THE HEART OF DANGER (41 page)

be cleared through the Transit Centre inside four weeks because there

were promises of resettlement from the governments of Europe. She

dealt each day with hunger strikes, protests, trauma, because the

governments lied.

Ulrike drained the beaker of coffee.

When the convoy came through then she would know, forget the sweet

talk, that there was no alert up the broken road from Turanj, up beyond

the machine-gun post, up behind the lines.

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Silent prayer was not sweet talk.

He was the king, it was the court of Milan Stankovic.

He was back from the liaison meeting, back from the cell block at

the

headquarters of the TDF unit of his village. He had survived Evica's

carped complaint. In his home, coming sullen to his kitchen, and

facing the barb of Evica. Would he get himself together, because

now

he was shit .. . Would he hike himself up, because now he was pathetic

.. . Listened to Evica. Heard her call him shit, rubbish, pathetic.

Held out his arms for her and she had come to him, closed his arms

on

her and their little Marko had clung to his legs and the dog had

bounded happily against his back. He was the king, the chief man,

and

he had held the warmth of Evica against him and felt the warmth of

his

little Marko against his thigh and his hip ... It was the Canadian

policeman who was shit, and the Political Officer, and the liaison

man

from Karlovac.

He was amongst his own and was loved.

He could not be touched. He had kissed the eyes and ears and mouth

of

Evica, and the head of his little Marko. He was beyond their reach,

those who were shit, pathetic, rubbish. The king danced. The music was heat around him. The chief man drank. The shouts were about

him.

It had been the strength of his Evica that had liberated him, and

the

spit of her tongue.

He danced and he drank as if the death shroud was taken from him.

The king danced with the queen. Space was made for them in the centre

of the hall of the school. There were shrill shouting faces around

them, and the clapping of a hundred hands about them. She was so

lovely, his queen, and dancing wild with him and her full skirt

sweeping high on her thighs as he led her. The loveliest girl in

the

village, now the loveliest woman in Salika. As he danced, wild, the

folk dance of the Serb people, so the hands of the men who acknowledged

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him as king reached out with glasses of brandy. As he danced, he

drank. He felt he had found freedom. He was the power of his people,

the glory of his village. Spinning with the dance, the skirt of Evica

climbing, the music faster, the clapping louder, the brandy spilling

from his lips, Milan knew he was the king. Coming to the climax of

the

music and his feet were stamping and Evica's feet were gliding, and

the

clapping hammering in him. He was free .. . and when the music had

climaxed, and when he had drunk again, then he would sing. He was

the

king .. . They came through the door of the hall. They were dragging

the man. They brought the man to him, through the parted crowd around

him that had gone to silence. And the music died. Milan stared down at the man who lay prone on the floor. He saw a man who was trussed

at

the wrists and ankles. The man was dressed in filthy wet fatigues,

mud-smeared. The man gazed back up at him. The face of the man was blood-spattered. Branko was dropping onto the floor, noisy clatter,

a

heavy pistol and then four grenades, rolling loud. Milo was shaking

out onto the boards of the floor a backpack, socks and underpants

and a

thick sweater and spare magazines for the pistol, and old bread, and

an

envelope of brown paper. Stevo threw the passport down onto the

floor.

The postman and the carpenter and the gravedigger smiled their pride.

Around him were the people of the village, all watching him. He bent

down. He looked at the passport. The passport was British, United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He reached for the

envelope. He stood and took a sheaf of photographs from the

envelope.

The man with the blood on his face gazed up at him. Evica was beside

him .. . Like a blow hitting him, Milan saw the face. The face that

he

had known, and the knife wound.

The gasp of Evica beside him.

The face swollen in putrefaction, but with the bludgeon wound on the

forehead.

The face that he recognized, and the bullet wound above the ear.

And they were all watching him because he was their king, and the

240

fear

twisted in him and could not be shown. The freedom was gone, the

liberty was lost, and the brandy was beating in him. Trying to focus

on the face on the floor and the face in the photographs. The face

of

the man on the floor gazing back at him, and the face of the woman

in

the photograph, and blood on the faces that merged. He unhooked the

clasp knife from his belt, threw it to the carpenter. The twine at

the

ankles and at the wrists was cut .. . she had not been bound. Evica

held the photographs and shivered. It was what was expected of the

king. Branko and Stevo lifted the man up, and he stood in front of

Milan and swayed. Milan should not show fear, not in front of those

who admired and worshipped the king, and she had not shown fear ..

.

A short arm blow, as hard as he could punch, he hit the stomach of

the

man.

The man staggered, went down, was on his knees.

The man stood again. Milan did not see the fear, and she had not

shown

fear .. .

He threw the man into the crowd around him, for their pleasure.

They were crawling into the village.

Benny reckoned they were going slowly because they had missed the

turn.

He reckoned they should have taken the left turn before they were

into

the village. He knew it was a Serb village because the roofs were

on

the houses and the church had a tower and what looked like the school

wasn't a burned shell.

The convoy manager, Benny reckoned, had screwed up and was crawling

because he knew it, and it was long odds against tiptoeing away when

they had to turn round and back up, a Land-Rover and fifteen Seddon

Atkinson lorries.

