The Heart of Danger, page 14
"Thank you, yes, I'd like to."
She thought he was a decent man because she thought he was ashamed that he had tried to run away.
It was her regular tour, the same as for the delegations and the television crews. She showed him what she was proud of, the kindergarten for the small children, the little hairdresser's room, the scrubbed clean kitchens. She told him what it had been when she had started up the Transit Centre. She could not be sure what his level of interest was. She told him that in the last winter, when they had no fuel, no glass in the windows, it had been body heat that had sustained them. She told him of the drinking and the smoking and the drug abuse, and of the women whose menstrual cycle was blocked by stress, and of the children who ran wild, and of the men who had lost their reason to live. She thought she held his interest when he asked her how it was possible for her to cope, and she answered, as she always answered, that she could cope with the aloneness, but that the loneliness still hurt her.
It was at the end of the hour. She opened the door. The American was playing back a tape on the video.
"Not finished, Mr. Jones?"
He flushed. Never could help himself when she spoke to him. It was the warmth and the boldness in her voice that brought the blood flush to his face.
"Just another two or three, someone's gone to find them," Marty said.
There was a man behind Ulrike. He saw the man in the blazer and the white shirt and the tie, and he saw the creases in the man's slacks. Never could know whether she laughed at him and there was always the tinkling brightness in her voice. He was told the name and the business of the man, and he grimaced as if he was indifferent.
"What I'm dealing with here is mass crime. I'm not talking about little incidents. Anywhere you hit a golf ball round here it'll come to land on a clandestine grave. I'm talking about major league. If I got sidetracked into graves where there were a dozen people, I'd just be wasting everyone's time. No offence, Mr. Penn."
It was instinctive, his dislike of the Englishman with Ulrike. He stood too close to her, and it was like he had her confidence. He had put down the Englishman and Marty thought he saw, just for the moment, impatience flash in her eyes, at her mouth. Just for the moment, and Ulrike was telling him that the Englishman had been interviewing a Muslim woman, and named her. He knew of the woman, hadn't bothered to get round to interviewing her, finding whether she had a 'snapshot' of an atrocity. "Was she raped?"
The Englishman, Penn, seemed to frown. "I didn't ask her."
"You always ask a woman here if she was raped. A statement on rape, sexual violation, a statement with audio or video, and the perpetrator's name, that can be evidence."
"I didn't ask her." The frown deepened. "Wouldn't have thought so, she seemed old…"
"Common mistake, mistake people make when they're not familiar with the ground here. They don't rape for sexual gratification, they rape to demean their enemy. Stick around and you'll get to know…"
The Englishman said, "It's not relevant for me to know."
He could have told him to go jerk himself. If Ulrike had not been there, he would have. His father, back in Anchorage and writing most months and working in the Brother Francis shelter for destitutes, didn't think Marty's work, far from home, relevant. And the grizzled old prospector, his friend Rudi, gold hunting seven hours' drive down the Pacific coast from Anchorage who wrote some months, he didn't understand what was relevant. And his tutor from the Law Faculty, University of California at Santa Barbara, in his last letter, hadn't connected as to how a favourite former student found it relevant to ferret for mass crime. Marty had told them all in his return letters that in a new world order it was critical for the international rule of law to be established. Had written them all in his return letters that ends didn't matter, catching and trying and hanging didn't matter, but means mattered, the process of law mattered.
"Don't let me keep you," Marty said. "If you can turn your back, and you can feel good, then you're a lucky guy."
He thought the Englishman soft shit and if Ulrike had not been there, in the doorway, he would have told him so.
"I've just a report to write, then I'm gone. Nice to have met you, Mr. Jones."
He was late coming to his school because of the difficulty in shaving his bruised face. It was a slow walk to the school because the road from his house to the school was rutted, and the young men of Salika were too busy in their uniforms and with their guns to use their muscles to repair the road. A slow walk because he had no spectacles. His body hurt. Each place that he had been kicked and punched meant pain when he walked to the school.
