Dan Fesperman: Lie in the Dark

It was a U.N. shipping form, cleared for transit to Frankfurt, addressed to the care of a Branko Jusic, doubtless their expatriated connection with his own ties to the shadowy edges of the art market, their dealer to the rest of the world. The Frankfurt destination meant it had a place on the American cargo flight that flew first thing every morning, four hours direct from Sarajevo to Frankfurt, local conditions permitting.

At the bottom of the invoice was the authorization signature, and it was no surprise to see that the order had come straight from the top: Col. Maurice Chevard, the signature a bit reckless, with a typical French overdose of dash and style. Vlado peeled off the form and placed it on the floor next to the candle.

He flipped again through the file drawers, and as he did so, the Orthodox New Year began. It was midnight. In a few moments the bombardment was proceeding in earnest. He paused for a moment to listen. It must be quite a sight, he thought, the red tracers arching into the night, the shellbursts that looked pretty as long as you didn’t bother to consider what happened afterward. He wondered for a moment what Mrs. Vitas must be doing upstairs, what she must make of all this. There was no movement on the floorboards, and he imagined her sitting placidly by the fire, its lights dancing in her vacant eyes. He pictured Vitas himself seated on the couch, all those visits with their tea and idle chat, probably mostly about schooldays, with no talk of war or death. Or, more likely, Vitas himself had never come at all, had only sent supplies and these items in the basement via trusted intermediaries. Trusted only because they were well paid.

Vitas himself might have appeared only in the form of a letter, a note on one of those sheets of cream-colored bond. But in his mother’s mind, that had been enough, as good as a visit.

Vlado thumbed through the cards, finding that many had been roughly check-marked, perhaps denoting the items that had already been shipped. By rough calculation, totaling the assessed value for each such item, he figured that about eight million dollars worth of art must have been moved by now. Even accounting for the cut rates of the black market in stolen art, it was a lucrative venture, and, from the number of unchecked cards, was still continuing, courtesy of Markovic’s own list, probably at a brisker pace than ever considering the approaching UNESCO deadline. He wondered what Murovic would think when he began to find all of his precious pieces missing, if he’d feel at all betrayed by his old pals.

As he looked again at the crate, he pondered the magnitude of what Vitas had accomplished. He must have moved heaven and earth to get these out of the ministry’s property room and across the river. He must have known as soon as he’d seen the items at Zarko’s headquarters exactly what they signified. For all Vlado knew, that might even have been what precipitated the raid. No wonder Kasic had done all he could to ensure that Zarko would be silenced. It would have solved his problem even as he enlarged his own cut of the profits. He’d then managed to rub out most of the paper trail that connected him to the deed, though he’d trusted too greatly in a small bit of correction fluid.

Vitas’s only miscalculation had been concerning his own safety, and now his mother would pay the price as well.

Vlado found nothing further in his search of the room. He used rolls of U.N. tape and plastic, left by whoever had covered the broken windows, to bundle up about fifty of the cards from the file box, taking care to include several that had been check-marked and some that hadn’t. He also wrapped the invoice, taping both bundles several times to ensure they’d stay waterproof, then stuffed them into his satchel before covering it, too, with tape and plastic.

Then he headed back up the steps, blowing out the candle as he reemerged into the light at the top.

She was still seated on the couch, fully awake. But now she looked at him in a slightly different way, as if pleasantly surprised to see anyone at all emerging from her cellar.

“I know you,” she said suddenly. “You’re Vlado. You’ve forgotten your knapsack. You left it at our place in the mountains last night. Husayn speaks of you often,” she said.

It was the name of Esmir’s younger brother, killed a year ago.

“He is a good friend of yours, isn’t he?” she said.

“Yes, he is.”

“When you see him, tell him to come home,” she said, in a tone more admonishing than pleading. “It is time for him to come home.” Her expression became stern, that of a mother scolding her boys as they strolled up toward the front steps, long overdue for dinner.

“Esmir too,” she said. “It is time for both of my boys to come home.”

“Yes,” Vlado said again, at a loss for any other words. He’d hoped to make his way up to Esmir’s old room, to rummage around for some dry clothes, but he saw now it would be best just to leave. He’d make do with what he had.

“I’d better go now, then,” he said, “if I’m to see your sons.”

“Yes,” she said in a drifting tone. “We’ll look for your knapsack later. But would you like some tea first? Esmir always has tea first.”

“No. I’m afraid I have to go now.”

He edged toward the door, half expecting her to try to stop him, or to implore him to go and find her sons immediately. He feared she would cry. But her expression was as blank as when she’d first laid eyes on him.

“Esmir wanted me to tell you one more thing,” Vlado said. “He said that it is safer now outside, but only early in the mornings, and that tomorrow morning he would like you to go and see your neighbors, to get in touch with your friends again. To let them know you are all right.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “My friends. Yes. I’ll have them over.”

Vlado wasn’t certain if such people even existed anymore, except in her own imagination.

“You must ask them for food, or firewood, if you run low,” Vlado said. “Esmir may not be able to provide any for a while.”

“My son provides all of that. He’s an important boy at his school. You know him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Vlado said. “Yes, I know him.”

He opened the door, glancing quickly in both directions to make sure no one was in the streets. A few shots still spattered in the hills, but the whole block seemed empty. Not a single light was on except in this house. He turned to say good-bye.

“Thank you for everything,” he said, but she seemed not to have heard him.

“Tell them to come soon,” she said, scolding now. “Tell my boys.”

He backed down the steps and strolled away, heading in the direction he’d come from. He looked back only once, just in time to see her shutting the door, a smile of satisfaction on her face.

The only way back was the way he’d come, so Vlado set out for the sewer grate four blocks away, keeping to the edge of the streets and trying to walk lightly, although by now he felt almost invisible, indestructible.

Those feelings vanished a block short of his destination, when a voice called to him from behind.

“Halt! Military police. Please be prepared to show your identification papers. You are in violation of the curfew.”

Heavy shoes clopped toward him, and Vlado turned to see the vague outline of a man far up the block. He hadn’t even heard the policeman, and Vlado cursed his carelessness. He debated whether to try to brazen it out, to state indignantly that he, too, was a policeman, then flash his badge in hopes this fellow wouldn’t notice the distinctive blue-and-white seal of Bosnia-Herzegovina, or the absence of the double-headed eagle that the Serbs used on all their official papers.