Killing Pilgrim (5 page)

As it was, the old man drank too much. Della Torre wondered how much worse it would be if his father didn’t have his writing to keep him focused and sober at least part of the time. Maybe with Rebecca around he’d been drinking less.

Della Torre stepped out onto the terrace and wandered down into the courtyard and through an arched wooden door in the garden wall, into the well-tended vineyards. This was another thing that kept his father going — the vines. He still sprayed them by hand, finishing the day coated in the harsh blue-green mixture of copper sulphate and lime used to kill the fungus that rotted grapes.

The grapes were already ripening; they’d need harvesting early this year. Della Torre wondered if there’d be a market for the wine. It wouldn’t matter much for his father, who sold only a little to the cooperative. But the farmers would suffer.

He’d hung a Lucky off his lower lip, stopping to strike a match, when he heard footsteps. Light ones, barely brushing the ground. He turned.

“I saw you going for a walk. Thought I might join you. Hope you don’t mind,” she said, though something in her voice suggested she was indifferent to what he wanted. She stood in the next row of vines, mostly hidden by the broad leaves.

“By all means,” he said, shrugging. He reached for the cigarettes and offered one to her through the wire that held up the plant’s tendrils. She smiled and shook her head.

“I don’t think you said whether you were doing a doctorate or post-doc work,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“No, I didn’t say.” That smile again. “Your father tells me you’re a lawyer. Any special sort of law or just the usual accidents and contracts?” she said with what he thought might be irony. He couldn’t be sure; she was almost invisible behind the foliage. What exactly had his father told her?

“I work for the prosecutor’s office. I investigate suspected cases of fraud in our legal system, where corruption may have caused innocent people to be, um, jailed.” It was the standard shorthand he used to get around the fact that he worked for the
UDBA
. But the essence of what he’d told her was close to the truth. “Or I used to. Now it looks like I’ve been drafted into the Croatian army.”

They’d reached the end of the row and could see each other clearly. Della Torre turned right so that they walked side by side between blocks of vines.

“Accidents of justice. Contracts taken out wrongly,” she said.

“Something like that.”

“So how does an American end up working for the —” She paused for a long beat. “— for the prosecutor’s office and then joining the Croatian army? I didn’t know Croatia had an army.”

“Dad told you I was American?” he said.

His father had always been circumspect about his son’s other nationality. It was no secret that they’d lived in America for much of della Torre’s childhood, but no one in Yugoslavia, apart from his father and his wife, knew he was an American citizen. Nobody in the
UDBA
. He was certain of it. He kept his passport updated by travelling to Rome and applying to the American embassy there. Only della Torre and his mother had taken citizenship. His father had decided he’d be best off sticking to a green card. As a young academic he’d had to join the Communist Party, and he’d never officially renounced it. Americans didn’t look favourably on citizens who were Communists.

Rebecca didn’t answer but merely smiled at him. “I take it you’re a member of the Communist Party. You’d have to be to hold a senior position. Wouldn’t you?” There was something in the way she said “Communist,” the crisp, sharp, legal tone that made his muscles tighten and his head pull back.

“What else did my father tell you about me?”

“Not much. That you’re married but live apart from your wife. That you don’t have any children and this might have something to do with why your wife no longer wants to live with you. That you’ve never wanted to go back with him to visit the States since you moved here as a kid. Not even to visit your mother’s grave. Speaking of which, he didn’t talk much about your mother. What happened to her?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask,” della Torre said abruptly.

“Sorry. I understand,” she said.

He was starting to realize what disturbed him about her smile. It wasn’t reflected in her eyes.

“I think he doesn’t quite understand why you don’t leave, now that the war’s coming,” she said.

“No. Neither do I,” said della Torre. He’d tried. Earlier that year, he’d run away to London, escaping the hired Bosnian killers. For a short while he thought he’d be able to make a new life for himself there with Harry Martingale. But he’d failed. And got shot along the way.

“He didn’t tell me what you did to your arm,” she said.

