The Small Boat of Great Sorrows (22 page)

Harkness shot him a dark look. “I believe we're talking out of school now, Guy.”

“We do all want the same thing, don't we, Paul?”

“You tell me. But as long as that cat's out of the bag, may I offer some more advice?”

“Why not,” Pine said, “since you're going to tell us anyway.”

“Wherever you go, watch your step. You're fooling yourself if you think Matek doesn't have any international reach. You've already whistled past the graveyard once, gentlemen, and look where that got you. Blunder into Italy, and it might be worse. So why not leave it to the professionals?”

“I thought we were professionals,” Pine said.

“You know what I mean. Besides, it might be more productive looking for Popovic first. And from what I know of the man, there are already plenty of good leads in Vienna. In Zurich. But especially in Berlin. You're a Berliner, Vlado. You must have some contacts in the Yugo community there. Surely someone would have spotted Popovic by now, no matter what name he's traveling under.”

Vlado wondered if he was the only one in the room who thought Harkness's smile suddenly seemed predatory. Who should he fear more, he wondered—Matek or Harkness? Yet he was about to further entangle himself with both, drawn deeper into their interests by the tether to his father's past. The challenge was to keep the tether from becoming a noose.

“I have a better idea, Paul,” Janet said. “How about if you show us how the pieces fit, then we'll be able to help you even more. Seeing as how you think that's our job.”

“We've already offered more information than I'd wanted,” he said, glancing pointedly at LeBlanc. “But if you can be specific about what you want to know, maybe I can help.”

It was the old bureaucrat's trick. I'll tell you what I've got as long as you already know. But Janet called his bluff. “I'll be very specific. There is a piece of Matek's security file I can't get my hands on. His repatriation documentation from '61. Apparently you've seen it, but every request I make comes back empty.”

“That's not ours to deliver, I'm afraid. You'll have to ask the Yugoslavs.”

“Well, maybe you should make a little better effort to free it up, especially if Belgrade still wants old Ustasha criminals like Matek taken care of.”

“I didn't say they hadn't delivered it. I said it wasn't ours to deliver to you. Some things are given to us conditionally. With certain restrictions.”

Her face was rigid. “That's nonsense.”

“No. It's called diplomatic protocol. Happens all the time.”

“You know damn well there are ways around that kind of protocol. Especially from where you sit. And I'm not talking about your desk at the Department of State.”

Well, at least someone had finally stopped dancing around the subject, Vlado thought. Harkness was clearly displeased, although LeBlanc wore a prim smirk.

“No need to make this personal,” Harkness replied coolly. Then, leering at Pine, “You, of all people, Janet, should know not to make things personal. Clouds your judgment.”

Janet went scarlet, Pine as well. LeBlanc shuffled through some papers, his expression as bland as if he'd just sat through the world's most uneventful meeting.

“Well, then, ladies and gentlemen,” Harkness said with a note of triumph, rising suddenly from his seat. “We seem to have covered the necessary ground. Best of luck in your misguided pursuit, however far afield you might stray. And cheers.”

He raised his water glass as if toasting the end of a cricket match with champagne.

No one joined him in the gesture.

“Well, that was an experience I could have lived without,” Pine said a few moments later, still steaming. He, Janet, and Vlado were in the hotel coffee shop. “Do either of you have any idea what they meant about connections between the suspects?”

Janet shook her head. “But it's bound to be in the files somewhere. Or maybe Fordham knows. Why else would Harkness want to steer us away from Rome? I'm betting Popovic is nothing but a dead end.”

He was certainly that, Vlado thought darkly, wanting only to change the subject. “Tell me,” he said. “Harkness and LeBlanc aren't just diplomats, are they?”

Pine smiled. “They're spooks, you mean.”

“Spooks?”

“Spies. Intelligence. Or in the case of Harkness, CIA, with diplomatic cover.”

“Yes. Spooks, then.”

“Maybe. It's always been the assumption, even if nobody talks about it.”

“Why doesn't anyone just come out and say it?”

Janet laughed. “You mean, ‘Hello, I'm Paul Harkness, CIA'?”

“No. But one of you might have told me.”

“I guess you get used to dealing with people like them when you work in places like this,” Pine said. “Besides, you never know for sure.”

“So you just deal with them the same way you would with any outsider,” Janet added. “Even if they're straight-up diplos, they're going to have their own agenda, and believe me, some of them are every bit as devious as any spook. So we cooperate when we have to but otherwise keep to ourselves.”

“But you're both Americans. So you must be on Harkness's side. At least a little.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Pine said.

“Just think of it as us, the tribunal, versus everybody else,” Janet said.

Vlado shook his head. Everyone on the same side, yet all of them working for someone else. Perhaps this was Bosnia's future, a conflict that would mature from a bludgeoning match to a sneaky and surgical meddling. “You were right, Calvin. Our politics are nothing compared with all of this.”

