Dan Fesperman - Lie in the Dark

“And you hadn’t been expecting him?”

“No more than I was expecting you. Phone’s dead so he couldn’t have called. He’d gotten my name in town and came looking, or so he said. He wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“A great many things, as it turned out. He was here a few hours. And he got right to the point, as I assume you will.”

“Maybe we could start just by going over your conversation with him, as much of it as you can remember. Even the parts you don’t think are particularly interesting, if you don’t mind. Because the things that seem meaningless to you might be of great value for me.”

“Yes, I thought you’d say as much. It’s exactly what Vitas said,” and with this Glavas burst into a hoarse wheezing laugh that quickly melted into a coughing jag. It took a full minute for the hacking to subside.

“He’d brought a card with him,” Glavas said. “And he wanted to ask me about it. A 3-by-5 index card with my name and signature on it and a small red circle in the upper-right-hand corner. A card from the inventory files of the National Museum. You’re familiar with the place?”

“Yes, right on the river. Saved, just barely.”

“Saved, indeed. By our valiant militia, our thugs in green camouflage. Art lovers, every one, I’m sure. Raging against the philistine Serbs in their enlightened, selfless struggle. But that is another story. So Vitas showed me this card, pulls it out of his coat pocket with a flourish, as if he’d brought me the Hope diamond. Then he looked me straight in the eye, just as you’re doing now, and he said, ‘Can you tell me the significance of this?’

“And I said, ‘Indeed I can, for hours on end, Mr. Vitas, hours on end. Only I’m not sure you’ll care to hear the whole story,’-which is when he told me what you’ve just said. Tell him everything, no matter how insignificant. Let him sort out what was important. Just keep talking until nothing was left to tell. Then he offered me a cigarette from a fresh pack. Marlboros, in fact, which I don’t suppose you’d happen to have?”

“No. Only Drinas. But I do have a fresh pack.”

Glavas curled a hand out from his coat, waiting as Vlado tore open the flimsy paper. He grabbed the first cigarette greedily, an expression of relief unfolding on his face as Vlado leaned forward with his lighter. Glavas sank back on the couch, sucking in the first draught of smoke just in time to smother a rising cough. A wide grin spread across his face. “There,” he said. “Much better. Even with Drinas.”

He inhaled a second time just as deeply while Vlado waited, then exhaled a long, luxurious plume of smoke before resuming, half a beat slower than before.

“So, then, Vitas lit my cigarette, the first of many, so I hope you’ve brought more than one pack. Then he said, ‘Well, why don’t you just tell me what you know about the card, and when you’re finished we’ll go back over some of the things I’m interested in.’ I told him this could literally take hours, because that card had a history going back a half a century, and the fact he was in possession of it told me its history was perhaps still being revised.

“ ‘Oh don’t worry about that, Mr. Glavas,’ he said, in a most gentlemanly way. He was like a fine young nephew who’d dropped by for tea. Quite pleasant in his way. Put me completely off guard. ‘I am a very patient man,’ he said, ‘and by the sound of things neither of us will be going anywhere anytime soon.’ For you see, the shelling was still making quite a ruckus. I was surprised he’d come at all, much less arrived in one piece with such an unflappable air. And you say now he’s been murdered. You’re certain of that.”

“I’m afraid so. Saw the body myself.”

“Ah, a shame.” Glavas shook his head, tapping his cigarette against the arm of the couch, then brushing away some spilled ash with the quick flicking motions of a fastidious man. He leaned back to savor another slow draw on the cigarette.

“Might I ask how it was done?” Glavas asked. “The murder, I mean.”

“Shot through the head. Down by the river at night. Most likely so it would look like he was a sniper victim.”

He seemed to consider this a few moments, then grunted, as having made up his mind to get on with it.

“Well then, so where was I?”

“The index card, the one with the red dot. You said Vitas had one.”

“Yes, it came from what is known as the transfer file, a very important but little-known part of ‘our cultural heritage,’ as the art bureaucrats like to call it. I told Mr. Vitas that I was very surprised to see that he had the card at all, and he merely smiled and said nothing. So I proceeded to tell him all that I knew of that card, and of hundreds of others like it, and I suppose you’d like a repeat performance, even though you have only Drinas, not Marlboros, and most likely you haven’t got any coffee with you, either.”

“Not a grain.” Vlado smiled.

“No. I should think not. And I have no hot water anyway, although I suppose I could have imposed on one of my lovely neighbors by offering a spoonful of Nescafe in exchange. But you have none, so …”

Then, with great effort, Glavas took as deep a breath as his wheezing lungs would permit, as if steeling himself for a dive into deep water. He looked down at his hands, as if he might have been holding the very card that Vitas had brought that day. And he began his story.

“The card is all about art, you see,” Glavas said. “Fine works of art.”

Vlado felt a twinge of worry. So would this be the essence of the secret Vitas had died for? Some paintings from the museum? A bit of culture wrenched from a wall?

“Ah,” Glavas said. “I see that I bore you already. Not even interested enough to take notes.”

Vlado realized with a flush that he had put his pen down.

“Was I that obvious?” he asked. “I guess I had hoped that it might be something more. More than a few cases of liquor or cigarettes, or a few sides of mutton. And I’m sorry, but a few pictures strike me as an even less inspiring reason for getting yourself killed with a war on. Assuming that that’s where this might lead, of course. Meat, at least, you can eat.”

“Yes, meat,” Glavas said. “That and alcohol and gasoline and cigarettes can make you rich on the black market. Over time. And with a great deal of competition to worry about. But with a mere few pictures, as you put it, you can make yourself wealthy almost overnight. A millionaire, several times over, if you make the right choices. Even with the meager offerings of this town.

“And in the process, you can begin the destruction of an entire culture. Either one of those things alone, Mr. Petric, would seem reason enough for killing someone in this climate of looting and genocide, wouldn’t you agree? After all, what could be more calming to one’s conscience, being able to boast that you were destroying a nation’s emotional heritage even as you were lining your own pockets with a fortune to last a lifetime.”

“I guess if you look at it that way, it does seem a little closer to the heart of things.” Vlado pulled his own cigarette from the pack of Drinas that lay between them.

“And in the case of the transfer file, or these cards with the red circle on them,” Glavas said, “we’re not only talking of paintings, but also of manuscripts, sculptures, icons from the churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. Even a few old Jewish relics that the Communists managed to lay their hands on. A few old coins here and there, and some swords, vases, nice old boxes, that sort of thing. And each piece, or at least each piece of art in the ‘transfer file’ has ended up in the museum’s inventory files with a little red circle in the upper right corner, and my name on the bottom. And if you care to explore further, you’ll find that each of these cards tells its own tale of the way art moves and migrates, comes and goes, hither and yon, depending on the fortunes of war, the greed of bureaucrats, the cunning of politicians, and the whims of fate. Because, make no mistake, Mr. Petric, in every tale of war there is always a tale of art on the move, of one culture trying to steal the soul of another, whether in the name of booty or under the gentling guise of ‘preservation.’