He looked down at the pink wound. His arm wouldn’t quite straighten, but it was throbbing less than it had since he’d got shot.

“An accident,” he said.

“Like the ones you investigate?” she asked.

“Not quite as . . .” He let his thought trail off.

“As final?” she asked.

He shrugged. They’d walked into his father’s orchard, at the end of which was a small wheat field. Della Torre helped himself to a peach. It hung heavy, ripe, so that he took it gently, not wanting to bruise the flesh. The hot, still air was luscious with its sweet scent. He offered the peach to Rebecca, but she shook her head. He bit into it and the juice ran down his chin; he leaned forward to keep it from dripping on his shirt.

In the distance, his father’s farmhouse hung above a sea of green vines, an island of white stone turned pink in the evening light. Now in shadow, the earth under their feet was a deep blood red. Above, a high mare’s tail streaked the sky. A storm was coming.

Della
Torre sat in the back seat of the Renault 4. The complete lack of sound insulation meant having to shout over the rattling engine, so they stayed quiet after the first feeble attempts at conversation.

His father had insisted on driving them to Poreč. They’d have a great time in town, he said at dinner the night before. He’d already shown Rebecca the sights on an earlier trip: the Byzantine basilica, some Roman ruins, and the graceful Venetian palazzos. They could go to the beach while della Torre did his business at the police station. And then they could meet up for lunch at a favourite fish restaurant on the quayside, overlooking the harbour and the island of St Nikola beyond.

Della Torre would rather have gone alone, left the two to their own devices. But he saw that his father had become set on his plan, and so he dutifully gave in.

His father drove the car with intense concentration, hunched over the wheel, which he gripped hard with both hands when he wasn’t shifting gears. And he aimed to shift as little as possible. The senior della Torre had discovered long ago that the car functioned well at exactly 35 kilometres an hour, a speed that required little braking or slowing for corners. Fortunately for other drivers, he used only small country lanes unless he absolutely couldn’t avoid the bigger roads. And fortunately for his passengers, it was only 15 kilometres to Poreč.

The road through the fields from the house was newly paved — a blessing, given the Renault’s almost complete lack of suspension. Only a few years back it had still been a rutted dirt track. Coming into a long corner, they disturbed a flock of starlings warming themselves on the asphalt. As the car approached, the birds lifted off and flew at waist height in the direction of Poreč, hovering directly in front of the car like a black cloud, following the road through every curve.

His father didn’t waver, even as the distance between the birds and the car narrowed. And then, as if in slow motion, the birds were scooped along the bonnet. Still beating their wings, they slid the length of the car until they reached the windscreen. Then, tail feathers up, their orifices pressed flat against the glass, they slid up and over the roof. Della Torre looked behind him. The birds did little cartwheels as they fell off the top of the car and into its slipstream. As soon as they were in still air again, they fell back into formation. And so the Renault passed through the whole flock, bird by astonished bird.

The absurdity hit della Torre, and he laughed out loud. His father didn’t seem to have noticed the strange occurrence, and Rebecca stared straight ahead as if she wasn’t sure what she’d just experienced.

Della Torre looked into the rear-view mirror, catching his father’s eyes. There was a humour in them. More like the person della Torre remembered from before his mother had died. The spirit of joy had crept back into the old man. Years spooled back and happy memories resurfaced. And then, with a jolt, he realized his mistake. He hadn’t been looking into his father’s eyes. He’d been looking into his own.

They dropped della Torre off at the police station on the edge of the old town. He showed his ID to the sergeant at the front desk, who immediately sat up. An
UDBA
document commanded fear and revulsion, like a tattooed face.

The sergeant hadn’t been expecting him but sent della Torre up to the station captain’s office anyway. The captain hadn’t arrived yet, so della Torre made himself comfortable on the sofa after getting a uniformed secretary to make him a cup of coffee. It wasn’t a particularly nice coffee — too much sugar and too gritty — but at least the office’s upright fan worked. Della Torre had dozed off by the time the captain arrived.

“Ah, Comrade della Torre,” he said twice before della Torre responded.

