Authors: Dan Fesperman
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Espionage, #Suspense, #Contemporary Fiction, #Thrillers
Lie in the Dark (2 page)
It almost worked.
But when Tito died, the ethnic zealots rediscovered their voices, and the Serbs crowed the loudest. Tales of past massacres, kept alive through the decades around family tables, emerged shiny and refurbished. The old fears were coaxed out of cellars and attics, renourished by a new diet of ethnic propaganda. Out came the old labels of mistrust. If you were a Croat, that must mean you were Ustasha. Any Serb was a Chetnik. A Muslim? No better than a Turk. When things began to fall apart, they collapsed in a hurry.
The Serbs, holding the bulk of the army, immediately and mercilessly seized the upper hand, and Tito’s ultimate failure was now evident in the lines of fire dividing the city. Standing on every surrounding hill were the Serb guns and trenches, and an army determined to squeeze Sarajevo until it became their own. They also held much of the ground within the city on the far bank of the Miljacka River, which curled through the town from east to west like a crooked spine.
Trapped along with Vlado on the north bank, in the old city center, were two hundred thousand people, mostly Muslim, occasionally Croat and very occasionally Serb. But, as with Vlado, the labels were often ambiguous. Mixed marriages accounted for a quarter of the population, which only further enraged the Serbs. Bohemian little Sarajevo, too clever for her own good, was paying the price for years of incestuous pleasure. Now the Serbs seemed bent on leveling the city if they couldn’t capture it, taking it apart brick by brick, person by person.
Vlado had gone his entire life without really considering what it meant to be a Catholic, and he saw no reason to start now. He’d stepped into a church only three times in the past twelve years, twice for funerals, and certainly not at all for his marriage, a civil ceremony in which he’d wed the Muslim daughter of a Serb mother.
His only other trip to church had been his most recent, to investigate the murder of a priest found dead in a confessional. A jealous husband had shot the priest after finding a boxful of passionate letters on parish stationery in his wife’s closet. The husband had walked into the booth, sat down, fired twice through the latticed partition, then turned the gun on himself. Vlado had felt cheated by the suicide. He’d always wanted to know if there had been any final conversation. He wondered if either side had offered absolution before the gun had passed judgement on both. Both had made adequate penance in the end, by Vlado’s way of thinking, never mind what the Church thought.
Had the gravediggers looked Vlado’s way on this morning they might also have seen a cup of coffee in his hand. At $20 a pound on a salary of one dollar a month, often paid in cigarettes, it was no small luxury. Such was the state of the local currency and the black market that ruled the city.
He smiled to himself with a slight flush of embarrassment recalling how he’d acquired the coffee the day before. He had begged for it, really. Not overtly, but in an obvious enough way, having learned how to go about such things.
A British journalist had telephoned for an interview and Vlado had gladly set a time. The subject was to be homicide in the city of death, as well as the ever present topic of the local corruption that was eating away at the city from within. It was a topic Vlado was forbidden to discuss, but that was beside the point. He knew as well as anyone that journalists, U.N. people, and other outsiders were always eager to ingratiate themselves with their bags full of booty—coffee, whiskey, cartons of Marlboros, sometimes even sugar. Who knows how generous they might be if you had information they wanted, whether you could supply it or not.
The items a journalist might offer could fetch Deutschemarks, dollars, friends and influence, or even a prostitute for an hour or so. The whores skulking by the gates of the French U.N. garrison could be had for a couple of packs of Marlboros, a price which the U.N. troops found quite reasonable. Some had given up smoking altogether.
The journalist had arrived right on time, a fleshy bundle of bustle and British good cheer, pinkening at the edges from his climb up the stairs, like a soft piece of fruit about to turn bad. He thrust his hand outward in greeting as he fairly shouted, “Toby Perkins,
Evening Standard.
Pleased to meet you.”
Evening Standard.
Pleased to meet you.”
Vlado replied with a grave stare, spooning instant coffee into a steaming cup of water, then stirring the brown crystals with the reverence of an alchemist handling gold dust.
“My last cup,” he announced, holding it toward the reporter. “Please, take it.” It set just the right tone, Vlado thought. He inwardly congratulated himself, knowing from Toby’s thin smile and reddening cheeks that the rest would be easy.
And it was.
Toby immediately set down the mug and ducked toward his satchel, grunting and bending awkwardly from the bulk of an armored flak vest girdling his chest. Just about every outsider wore them, although locals tended to wonder what all the fuss was about. Why go to the trouble when you could still get your head blown off?
