The Spider of Sarajevo

by Robert Wilton

  The chap might or might not be a marquis, but he enjoyed the lifestyle and wasn’t too particular about paying for it. Duval didn’t know how much of a fraud he was, nor why he was supposed to be interested in him, but it all meant hidden depths and the need for care. He turned off the deference as well as the flattery. Now he’d got his seat, he needed to be interesting rather than merely nice.

  Valfierno had considered the comment, smiled, wondering what it was supposed to say about him and what it said about Duval. He held Duval’s eyes and he didn’t speak; a cool bird; a man who’s gambled big and gambled clever. There was age at the temples, around the eyes, but otherwise the face was ageless, a carefully maintained mask. ‘Quite right, Mr Duval. Life is only a balance of risks and pleasures, don’t you find?’ The conversation was a game now, which Valfierno would enjoy, and Duval knew he’d played it right.

  He smiled. ‘And the question is only whether you find the pleasures riskier than the risks are pleasurable.’

  ‘What takes you to Berlin, Mr Duval?’ Valfierno was enjoying himself, but he wasn’t relaxing. ‘What was it you said you did?’

  Careful. A moment of unease as Duval wondered if he’d used some different line to him in Florence, then he repeated the amateur architect line, which had elements of truth after all; been due to press on to Rome; got a message from a friend inviting him to Berlin and thought, Why not? This is me: rough-genteel, world-weary but game.

  They fenced a little: impressions of Florence; Valfierno’s interests. He mentioned – as he had to the Bargello curator – his contact at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin. Duval sorely wanted to push, to find the fraud, but was halfway through a question about Renaissance pottery when he realized that what he least wanted was a man on the defensive or a man suspecting scrutiny. The question became a statement and they moved on to architecture. Had Duval planned to visit nowhere else in northern Italy? Had he any expectations of Berlin?

  Duval had the sense that the marquis was testing his knowledge now. Bad luck, old lad. You could catch me in nine kinds of lie, but not on this ground.

  They shifted onto politics, and Duval was happy to play bluff and ignorant. The Swiss joined in now, and gave the impression that he was itching to get back behind his mountains and stay there. Then the daughter announced that she was tired, and would retire to her compartment. The men stood, and the lovely Maria gave her father a kiss on the cheek and her hand to the two others – a squeeze of the fingers from Duval – and swayed away down the compartment.

  ‘All these flare-ups between the powers must be a bit of a bind for you, Marquis; travelling man, I mean.’

  Valfierno dismissed the thought serenely: ‘I glide above these things, Mr Duval. I like to think I have as many acquaintances in Paris and London as I do in Berlin and Vienna.’ Behind the accent, his English was fluent. ‘The trick is not to be too tied to patria.’ A smile. ‘Different for you, perhaps. Are you man first, or Englishman?’

  ‘It’s a good question.’ It was a good question. Never really thought of myself as loyal to much. ‘Like to think I deal fair with any man, wherever he’s from. But people on the Continent do seem to take against one sometimes, for being English. Find myself getting blamed for other fellows’ success.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think they begrudge the success, Mr Duval. But they’d be grateful if you shared the spoils; and if you weren’t too hard on a dago just because he’s a dago, eh? We can’t all be Anglo-Saxon, much as we’d like it.’

  ‘What is needed,’ said the Swiss, ‘is a stronger discipline with regard to currency.’

  Cigars, and chat: what their respective plans were in Berlin; games of chance.

  Duval declined another brandy. He’d the contact well established now, and wanted to demonstrate that he would always under-rather than over-stay his welcome. Before they next met, someone might even tell him why he was supposed to have latched onto the fellow. Civil farewells, mutual hopes of contact in the future – though no specifics, and no address – and he left them to it.

  The grandest game. No idea what he was supposed to be doing, not really, but what he was doing was fine. Pursue contacts as given, report any points of interest regarding European politics, be alert to suspicion or the suspicious, keep in touch via consulates and embassies, be ready for further instructions. That was all very well, but it didn’t really mean anything, did it? Nothing concrete.

  Just keep moving, like always. The train rattled and swayed, and he enjoyed the cheerful instability of his walk and his shoulders knocking between windows and corridor wall and the warmth and the smell of tobacco and the memory of brandy on his tongue.