His wife had told him that he should not go. His wife had said their life in the village was finished. The village was his home; he had refused her. He had taken a new text that morning when he had started the walk from his home to his school. A Croat text, but that was not important to the Headmaster. The text, mouthed as he walked, was the command given, 326 years earlier, to Nikolica Bunic by the rulers of Dubrovnik when the man, the martyr, was sent to treat with the Pasha of Bosnia. He knew, by heart, the text. "To violence you will reply by renunciation and sacrifice. Promise nothing, offer nothing, suffer everything. There you will meet a glorious death, here the land will be free. In case of difficulty, delay. Be united, reply that we are free men, that this tyranny and God will judge them." Just to whisper the text to himself was hardship.
The carpenter, Milo, watched him walk from the door of his home. The postman, Branko, watched him past the militia camp. The gravedigger, Stevo, leaned on his spade at the back of the church and could see him as he passed. Milan Stankovic went by him in his car, forcing him to stumble to the side of the road where the weeds grew. The Headmaster went to his school.
He was late for the start of the day at his school. The children were gathered in the hall. He heard the singing, he knew the song. The children sang of the decision of Prince Lazar to commit the Serb army against the Turk, and fight at Kosovo—
There flew a falcon a grey bird,
From the holy city, from Jerusalem
And carried in its beak a swallow.
28 June 1389, and the lie of Serbian nobility. The anthem would not have been sung at school assembly if he had been present. The day, 28 June 1389, was captured by the extremists, the barbarians of the new order, by the killers and the murderers. The day, the nobility of defeat, was taken by the new order in Belgrade as an excuse for cruelty, for violence.
There was glass in the upper part of the swing doors into the hall of his school. He could see her. She stood where he should have stood. He felt the betrayal.
But that was not a grey falcon,
That was the holy man, Elijah:
And he does not carry a swallow…
He saw that Evica Stankovic stood in his place. Her arms were raised, swung to lead the heaven of his children's voices.
But a letter from the Mother of God…
"Stop." The Headmaster stood in the open doorway, sticking plaster across his face. "Stop." The children turned to him. He saw her defiance. She dared him to step forward. He saw his children despised him. He saw the children of the carpenter and the gravedigger and the postman. He saw the grandchildren of the Priest. He saw the child of Milan Stankovic. He saw the freshness of the faces and their contempt. He turned in the doorway. He heard the shout behind him, forty children's voices, unbroken, in unison.
"It is better to die honest than to live in disgrace."
The Headmaster began the slow walk home. He had only his secret to sustain him, the knowledge of Katica Dubelj existing as an animal in the ruins of Rosenovici. He knew no longer how to use it.
It had been done easily and smoothly, and Penn had recognized it.
"So, what are your future plans, Mr. Penn?"
Jovic had introduced the officer as liaison. Jovic had said that he was a captain and liaised between the Croatian army, 2nd Bn, 110 (Karlovac) Brigade, and the UNPROFOR troops across in Sector North. Jovic claimed him as a friend.
"Just to pick up what help I can, captain, and to write a report," Penn said.
Jovic had said that the captain was his friend and had been with him at Sisak, when he had lost his arm.
Only a report into the death of Miss Dorothy Mowat? "Only her death, yes."
Not the specific situation in that part of Sector North where she died? "How it happened, when it happened, pretty bland."
Why was the death of Miss Dorothy Mowat, when so many had died, so important? "Rich mother, reckons she can buy anything."
A sensitive area, a sensitive situation, did he not know that? "Just a report, just to let her mother sleep the better at night."
And who else would read his report? "Shouldn't think anyone will, just her mother."