Caught by surprise, della Torre couldn’t remember the captain’s name, so he just stood up and shook the man’s hand.

“Captain, how good to see you. Hope you don’t mind that I made myself at home. One of your typists very kindly brewed up a cup of coffee. I’d been told to get here sharp or somebody’d be wearing my ears on a necklace,” della Torre said.

“Very sorry. I’d have been in earlier, but I had to drive my wife down to Rovijn to see her sister, and by the time I’d picked up her order from the butcher’s and got it home, well, you know how it is.” He was flustered.

Usually nothing very interesting happened in this part of the world. Mostly tourists getting into car accidents and the occasional theft. Specialist squads down in Pula or Rijeka dealt with the serious stuff, such as drug trafficking or crime rings, while political matters were left for the
UDBA
. Or had been.

Della Torre shrugged. Both men stood there looking at each other for a while.

“So, how is it in Zagreb?” the captain finally asked.

“Gloomy. The war’s coming and nobody knows how to avoid it.”

“Yes.” The captain nodded. “We’ve started losing tourists and gaining refugees. Something tells me they won’t be nearly as good for the economy. And it’ll make us busier.”

Della Torre raised his hands in what he hoped was a sympathetic gesture. Though it could also have been taken to mean “So what?”

They fell silent again. Della Torre really knew no way around the question, so he attacked it straight on.

“You wouldn’t know why I’m here by any chance, would you?” he asked.

“You don’t know?” the captain said.

“No. Frankly, I was hoping you might tell me.”

“I only got word last night that somebody from Zagreb would be coming sometime today,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I wasn’t expecting anyone till the afternoon. They usually don’t come until the afternoon. Had I known it was you, I’d have arranged something. We could have met up over a coffee somewhere civilized, maybe brought the old girl along, you know how she likes to talk family. But she’s in Rovijn till Sunday.”

Della Torre belatedly remembered that the captain’s wife was a distant cousin. Everybody in Istria seemed to be a cousin. Or married to one.

“I’m sorry to have missed her.” Della Torre tried to remember whether he was sorry or not, but the woman wouldn’t come into focus. It probably meant she wasn’t too bad.

“Actually, since you’re here, I might as well fill you in. You’re family and all, and I can trust you,” the captain said, though as he said it, he wiped his hand on his trouser leg and wouldn’t raise his eyes from della Torre’s Italian blue silk tie.

He shut the office door and pulled out a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of homemade slivovitz from his filing cabinet.

“I know it’s early, but a little sip can’t hurt, can it?”

Della Torre acquiesced. It was traditional to have a swallow of something strong, coffee or alcohol or both, before sitting down to talk business. Whatever the time.

“I’m not quite sure how to say this, but I think we’re being put into a difficult position here. A really hard one,” the captain said, the words inadvertently bumping up against each other.

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s the same everywhere,” della Torre said. “Having to choose between Croatia and Yugoslavia — this new Shangri-La or the country you’ve been taught all your life is your homeland and which you’re sworn to defend.”

The captain nodded in a slightly embarrassed way. “Yes. Yes, of course there’s that. But there’s something else too.”

“Oh?” said della Torre.

“Well, you see, they’ve been taking my officers, my policemen. Zagreb, that is . . .”

“I guess they’re building up units for the war. Maybe, with God’s grace, we won’t need them. But we have to have an army when we’re being faced with the
JNA
,” della Torre said, trying to justify what was happening everywhere, the mobilization of Croat men. The
JNA
, Yugoslavia’s national army, would be a formidable enemy.

“Oh, of course. That’s only right. We all have to muck in. No, it’s just that . . .”

He paused.

“That Poreč needs experienced senior officers to stay at their posts?” della Torre prompted.

He was sympathetic. He’d have felt the same way as the middle-aged man in front of him. In fact, della Torre felt exactly as he suspected this other man did. Nobody wanted to go to war, to be in the sights of a Serbian machine-gunner. Here was a veteran cop, used to handing out parking tickets and signing insurance forms for Germans who’d had their cameras stolen. Not for B-movie heroics.

