Killing Pilgrim

by Alen Mattich

  “But it doesn’t look done up. I mean it’s lovely, but it doesn’t look brand new,” della Torre said, puzzled.

  “Made it all the more expensive.”

  “I guess you had some clever people do some good copies.”

  “Copies?”

  “I mean from this book. Your floor looks like an exact replica of one of the pages.”

  “What do you mean replica? That is my floor.”

  “Your house is in the book?”

  “Don’t be stupid. You think I’d let somebody photograph the inside of my house and put it in a book?” Strumbić looked appalled. “So that some wise guy can say, ‘I want that floor,’ and strip it out? Not on your life.”

  Della Torre looked at Strumbić, stunned, only slowly comprehending what he was hearing. “You stole somebody’s floor?”

  “I bought it. Somebody else stole it.”

  “You saw the floor in the book and you had somebody steal it?” della Torre asked again, a string of questions lining up in his head.

  “Sure. Nice floor, eh?”

  “You used an interior design book as a catalogue? You stole somebody’s floor?”

  “So you keep saying,” Strumbić said in irritation. “Don’t get too worked up about it. They probably stole it from somebody else in the first place.”

  Della Torre’s eyes opened in wonder. “What else did you steal?” he asked, following Strumbić back into the hall.

  Strumbić ran his hand up a delicately wrought cast-iron upright on the banister.

  “You stole the banister?”

  “Only because it was attached to the stairs. Two for one, you might say.”

  Della Torre shook his head at the scale of Strumbić’s larceny. There, for one, was a man who dreamed big.

  They walked into the back courtyard, where they sat at a shaded marble table.

  “What does Mrs. Strumbić think of the villa?”

  “Mrs. Strumbić won’t get on a boat. Why do you think I bought a place on an island? I’d have bought something in the centre of Dubrovnik otherwise,” he said, taking a drag of a cigarette. “It’s nice here, but it’s not perfect. You want a woman under the age of seventy, you got to bring her yourself. And even though we’re isolated, people tend to know your business. As of twenty minutes ago, not a person on the island doesn’t know I’m here with two guests, one of them a redhead with nice tits. Then again, they’re all pig-ignorant and don’t know a soul who matters, so who the hell cares what they say about me. And they haven’t a clue as to who I am. Just that I’m rich and that I’m from Zagreb. They call me Mr. Julius.”

  Rebecca came to the door, a signal for Strumbić to show them around the house. Della Torre said he’d been given the tour and took the opportunity instead to call Anzulović. He gave him the names of the Bosnians, though not too many details about the events outside Gospić. Even if Strumbić’s line wasn’t tapped, Anzulović’s was. Anzulović promised to dig around for anything he could find on the men and whether they might be tied to della Torre’s other Bosnian friends. Della Torre then tried to call Irena, but she wasn’t answering, either at home or at the hospital. The news was full of small-scale fighting around Vukovar. Was she there already? He tried the number she’d given him. Without success.

  • • •

  Over the days, they developed a routine. They woke early, swam, and breakfasted on bread and cheese and ham. Strumbić made traditional Turkish coffee on the stove. They idled for an hour, and then they’d pile into Strumbić’s tiny, clapped-out car and head to the island’s deserted west side, with its rough, low limestone cliffs. And there they’d test Rebecca’s weapons.

  “Not that you’re likely to need to fire these, but we’ve seen now that things come up, haven’t we,” Rebecca said.

  Della Torre was rusty. Strumbić was good with the Beretta, indifferent with the submachine gun, and inept with the rifle. Lying on the ground and firing didn’t suit him. He could never find a position where he didn’t jerk the trigger. He was much better the day they set the rifle on an old wall and brought a folding chair from the house. Rebecca joked about building a stool onto the rifle for Strumbić.

  In the evenings they went to the little restaurant in the village. People knew Strumbić but were wary of him. He didn’t go out of his way to endear himself to the locals, but he didn’t antagonize them either. They respected his privacy. At Rebecca’s request, he asked the people at the shop and at a little guest house on the harbour to keep an eye out for any strangers, especially if they were Bosnian.

  Mid-week they took Strumbić’s motorboat back across the channel and got into the Hilux. It took them a little more than twenty leisurely minutes to reach Dubrovnik’s northern suburbs, an unexceptional collection of late nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian architecture and bits of 1930s Italian design, together with a few relics from earlier centuries and ribbons of bland modern hacienda-style houses and tower blocks. The road and dockside to their right were lined with palms, while the plots had luxurious green gardens.

  “So, this is Dubrovnik,” said Rebecca.

  She might have been on the verge of saying “big deal,” but they’d come around the shoulder of a mountain rising up from the sea and suddenly, in front and below, they saw the fortress city. Even della Torre, who knew it well, felt his breath catch.

  The citadel’s massive, high walls were bone white, almost blinding against the blue sky and sea, as if they’d been chalked onto the landscape by a fairy-tale artist. Their enormous mass was hard to square with their precise, beautiful lines. It was the home of every imagined troubadour, knight, princess, unicorn, and Templar.

  “My god,” Rebecca said.