“So, tell me more about Robert Fordham,” Pine said. “Is he really a lying windbag?”

“If so, then he's the most reluctant windbag I've ever come across. It took me a good half hour to convince him I was legit. He even called to verify I was on the level. I guess his reliability depends on how good his memory is. But he's about the only person left from Matek's Roman days. Strange bird. Bit of a hermit. Was a foreign-service brat growing up—that's where he learned his Italian—but didn't move to Rome full-time until six years ago, after his wife died. In '44 he made it to Rome the hard way. Landed at Anzio with the U.S. Fifth Army, then slogged his way north. When the war ended, his State Department daddy wangled him a posting to an army counterintelligence outfit. The 428th. The rest is in here.” She handed them a cream-colored folder stuffed with papers.

“What did Harkness mean when he said Fordham had washed out?” Vlado asked.

“In '46 he seems to have run afoul of his superiors. The details are hazy. He also didn't get along too well with Angleton and some of the early CIA people.”

“Who's Angleton?” Vlado asked.

“Funny you should ask,” Janet said. “He's the guy who came up with ‘wilderness of mirrors,' mostly because he ended up lost in it. He was fighting the cold war before most people knew it existed. By the end of his career he was seeing double agents under every bush. Anyhow, I guess in Angleton's view Fordham didn't exactly graduate with honors. Went back home and became a banker. Wanted to join the foreign service but flunked his security clearance. Probably due to Angleton.”

“So he has an axe to grind,” Pine said.

“Possibly. But it's him or nobody.”

“There is one other thing,” Vlado said. “Maybe it's a lead, maybe it's not.”

He pulled the old photo from his coat pocket and told them about his Aunt Melania.

“If she's still around, she might be worth talking to. Her house is in Podborje.”

“Interesting,” Janet said, studying the photograph. “Where's Podborje?”

“Two-hour drive at the most, even on bad roads.”

“You think she's still alive?”

“These farm women are pretty tough,” Vlado said. “There's an old joke about Herzegovinian women. ‘Why do the husbands always die before their wives? Because they want to.' ”

Pine laughed loudly, Janet less so. But they agreed that the trip was worth a try. Vlado and Pine would make the drive in the morning.

“Okay, then,” Janet said, bringing the meeting to a close. “Then you'll be heading south before I'm up. Just make it back in time for your flight to Rome. Then we'll see how far you can burrow into Matek's past.”

Vlado smiled grimly. He'd never been to Rome, but the past was becoming familiar territory.

“Time travel,” he said. “I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They left before the sun was up, driving through the darkness into high mountain passes where dirty piles of snow lined the roadside. But by the time they reached the turnoff south of Jablanica, steam was rising from the pavement into the early light of what would be an unseasonably warm day.

“From what I remember, it's a stretch to even call it a village,” Vlado said. “A few farms and houses, pretty scattered. But I do remember you can see my uncle's place from the top of a hill, just before the road goes into the valley.”

After they turned off the main highway, the roads were more like glorified goat paths, all dirt and gravel, even more rutted than the one to Matek's compound.

“Jesus,” Pine shouted as the Volvo scraped its undercarriage on yet another hump of stone. “Hope the EU doesn't mind investing in another exhaust system.”

A few turns later, Vlado shouted, “Stop!” and Pine brought the car sliding to a halt at the edge of a hairpin turn. Vlado climbed quickly from his seat, stepping onto the grass verge of an overlook above a deep, narrow valley. Pine joined him, taking in the view. The morning breeze was soft in the rising heat.

“There. The second rooftop. See?” Vlado sounded as enthusiastic as a small boy. The morning had the feel of a fresh start, the beginning of an adventure, especially with Rome awaiting them at day's end. “I can't believe it,” he said. “I remember this exact view. My father made us all get out of the car. I think he even took a picture.”

“Let's just hope your aunt's still down there.”

“Oh, she's there,” Vlado said, smiling broadly. “Look at the chimney.”

Wisps of white smoke swirled from one end of the red rooftop.

“Maybe it's somebody else,” Pine said.

Vlado shook his head. “Not in Podborje. When people die, there's nobody else to move in. No one moves to places like this anymore. Let's go.”

The descent took fifteen minutes. They hadn't passed another car for at least an hour. They pulled up in front of a plastered brick house with a red-tile roof. Just to the right was a weathered wooden barn. Beyond were brown fields, stubbled with weeds and the remnants of last summer's corn. The valley was quiet, no sound but the wind across the fields, and the air smelled of smoke.

Snow still covered some of the small lawn, melting fast. From the barn came the slapping sound of a wooden door, and they turned to see a short, stooped woman in a long skirt emerge with two steaming pails of milk, one in each hand. She eyed them skeptically, these visitors with their white European car, but she never stopped walking toward the house.

