THE HEART OF DANGER (62 page)

climb, and the gold would have gone from the great Mother, replaced

by

silver.

The pistol was aimed at her.

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The man was crouched down beside the tree and he held the pistol,

aimed

at her, with his arms extended. The woman stood beside the man and

held the knife against Milan's beard, against his throat. She

stopped,

and she took the weight of the dog and the farm twine tied to the

dog's

collar cut at the palm of her hand. She stopped, and she clutched

the

rusted bayonet.

The pistol was aimed at her across the width of the track that divided

them.

She said it in the man's language, deliberate. "Let him go .. ."

Evica had come fast, closed the last gap, run noisily through the

final

metres, and she had blundered from the cover of a corner of evergreen

holly. They would have heard her come the final metres, but they

would

only have seen her when she broke the cover of the holly. The dog

strained to cross the track.

The aim of the pistol wavered.

"Let him come to me .. ." Penn blinked at her across the track and she

saw the raw tiredness of his eyes that tried to lock along the barrel

length of the pistol. It was as if the birds had gone, fled the place,

because the silence crawled around her. There were scars on his

face.

He was the man who had come into her life, the man who would destroy

them. The weight of the dog cut the farm twine across the palm of

her

hand. If she let go of the twine, if she released the dog, then the

dog, going forward, forty kilos weight, would overwhelm the man,

Penn,

with exhaustion in his eyes ... if she let go of the twine. "Let

him

be free .. ." She looked away from the man, Penn, away from the muzzle of the pistol. The woman's hand did not move. The man, Penn,

whispered to the woman, as if he placed and identified her. The knife

was steady against the hair of Milan's beard, against his throat.

She

saw the chilled certainty in the woman's face, as if tiredness had

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not

washed it clear. The knife was sharp and clean. Evica had seen

before

such chilled certainty, seen it on the faces of the men as they had

gone away across the bridge early on the last day of the battle for

Rosenovici, and she had heard later that day, and not looked from

her

window, the rumble of the bulldozer in the field across the stream,

and

heard the final shots. And she had seen the chilling certainty on

the

faces of the men who had gone to the headquarters to take the

Headmaster from his cell .. . She knew, in her exhaustion, that the

dog

could take the man, Penn, even if he fired, even if he hit. She knew, in the anguish of her mind, that if she loosed the dog then the woman,

determined, cold, would gouge the blade of the sharp clean knife deep

into the throat of Milan, would not hesitate because it was in the

certainty of the woman's face. "Please, you should let him come to me

.. ." There was a wetness on the face of Milan, and she could see

where the tears had run from his eyes and across the dirtied skin

of

his cheeks, and gone to the matt of his beard. And Evica saw the

fear

in Milan's eyes, as if he too knew the certainty of the woman, "I

beg

of you, let me take him home .. ." The man gazed at her, dulled.

She

remembered, a long time ago, many years, when she had gone with the

beaters and the dogs to flush a boar, a long hard run and chase and

they had found the boar against a rock outcrop that it could not climb,

and it had turned to face the leashed dogs and the guns, and she had

seen the dulled eyes of the boar. The man with the pistol did not

have

the cold certainty of the woman who held the knife so steady against

Milan's beard and throat. But it was not the man who spoke. She

had a

clipped voice, controlled. "What was done at Rosenovici was a crime.

What has been done through former Yugoslavia is a crime. At stake

is

the rule of law .. . What we do is small, because we are only small

people, but it is necessary to find a point for a beginning. You

are

the wife of Milan Stankovic, you know what he did. After the flag

of

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surrender, he took the wounded from Rosenovici, and he had a grave

dug,

and he butchered those wounded .. . You are his wife, you know what

he

did, you know the scale of his evil .. . And with the wounded was

a

young woman .. ." The young woman, the girl, coming to the school

at

Evica's invitation, speaking English that Evica might improve her

language, coming in torn jeans and sweaters that were holed at the

elbow, sitting with the fun laughter bubbling in her ... dead and

buried. "The crime of the young woman was that she stayed when others ran. She stayed with those who were wounded. She gave them help

and

love. Your husband made the chain. The chain is from the young

woman

to her mother, to Penn, to your village, to your husband. He made

the

chain when he killed that young woman .. . We do what small people,

Mrs. Stankovic, have always done through history, we make a

beginning.

And the law, Mrs. Stankovic, belongs to small people, and I am small

and Penn is small, and the law belongs to us. We cannot give him

back

to you and to your child because the rule of law, without which we

all

fall, demands that your husband be brought to account .. ." Evica

thought the woman was without mercy. The fingers that clasped the

knife against Milan's beard had no gold wedding ring. She could see

the tight waist of the woman behind her opened coat and there was

not

the slackness at her stomach of childbirth. Evica thought the woman

was without love. "That night, when he came back from Rosenovici,

did

he tell you what he had done? Did you hold him, and tell him that

it

did not matter? Did you cuddle him, and tell him he was without guilt

.. . ? Or did you feel shame, Mrs. Stankovic, did you feel that

when

he lay beside you he dirtied you. You should go home, you should

go

home to your son and tell the child that his father is a murderer,

and

you should tell the child that the rule of law demands his father's

punishment .. ." She looked into her husband's face. She

remembered

371

the night. She remembered how she had lain awake, how she had pushed

him away from her, how he had slept and she had not, how he had cried

out twice but not woken, how he had once thrashed with his arms as

if

to beat away a nightmare, and how in the first light of the morning

she

had stood at the window of their bedroom and looked across the fields,

across the stream, and seen the smoke rising from the buildings and

seen the grey-black scar in the corner of the field. Penn said, "He has nothing to fear from me. It will not be as it was for Dorrie