  “Of course, the way you’re meant to approach Dubrovnik is by water,” della Torre said. “We’re taking the servants’ entrance here.”

  “I’d seen photographs —” she started.

  “Pah. Photographs. Is never tell truth. You must kiss walls, then you know Dubrovnik,” said Strumbić.

  They spent the morning exploring the old city, climbing the huge curtain wall that held in the Renaissance city, with its tapestry of tightly woven, faded red tile rooftops interspersed with tall, narrow church towers. A rugged mountain crowded Dubrovnik against the sea, which sparkled blue.

  Rebecca spent much of her time up high, taking photographs from odd angles with a small camera she’d dug out of her bag. She had della Torre stand for half an hour at a particular spot on the Stradun, the broad pedestrian road that ran along the old city’s spine. He could see her on the wall over the entrance gate, surveying the area.

  As they wandered up one of the city’s cobbled alleys, they came to a dead end. Instead of turning back, Rebecca stood at the base of the wall, launched herself up an ancient walnut tree that had grown into it, and then scrambled over the inner parapet onto the wall walk. An angry guard remonstrated with her, complaining that she needed a ticket. She showed him the one she’d bought earlier and then looked over the side, grinning at the two men below.

  Throughout the morning Rebecca marched, following some internal map, some unspoken agenda, largely ignoring the interiors of historic buildings to focus on the ramparts, and dragging the two men in her wake like reluctant children.

  When the sun rose high enough to rob the city of shade, they finally called an end to Rebecca’s adventure. Della Torre and Strumbić were all for lunching at a well-known harbour-side restaurant in the old town, but Rebecca insisted on driving the little way down the coast to the Hotel Argentina, where they ate on a terrace above the sea, with spectacular views of Dubrovnik.

  Their conversation was desultory. Rebecca never spoke about herself, and if she asked questions, her curiosity always seemed to have an end in mind. Strumbić seemed content with the past few days. He hadn’t been very enthusiastic about being made to rise early or the physical regimen Re
becca had imposed on them, but he liked shooting in the woods and eating and drinking in the afternoon. Enforced indolence suited him, as long as it didn’t last too long and he felt that there’d be a payoff at the end. Besides, it sounded like Rebecca was keeping him more than entertained at night.

  But della Torre was finding the time spent with Strumbić and Rebecca awkward. He felt as if he was in limbo, powerless over his own future. The killings had affected him.

  Mostly he was worried about Irena. She was on his mind as he looked over the serene waters of the Adriatic towards the city. She’d be in Vukovar by now. Television news reported an increase in Yugoslav military activity along the Danube, though mostly mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks on surrounding villages. But there was talk of heavier artillery being drawn up on the opposite bank. Casualty numbers were growing and people were fleeing deeper into Croatia.

  They’d finished their meal when a man approached them. He’d been sitting alone at a neighbouring table and stood up to ask della Torre for a light, ignoring the book of hotel matches on his own table.

  “Thanks,” he said, inhaling. “I couldn’t help hearing that you’re American.”

  “I live in Zagreb,” said della Torre noncommittally. “You?”

  “I’m trying to get a measure of what’s happening around here,” he said. “Steve Higgins.”

  Della Torre shook Higgins’s extended hand. “Marko. This here is Julius and that’s Rebecca.”

  “Mind if I join you? Not too many people other than waiters speak English around here. I don’t speak Croat, and my German’s not up to conversation.”

  “By all means,” della Torre said.

  A cloud of irritation passed over Rebecca’s eyes, but then she gave Steve Higgins one of her well-toothed smiles.

  “If you gentlemen don’t mind, I’ll duck out of the cigarette smoke for a little bit and have a look around,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” said Higgins, slightly flustered and half rising out of the seat he’d just taken.

  “Never mind, these two will be smoking like chimneys anyway,” Rebecca said airily as she left.

  “I’m sorry for driving your companion away,” Higgins said.

  “Think nothing of it,” della Torre replied.

  Strumbić pulled his chair further into the shade and leaned back in it. He wasn’t interested in conversations with tourists. “I am not so good conversation after lunch, Mr. Higgins,” he said. “Too much hot sun and wine.”

  “Looks like I’m chasing everybody away,” Higgins said uncomfortably.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re on your own in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and thirsting for conversation. Happens to all of us,” della Torre said.

  “Yes, also because I heard you speaking American English and Croat. I was hoping I might be able to pick your brain a little.”

  “Pick away, though I’m not sure what I can tell you.”

  “I’m a reporter, a stringer for the wires and some newspapers in the U.K. and Canada. I’m working on the States, but you know how it is. It’s tough making them interested in the world, even when there are revolutions and civil wars happening.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re not going to get much of a story out of me, Mr. Higgins. I don’t know anything and I’d rather not be quoted.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that. I’m not writing anything right now. Just working on some background.”

  “You certainly found a nice place to do it. But the story isn’t here. Unless you want to write about how badly the tourist trade is doing.”

  “I’ve written that story a couple of times already. My editors aren’t interested. I’ll probably head up to Krajina in the next few days to report on the Serb separatists. Crossed my mind to go up to Zagreb and then east. Things seem to be heating up there.”