It was her, Vlado realized, although he'd remembered her face as smooth and brown. Now it was creased and collapsed, yellowed and spotted, like one of those handicraft dolls made of dried apples. But there was still strength in her movements.

“Aunt Melania?” Vlado ventured tentatively.

She stopped, carefully setting the pails in the mud, squinting into the morning light.

“Vlado?” she croaked, in a high but strong voice. “Is that you, boy?”

Vlado nodded, and she dropped to her knees as if shot, rapidly crossing herself and muttering words they couldn't hear. They rushed to her side, but she was smiling.

“Please!” she gasped. “Careful of the milk.” Then she stood, wrapping Vlado in a wiry embrace before stepping back to look him in the eye as if he were the eighth wonder of the world. Pine watched dumbstruck while a rooster strutted forward, clucking nervously as it inspected the intruders.

“I never thought I would see you again,” she said. “Especially when I heard your father was dead. He must have told you how much he never wanted to see us again.”

“No,” Vlado said. “He never did. But I do remember coming here.”

She continued peering at him, as if searching for signs of falseness. Appearing satisfied at last, she said, “Come inside. I have something for you, but first I'll make coffee. And I am baking bread. You will eat.”

Once inside, Vlado introduced Pine as his “friend from America. He won't know anything you're saying, though, so don't worry.”

She laughed. “It will be just like your father, then. He never understood what I was saying, either, or pretended he didn't. Your mother, though, she always knew I was talking sense.”

The house smelled of warm bread. She seated them by a rough table, built much like the one Konjic had made, and pulled a brown steaming loaf from the mouth of a huge oven. Then she put a pot of coffee on to boil, making it the Turkish way, from a grind finer than dust that left a muddy sediment in every cup.

“Me and the woman at the next farm, we bake for each other,” she said. “She's a widow, too. We live a mile apart, so we take turns making the walk. She won't be here for another hour, so we have plenty of time to talk. But first, some eggs. Come.”

They followed her back outdoors, trooping past the barn with its smell of manure and damp coldness to a weathered henhouse, where she stooped among the birds, their wings flapping as she pulled an egg from each of six nests. Returning to the kitchen, she took a blackened iron skillet from a hook on the wall and began scrambling the entire batch. She lay plates and forks before them, seating herself at the end.

“I guess I shouldn't be so surprised to see you, coming across the mountains with the sun barely up. And with an American, no less.” She smiled, eyes gleaming with mischief. “You were always going to be an explorer, you know. A traveler on the seas. Or that's what all your books were about when you were a boy. Is that what you've become?”

“I'd forgotten all that,” Vlado said, laughing. “Wasn't Magellan my favorite? Because he was the first to go around the world?”

“Yes. You wanted to be the Yugoslav Magellan. You said you wanted to sail for Tito. You should have seen your father's face when you said that. It was all he could do not to shout at you, but he held it inside. Your mother and I had a good laugh and just egged you on. We were terrible.”

“And Uncle Tomislav?”

“Oh, he didn't worry about those things anymore.”

Vlado paused long enough to interpret for Pine, who had been silent up until then. That prompted a question from Aunt Melania. “I saw the EU symbol on your car. Is that who you're working for?”

When Vlado told her they were working for the war crimes tribunal, her eyes widened. She reappraised Pine with greater scrutiny, then asked, “Is that the reason you're here? War crimes?”

“Yes, but it's very complicated.”

“Those things usually are.”

She was looking down now, cradling a coffee cup in her lap. “How much did your father ever tell you about the war?” she asked.

“Nothing, really. But I've learned a few things in the past week. About what he did. Where he was. That he went to Italy afterward, things like that.”

“Then maybe you can understand why he and your Uncle Tomislav never really got along later.”

“Because of the war?”

“Mostly because of what happened afterward. Your father had been traveling with another boy from here. Pero Rudec.”

Pine heard the name, and Vlado flinched as he noticed the American straining to figure out what was being said. It wasn't a good time to interrupt for interpretation. He hoped Pine would have the good sense to be patient.

“Yes. I've heard of him, this Rudec.”

She shook her head, sipping her coffee, then spoke very slowly, gravely. “Then maybe you also know about a man named Josip Iskric?”

“Yes. He's my father.”

She nodded, saying nothing for a few moments. “Iskric was my name, too, of course. Until I married your Uncle Tomislav. Our family was all through this valley. Only a few of us now. A lot of them were killed in the war.”

“Tell me about the war. And what happened around here.”

“Afterward was the worst. That's when your father and Pero left the country. But your uncle stayed, and the new authorities, Tito's people, put him in jail for a while. Him and some others from the local militia. He had never gone in for the politics. He'd just fought in the Home Defense Army because all his friends were doing it. But he had never sewed a big U on his shoulders like some of them. Like your father, for one, at least for a while. And like that Rudec for another, as if he ever cared about any cause but his own.