It was the gentle probing of an intelligence officer. Penn recognized it. He hoped his answers were ignorant, facile. He reckoned the Intelligence Officer was poorly trained. He would have done it differently himself, bored harder. He knew about digging into the recesses of a man's life because he had worked in the positive vetting team that cleared personnel for work at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston. Trust no one, believe in no one, that was any intelligence officer's maxim, and he guessed that Jovic would have telephoned ahead and engineered the meeting so that Penn, enigma, would be checked over.
And his report would not be used as a start point for a war crime investigation? "Good God, no…"
The gentle probing of the Intelligence Officer, Liaison, was done during the tour of the ceasefire line. The village of Turanj was across the Korana river near to where it joined with the Kupa river east of Karlovac. Not a house undamaged, every building hit by multiple machine-gun bullets and by tank fire, and artillery shells. The officer said, for the benefit of his visitor, that it was where the Serbs had been held, where their advance had been stopped. He was told of the battle, close-quarters fighting. He listened and looked around him. An old woman was picking at burned roof timbers in the yard behind what had been her home. They were past the defensive machine-gun nests. They walked in the village of Turanj as if it were a museum, but the old woman searching in her yard told him of present reality. The front wall was off the food shop. The roof was off the scorched interior of the repair garage. Flowers grew in overgrown front gardens, and the blossom was on the magnolia and the apple trees. He was shown the co-operative building, and he was told not to go past it because he would then be in the field of vision of the snipers, and the ceasefire was variable.
A cold place and quiet.
The officer said, "In war itself there is an excitement, in combat there is an elation. Most men, you ask them, and if they give their secret answer, tell you that war, combat, should not be missed…but the war goes by. I know nothing more degrading than a former battlefield where there are no bodies, where there is no noise. The war passes by and the excitement is quickly forgotten. Only the vandalism of the war is left. It is the worst place you can be, Mr. Penn, an old fighting ground, with just the ghosts."
A cat saw him, was bent low and scurrying, but took the time to turn and spit at him. The poles that had carried the telephone wires were down. "Would it be the same in Rosenovici?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Just trying to get a picture…"
"It would not be the same," the officer said. "Here the buildings are destroyed by war. In Rosenovici only a few buildings would have been destroyed by war, the rest would have been destroyed by placed explosives. Here there is a chance to rebuild, one day. In Rosenovici there would be no chance to rebuild because nothing is left. In Rosenovici, villages like it, they went as far as bulldozing the graveyard. Here, there is still feeble life. In Rosenovici there is only the memory of death."
Penn thought he was being tested. He looked away. He stared up and beyond the jagged and broken roofs of Turanj and he could see the first line of trees. The officer anticipated him. "It is where their guns are. They will be following you, through telescopic sights, maybe if they are bored they will shoot at you."
He played ignorant. "I am just here to make a report."
Penn walked back down the road, like getting his head shot off was no part of making a report. They drove away in the officer's car. They went back past the machine-gun positions and the soldiers waved to them. They went across the bridge over the Korana river and Penn saw, moored at the bank, two grey-coloured inflatables. He didn't like to look hard because frequently the officer slung a fast glance at him to see whether it was a trained eye or a rubbernecker's eye that examined the front line. There were tank obstacle teeth beside the road into Karlovac, and more defence positions, and there was the emptiness.
They drove on, past the officer's headquarters in a new building where all the windows were taped against artillery blast. They climbed a winding road. They were above the town. On the summit of the hill was a fortress tower. They left the car. They walked along a path and in the grass beside the path were teenagers, cuddling and messing about and smoking. They looked out. The town was in front of them.
Beyond the town were the rivers, winding to their meeting point. Beyond the meeting point of the Korana and the Kupa rivers was the green carpet of the forest. Beyond the forest was the blue haze line of the high ground.