When Toby rose, his smile was wide and generous, and he held a one-pound jar of Nescafé. Now he was the millionaire with the shiny coin for the miserable waif. All that was left was to pat the boy on the head. But Vlado had no qualms of pride. He only wondered what else might be clinking around in the big bag.
Vlado first offered the obligatory refusal, downgrading his polished English to singsong cadence to better suit the moment. Play the dumb, stiff local bureaucrat for a while and Toby might give up a little quicker.
“Oh no, it would not be a possibility”
Toby insisted, as they always did. “Really. Please. Go ahead. I’ve got so many, and, well, I’m leaving Monday anyway.”
Leaving Monday. That always stopped him with these people, whether it was journalists, aid workers, or some Western celebrity seeking a little wartime atmosphere and some publicity. They came and went like tourists, flashing a blue-and-white U.N. card to pass through checkpoints where just about any local would be stopped cold. Or shot. Even if he was a police detective. Only foreigners left town so easily They boarded U.N. cargo planes, deep-bellied green tubs that lumbered up over the hills and away Then they no doubt toasted their survival that very night in some warm place where the windows had glass, not flapping sheets of plastic, and where there was electric lighting and plenty of cold beer.
So Vlado felt only the slightest twinge of guilt when he locked the jar of coffee in a desk drawer and announced, “I am sorry, but my superiors have told me that I really shouldn’t talk to you. At least not on this subject. Maybe we can speak a few minutes ‘off the record,’ as people in your profession say, but anything more would not be possible.”
Then had come the unpleasant part. Toby had decided to deliver a lecture. “Yes, that’s the spirit, isn’t it. Remain silent and preserve the myth.”
“The myth?” Vlado had asked, curious to hear the outside world’s latest take on Balkan madness.
“The myth of ethnic peace and harmony among the poor beleagured people of Sarajevo. Of clean government with nothing but noble intent. Yes, you’re victims, we all know that. Bloody well can’t turn on our televisions without seeing another weeping Sarajevan saying ‘All you need is love.’ But whenever the subject of ill-gotten gains and bad players behind the scenes comes up, you go all quiet on us and resort to your ultimate fallback: Blame the Serbs. The Chetniks did it. And they did, didn’t they. Threw you out of half the city and three-quarters of your country.
“But you’re not exactly saints down here are you, pardon the botched religious metaphor. What about revealing some of your own bad apples for a change? How long do you think this war would go on if some key people in key places suddenly stopped making money off it?”
“You find our hatreds unconvincing, I take it? Perhaps poor old Marx was right, after all, even if he’s no longer in fashion. In the West, it’s always about money.”
“Because it
is
always about money, or power, or whatever form of wealth you want to name,” Toby said. “And that’s true in the East as well. Why do you think the Serbs grabbed half your country right out of the gate? Not so they could lord it over you lovely people, I can tell you that. It was an economic land grab, plain and simple, dressed up as an ethnic holy crusade. ‘Save our Serbian brothers. Oh, but while you’re at it, take that factory over there, won’t you?’ I’m not saying there’s any shortage of genuine hatred up in those hills. There are enough zealots to keep these armies burning for years. But look at the support systems and the lines of supply. All the bit players that prop it up. Who needs morale when you’ve got a nice flow of hard currency to keep the officers happy? Take that away and who knows, maybe the whole thing begins to rot from the inside out. Maybe the hatred isn’t enough anymore. Maybe you even end up with a ceasefire that lasts long enough for something more than allowing the next shipment of tobacco and liquor to come across the lines. With fifty percent of the proceeds going to the local constabulary, of course.”
is
always about money, or power, or whatever form of wealth you want to name,” Toby said. “And that’s true in the East as well. Why do you think the Serbs grabbed half your country right out of the gate? Not so they could lord it over you lovely people, I can tell you that. It was an economic land grab, plain and simple, dressed up as an ethnic holy crusade. ‘Save our Serbian brothers. Oh, but while you’re at it, take that factory over there, won’t you?’ I’m not saying there’s any shortage of genuine hatred up in those hills. There are enough zealots to keep these armies burning for years. But look at the support systems and the lines of supply. All the bit players that prop it up. Who needs morale when you’ve got a nice flow of hard currency to keep the officers happy? Take that away and who knows, maybe the whole thing begins to rot from the inside out. Maybe the hatred isn’t enough anymore. Maybe you even end up with a ceasefire that lasts long enough for something more than allowing the next shipment of tobacco and liquor to come across the lines. With fifty percent of the proceeds going to the local constabulary, of course.”