  He checked the name card, and tapped on the compartment door.

  It slid open, and two big brown eyes looked up at him. A moment, and then they smiled at him. Her lips opened, and her tongue pushed through between her teeth as if testing the air. ‘Signor Duval,’ she said evenly, eyes steady on him. ‘You appear to be lost.’

  ‘All my life, until this moment.’

  The mouth opened in silent laughter; he had the uneasy sense it was at his expense. ‘Your father is having another drink with his Swiss friend.’

  She slid the door open, and his eyes followed down her throat towards her breasts, loose-held in a silk dressing gown edged with fur; the fur whispered of infinite softness to her dark skin. With an effort, he pulled his focus up again, to that mouth, to the smiling eyes.

  ‘That’s the wonderful thing about these European trains,’ he said low; ‘you never know where you’re going to end up.’

  A quick glance down the corridor, and then she kissed him on the lips, her own lips parted, the biting of a peach. ‘He is not a marquis. And…’ – the eyes dropped for a second, then came up to look at him square – ‘he is not my father. And for both of those reasons… the train does not stop here.’ She pressed a finger to his lips and pushed him out of the compartment.

  So Duval drowsed in his second-class seat, glad enough of the company there, a reverie of a world of uncertainties in which he somehow belonged, and a particular vision of gorgeous eyes and a fur-fringed throat.

  Eventually awake again, sour-mouthed and gazing at the plains as they rumbled past under empty sky. Then Berlin station, late in the morning, alert now and quickly off the train onto a platform that echoed with bootsteps and whistles, over-warm and bustling with people. It seemed as though half of them were in uniform – soldiers, sailors, policemen, customs officials, porters – he was only guessing at most of them, in their greys and blues and browns and greens – everyone bulky, bright-buttoned, leather-strapped, glistening with metal; and there were guns everywhere. He’d seen soldiers in England, of course, some with rifles; but they’d always seemed embarrassed by them, uncomfortable, as if carrying pitchforks or broomsticks. Here the uniforms seemed to strut more; the little deferences to the civilians, nods and salutes and after-yous, were heavy with implied power; and the rifles were lively, part of the man and part of the movement.

  Duval lurked behind a pillar while the marquis got off the train with the girl, gathered bags and directed stewards and porters. ‘Here, see these get to the Adlon.’ Back to the girl. ‘I must send a telegram. Wait here.’ The usual suavity was missing. Duval didn’t wait for the reply. A glance over his shoulder as he went, at the girl standing alone among the streams of people and the cases and the billows of steam. Did she catch his eye?

  Duval booked into the Monopol, had a wash and a shave, put on a clean shirt and went down to the bar. He was on top of his man, now. And the non-daughter would be a game of her own. He ordered a half-bottle of wine with his lunch, and smoked a cigarette on the terrace, wondering about the best approach to the marquis, and wondering if he was supposed to be reporting his activities. Later, perhaps, when he had a little more to swank about.

  But later, when he visited the Hotel Adlon to present his card preparatory to an eventual invitation to lunch, the Hotel Adlon had not heard of the Marquis
de Valfierno. No such man was booked to arrive; no such man had arrived.

  Duval took a taxi to the Museum of Decorative Arts, didn’t bother with charades about sketching and casual acquaintance; the Museum of Decorative Arts had never heard of the marquis either.

  For all practical purposes, the Marquis de Valfierno had disappeared.

  Durrës was busy, and uneasy. Ballentyne had got to know the new Albanian capital when it had been just another town on the outskirts of the Ottoman Empire: lethargic, its bureaucracy a mix of the relaxed and the ridiculously pedantic, its rhythms set by the weather and the prevailing business – in this case fishing and a bit of trade – its style local rather than Turkish. In Durrës – Durazzo – Italian architecture had reached across the narrowest bit of the Adriatic along with Italian merchants and officials, and produced a handful of elegant three-storey villas. As the summer warmed up, the street dogs would seek the shade of the villa gardens, and the local officials would contrive to bump into each other near the villa doorways, against the backdrop of a more refined society.