The officer said, "The high ground is the Petrova Gora, dense woodland, rock cliffs, sheer valleys. It is special to the Serb people because it was in the Petrova Gora that Tito had a field hospital for his Partizans, in the war with the Germans. The German army made many incursions into the Petrova Gora but they were never able to find the hospital. The failure was a source of frustration—that is why the Germans killed many of the people in the villages at the edge of the Petrova Gora. If you were to be there, Mr. Penn, which is impossible, then they would lie and tell you that it was Croatian people, fascists fighting alongside the Germans, who were responsible for the killings. Through the lies they justify what they have done, now, to villages such as Rosenovici…"
Penn had his hand across his forehead. He shaded his eyes. He thought he could see twenty miles, maybe more. Such peace. It was where Dorrie had been, Dorrie's place. It was like the place of his childhood, where he had been before the exams and the application forms, and work in London. Peace and beauty. He strained to see better.
The officer said, "I am correct, you see nothing that threatens? The front line between here and Sisak is the Kupa river. It is seventy kilometres in length. Across there, on their side, where you see nothing, are minefields and strong points and defended villages. Across there, they have 300 guns that can flatten Karlovac and Sisak in a day. Across there, aimed at Zagreb are medium-range missile launchers. One day, I hope, we can take our territory back, but not today and not tomorrow. You see, Mr. Penn, it is important to us that, today and tomorrow, we do not anger them, across there. It is of strategic importance for the future of Croatia, military and economic, that the bastards, across there, are not antagonized."
"Who did it?"
"Did what?"
"Who killed Dorrie Mowat?"
"It is important?"
"For my report, yes."
The officer smiled. Jovic was behind them, silent. Penn and the officer stood together and stared out across the Kupa river and the forest and towards the high ground. The sun beat at Penn.
"They do not scatter evidence, they do not leave eyewitnesses. I do not know."
"Who would have given the order?"
"Probably the commander of the militia. Perhaps the commander of the militia in the village close to Rosenovici."
"What is his name?"
"I used to know him, not as a friend, but I knew him. My wife is a teacher and knew his wife; she is a teacher. Why do you need the name?"
"For my report?"
"You can make up a name, take a telephone directory. Just for a report, for a mother who lost a daughter, you can invent a name. Why not?"
He had been led, subtly, to the trap. He had underestimated the quality of the Intelligence Officer. Perhaps a graduate would not have sprung the trap, not one of the young bloody graduates of the General Intelligence Group. He stumbled.
"Pick a name out of the air, why not?"
A light murmur of laughter from the officer. "He is Milan Stankovic. I see him at my liaison meetings. I used to play basketball against him. The militia in the attack on Rosenovici was commanded by Milan Stankovic."
"What will happen to him?"
"I saw him last month, at the liaison meeting. We talked about the electricity supply. They have our territory but they do not have power. We have lost our territory but we have power. Last month, he did not seem like a man afraid, but then the liaison meeting is always behind their lines. Today, tomorrow, nothing will happen to Milan Stankovic."
Penn said, "I will put that in my report."
On that night of the week it would have been usual for the Priest to have gone to the Headmaster's house and, by candlelight, played chess.
He had not made apologies, he had not given notice of his absence to the Headmaster, he had gone instead to the home of Milan Stankovic.
He was a quiet man and through the adult part of his seventy-four years he had seldom offered an opinion that he had not first known would fall on approving ears. Capable of intrigue but incapable of confrontation, he lived out the last years of his life in the intellectual backwater that was the village of Salika. He knew every man and every woman and every child in the village of Salika, but his only friend was the Headmaster with whom on that night he should have played chess and taken a glass of brandy weakened with water that would have lasted him through the game…and he had gone instead to the home of Milan Stankovic.
He could justify his abandoning of the game of chess.
They were coming in the village to the day when the population of Salika travelled to the church at Glina where so many had died. It was an important anniversary, the fiftieth. All of the village would travel to the site where the people had been herded by the Ustase fascists, where the fire had been lit, where a thousand had died. If the Priest had not been young, not been fit enough to survive, albeit emaciated, in the Petrova Gora, if he had been inside the cordon, then he believed that he would have been taken to the church and burned alive.
