Our name is Bauer, he said. I am Slavko.
I see, she said. And what is our business in Zadar?
Your business, madam, is to be my wife.
At first she was concerned but then overwhelmingly gratified that her son, as if he’d been drugged senseless, would not wake up, his surrender so deep that he slept through two checkpoints, the first on the outskirts of the city and the second a few kilometers beyond. The driver proved himself to be well-versed in the protocols of danger, exceedingly calm, cautiously gregarious, his deflections a humble art she had not imagined he possessed, exiting the car in his dark suit and yellowing dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his eyes shining with camaraderie to smoke with the partisans, packs of contraband cigarettes handed around, opening the trunk for a bottle of plum brandy, telling barnyard jokes and mumbling lies, the passengers overlooked and soon forgotten. Those interminable minutes at the checkpoints she thought she would faint from terror, anticipating the boy surfacing back to reality, confused and innocent, unable to recognize the peril they were in and not understanding that truth was a poison they would not survive. The privilege of the archbishop’s assistance, she now realized, came at a price she had not been clever enough to foresee.
The road was in poor condition, cratered and rutted, trafficked by oxcarts and an occasional jeep, its soggy ditches littered with curious wreckage and the torn remains of animals, women distant in the fields scything barley hay, chimneys rising above the ruins of the countryside, infrequent reminders that nothing was settled—a crossroads where she saw a gouged and severed head mounted on a stake, a turn in the road that slowly revealed a tidy row of executed men, naked, facedown in wildflowers, their bound hands crossed palms-up atop the pumpkinlike swelling of their buttocks. There were no more checkpoints that afternoon until twilight, at the entrance to Karlovac, and at the same moment she noticed the barrier across the road the boy began to rouse and sit up. Listen to me, she screamed, diving halfway into the front seat, shaking the boy by the shoulders while he stared at her, dumbstruck with horror by his mother’s assault. Talk to nobody, she said frantically, if you talk they will kill us. But she had frightened him needlessly, her heart thundering as the soldiers inexplicably raised the wooden bar across the road and waved them onward into the city.
In an alley behind the central square, the envoy disappeared into the rectory of Holy Trinity Church and they passed the night in the housekeeper’s apartment where, as they prepared themselves for bed, she had tried to explain to the boy how important it was, should they be stopped by the rebels, to keep his mouth zipped, but he seemed increasingly withdrawn and restless, and she sensed her control over him slipping away. I don’t know who this priest is, she said, who cannot travel as a priest under the flag of the archbishop. Maybe he is just afraid, like the rest of us, she told her unresponsive son, yet he wants us to pretend we are his family. So if I say he is my husband, you say yes, if I say he is your father, you say yes, but if I don’t say these things, you will not say these things. Do you understand? You must understand, Stjepan. You must agree.
In the morning there was leftover ratatouille laded with paprika, reheated and served for breakfast. Outside, the car in the alley was just as they had left it, and there was the envoy in the backseat, unchanged in every respect except for his breath, which carried the slightly decrepit scent of vinegar, she noticed, as she eased in beside him, as if he’d been eating rotten apples or drinking bad wine. Good morning, she said, and because he offered no other response than an aloof nod she did not ask him if he had slept well or poorly or not at all, to hell with him.
She had slept fitfully, dreading what lay ahead of them, and that morning she did not have to wait for her fear to manifest itself because it sprang, iron-jawed, upon them instantly, the car turning a corner out of the alley into the central square, suddenly occupied by soldiers. They jumped down from the flatbeds of two battered trucks, an officer sprinting forward, signaling to the archbishop’s driver. Halt! his voice punctured the air. Out!
To the driver—Step away! To the woman and boy—Stand by him!—the officer gesturing toward the envoy. She clasped the boy protectively to her legs and stared into the air at pigeons taking flight until her vision spiraled with black confetti. The soldiers formed a horseshoe and they waited, for what she didn’t know, no one speaking, the sun too bright in her eyes and the world itself blurred to an abstraction.