But the captain bridled at della Torre’s implication.

“No. It’s not what you think. If those people in Zagreb want me to do my patriotic duty, they can have me. My kids are all grown up, and hell, I might even be useful. I may not be a great leader of men but I can navigate bureaucratic bullshit, and unless things have changed from my national service days, there’s plenty of bullshit in the army,” he said. “No, the problem is they’re sending my men, Istrian boys, to the front lines and they’re filling the posts here with kids from Zagreb and out east. Connected kids, if you know what I mean. You look at their surnames and ask them a few questions, and the lot of them have a father or an uncle in Parliament or high up in government.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cast aspersions,” della Torre said.

That the politicians in Zagreb were protecting their kin by giving them soft jobs well away from the action while making Istrians stand in their place was an ugly revelation, but maybe not surprising. If there was anywhere likely to stay safe from the impending war, it was Istria. The province had precious little strategic value except as a holiday resort, and no Serb population to speak of. And if things got too hot there, it was only a short ferry ride to Venice.

“No, I can see why you thought I might be looking to . . . you know, to get out of army service. I mean, who wouldn’t,” the captain apologized in turn. “I know there’s nothing you can do about it. But it worries me. And it’s not just because they’re looking for a safe place to hide their sons. Zagreb doesn’t trust us. Maybe they sent you to listen for rumblings of discontent. I’ve spent the last thirty years in the force keeping my mouth shut. Hell, I kept it shut even before that, when I was a kid. But if we’re going to be a new country, if all those checkerboard flags are meant to mean something other than a new bunch of the same old, it’d be nice to feel that they weren’t operating the same way as the Communists. Beg pardon.” He excused himself, with a look of surprise and shock at what he’d just said.

Once upon a time, talk like that would have been a ticket to Goli Otok. Would it still? And if not, what taboo would replace it? In a country where even jocular priests might say, offhandedly, “May God fuck your mother,” and mothers shout at their wayward children, “Your mother’s cunt,” what would be forbidden once people were allowed to slander the Party? Would turning your back on Croat nationalism get you shot?

The policeman poured himself and della Torre another finger’s width and then shrugged. “Maybe the next time you come here, there’ll be somebody else in this office. Maybe things really aren’t changing.”

Della Torre nodded sadly. He knew the captain spoke the truth. There were high hopes that by gaining independence Croatia might prove to be more noble than the thoroughly rotten country it was seceding from. But the people who’d taken control of the Croat government were Communists from the old administration. The old crooks were being replaced by not-so-new ones. He’d noticed how one or two
UDBA
men, from the dirty parts of the service, had shown up in senior posts in the new Croat government. Istria would be used as a fief by whatever faction, whatever political interests came out on top. A rich, quiet province to be milked and used as the politicians wanted.

“No one will hear anything from me. At least nothing that’s going to make your life any more difficult,” said della Torre. “I think I’m in the same position as you now. Dangling a little. They sent me here without even telling me why. Who knows what they’ll want from me when I get back.”

The captain got the same woman to make them coffees and dig up some biscuits. The two men talked a little more about the upcoming grape harvest and whether the rains would hold off. But it was a distracted conversation, and before long the press of ordinary police business impinged.

When they parted, della Torre held the man’s hand in his a long time and asked that the captain remember him to his wife. He meant it. They were family here.

• • •

When della Torre got to the restaurant, his father was sitting alone at a table with a bottle of beer in front of him. He was toying with roasted nuts in a small dish, slouched in his chair, looking old again, worn, staring into the distance across the harbour. Shipwrecked on that big covered terrace. The waterfront had been abandoned, like della Torre had never seen before, not in high summer. The only other people there were a couple of older Germans sitting in silence over their coffees a few tables away.

“Oh, hello, Marko,” Piero said, looking up and noticing his son only at the last minute. “You get everything done?”

“I don’t know. I’m really not sure what I was meant to be doing,” della Torre said honestly. “You’re alone?”