  Now there were Austrian and Italian warships in the bay, and the streets were a hurrying of European costumes – diplomat and traveller – diverse detachments of soldiers, and bewildered locals. Whatever they thought of the new monarchy, the arrival of Prince Wilhelm as Albania’s king meant opportunity for merchants and mercenaries and fortune-hunters from across the country and the Continent. And presumably, Ballentyne thought with unease, for spies. There was a bustle around each of the big houses in the town – the new royal palace, and the government offices and the headquarters of each of the European powers – from dawn until late into the evening. Ballentyne woke late on his first morning and set off immediately around the streets; as he strolled, every doorway and street corner seemed to be an intent conversation, and a glance in his direction.

  At the Clementi the waiter pretended to remember him – a new affectation. The Greek trader from whom as usual he bought tobacco really did remember him, but was too busy for their habitual exchange about heroic travellers. He called unannounced on Rossi, an acquaintance at the Italian Legation, and found him demoted to a smaller office. Ah yes, he had heard that Ballentyne was in town again. He had been seen – Ballentyne wondered at this – at breakfast. Yes, Durazzo was changed. Greater profile for diplomats of talent? Ah no, Ballentyne was a flatterer, a seducer. Poor Rossi would rot here, unrecognized and unrewarded.

  The pleasantries were strained; Rossi looked tired.

  Ballentyne said he’d heard there was trouble already; resistance against the king.

  Rossi unfolded an elaborate shrug. ‘The Epirotes in the south, of course.’ He gave each syllable of the Greek word its full value and added an Italian melody to it. ‘I fear the Greeks are not to be trusted in this matter. Nearer at hand’ – a smaller version of the shrug – ‘well, my friend, the king should not take for granted the love of his people. Not an antipathy to the man himself, I think.’ He shook his head at this disrespectful idea. ‘But each has his grievance, and now finds an occasion to express it.’

  The door opened without a knock, and someone stepped in. Rossi was halfway to his feet while Ballentyne was still swivelling in his chair. The new arrival was a man in European dress – another Italian, by the face. Sleek, but running to fat. Rossi waited for instruction, and then saw that the new arrival was staring warily at Ballentyne. ‘This is Signor Ballentyne,’ he said in Italian, repeating ‘Mr Ballentyne’ in English for Mr Ballentyne’s benefit. ‘An Englishman,’ he added, as he might have said ‘a house-breaker’.

  The new arrival stepped forwards and unrolled a hand as if doing a card trick. ‘Castoldi,’ he said, obscuring Rossi’s effort to murmur the same information. Ballentyne rose and shook hands.

  ‘Count Castoldi is the senior diplomatic representative on the king’s council,’ Rossi said reverentially.

  Ballentyne wondered what the Austrian representative on the council would say to this. ‘Welcome to Albania,’ he said. ‘How do you find it so far?’

  Castoldi ignored the question. Still gripping Ballentyne’s hand, he continued to look at him. ‘What function do you have here, Mr Ballentyne?’

  The Italian rendition of the English surname had a very different tone to the German, but for Ballentyne it immediately recalled the interrogation on the mountain path, and something of his fear. He smiled pleasantly. ‘I’m an anthropologist. Been coming here for years.’

  Castoldi’s mouth opened in a grin, as if Ballentyne had made a witticism of brilliance, and then the lips formed a silent ‘ah’. At last he dropped the hand, then studied Ballentyne from face to feet and back again.

  Holiness and pollution not differentiated. This is how it is to be. Ballentyne remembered the conversation in London. They will assume me a spy whatever I say. He remembered again the terrifying interrogation by the man Hildebrandt. And now, somehow, it has become true.

  Castoldi turned away. ‘Rossi: as soon as you have a moment.’

  Even without Rossi’s hasty assurances, Ballentyne knew that the moment was expected to be immediate; he excused himself and left. Castoldi watched him all the way out of the door.

  Duval stamped out of the Museum of Decorative Arts, sick and angry and embarrassed. His whole glorious vision of Berlin, elegant encounters and intrigue and a little flirtation, had burst like a farting bladder. He spat the instruction to the taximan. For some reason the bloody dago had decided to hook it. He could have gone anywhere in Berlin, or sent his telegram and hopped on a train to anywhere else.

