Dan Fesperman: Lie in the Dark

“You’re supposed to say he’d never let me go because I’m indispensable, Vlado. Because the department would fall apart without me.”

“As if that would be a tragedy. Besides, why bother sending you to the front when he can make your life miserable down here.”

“That’s for sure, the bastard.”

Two more policemen soon arrived to move the body back to Grebo’s lab. As Vlado and Grebo stepped from the apartment a low, deep thud echoed down from the hills to the north.

Grebo waved his right hand toward the sound. “Speaking of Zuc,” he said. “Busy as always, the poor bastards.”

By the time Vlado got back to the office, the gypsy woman was waiting at his desk with a policeman, just as Damir had promised, although he was nowhere to be seen.

The woman was short, petite, with delicate features and high cheek-bones. She’d obviously spent some time getting ready at her friend’s house, and her face was scrubbed and neatly made up, with bright lipstick carefully applied and her hair perfectly combed. She wore a smart brown skirt and tan blouse. After-murder wear, Vlado thought.

The interview went predictably. She said her husband was a brute, always drinking and gambling. He also dodged army conscription, she mentioned, her eyes flashing with a desperate stab at patriotism. Most people assumed that any official of the new government was swept up in the cause for Bosnian nationalism, and Vlado let them think it, finding it sometimes gave him leverage.

The woman continued. Her husband could’ve worked but never did, always too lazy or drunk. He beat her when he felt like it and yelled at the baby nonstop. They barely had enough to eat. This afternoon he’d slapped her, shaken the baby, then slapped the child as well before stumbling into bed, where he fell into a snoring stupor. She’d seen the hammer, picked it up, walked to the bed. Next thing she knew she was looking down at her sleeping husband, only he wasn’t sleeping anymore, and his head looked like a cherry tart. She picked up the baby and strolled to a neighbor’s, then dropped off the news along with the baby.

Neighbors would have to be interviewed to check parts of her story, but Vlado didn’t doubt it for a moment. He had half a mind to send her back to her son and let the court clerks sort it out in the morning. But a policeman was waiting in the hallway to take her to jail. Tomorrow judges would be presiding again in their unheated courtrooms with their dim dirty hallways, hoping that the day’s trials and hearings would not be interrupted by an explosion. Peacetime procedure marched on.

Vlado sighed, spent a few minutes typing her statement, then asked her to sign it. She read it slowly, hesitated for a moment, then scribbled her name. As Vlado added his signature she asked, “What will happen to my baby?”

Vlado replied without looking up: “An orphanage probably, at least for tonight.”

“How long will he be there?”

Had this really not occurred to her until now? Vlado thought back on the times he’d had to tell spouses and friends of murdered loved ones. There were almost always tears and awkward pauses, and he was always tempted to run away, to flee the grief as soon as possible, though instead he had to pay close attention, to check for false grief or lack of surprise. This was worse, somehow. News of death brought finality, an imperative to move on. The news for this woman promised only a long, indefinite slide into despair.

He glanced off to the side, fixing on a clock on a far wall which hadn’t worked for months, then slowly turned to meet her stare. Her eyes were filled with tears, but so far none had spilled.

“He’ll be there at least until your trial, unless you have family who will take him, of course.” She’d already mentioned she was an orphan.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “There is only me.”

They both knew that few people would be likely to take on an extra mouth to feed under these conditions. And who, for that matter, would want a gypsy baby.

“When the trial comes, you will be convicted. Your statement assures that. Even without it the evidence would be overwhelming. But if your neighbors can back up your story about your husband, who knows?” He shrugged. “Perhaps a judge will show restraint. You may be lucky. The sentence could be light.”

“And that would mean?”

“Three years, maybe more. Probably nothing less.”

She said nothing. A single tear had fallen across her right cheek, and she wiped it away. She stared straight ahead, jaws rigid, then gave a small nod. He stood, escorting her to the hallway, where the waiting policeman slept in a folding chair, bundled against the cold. His mouth was agape, exhaling peaceful sighs of vapor into the dark corridor. Vlado jostled him, and in a few moments he and the woman were gone, their footsteps echoing down the stairwell.

Grebo’s mass of hair bobbed around the corner.

“Just finishing up,” he said, briskly wiping his hands on a towel, the sharp reek of chemicals accompanying him like a separate presence. “It looks like twenty-six blows, give or take a few. Quite a bashing for such a little thing. The famous gypsy anger, Exhibit A. Listen, I’ve got a bottle of some homemade slivovitz for a little after-curfew drink if you can wait a minute or two.”

Vlado sagged with the thought of making conversation. He preferred sleep and silence.

“No thanks,” he answered. “I’m a little done in. Have one for me, though.”

“That you can count on. See you tomorrow then if there’s any action. I’ll leave the report on your desk. No surprises, though. The man had enough alcohol in his blood to light a stove.”

There was hardly a sound outside as Vlado stepped toward the doors of the downstairs exit. It was only a few minutes before curfew, so the streets would be empty except for military police and a few prostitutes desperate for one last transaction. If the phones were working when he got home, he would call to see how Damir was doing. It was cloudy, but the rain had stopped. Sniper fire had popped throughout the day like bacon in a skillet, but overall it had been another quiet afternoon, even down by the river. Maybe it would last for the rest of the month.

Then, just before Vlado pushed open the door there was a gunshot-loud, sharp, perhaps only a few blocks away

Sniper fire at night inspired an altogether different behavior. Nobody scattered unless the Serbs fired off a flare. There were no street-lights, and the darkness encouraged a tame version of defiance and bravado, a little flirting with the local brand of fatalism that Damir had displayed so recklessly that afternoon.

So it was that Vlado’s response to the gunshot was to light a cigarette as he stood on the porch, inhaling deeply to brighten the orange pinprick of light.

Here I am, if you’re interested, the cigarette said. But I’m betting you’re too lazy.

He strolled down the steps and toward the bridge, the streets quiet again except for the rasp of his soles against wet grit. He crossed, gazing at the dimness of the water below, the white flecks of foam and ripples barely visible in the filtered moonlight. He passed under a banner strung across the bridge, as if for a holiday parade, which warned, CAUTION. SNIPER! Turning left off the bridge, he headed another block toward the corner that would take him out of the line of fire, telling himself not to rush, not to panic. Then he asked himself, Who are we fooling here, and he quickened his pace. A dark form lay ahead on the sidewalk.

He stopped.

It was a lump, curled, man-size.

It was a body.

He stooped for a closer look and smelled sweaty wool and something metallic. A widening pool of black liquid oozed toward his feet, warm to the touch, a bit sticky. It seemed to be coming from the head. Vlado reached down to an arm, grasping the wrist to check for a pulse, finding none, but noticing a heavy, expensive watch. Nice cufflinks, too, and the coat had the feel of a rich cashmere. A well dressed man, as far as one could tell in the dark.