It was strange, Benny thought, that they could pitch up in this lost

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forgotten corner of pretend civilization and not have half a hundred

people coming out the woodwork to know their business. Peculiar ..

.

The convoy manager, up ahead, had started the turn and back-up routine

... It looked, dark quiet, a hell of a bad place to be lost, a hell

of

a good place to be shot of. The lorries were manoeuvring, like

leviathans, and at present no bugger with an AK's safety off and armed

coming out of the houses to ask their business.

Benny waited his turn to manoeuvre.

Penn heard, just, the shout. The shout was an order.

The last of the kicks went into him, into the small of his back, and

the last of the women's nails clawed at his face, and the last of

the

punches went to his unprotected stomach.

The pain ran rivers in his body. The shout was a command. He tried, hard, to keep his eyes open because that seemed important. He lay

on

the floor and the boards were wet with his blood and his spittle and

his urine. Six would have done courses on Resistance to

Interrogation,

Five didn't.. . any rate, not for his level of A Branch non-graduate.

In a circle around him were the heavy laced shoes of the men and the

light slide-on shoes of the women and on some of the shoes were dulled

stains .. . not a course for his level of A Branch non-graduate, but

maybe for the top grade, super fucking experts who went to Belfast.

It

was a hallucination for Penn, kicked, clawed, punched, to be thinking

of courses for Resistance to Interrogation for top-graders who went

to

Belfast, but the hallucination swamped him .. . There was a woman

in

Gower Street and he'd been down a queue for the coffee machines when

she'd been at the head, she'd been pointed to and he'd been told that

the Proves had trapped her in some God-awful pub, no back-up present,

and she'd fought her way out, just a slip of a woman with rusted gold

hair and a flat chest and rounded shoulders, who had taken her coffee

and walked slowly back to her office like she was a bored woman, not

a

top-grader .. .

The big man, the voice of command, the one who had swayed when he

242

had

seen the photograph, the one who had hit him first,

broke the cordon circle. The big man came towering towards him.

Penn blinked up and tried to retain the focus of his vision .. .

couldn't break the hallucination. There were two women in his mind.

Both top-graders .. . The woman with the rust-gold hair, bored in

London, in the coffee queue, who had the courage to fight clear of

a

killer enemy .. . and the woman with the cropped hair, the mischief

smile in her photograph, who had the courage to bury her fear when

the

killer enemy closed. He was so wanting to be brave. Bravery might

just be survival, or it might just be dignity, or it might just make

the fucking knife and the fucking bludgeon and the fucking pistol

shot

fucking easier .. . The hallucination rode him. Talking in the

open-plan office area of A Branch, chattering idly about the hostages

in Lebanon, and the big mouth, graduate 2.2 Reading, claiming that

he

would have gone for escape; and the simpering mouth, graduate 2.1

Warwick, whining that she would have gone for a runner; and Penn,

non-graduate, trying to contribute quietly that an escape attempt

took

more courage than anything, and being ignored .. . and just the idle

chatter of a hallucination in a quiet hour of a London office because

fucking escape was not on the reality agenda .. . The big man pulled

him up.

The big man had a loose beard grown free across his face, not trimmed.

Between the matt of the beard growth, the tongue of the big man wiped

his full lips. Above the growth of the beard were the eyes, evasive.

The face, the eyes and the mouth, as Penn saw it, were empty of

passion.

The woman beside the big man held the photographs outside the

envelope,

as if she did not wish again to look at them. She wore a bright full

skirt, flower-patterned, and an ironed white blouse that was simple,

and there were sweat streaks in her hair at her forehead.

Penn stood and hoped that he would find the courage.

The question was put to him. The woman interpreted the question.

243

"Who are you?"

Trying to speak strongly. "I am William Penn. I am a British

citizen."

The answer was repeated by the woman to the big man. A second

question. "Are you a mercenary from the Ustase scum?"

Trying to stare into those evasive eyes ... "I have no connection

with

the Croatian army."

"A lie. You wear the uniform of the Ustase scum."

"I bought the camouflage uniform on the black market in Karlovac."

The big man made the question. The woman interpreted the question.

She

spoke formal taught English. "What was the mission?"

Penn heard it, the revving of heavy engines behind him. No one moved

around him. They hung silently on the questions put by the big man

and

the answers given by the woman beside him. Could not know where it

would lead him, where it would take him, but knew the importance of

bold talk .. .

"The village of Rosenovici, across the stream, was taken in December of

1991. There were wounded men in the village who were sheltered in

a

cellar during the final attack on the village .. ."

"What has that to do with a mercenary?"

'.. . The wounded men were taken from the cellar after the fall of

the

village. They were taken to a field, they were sat in the field,

laid

out in the field, while a bulldozer dug .. ."

The interruption. The woman had translated in a quiet voice while

he

talked, and the circle craned for her words.

"What has that to do with .. . ?"

244

'.. . While a bulldozer dug a grave pit. The wounded men were then killed with knives, and were bludgeoned, and were shot, and they were

buried .. ."

"What has that ... ?"

'.. . They were buried in a mass grave in the corner of the field

..

."

"What .. . ?"

'.. . Buried in the mass grave in the corner of the field was a young woman. The young woman was not wounded in the battle for the village.

She had chosen to stay with the wounded. She had chosen to be with

them at the end. She was not a fighter, she had no guilt. She was