Then, in the unnatural stillness, the painful vividness of everything ebbed back into her consciousness as the faint rhythmic purr of engines somewhere nearby in the otherwise silent city approached the square. The mushy rip of tires on the cobblestones preceded the dreamlike appearance of a pair of familiar black sedans, German-made and previously favored by the gestapo. The envoy tried to grasp her elbow but she shrugged away his hand.
Two men in ordinary street clothes with holstered pistols strapped on military belts got out of the second sedan and spoke briefly with the officer. Then they were standing in front of her and the boy was pulled from her arms, the man turning Stjepan around so that she could observe his reaction, but the man could not see what she could see on her son’s face, only how it shocked her, how his expression broke her spell and cast her into a clearheaded state of alertness, seeing for the first time in the eyes of the boy his intractable disregard for authority, the impudent but desolate fearlessness he now assumed in the face of danger, some unbreakable defiance in his character that had not been there yesterday and made her immediately afraid the boy was determined to cause great trouble.
Who is this man? the second of the two asked in a voice so disarming it confused her with its veneer of pleasantness.
Which man? she said, struggling to comprehend the obvious.
Him, said the man, smiling, pointing with his stubbled chin at her companion, who stood exposed and rigid as a fencepost, sunlit face drained by the pallor of his fallibility.
I don’t know, she said, ignoring the shameless tsk of irritation from the tongue of the priest in the brown suit.
You don’t know? the partisan said. His smile collapsed into something flat and ominous. Her denial seemed to cue both men to unbuckle the flaps of their holsters; the one who held Stjepan rapped him on the head with the barrel of his gun in the checked way someone would strike the shell of a boiled egg with the edge of a spoon. Stjepan’s expression contorted with indignation, a small gash bloomed brightly atop his shaven skull, out crawled worms of blood, and she marveled at his refusal to acknowledge the pain of the blow that had stabbed her own heart.
I don’t know, his mother whimpered. She heard the pistol’s hammer being cocked and watched its barrel nuzzled obscenely in her child’s ear and saw the boy breathing fire.
The archbishop’s envoy, she screamed out. As God is my witness, I don’t know his name.
But you are the archbishop’s envoy, the partisan said to her. Step over here with me.
What? she answered weakly. I don’t understand.
Step away from that miserable bastard.
Flinging the boy aside, the man pounced forward and she closed her eyes. The blast was so forceful it seemed to lift her off her feet and beyond the deafness ringing in her head the shot repeated itself, echoing in the stony chamber of the square. When she opened her eyes the priest in the brown worsted suit had crumpled to the paving bricks, life bubbling from his forehead and nose, his executioner sweeping the air with the pistol. Go, he said to her with a crazed look of happiness. He brandished the pistol carelessly at the driver. Go, old man.
Wait, said his partner, and she instinctively shielded the boy with her body. Wait, said the man, there is someone in the first car who asks for your courtesy.
My courtesy? she said to herself, stunned, and the word itself seemed to rob her, as nothing else had, of her strength. Whatever had held her nerves together for so long she felt disi
ntegrating; her legs would not move, crippled by the black weight of violence in her stomach, nor could she find her breath. The boy and the old man supported her arms and she shuffled between them through the cordon of statue-faced soldiers to the black sedan and its hallucinatory summoning.
My God, I don’t believe it, she said, bending to the open window, straining cronelike to squint in dismay at the broad forehead and narrow chin of a ghost.
Marija, the passenger in the front seat answered in a quiet voice. My apologies.
The boy would always remember his mother’s transformation at the moment she recognized the man, her backbone snapping erect and hands flying upward, brazenly reanimated and self-assured, contempt flowing through her like a return to health.
Your apologies, she scoffed, unwilling to use his name, to allow the intimacy of old friends. Quisling. Murderer. God forgive you.
Marija, he said, untouched by her insults, think strategically. I fight the same battle, now from the inside, at the next stage. You can see the necessity. You can understand.
