Dan Fesperman: Lie in the Dark

Twice during the next few minutes he heard the rumble and scrape of trucks grinding their gears uphill, but the sound seemed to be coming from back across the river. It surprised him how close they sounded. He felt as if he had traveled hundreds of miles, yet an unimpeded walk would put him on his own doorstep in less than half an hour.

As he rounded the last corner, he saw the house he was looking for, recognizing it instantly from its gables, its roof line, and, as he drew closer, from the mullioned windows on its upper floors, two of which seemed to have survived. In the dark he could not tell how extensively the place was damaged. Thus, it still seemed an imposing example of the empire architecture left behind by the Austrians in the nineteenth century.

Vlado was pleasantly surprised to see a dim light from behind a second-story window. He knocked at the front door and waited, then tried a second time, still with no answer. He tried the knob and the door was unlocked. He stepped inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.

It was surprisingly warm, though he shivered involuntarily, partly in relief and partly in sudden exhaustion. Unmistakable in the air was the smell of recent cooking. Fried meat, he guessed, and his mouth watered. From around the corner he heard the crackling of a fire, which cast an orange glow across an Oriental rug in the room before him. He also heard the steady ticking of a clock.

From upstairs, a floorboard creaked. He looked up the stairwell and a glow appeared, then brightened, gliding like a foxfire. It was a lantern, and he expected to soon be confronted by the wary face of some refugee, some newcomer sheltering in the home through the war who would have plenty of questions to ask, who might be alarmed enough by Vlado’s appearance-for surely by now he looked horrendous-to call for the authorities, or to ask for identity papers.

But instead the face, like the house, was instantly recognizable, even though now it was deeply lined. Her hair had gone white and wispy, tied back now in a bun with a girlish pink ribbon. She wore a long, white flannel dressing gown, much like the ones his own mother used to wear. And for some reason she seemed neither surprised nor alarmed to see him, despite the sight he must have made, not to mention the smell, as he stood there dripping in her doorway. In fact, she seemed almost glad to see him.

“Good evening, Mrs. Vitas,” he said.

She paused, as if the voice hadn’t been what she’d expected. “Esmir?” she said. “Is that you, son?”

Before Vlado could speak she supplied her own answer.

“But of course it’s you. You’re late, Esmir, and wet. Come in and warm yourself by the fire.” She continued down the steps.

“No. I’m sorry, it’s not Esmir. I’m Vlado Petric, an old friend of his.” He added, a bit sheepishly, “From school days.”

Her expression didn’t change. She moved within a foot of him, holding the lantern into his face with one hand while reaching to lightly stroke his brow with the other. She smoothed his wet forelocks back into place. Only then did her vacant smile fade, a look of concern knitting her brow.

“You’re right,” she said wearily, as if forced to concede a point in a debate. “It isn’t Esmir. I’m sorry.” As if it had been her fault. “I had thought not, really. But you have seen him? You have come from him?”

He decided then he would not be the one to bear the bad news. For all he knew she might never learn of her son’s death until after the war. Although she had genuinely seemed to expect him to appear, which could either mean that she was deluded and out of touch, or that he indeed had visited from time to time, through whatever channels of influence.

“Yes, I have seen him.”

“And he is fine?”

Once more Vlado had a chance to set her straight, and if he had believed he was dealing with a sound and rational mind he might have found a way to gently let her know. But her demeanor seemed to indicate the opposite. He was also thrown by the home’s surreal comforts, its heat and light, its smell of a good meal. Everything, the furnishings as well, suggested a world that had been sealed years ago, well before the war.

As she spoke he registered the same odd sensation he’d felt during his school days, when he’d come by to pick up his knapsack after the field trip to the mountains.

“Yes, he is safe,” Vlado answered.

“He had said he would be.”

“And you see him often?”

“Oh, yes, every month. He would come more often, of course, but he is so busy. He is important, you know, an important man in the city.”

No mention of the war, or of anything else out of the ordinary. Vlado wondered what, if anything, she knew of the goings-on outside her door other than the booms and roars that occasionally shook her home.

“And you have come from him? You are one of his people?” she asked, still connecting everything to the world that revolved around her son. “He has sent you with firewood? Or food?”

That explained the comforts of the home. So here was how Vitas had exerted his influence. Not for his own enrichment, apparently, considering the sparseness of his apartment, but for his mother. Keeping her supplied from across the river had been a trick, and probably hadn’t come cheaply. It explained the unfinished letter to his mother that Vlado had fished out of Vitas’s trash can. It also explained the cover story that Vitas had circulated. It would have been far easier to keep the lines of supply open, and secret, if everyone thought she was dead. It could also explain how he might have been able to burrow his way deeper into the maze of the art scheme. Anyone with enough connections to this half of the city to keep a house heated and fed would also have the means of tapping into the smugglers’ grapevine. In fact, as Vitas’s death had shown, he may have ended up feeling safer on this side of the river than he did on his “own” side, a feeling Vlado momentarily knew all too well.

That thought gave Vlado an idea, but he knew he’d have to proceed with tact if he was to act on it. It would require some careful lying to a vulnerable old woman, a thought that didn’t sit comfortably.

“Yes,” he said, finally answering her question. “Esmir has sent me. Only this time I have no firewood, no food. I was only to come check on you, and on the house. To see if you needed any repairs.”

“You’re wet,” she said, as if noticing for the first time. He was far more than wet. He was muddy and unshaven, stinking of the river and the storm drains. As she steered him by a mirror on their way to the living room he had been shocked by his appearance, and the fact his looks hadn’t sent her screaming back up the stairway told him more about her detached state of mind. Everyone but her son, he supposed, ended up cast in the same nondescript mold as far as she was concerned.

“Esmir takes care of me,” she said in a cheery singsong as she seated Vlado on the couch. He cringed as he lowered his soaked pants onto the fine old upholstery, though he also couldn’t help but notice the thick dust. The housekeeping was apparently still left to her, with predictable results.

“He tells me it is unsafe for me to go outside of the house. Criminals, shooting and robbing. He says there are a lot of them. So I am not to go into the streets, and he sends everything I need.” All was spoken with a note of motherly pride, as if she might be describing her boy’s good manners.

“I’ll make some tea for us, then,” she said. “Esmir always has tea first.” And she rose, gliding toward the kitchen. The ticking clock on the mantle said it was 11:30, and already you could hear the preliminaries racketing into motion, the rattling of machine-gun fire and a few mortar rounds, thumping and soaring. She seemed not to notice, nor did she seem fazed by the idea of a visitor at such a late hour. And with a pang he realized he might well be her last visitor of any sort for quite some time. Forever, even.