Dead Lagoon az-4, page 34
part #4 of Aurelio Zen Series
The barman looked as though he were about to have a fit. He kicked away Trevisan’s dog, which was sniffing at the seat of his pants.
‘If you don’t get out of here right now I’m calling the cops!’
Zen flipped his wallet over, revealing his police identity card.
‘They’re already here.’
The barman’s shoulders slumped. He turned away, hastily palming the banknote. Zen plucked it back again.
‘People might think I was trying to bribe you,’ he smiled sweetly.
‘For a lousy two thousand lire?’
Zen shrugged and handed the note back.
‘You’re right. I could buy four like you for a thousand.’
Daniele Trevisan burst into malicious cackles as Claudio retreated.
‘That’s the way to treat them!’
The spilt wine had formed a puddle which was inching imperceptibly across the table towards Zen. He dipped his finger into it, creating a canal through which the liquid emptied itself safely over the opposite edge.
‘You were saying something about having seen my father,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s impossible, of course.’
His eyes averted, Daniele Trevisan shook his head.
‘It was him all right. Two years ago. Two and a half actually. July, it was. The city was sweltering.’
His eyes became vague and distant.
‘I spoke to him in dialect. At first he didn’t seem to understand, and answered me in some strange language. Then he began to speak, haltingly at first, like a child.’
Zen stood up.
‘You’re either mad or mischievous. Either way, I’m not going to listen to this pack of lies a moment longer.’
He picked up his suitcase and buttoned his coat, glancing from time to time at Trevisan. The old man did not look at him. After a moment Zen sat down again.
‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ he said coldly.
Trevisan stared into his wineglass as though it were a clairvoyant’s crystal ball.
‘He asked about you and your mother. I explained that you’d both moved to Rome. “We’ve already been there,” he said. He was with a group of Polish tourists on a cultural and religious trip. The borders had just been opened and they were taking advantage of the new freedom to visit Italy and see the Polish pope. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned religious, Angelo!” I said, but he said it was just that the tours organized by the Church were the cheapest. They’d driven all the way from some city with a name I forget.’
‘This is absurd!’ exclaimed Zen. ‘What has Poland got to do with it?’
‘That’s where he lives.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
Daniele Trevisan consulted his wineglass once more.
‘It seems he deserted from the army in the Ukraine. He and a couple of other lads from the city decided they’d had enough. Do you remember Fabio Fois and what’s-his-name, the elder of the two Vivian boys? I suppose you’d have been too young.’
He sighed.
‘They didn’t make it, of course. The other two died. Angelo was taken in by a peasant woman whose menfolk had all been killed. He stayed there, lying low, helping to work the farm, until the war was over. By that time the woman was pregnant. Later on they moved to the city. The Communists were in control and the borders had been sealed. That’s when Angelo learned that he was in Poland. And there he had to stay.’
Zen smiled in a superior way.
‘Even supposing this preposterous story were true, as a foreign national he’d only have needed to show his documents and they would have had to let him out.’
‘He’d destroyed his Italian papers when he was on the run, for fear of being shot as a deserter. He was passing as one of the woman’s dead brothers.’
Zen slapped his palm on the surface of the table.
‘He could have gone to the Italian embassy in Warsaw! He was a displaced person, for God’s sake, a refugee. He could have come home any time he wanted to!’
Daniele Trevisan looked at Zen for the first time.
‘Perhaps he didn’t want to.’
Their eyes clashed briefly.
‘I don’t believe any of this,’ Zen muttered in an undertone. ‘You’re making it up.’
‘It’s true, Aurelio. I swear it.’
‘So where is this person now?’
The old man shrugged.
‘Back in Poland, I suppose. The tour group was leaving that afternoon. I asked if he’d be coming back, but he said no. “It’s been too long,” he said. “It’s another life.” Then I asked him if he was going to…’
He broke off, fiddling with the stem of the glass.
‘Going to what?’ demanded Zen.
Trevisan gestured awkwardly.
‘If he was going to get in touch with you and your mother. But he said he wouldn’t. “They think I’m dead,” he told me. “It would only cause trouble.” I tried to argue with him, but he wouldn’t listen. He made me swear on my mother’s grave never to tell you or Giustiniana anything about this. And I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t seen you…’
He looked at Zen and nodded.
‘You’re right. You shouldn’t have come.’
Zen held the old man’s eyes for a long time. Then he picked up his suitcase and walked out. The street was packed with people heading to and from the station. Zen was immediately caught up in a large group calling animatedly to each other in some language which was opaque to him. A counter-current flowed back along the other side of the street. Where the two met there was an area of turbulence and confusion, while the drag caused by the shops and houses to either side created a further set of whorls and eddies. Several times a blockage momentarily slowed the progress of the human current, with a consequent backing-up and an increase in pressure which made everything move faster when the obstruction was finally swept aside.
At length the walls fell back. The crowd lost its cohesion and impetus, spreading out across the courtyard in front of the station. People wandered about, seemingly at random, looking bewildered and lost. Somewhere in the distance a massive, muffled voice read out a succession of unintelligible announcements. A gypsy beggar hunched over an accordion played a snatch of a military march over and over and over again. An excess of sunlight had blinded the clock. A child cried.
‘Excuse me!’
A middle-aged couple, oddly but neatly dressed, stood beaming at Zen. The man said something incomprehensible. Zen shrugged and shook his head. The man repeated the phrase more slowly, pointing to a map in the guidebook he was holding. Zen understood only that he was asking directions to somewhere in English. He closed his eyes and tried to summon up a few words in that language.
‘I’m sorry,’ he replied with an apologetic smile. ‘I’m a stranger here myself.’
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Document creation date: 09.04.2012
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Michael Dibdin, Dead Lagoon az-4