How could you ever become a Red? she asked, incredulous and then cold, then vicious. Ethnic trash is what Karl Marx called us, unfit to drink from the piss pot of his lofty schemes. Tell me, how could you forget this? Ah, wait, it’s a question of brains, she sneered, happy to see the crimson stain that flowered on his neck when his literacy was challenged. You can’t remember what you can’t read, is that it?
Marija, we survived. Now we must win.
God take you straight to hell, she said, rediscovering her son as she turned away, then whipping back around. Why must you hurt the boy, you pig? she raged, dabbing tendrils of blood from Stjepan’s face with the hem of her skirt. Damn you, give me your handkerchief, she demanded, but he had no handkerchief to give.
Marija, I regret this very much, he said, and she noticed he had difficulty turning his head to look at her directly. It happened because it happened. Are you all right, boy? he asked. You stood bold, like your father. You have guts.
You knew my father? asked the boy.
I knew your father, Stjepan.
Fuck yourself, his mother said.
His face blanched. Don’t speak like a whore, he admonished her, and the boy came through the window, his fist striking snakelike, breaking the skin on the right side of the man’s upper lip. He swung again without effect, his mother yanking him back by the collar of his shirt, and the man laughed with stiff appreciation, waving away the two pistol men who came sprinting toward the car.
He’s a little wolf. This pleases me, Marija, he said, wiping his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. When he rotated his entire body to look the boy in the eye, she put her own hand to her mouth, gasping, able to see his injuries for the first time, the gruesome scarring, the curled hand flopping from the lifeless left sleeve of his summer jacket, the partially missing ear and its ugly hole. It’s okay, boy, he grinned. You are a Croat. Against all enemies, defend your mother, defend your motherland.
Defend the Lord Our Savior, Jesus Christ, Marija said but wavered in her bitterness, moved by his act of forgiveness, the mutilation of his youthful, athletic body. Who was he anyway, this priest who asked that I be his wife? she asked.
A transgressor, a criminal, said the man in the car, whose name was Davor Starcevica, her husband’s erstwhile comrade, a peasant from Slavonia who had wandered from the land to the slums to find his purpose in life, which was, as with so many others at the time, insurrection. Some priests, he said, will do all the things that other men must hang for.
This priest was the archbishop’s envoy, she said, knowing the distinction now made little difference.
This priest was a Franciscan who baptized Serb infants and Turk children and afterward wrapped their heads in towels, Marija. Why the towels? To dry the holy water? No. To prevent his robes from being sprayed with gore when he took a mallet and smashed their skulls.
What do you want me to say? Heaven welcome their souls, she said. Was my husband part of this?
Six years of war, Marija. Everybody was part of everything. We created a democracy of madness.
And the archbishop?
It’s complicated, he sighed. The archbishop understood we would eliminate this butcher if we caught him.
And you caught him, she said. Too easily, I think.
Perhaps, Marija. Everyone played the game well.
What game is this, when an archbishop sends his envoy to his death?
The archbishop’s envoy has a laissez-passer. Immunity to the coast.
The envoy has a bullet in his head.
You are mistaken, Marija, he said. Despite her distress at the moment, the archbishop’s envoy seems in fair health.
What nonsense are you saying? Stop hurting my head with this nonsense.
He reached across the seat to pick up a small packet, sealed with red wax impressed with a star and addressed to His Holiness. Please, take it, he said but when she reached for the envelope he did not give it up. Stay with me, he said. Don’t abandon your country. It’s coming now, it will bring us a good life, the future we dreamed together.
Do you know Kresimir? Stjepan interrupted.
I know many Kresimirs, said the man in the car.
You know which one the boy means, said his mother, recomposed by anger, tugging at the packet until he released it, the invitation of his fingers emptied into the air.
Yes, I know him, the man admitted. He escaped from Jesenovac by being dead.
