Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“In Zagreb, perhaps?”

“Not there, either.”

“I see,” he said patiently. “In Belgrade, then.”

“I didn’t get to Belgrade. Or Sarajevo. Or the Dalmatian Coast. Which is a pity, as I believe the beaches are very nice there at this time of year. I could probably use a holiday.”

“You’re not telling me very much.”

“I certainly didn’t intend to.”

“My wife hadn’t told me your manners were so bad.”

“You’d best take that up with her, not me.”

“I don’t suppose I should be all that surprised. You Germans are not known for your courtesy.”

“Being a member of the master race has some social disadvantages, it’s true. But you can take my word for it, Dr. Obrenovic, I’m just as rude in Germany as I am in Switzerland. I get plenty of complaints from my superiors. I could paper my walls with them. But if you’d just come all the way from Zurich to Berlin, I might at least offer you a cup of coffee.”

“Help yourself,” he said, and stepped away from the tray.

I didn’t move except to turn the hat in my hands.

“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“Might I ask why?”

“What I have to say is between me and your wife. I don’t know you from the Swiss prime minister.”

He frowned. “I thought you wanted some coffee.”

“No. That’s not what I said, Doctor. I had coffee at the hotel. It was the offer I was keener on.”

“Well, I must say — I’m not accustomed to being spoken to in this way. Especially in my own house.”

I shrugged. “I can wait in the car if you’d prefer.”

“Yes, I think that might be best.”

I stalked back to the door and, followed by one of the dogs, went outside. I didn’t much care if it got out of the house. It wasn’t my dog. I lit a cigarette and sat on the shiny bonnet of the car, hardly caring if I marked the new paintwork. It wasn’t my car. The morning was already a warm one; I threw my jacket into the backseat of the Mercedes next to the flask of homemade rakija I’d brought as a present for Dalia from Bosnia, and tossed some stones into an ornamental pond that was full of koi carp. It wasn’t my pond. I waited awhile and when the big door opened again, I flicked the cigarette into the garden. It wasn’t my garden. Dalia walked toward me and stood silently in front of the front passenger door. She wasn’t my wife but I could certainly have wished she had been instead of the one I already had back in Berlin. Her golden hair was collected in a little bun at the back of her head and this added a regal touch to her Nefertiti neck, although that might as easily have been the sapphire-and-diamond necklace that was wrapped around it. She was wearing a navy blue dress; I might have said a plain navy blue dress except for the fact that nothing that was worn by the lady from Zagreb could ever have looked plain. She smiled a slight, rueful smile and then put her hand on the door handle of the car.

“Are we going somewhere?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Now that you’ve been banished from the house, I thought we could just sit in the car and talk awhile.”

I opened the door and she got in. I went around to the other side.

“Well, this is cozy,” I said, closing the door behind me.

“Shut up and give me a cigarette.”

I lit her and she took a long hard drag on it.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I didn’t expect Stefan back home until tomorrow. He just turned up in the middle of the night.”

“I guessed as much.”

“What on earth did you say to him?”

“Not much.”

“He says you were rude.”

“Only because he’d been rude to me.”

“That doesn’t sound like Stefan. His manners are usually impeccable. I’ll say that for my husband.”

“Are they? I watched him pour himself a coffee without offering me a cup.”

“Ah, I see. So that’s it. You have to understand, Stefan is an aristocrat. He could no more serve you with his own hand than he could sweep the floor.”

“He answered the door, didn’t he?”

“I wondered who answered it. I thought it was Agnes, my maid. I gave Albert the day off. Because you were coming. I wanted us to be alone in the house. I’ve thought about nothing else since you called last night.”

“Albert?”

“The butler.”

“Of course. I generally answer the door myself when my own butler’s busy polishing the pewter, or fixing the dripping tap in my drafty garret.”

“You make it sound rather romantic.”

“My life in Berlin — it’s La Bohème , right enough. Right down to the cough and the frozen hands in winter.”

“All the same, I wish we were there right now, Bernie. Naked. In bed.”

“My hotel room at the Baur au Lac’s not much to look at. But it’s still bigger than my apartment. The bathroom’s bigger than my apartment. We could go there now, if you like. The front desk will very likely report us to the Swiss police but I think I can survive the scandal. In fact, I think I might rather enjoy that, as well.”

“I will come,” she said. “But it will have to be this afternoon. Around two o’clock?”

“I certainly can’t think of anything else I’d rather do in Zurich.”

“Only this time I’d like you to take more than twice as long doing what you did to me the last time we were in bed. Or, as an alternative, you could do something you’ve never done before. To any woman. You understand? You could do something you’ve only ever dreamed of, perhaps. In your wildest dreams. Just as long as you can make me feel like a woman is supposed to feel when a man makes love to her.”

“I’d like that. And two o’clock sounds good. But there’s something I have to tell you first, Dalia. It’s about your father.”

“Oh dear, I’d guessed it wasn’t going to be good news when Stefan told me you wouldn’t tell him about Papa.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m more or less certain that your father is dead.”

I would have felt a lot more guilty about this egregious lie if Dalia’s father hadn’t been such a monster. Nonetheless I did feel guilty.

“Oh. I see. You went there? In person? To the monastery in Banja Luka?”

“Mm-hmm. By car. All the way from Zagreb, which is a journey I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. I spent several hours in the monastery, having dinner with the monks. The Father Abbot told me that your father had left the monastery and joined the Ustaše. I’m afraid I got the impression that the Father Abbot strongly disapproved of your father, Dalia. Maybe because he left the Franciscan order, but more likely because of some of the things that the Ustaše has done. Like all civil wars, I think some cruel things have been done on both sides. After that, I went to the Ustaše headquarters in Banja Luka and it was there I learned that Father Ladislaus was now called Colonel Dragan and a bit of a local hero; and then, that he was dead. Killed by communist partisans in a skirmish in the Zelengora Mountains. This was later confirmed in Zagreb. Things are pretty rough right now in Croatia and Bosnia, what with the war and everything. I saw several people killed while I was there. The men I was traveling with — ethnic Germans in the SS — they were a bit trigger-happy. You know, the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later type. It’s chaos, quite frankly, and getting accurate information is hazardous. But I’m as certain as I can be that he’s dead. And I’m sorry.”

“That must have been horrible for you, Bernie. I’m sorry. But I’m grateful, too. Very grateful. It sounds like it was dangerous.”

I shrugged. “A certain amount of danger is part of the job.”