  “Sounds like you’ll be busy.”

  “Sort of. Not many of us Western journalists in Yugoslavia, and it’s a nice patch to stakeout, especially if things start happening when the ceasefire ends.”

  The internationally brokered truce would expire in a week or so. The whole country was on tenterhooks about what would happen after.

  “You’re right. But you’re in the wrong corner of the country for excitement,” della Torre said.

  “You think so? I’m not so sure,” Higgins said. “So how is it that you speak Croat so well? And English?”

  “I grew up in the States, but I live here now. Have lived here for a while.”

  “And what do you do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Here with clients? Or friends?”

  “A mixture of business and pleasure. What about you, Mr. Higgins? I assume you haven’t been here long.”

  “No,” he laughed. “I’ve been circulating around eastern Europe for the past couple of years, the revolution trail. I was in Romania last.”

  “And you’re American?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m both American and Canadian. Usually I stick to Canadian because it makes people less inclined to argue about what a terrible thing Vietnam was or ask me to sign their green card application form.” He laughed again.

  “I’ll bear that in mind when I’m filling mine in,” della Torre said. Other than his father and Irena, and his friend Harry in London, no one knew he was American. And Rebecca. “Where in Canada, or the States?”

  “I grew up in a little place you’ve never heard of, called Lethbridge. It’s in Alberta. My dad’s an oil geologist. He’s from Texas, but they’ve got gas in Alberta and that’s why I grew up there.”

  “You’re right, I’ve never heard of it.”

  “What about you?”

  “I grew up in Ohio.”

  “Never been.”

  “I think you’re missing about as much as I am never having gone to Lethbridge.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “They must pay well, your employers, for you to take a room here,” della Torre said.

  Higgins smiled apologetically. “Seemed like a nice place to stay.”

  He was in his early thirties, sandy-haired and tall. Della Torre didn’t know what journalists were supposed to look like, but this one looked more like a cowboy. There was a rangy boniness to him that spoke of outdoor living, skin that looked like it had been buffeted by strong wind.

  “So what have you found out in your time in Dubrovnik, Mr. Higgins? Other than that most of the tourists are gone.”

  “Well, if you go over to the other side of that mountain a little way —” He waved his hand inland. “— you will find a surprising amount of military activity, given that there’s nothing on this side except for a very old walled city that has no strategic significance to anyone.”

  Della Torre sat up straight. “Is that so?”

  “Really, that’s what I wanted to ask you about. I’ve been asking everybody, but nobody seems to believe it.”

  “I have to say it sounds unlikely. Did you hear this or did you see it for yourself?”

  “Oh, I saw it for myself. Hard getting over that way. They don’t like people crossing the border.”

  “But you managed.”

  “I managed.”

  “Even though you don’t speak the language.”

  “I found a waiter who speaks decent English to help me out. Very useful translator, and happens to know people who know people. The right amount of cash can sort out most difficulties.”

  “Expensive business, this reporting.”

  “Yup.”

  Strumbić was reclined as if he might be sleeping, but della Torre could tell from how he shifted his head now and again that from behind his mirrored sunglasses he’d been tracking a couple of girls in skimpy bikinis going down to the hotel’s swimming pool o
n the lower terrace.

  “So you crossed over with the help of a waiter and found out stuff that nobody here believes,” della Torre said.

  “Something like that. Though I also met a couple of British mercenaries. They’re training soldiers on the other side of the mountain. Friendly fellows, until they get drunk. And then they’re a couple of teddy bears. Anyway, if you hear of anything that might be interesting . . .”

  “If I do I’ll let you know.”

  Della Torre turned away slightly, as if to end the conversation. Higgins didn’t take the hint.

  “Since I’m here, can I get you a glass of wine?”

  “I’m okay,” della Torre said. “But I’ve never known Julius to turn down a drink. Even when he’s unconscious he manages to nod.”

  “Thank you,” Strumbić said, though it sounded more like “Sank you.”

  “My pleasure,” Higgins said, calling over a waiter.

  “Not that I’ve been of much help, but I’ve got a question for you,” della Torre said. “Have you ever heard of a guy called Horvat? Owns a pizza chain in Canada?”

  “The guy who’s been made Croatia’s defence minister.”

  “Deputy defence minister,” della Torre corrected him. “Anyway, I was just wondering if he ever made the news in Canada.”

  “He used to talk about Croatia, but he mostly stayed away from the hard-line nationalists. I had an editor look up a clippings file on him after he got the government job. Really, it looked like his main preoccupation was making money rather than liberating his people. His pizza places were mostly across the prairie provinces, though he had a couple in Toronto and Montreal. Excuses to spend time in the big city.”

  “Oh.” Della Torre wasn’t surprised but was still disappointed. The UDBA had a file on Horvat and it said more or less the same thing. Liked to posture, but really just a businessman. In fact, not much more than a year earlier he’d been in very quiet discussions with the Yugoslav consulate in Toronto about bringing his pizza chain to the Dalmatian coast.