Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘Is it? The elusive Shadow,’ mused Begovic, ‘coming and going as he pleases, tying the Gestapo in knots, leaving the Ustase looking like fools.’

‘Well,’ said Reinhardt, ‘I wouldn’t overestimate Senka’s importance.’ He said it straight, but it felt like a bluff, and a weak one. As a military intelligence officer he knew better.

‘Ahh, Captain,’ replied Begovic, his eyes closed to the sky and a little singsong cadence in his voice. ‘Every secret stolen, every train delayed, every patrol ambushed… They say it lights a fire in the people’s hearts. Who wouldn’t open their doors to him? Lift a hand to help him? Or walk up into the hills in search of the Partisans. And you wouldn’t overestimate his importance… ?’ He turned his face down and around, his eyes blinking away the light. ‘Anyway, he isn’t supposed to exist. Is she?’ Begovic said, with a grin that slid shy;naturally into a smile as he threaded his heavy glasses back on. A car pulled up next to the police cordon and tooted its horn. ‘Ah, there’s Goran,’ said Begovic, as the driver got out and waved. The doctor threw his jacket over his shoulder. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Captain Reinhardt.’

Reinhardt walked back to the kubelwagen , his feet shuffling aimlessly in the gravel and dirt at the road’s shoulder and feeling somehow like a fraud. He mulled the doctor’s words over as he watched his car turn around, seeing the driver’s bearded face peering over Begovic’s shoulder. He walked slowly back down the alley with his hands scrunched deep in his pockets, morose. It was a truly lovely spot here: the green wave of the mountains behind, the open plain in front, and the alley of platanes arrowing straight up to the Bosna’s source.

That time he had gone there, he had taken off his boots and rolled up his trousers to dip his feet in the water. It had been icy cold, soothing. There had been soldiers everywhere: Germans, Italians, Croatians, even a few Bulgarians. But he had not been able to shake off the eyes he felt watched only him. Women from behind their veils, children scudding in their wake. Men from behind their moustaches, big fingers curled around little cups of coffee. Waiters with towels folded over their arms and round silver trays in their hands. He had dried his feet on the grass, rolled down his trousers, and left, and had never been back.

Moving suddenly, he began casting around, looking at the ground, looking up at Vukic’s house, and Hofler’s. A car, she had said. It would have been parked around about… there. Between those two trees, there was space for a car to wait. He began walking slowly, looking at the ground, unaware of the two policemen who watched him shy;curiously. Up, then down, then up again. He leaned closer. Maybe something. Maybe nothing. Sometimes you get lucky.

There.

There was a crunch of feet behind him. He knelt down, picked something up with his handkerchief, and turned around. Padelin was standing behind him, and his men were climbing into their cars, all but the guard on the door. ‘I am ready. If we shall go now?’

‘Look at this,’ Reinhardt said. ‘Claussen, you too.’ The three of them looked at what he had found. It was a hollow tube of what looked like cardboard, about the length of a finger, squeezed flat at both ends. Reinhardt raised it and sniffed, and wrinkled his nose at the acrid odour it gave off. Padelin sniffed; Claussen just looked at it.

‘Papirosa,’ Claussen said. ‘About the cheapest cigarette you can get.’

Reinhardt nodded, remembering. ‘The Russians used to smoke them in the trenches. The smell was so bad, we could smell them across no-man’s-land.’

‘We captured a stock of it, once,’ said Claussen. ‘After Kowel. We smoked it until we were sick.’

Padelin stood impassively throughout this impromptu reminiscence as Claussen began walking backwards, searching the ground. Rein shy;hardt smiled up at the detective. ‘This is what the old lady smelled,’ he said. ‘Do you have something we can put this in?’ Padelin turned and snapped something at one of his policemen, who came running up with a small paper envelope. Reinhardt slipped the papirosa in and flapped his handkerchief before folding it up.

‘Here,’ said Claussen. ‘Here’s another one.’

‘I’ll take that. You never know,’ he said, wrapping it in his handkerchief, and climbed into the back of the car with the detective. Claussen and Hueber got in front, and they began the journey back into town. It was just coming up to eleven o’clock.

It was very warm now, the sun smouldering like a hot stone in a sky washed almost white, and Reinhardt was thankful for the kubelwagen ’s open top and the breeze through his hair as Claussen swung back through Ilidza and onto the main road back into the city. The road was busier, and they fell in with a military convoy moving east. Their pace slowed, the air fouled by the fumes of the trucks ahead. Claussen began to fidget and curse behind the wheel, swinging the car out to try to overtake, but after a while he gave up. Too many trucks, not enough room.

‘If you like, we can stop just ahead,’ said Padelin. ‘There is one small village that has sometimes good coffee.’ Claussen looked at Rein shy;hardt in the mirror, raised his eyebrows. Reinhardt nodded and realised he was hungry. Padelin leaned forward and pointed to the right, where a small road left the main one. A pair of Feldgendarmes were on traffic duty there, but they let them pass when they showed their identification. The kubelwagen bumped along the dirt road, chased by a three-legged dog for a while through the centre of a small village of white houses. Padelin stopped them outside a small cafe next to a sluggish stream. A couple of tables sat in the shade of an overhanging roof.

Climbing out, Reinhardt could still see and hear the road and the convoy that ran down it. Padelin went inside while Reinhardt took off his cap and sat at one of the tables. Claussen and Hueber took another. There seemed to be no one in the street, or the village, other than the dog that now lay panting under the kubelwagen . He could feel the eyes, though. Padelin came back out and sat next to him, draping his jacket over the other chair. A waiter followed him out with glasses of water.

‘There is burek and tomatoes,’ said Padelin, as he downed his glass and gestured for another.

Reinhardt took his glass a bit slower, putting his elbows on the table. ‘So, tell me now, what is it about Marija Vukic?’

Padelin sipped from his new glass of water and licked his lips. His eyes narrowed as he looked out into the sunlight. ‘She was like a movie star. Very famous for us. Her, and her father – Vjeko Vukic – they were with the Party from the beginning, when no one knew us, no one wanted to be with us. She studied filmmaking in Italy and in Berlin.’

‘She travelled a lot?’ The food arrived. The burek was minced and fried meat rolled in pastry, served with glasses of yogurt. Few things were better, Reinhardt had found during his time in Yugoslavia, than burek for a hangover. Padelin took his apart in his big fingers, shoveling it piece by piece into his mouth.

‘I think yes, she did. Even before the war. I always would read her reports in the papers and see her films.’ Reinhardt saw it in his eyes, the echo of a teenage crush. ‘She would get in trouble, sometimes, with the authorities before the war. About the need for a Croatian state, and freedom from the Serbs. It never stopped her from saying or writing what she wanted, though.

‘She would do this, how do you call it… they show films, give books and magazines. Welfare work?’ Reinhardt nodded. ‘Right. She would organise films, and interviews with even the lowest soldiers. She would distribute magazines and newspapers, and the mail if it was there, she would give it to the soldiers. If you were lucky, you got a kiss. You can imagine, she was very, very popular with the soldiers.’