THE HEART OF DANGER (21 page)

waist of one of the wounded fighters, and she had the arm of another

of

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the fighters around her shoulder to give him support. It was near

enough for me to see. Not easily, but I saw ... I saw her hit. He

was

a big man, and he had a beard, long, dark. I saw that man hit her

and

she could not protect herself because she had the wounded fighters

to

help .. ." There was the noise of the Transit Centre around Penn.

Crying voices and the clattering of metal pots, the beating of

hammers,

and the wail of radios. The name of the woman was Alija. Her eyes

watered, but he had the feeling it was from medical drops and not

tears. He thought she was a flotsam of war, that she would be far

down

any list of patients requiring a cataract operation. She held a

ragged

handkerchief in her hands and pulled and tugged at the edges. He

heard

the hoarseness of his voice, as if his throat was blocked. "What

happened to her, what happened to Dorrie Mowat?" She shrugged. She looked away. She murmured. She shrugged again. Jovic said, "She

has

told you all she knows. The women who had been in the church, they

were taken away. She does not know anything more." Penn stood. It was a reflex, done without thinking. He bent forward and he took

the

head of the woman in his hands and he kissed her forehead. The hands

that had held the handkerchief were dug now into the material of his

blazer. She was gabbling at him. There was the foulness of her breath

close to his nose, and the smell of her clothes. He thought he might

vomit and he dragged her fingers clear. "The women who were with

me,

they said she was so brave. The women said she was an angel ... It

was

what they said .. ." He was away from his chair. He reeled, as if drunk, from the room with the damp peeled plaster. He was out in

the

corridor. He leaned against the wall of the corridor. There was the

grin, sardonic, cold, from Jovic. It had been Jovic's style to hire

a

car and have him drive, without explanation, down the wide road from

Zagreb to Karlovac, and to direct him to the Transit Centre where

the

Muslim refugees waited for onward passage to the safe havens and the

new lives in 'civilized' Europe. Jovic, he thought, played him like

a

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marionette. Jovic said, "Good stuff, yes? Good stuff for your

report,

yes?" Penn snarled, "Just shut your bloody mouth." Doubt crawled in

Penn. He thought himself so insignificant. Once, two and a half

years

back, maybe three, he had been shuffled for a morning to a ministry

to

do a positive vetting on an architect who would be working on R.A.F

station bunkers, and the architect had been in a wheelchair and so

damned cheerful. The architect had said that the best thing about

spending time in Stoke Mandeville spinal unit was getting to know

that

however bad his situation was there was always someone, in the next

bed, who had it worse .. . Penn was the little bureaucrat, the little

man whining about a job and a mortgage and a marriage. He thought

of

the scale where his problems stacked against those of the woman, Alija

.. . Penn thought of what Dorrie had done, and how she had achieved

love. The feeling of insignificance, it hurt. The German woman was in

the doorway of the room. She smiled, friendly, at him. She was

slightly built and her face was washed clean and there were sharp

lines

of tiredness at her eyes. The German woman had led him and Jovic

to

the room where they had found Alija. "Right, Mr. Penn, now I will show you around the Transit Centre He was like all the others who

came

from abroad. He was like the men from the national delegations of

the

Red Cross and like the television crews. She was sure the place

frightened him, the place that was her kingdom. They were all the

same, the ignorant, they wanted to be gone before it was decent to

leave. There was a wedding ring on his finger. He would have a wife at home, probably a child. He would live in a home that was small,

safe, protected, just as were the homes in Munich. She did not think

it right to make it easy for them. '.. . Show you round the Transit Centre so that you can see our work here." "So sorry, but I don't think I've the time." "Always best to find time, Mr. Penn. Too easy

to ignore if we don't find the time."

"I should be away .. ." She thought that he looked a decent man.

She

said briskly, "Won't take all day, Mr. Penn. There are 2,400 people 118

here, Mr. Penn, and they have nothing, not even hope. It is

important

that I take visitors around the Transit Centre so that they are seen.

Every visitor who is seen tells the people here that someone from

outside has bothered to make the journey to visit them. It is a very

little thing for you, Mr. Penn, an hour of your time, but it shows

these people that you have an interest in them. If you lived here,

Mr.

Penn, you would be pleased to know that people from abroad showed

an

interest."

"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 the 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.

119

"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 get 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, 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

120

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. "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,

forced him to stumble to the side of the road where the weeds grew.

121

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