to reminisce.”
“He was in Canada.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Snowshoes,” della Torre said. “Any more details?”
“Comrade Colonel Kakav said, and I quote, ‘When that della Torre gets back from Istria I want him in Vukovar. He’s to talk to Mr. Zlatko Horvat. Make sure he’s there by Tuesday.’ And that was the length and breadth of all the useful information I got out of our dear leader. May I remind you to be polite to Mr. Horvat. He may be a Nazi, but he’s a friend of our president’s and a generous contributor to the Croatian cause. And if he wants you to stand him a beer, well, you’re standing him a beer.”
“Shit.”
“Better you than me, that’s all I can say. You might as well go today. The sooner you’re there, the sooner you can come back.”
“Shit.”
“You should have someone look at that echo of yours. It sounds like shit,” Anzulović said, lighting a cigarette, sweat glistening on his forehead.
“I guess I’m going to Vukovar. Do we have a car I can use? Mine broke down in Istria.”
“How’d you get here?”
“The American drove me.”
“Well, get someone to drive you to Vukovar. We’re all out of cars. I can fix you a ride on a military transport, or you can take a bus. But until we’re properly part of military intelligence, we’re not part of the car pool.”
“That’s swell.”
“You’re resourceful,” Anzulović said airily.
“Thanks.”
“Oh, and while you’re out there, you can do me a favour.”
“What, like jump in the Danube?”
“The chief of police in Osijek is a guy called Josip Rejkart. I’d like you to go to his office and talk to him and other people there. See what’s happening. Don’t mention my name. I’ll get the Zagreb police to call to say they’re sending you to . . .” Anzulović paused. “. . . to do a survey on the use of paper clips on the front line.”
“Close friends, are you?”
“We are, in fact. I trained him as a detective when he was in Zagreb. He’s a nice guy. Smart. But if he knows I sent you, he’ll make sure you only see the rosy side of things, because he knows I’m worried about him. I’ve been trying to get him transferred out of there for the past couple of months.”
“So you think he’ll be more forthcoming to a stranger?” Della Torre sounded doubtful.
“Maybe not, but at least if you don’t tell him anything at first, you might be able to see stuff he wouldn’t otherwise show you if he knew you were one of my people. And some of his cops might be willing to grumble.”
Della Torre shrugged. It sounded like another aimless mission, like the one he’d just made to Poreč. On the other hand, he knew it was the only real way to get a sense of how things actually were. To go and smell the air. Talk to people. See how their hands shook when they picked up their coffee cups. How they lit one cigarette off another. See how many houses were empty and boarded up. Whether the shops had customers and if they had anything on their shelves. Small clues that created a picture. His trip to Istria had been almost worthless. Almost. And yet talking to the police captain in Poreč had told him something he wouldn’t have gotten from a newspaper or a telephone call.
Della Torre had to find a car. He excused himself and went back to his mostly packed-up office.
He called Irena at her apartment — his father’s apartment — not expecting to get through to her. He didn’t. He tried her at her office at the university, knowing that too was a long shot. She wasn’t there either. The best prospect was getting her at the hospital, though that always entailed having to phone at least three times, listening to it ring until he lost count, at which point somebody would finally pick up. Then there were even odds that they wouldn’t bother to take a message, much less look for her. But now and again he managed to get through to Irena. And this was one of those times.
“Lucky I was just passing,” Irena said.
“And that that Albanian nurse of yours decided it was just as easy to call you over as it was to hang up.” The Albanian nurse was meant to be an administrator, but she was like a blood clot to the normal functioning of the hospital.
“She’s busy.”
“Painting her nails? I’ve never seen her do anything other than read fashion magazines or primp,” della Torre said.
“So this is a call to tell me I’ve got staffing problems, is it?”
“No, I was wondering if I could ask a favour.”
The phone went quiet.
“Hello?” he said, thinking the connection had broken.
“Oh, I’m still here,” she said. “I’m just waiting to hear what favour it is that you want of me. I was under the impression you’d used them all up.”
“Just a little teeny-weeny one. Could I borrow your car?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Just for a couple of days. I’m being sent to Vukovar and my Yugo died in Istria. Dad said he’d give it last rites.”
“Vukovar?”
“Yes. Arse end of everywhere, and I’d like to get there in a bit of comfort.”
Irena owned a new Volkswagen Golf, like the one Rebecca had driven. It was one of the few advantages of being a senior consultant at the hospital. The occasional private patient and a donation from a grateful family had earned her enough to buy the car. It was smooth to drive and, most importantly, had air conditioning. He decided cool air was worth the cost of petrol. Especially since he was planning on using the UDBA fuel card. He hoped it still worked.
“Two days,” she said after a long pause.
“Two days. Promise. I’ll bring it back on Wednesday.”
&n
bsp; “If there’s the smallest scratch, you pay in flesh and blood.”
“You’re sounding —”
“Like Shylock?” It was something she only ever joked about with him. A residual, bitter joke. Jews were widely despised by Croats, even though there were so few of them left. They had been all but wiped out during the Second World War, murdered in their thousands together with Serbs and gypsies by Croatia’s fascists. But the Serbs didn’t like Jews or gypsies much either. Both of Irena’s parents were Jewish. Her mother’s parents had survived, thanks largely to her grandfather’s ability to apply his skills as a professor of medicine to the needs of peasants and their livestock in a cluster of small forest villages. Her father’s parents, lower-middle-class semi-skilled workers, and his four siblings had perished, together with all his cousins and aunts and uncles. He never spoke about how he’d survived.
“Well, now that you mention it, can I choose which pound and how I give it to you?”
She ignored him. “When do you want it?”
“I always want it.”
“The car, stupid.”
“Now. Ish,” he said. “The sooner I go, the sooner I get back.”
“I’ve got to go down to my office at the university in half an hour. I’ll meet you at Alegoria with the keys.” Alegoria was the café around the corner from his flat. “But you have to go to mine to pick up the car.”
“Deal.”
• • •
When della Torre arrived at the café, Irena was already sitting in the shade on the patio. She wore a thin-strapped summer dress that showed off her shape beneath. Her hair was shiny and black and hung down below her shoulders, though there was grey in it too. Wrinkles fanned from the corners of her eyes, giving them a look of gentle amusement. She was what they called petite, girl-like, and people who knew her only by reputation were surprised when they met her. Though she was four years younger than della Torre, by dint of hard work and intelligence she had achieved considerable stature in the university’s medical faculty.