  Duval leaned forwards and, over the whine of the engine, yelled the change of direction.

  The clerk at the station telegraph office was a puff of importance behind half-moon specs. Duval could hear two soldiers arguing behind him in the queue; hear the rattle as they shifted their rifles on their shoulders.

  In response to a burbled mess of a story about an irate employer and a failed errand, the clerk revealed that in the ten minutes either side of 10.30 telegrams had been sent to Frankfurt, London, Geneva, Kiel and Dresden and multiply within Berlin. He was scornful of Duval the incompetent.

  The murmuring from behind him was rising. I don’t want to be noticed. Duval stared past the clerk, trying to absorb the layout of the room. The pile of sent telegraph forms was just out of reach. Another question? The name? Someone jostled him, and the half-moons were saying no and Duval hurried away.

  He walked for fifteen minutes before he went into a café. He had to leave a gap; couldn’t trust himself not to hurry it. The beer was the fizzy German stuff. Wouldn’t smoke until he’d finished the beer. Finished the beer. Had the smoke. Another beer – but better not – a bit of courage, but it wouldn’t do to go in with gas coming out of every orifice. He ordered a schnapps. Forced himself to sip it. As he was washing his hands he saw a shapeless blue cap, hanging on one of a row of pegs.

  He found another café opposite the station building. He sat on a stool in the window, pretending to read a newspaper. The café name had been painted across the window; its thick gothic ‘u’ cradled a solitary door in the side of the station.

  A nightmare vision of a maze of offices behind it, startled officials in every one. The waiter had to ask him three times; Duval, unthinking, ordered another schnapps.

  Twice in ten minutes the door in the ‘u’ opened and someone came out, disappearing into the other letters of the café name. Once someone went in. They didn’t seem to use a key.

  Duval ordered another schnapps. Steady, old lad.

  A telegram sent by a phantom. He knocked back the schnapps and stood and strode out of the café.

  Two steps, and he stopped and returned and threw a coin down next to the empty glasses. Then across the road, twenty yards, ten yards, five, a thud and he went stumbling and someone was swearing and he made a noise of regret and he had to press on, two yards and one and he felt his hand clenching unwilling and he turned the brass knob and stepped inside.

  Not an o
ffice but a corridor.

  I was sent here by the luggage office. I want to report a loss.

  Two or three doors on each side. He started to walk down the corridor. A sign on each door, painted gothic script. What the hell was the German for ‘telegraph’?

  He kept walking. Wanting to slow to scan the signs, wanting to hurry to get this over with.

  The second door on the right opened and a man loomed out in front of him. Some kind of uniform, but dirty; flicking his hands dry. He frowned at Duval and started to speak, but Duval just pushed past him.

  He’d hoped for a space to breathe and maybe take his jacket and tie off, make himself look a bit more menial. But this German railway lavatory offered two items as beautiful as anything he’d seen in Florence. A minute later he was in the corridor again, a boiler suit over his clothes and a bin in his arms, with the purloined cap pulled down low on his forehead. Things I have acquired in German privies.

  The third door on the left was labelled ‘Telegrafsamt’. A breath, and he opened the door a crack.

  The clerk was enormous in front of him, just two feet away, sitting at the transmitter. As Duval watched, his hand lifted from the transmitter key and he pulled off the earphones and placed the sent message in the tray. How can I be sure that’s the same pile? The clerk moved to the counter, where a lady was waiting. No choice. Duval braced himself.

  But the lady had only asked a question and now she was gone and the clerk was looking around his room again. Surely he would see the crack in the door. A beard appeared over the counter and the clerk turned towards it: ‘Bitte sehr?’ The sound of a door opening behind Duval, no choice at all any more, and he pushed forwards into the telegraph office, head low and bin high and he was at the desk; his bin went down in his right hand, with his left he picked up the other bin, and with it obscuring the action he grabbed the middle of the sheaf of telegram forms and he was turning away and pushing the forms into the bin and then he was out and into the corridor. The lavatory door again, the bin, the forms into his boiler suit, a vision of the half-moon specs ballooning enormous and the mouth opening in a yell, and he was in the street.