Tell me, Davor, she said, finally using the power of his name to condemn him. If you destroy the churches, what church will we be married in? What priest will marry us, if you kill them all? Who will baptize our children? Tito? Stalin? Taking her son’s hand, she began to step backward away from the sedan, trembling with fury. Stay with you! she mocked. The future we dreamed together! I must be confused, Davor. Did we dream of a future of Croats betraying Croats? Did we dream of a future of fratricide? Did we dream of licking the boots of the Serbs, of our children becoming communist slaves? Did we dream of a future where we tear down Christ from the cross to bury him in an unmarked grave beneath a mosque? Did we dream of a future where the Turk who beheads my husband becomes the Turk who is now your brother? Was this our dream, Davor, when they exiled all of us to Italy? I don’t remember. How could I forget our dream!
If you don’t release the hate, Marija, he said ruefully, I fear for your soul.
This hate is my blessing! she spit and heard her voice become hysterical but wouldn’t stop. This hate is my gift to Christ Our Lord, she shouted like a madwoman. This hate is sacred. May God take this hate and use it to vanquish His enemies. She grabbed the boy by the shoulders, bent her knees until they were face-to-face, her chest heaving, mother and child each searching the fierce activity in the other’s eyes. When you come back as a man to liberate Croatia from these devils, Stjepan, she said, promise me you will kill this one as well.
Who is he? asked the boy, nodding his loyalty to her, stern-faced in agreement to the pact that would consume the last faint shades of his innocence.
Tell him, screamed his mother.
I am your godfather, Stjepan, said the man in the car.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Leaving the square, the boy thrust his head out the open window, looking back to see where the soldiers had hung the priest from a lamppost, his corpse stripped and inverted, a crucifix carved into his fish-white flesh now upside down as well, pointed hellward, its crossbar dripping scarlet flames. Stjepan, don’t look at these beasts, said his mother from her seat behind, blessing herself, but then she changed her mind and told her son, Forget what I said—Look. Remember. When he sat back, she pressed a washcloth to the top of his head, heedless of his protest.
Minutes later, a short distance beyond the edge of the
city, the driver slowed at the sight of a checkpoint ahead, if that’s what it was, though its strangeness in this season of anarchy seemed less strange than worrisome. An object of manor house stateliness, an antique banquet table with sinuous legs made of dark wood had been placed lengthwise across the road, barricading the single lane south across the plain to the upland pastures of Kordun and Lika, a seating and service for ten occupied by as many stubble-bearded partisans who seemed, even from this distance, out of sorts.
As the car approached they leaped up in their grimy underclothes, nervous as startled crows, reaching for their weapons but then sinking back unconcerned. An eleventh soldier, obviously fatigued, paced mechanically around a nearby cook fire, feeding its black clouds with the aftermath of war—busted furniture and rain-swollen books—the thick smoke belched into the leafy branches of an oak tree, an upright piano hauled under the dismal shade of its canopy, a dead or drunk or sleeping man in the scatter of rubbish in the dirt next to the piano’s vacant bench. Farther down the road was a burning farmhouse, its bouquet of orange flames shimmering above the fields.
For fuck’s sake, said the driver under his breath. What now?
He braked and stopped a prudent distance from the barricade and went to greet the rebels with the false air of a man who never met an enemy, his confidence buoyed by the envelope in the pocket of his suit coat and the black art of survival he had mastered long ago. In the dark symmetry of his own life he knew these fellows, a motley group of schoolboys and farmhands, juvenile delinquents and tenured cutthroats, and he recognized where he was, where he had spent much of his life, the warp of time and sensibility that twisted into the small raw spaces created by the ending of wars that resolved nothing—the First Balkan War, the Second Balkan War, the Great War, this war—lawless dead zones where armies factionalized and territorial obsessions defied ideologies and generals begat warlords and warriors begat gangsters. He knew what it was like to stand in the yard of a farmhouse, the family huddled somewhere inside, and give the order, not only absent of regret but with the extreme satisfaction of nihilistic acquiescence—Burn it down! How do you explain this? If you believed in the clarity of violence, explanations were redundant.
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul Hardcover Page 24