“I think you are oversimplifying a complex situation.”
“Yes, well that’s what I’m paid for, isn’t it. Take all the nice blurry grays and turn them into black and white for the public to digest before moving on to the horoscopes and the latest from the Royals. But before you dismiss me as just another hack, which is exactly what I am, by the way, let me tell you a little story I picked up down the road in your city of Mostar—then we’ll see what you think.”
The last thing Vlado wanted from this blustering little man was an object lesson, but he’d paid for at least that much with the pound of coffee, so Vlado let him ramble on.
“You know the situation in Mostar, right?” Toby said, his face more flushed by the minute. “Even worse than here, in a way. Croats and Muslims fighting each other tooth and nail down in the streets, shooting at each other from across the river, while the Serbs sit on the mountains to the east and lob shells on the both of them. Like a bored old housewife pouring boiling water onto a couple of fighting alley cats.
“Well, a few weeks ago the local Muslim commander’s doing his usual bit for the home side when he starts running low on artillery shells. So he gets on the radio and calls his mate on the next hill to ask for more. ‘Sorry, lads, we’re running low ourselves. Can’t spare you a single shot. Arms embargo and all that, you know.’
“So who should pipe up on the same frequency, because everybody’s using the same old Yugoslav army radios anyway, but our Serb friend up on the mountain. We’ll call him Slobo.
“‘If it’s shells you need, we’ve got all you’d ever want,’ General Slobo says. ”‘And at popular prices.’
“ ‘Great,’ General Mohamad says. ‘But what about delivery? The Croats are between you and us.’
“‘No problem,’ Slobo says. ‘My Croat friend, Commander Tomislav, can bring them right to your doorstep for a small commission, say, twenty-five percent of the ordnance.’ So they haggle for a while over price, set a time and place for delivery. Then they chat up the U.N. to arrange a temporary ‘ceasefire’ to allow for shipments of ‘humanitarian aid,’ and the whole thing goes off without a hitch. The U.N. people spend a whole day patting themselves on the back, then can’t understand why things go sour as soon as the last truck leaves. So there you go: enemy number-one arms enemy number-two with the help of enemy number-three, while greasing the palms of God knows how many generals, staff officers, subordinates and checkpoint trolls along the way. And all you people down here want to talk about is hatred, intolerance, and ‘woe is me.’ When the topic’s corruption, everyone clams up.”
Vlado had no answer for him. Nor did he doubt that Toby’s little story had been true. He’d heard much of the same sort of thing around here. So he decided to just sit. Toby would be bored soon enough.
Indeed he was. Sighing, he pulled a business card from his bag.
“If you should ever happen to change your mind, here’s my card. You can reach me at room four thirty-four of the Holiday Inn. You know the place, the big yellow dump on the front line with all the shell holes. But it’s the only room in town. Who knows, if you decide a week from now to talk, I might even be able to scrounge you a sack of sugar. A little palm greasing for the good guys for a change.”
And it was that parting message, Vlado supposed, that had left him with the bitter aftertaste, a hint of shame that had played at the edge of his thoughts for the rest of the day, like the vivid last image from a waking dream.
But coffee was coffee, and he savored another sip, cradling the cup in both hands for warmth as he gazed toward the soccer field. What was so embarrassing about a little ingenuity, he told himself. He sipped the gritty remains and glanced back outside. The gravediggers were waist-deep. He had perhaps another half hour before the snipers would be stirring, although he had a feeling it would be another slow day.
Some mornings he killed the extra time time by working on his growing army of model soldiers. They lay before him on a small workbench he’d set up in the kitchen, row upon row of dash and color. It was a hobby he’d taken up years ago, partly out of his bookish fascination with military history, only to immediately find it tedious, a headache of minor details. And when impatience turned his work sloppy he’d given it up, packing away dozens of unpainted lead men that he’d bought in an industrious burst of optimism.
Then the war came. His wife and daughter evacuated the city after the first two months of fighting, leaving in a dusty convoy of school buses on a warm May morning. Women, children and old men waved from every window to a forlorn audience of young and middle-aged men, forced by the army to stay behind. Other families spilled from the sides of stuffed panel trucks, their colorful scarves flapping in the breeze that dried their tears.
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