Mowat

.. ." She let the bayonet fall from her hand. '.. . I protect my

prisoner with my life." She turned away. Evica pulled the dog,

reluctant, after her. She twisted her back on her husband. The dusk

was falling on the woodland. She could not answer the argument of

the

woman. She could not fault the promise of the man. She heard them

moving, first loud and then fainter. Evica never looked back, never

turned to see her husband taken as a prisoner towards the Kupa river.

He turned the pages. Perhaps it had been stupid of him to ask for

the

books. He leafed through photographs in expensive colour that

showed

children in national costume, and wedding dances, and the archaeology

of the national heritage, and Roman amphitheatres, and the beauty

of

polyptych work from churches. Henry Carter thought it an obscenity

that a nation of such age-old talent should have stooped to such

far-down barbarity .. . God, and since when had he been qualified

to

criticize? He leafed the pages, searched patiently. There was an

aerial view, across two pages, of the old quarter of Karlovac, and

he

could make out clearly the former barracks built by Napoleon's

marshal

where the German woman had administered the Transit Centre.

The searching ended .. . It was a dreadful photograph, quite

unsuitable

for his purpose, but it was what he must make do with. The photograph

showed in foreground the tables and chairs laid out on the patio of

that city's principal hotel, in bright summer, with lolling and

burned

holiday-makers under gaudy sunshades. Beyond the patio, glared by

the

sun, was a pedestrian road and then there was the bank of the river.

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It

was what he had sought to find, a view of the Kupa river. The river

of

the photograph was low against high banks, wide but seemingly

harmless.

It could give him an idea, only a frail impression, of how the Kupa

river would be, at night, swollen by the winter, guarded by strong

points and minefields and patrols, approached by the German woman

and

the prisoner and Penn.

His eyes misted over.

Twenty.

They stood so still. His heart hammered and his chest heaved, and

he

tried to breathe through his nose because he thought that would be

more

quiet, and she had the bulk of Milan Stankovic pressed against him,

and

he hoped that she had the knife so hard against the man's throat,

that

the man would not dare to shout. The two shadow shapes were on the

track that ran above the farm with the outhouses. The shadow shapes

moved with care. They came within five stretched paces of where Penn

and Ulrike Schmidt and Milan Stankovic stood, so still. The moon

was

high enough, full enough, to throw fierce light onto the openness

of

the track they used. Penn could see that the shadow shape leading

wore

metal rank pips on his shoulder epaulettes, and the shadow shape who

followed was carrying, tensed and readied, an assault rifle. It was

where it could end, and the worst had not yet begun .. . Milan

Stankovic might not believe him, but would believe Ulrike. Milan

Stankovic knew from her cold certainty that if he made a sound, the

smallest sound, then the knife would be driven into the softness of

his

throat .. . She could try to make him cruel enough and she would not

succeed .. . The shadow shapes moved away. He reached back with his

hand, and his fingers found hers. He did not twist his neck so that

he

could see her, because he feared that the material of his camouflage

tunic would rustle or grate. His fingers found her body. They held a

373

pinch of flesh at the flatness of her waist, and he squeezed the pinch

with his fingers, hard so that he would hurt her, so that he would

make

her concentrate, and the moment before he took the first step he

pulled

at the pinch as the signal that she should follow him. They went

onto

the path, onto the fallen leaves and the wetness of the mud. They

followed the shadow shapes that were ahead of them.

There was a low whistle. The whistle was like the warning cry of

a

young owl, from his childhood when he had gone at night to the

twenty-acre plantation. There was an answering call from the mature

owl that located its position. They followed the shadow shapes that

led them towards the Kupa river. He attempted all the time to keep

the

shadow shapes at the edge of his vision as they meandered along the

track. It was a bastard .. . The whistle, the answering night call,

and when he strained to hear in the close quiet of the forest there

were softly spoken voices, murmurs in the trees, it was the

identification of an ambush position .. . Penn understood ... an

officer and his escort moving to inspect the ambush positions that

he

had designated. Penn understood that it was necessary for the

officer

to whistle ahead so that the troops, lying up and cold and with their

nerves stretched, would call back, would not blast at the shadow

shapes

approaching them.

It was their chance, he saw it.

He led Ulrike and Milan Stankovic wide of the track each time that

the

officer whistled, the owl's sound, and each time the call was

returned,

and each time that there was the brief whisper murmur of the voices.

It was the opportunity, he must take it.

The shadow shapes of the officer and his escort took them through

the

network of the ambush positions. Four times they heard the whistle,

the response call and the short whisper of voices, four times they

were