“But your uncle wasn't interested in causes, and I think that is what saved him. Some of our friends in the village, the Seratlic family, they were Serbs. They had survived. Someone must have hidden them during the war, because by the end of the fighting the other Serbs in the valley were all either dead or gone. Taken north. But Seratlic vouched for Tomislav. Why, I don't know, because Tomislav wouldn't have spoken up for them, and he certainly wouldn't have hidden them. He always did as he was told. But we'd once sold them milk at fair prices, when their father had a dairy. So your uncle got out. Some of the others stayed in jail. A few were shot. Quick trials that no one ever saw. You'd read a paragraph in the newspaper, and that was it. It was a bad time.

“We thought your father was dead. Rudec, too. And when we didn't hear from them for a few years, we were sure of it. My only brother, gone. Then in 1961 we got a letter from him. He told us to burn it after we'd read it. It didn't even come by the regular mail. Some old man on a mule who'd gotten it from someone else on a train. It didn't have his name in it, but we knew who it was from what he said.”

“Do you still have it?” Vlado asked, more as a son than an investigator.

“We burned it, as he'd asked. He told us that someday he would visit, but that for the moment it was too dangerous. He said he was near Sarajevo, that he'd learned a trade and met a woman. But he didn't tell us his new name, or his village. When you were a boy, I knew you only as Vlado. Maybe now you can tell me your last name. I have always wondered. Can you tell me?”

“Petric,” said Vlado, feeling fraudulent as he stated it, a creation of forgery and deception. “Vlado Petric. It has always been my name.”

She nodded curtly, accepting it.

“Excuse me again,” he said. “I have to tell my friend a little of what we've been saying.” He brought Pine up to speed, leaving out the part about his name.

“Ask her if your father's letter mentioned Rudec,” Pine said.

It hadn't.

“But Rudec is alive, isn't he?” she asked. “This visit is about him.”

“Yes. Only now he goes by the name Matek. We're looking for him. Partly because of the past. Partly because he killed one of our colleagues.”

She shook her head slowly, regretfully. “Then I will help if I can. But I'm afraid I don't know much. He never returned. Never wrote or sent word to anyone. Only your father came back, and even he had to sneak into the valley. He said that if anyone ever found out his real name, they would put him in prison, or shoot him. But of course Tomislav, being a man, had to talk about the war. So after dinner, and after the third glass of brandy, Tomislav began asking questions. About the war, and the year your father went north.”

Vlado knew where north led—straight to the Sava River, and Jasenovac.

“He wanted to know what had become of Rudec, and where they'd gone, what they'd done all those years. Maybe your father had been led astray by all of the bad politics, Tomislav said. By all those men who went goose-stepping with the Germans, wearing their big U's. Bowing down to priests and politicians, like it was some kind of crusade. Because by then, of course, your uncle was only listening to what Tito had to say. So he and your father argued, then they fought. Fortunately by then they were so drunk they couldn't do much harm. They broke a few glasses, knocked over some chairs.”

“I saw them out the window. Like two bulls in a ring. Snorting and pawing.”

“Two
drunken
bulls.”

She smiled, showing her missing teeth. “But your mother and I got them to bed. You only had to lay them down and they passed out.”

She paused, as if that was all she had to say on the matter. Vlado sipped at the strong, bitter coffee, feeling the pleasing familiar grittiness on his tongue. Somehow it tasted better here, in this quiet valley hidden in the hills.

“Tell me more about Pero Rudec,” he said. “You knew him?”

“Oh, yes. A handsome boy, especially when he wore his uniform from the officers' academy. But he was always a little unsettling, too.”

“How so?”

“Oh, you know. Always the first to do everything, especially when it came to girls. Always looking for the easiest way to do something. The shortcuts. But he also knew how to make the parents like him. Being sweet to your mother while trying everything under the sun with her daughter. Some of the fathers saw through it and chased him off, but he was pretty sly.”

“You went out with him?”

“Oh no. He was forbidden fruit. And I was already promised to Tomislav. A good thing, too. Soon everyone knew that a girl down the valley, Mirta, was pregnant. But it was just after the war had started, and that gave Pero a chance to get away. Tomislav and your father signed up for the local militia. But Pero volunteered for a special unit heading north. Sort of an Ustasha SS, only they didn't call it that, but I think he liked the idea because it took him away from Mirta and her father. Of course he had to put a different face on it, talking about his valor and his duty. But no one believed him. I think he also liked the idea that he might collect some booty. Like a pirate.”

“People knew there would be booty?”

“People had already heard what these units were doing. Burning villages and taking everything. Trying to wipe out the Chetniks. Some volunteers had already come back because they couldn't stand it.” She shook her head. “I don't think Pero felt one way or the other about the Chetniks, but he never came back.”