Aminatta Forna - The Hired Man

‘That fucking woman, that fucking house.’

I said, ‘You mean the blue house, the one you sold to the woman from England?’

You’ll guess that the way I said woman from England and not Englishwoman, Engleskinja , was deliberate. Woman from England — the words left space for doubt to creep in and where doubt existed there was the possibility of something else: the dark child, scratching against the walls. Now I had the attention of everyone in the bar. They were all listening, even though some of them were still pretending not to. I stood up to face Krešimir because he was towering over me where I sat and I felt disadvantaged. I considered putting my glass of wine down. ‘What is it you think I am doing?’

‘You know exactly.’

‘I’ve done work on the house. I need the money. So what?’

‘Trying to stir things up, cause trouble.’

I raised my voice to be sure I was heard. ‘You’re the one who is causing trouble, you did it the day you sold the house. You had no right. No right. That house was never yours to sell. It’s you who has brought the strangers here and you who brought this whole thing down on our heads.’

By now the other drinkers were listening, making no pretence at deafness. Hardly a person in Gost didn’t know what we were talking about. This was good, but I’d had a bellyful of Krešimir. I said, ‘I think you need to calm down, Krešimir,’ and took a step back when he lunged for my throat. One of the men who had been watching stood up and put himself between us. He was broader than Krešimir by a hand-span. He didn’t say a word, he looked at Krešimir and tilted his head towards the street, showing him the door so to speak, obvious too from the way he stood he was confident he had the rest of the bar at his back. Krešimir, for all his bluff, is a coward. He took a step back, shook himself off and disappeared. I nodded to the man who’d just saved my skin and he nodded back. We did not speak, we resumed our places. I took a sip of my glass of wine and returned to watching the street and the patterns of the birds in the sky.

We were petty thieves, smugglers and black-marketeers. We kept illicit stills, we hunted out of season because we could. We hated to pay tax, we did deals on the side and took cash whenever we could; we were the kind of people governments don’t like: bullet-headed, obstinate, as hard to control as it is to herd cats. It turned out we were the sort of people who would steal from the houses of those who had fled, which we did, without shame.

I see Goran’s wife in the street and she is wearing a long leather coat I’ve never seen her in before. Bicycles for Andro’s two boys, there’s a swing chair on the front veranda that wasn’t there before. Miro drives a different car, a car I recognise and I know doesn’t belong to him. So, he shrugs and asks me what’s the difference? If they come back he will give them their car, of course he will, otherwise it just sits there outside the house or somebody else takes it. He used to sell dirty videos to make a bit of cash, but he doesn’t bother with that any more. He has a house full of second-hand items for sale: everything from kitchen clocks to candlesticks.

Yes, we are petty thieves, smugglers, black-marketeers, we are makers of moonshine and tax dodgers, we fiddle the books of our businesses and peddle porn, and when our neighbours’ houses are empty we steal from them.

One thing we are not is killers. We hate to be governed, we are unruly, headstrong, we govern ourselves and all that governs us is the weather, the changing of the seasons, the land.

So what we lack they send to us.

They arrive and what they find is a bunch of petty crooks and boys who race their scooters up and down the supermarket car park, with moustaches of soft sparse hair, bitten fingernails and acne scars: boys in love with their cocks, who think themselves men.

Soon there is a list of names, drawn up from the post office records. People are told to report to the Crisis HQ. There are arrests, the new authorities insist these are not arrests but detentions in the name of security. Two students shop their teacher, who gave them poor grades. A farmer, mad with jealousy for ten years, exacts revenge on his wife’s old lover. Grudges are reckoned. Greed grows. People denounce their neighbours to the new authorities on the quiet, with an eye on the couch, chest freezer, televisions always. Others give names in exchange for cash. ‘Daddy’s hiding in the attic,’ says a small boy to the men who have come to take his father into custody.

The grey van does the rounds. Around and around.

Javor moves into my father’s sheds at the bottom of my mother’s garden. The people who know he is there are: my mother, Anka, me. Anka visits him every day and sometimes stays over; the nights are still warm. They eat with us in the house and at night retire to the shed. One day the grey van visits their house. Anka is there. She tells the men Javor has gone hunting, it’s the best she can come up with. They tell her to ask him to come down to Crisis HQ, nothing serious — in regard to his father. For a moment we forget and laugh about this, because Javor is a terrible hunter. I feel sorry for Javor, he is scared, he asks me to find out what has happened to his father.

I ask Fabjan, because Fabjan knows everything and everybody. I don’t trust him, but he is Javor’s partner and friend. He promises to investigate and he acts like he’s taking it seriously. A day later he tells me not to worry, to tell Javor not to worry: his father will be released in a few days once the authorities are convinced of his loyalty. It’s all connected with his job, which is after all an important one, a lot of people with his kind of background are going through the same thing. There won’t be any problem. He even tells me where the detainees are being kept: in our old school. ‘I mean,’ he says, ‘they’re keeping them in kids’ classrooms, not the police station. A baby could break out of there.’ He shrugs and picks up a glass to begin polishing it. ‘The whole thing’s fucking crap, but tell Javor I’m here minding both our interests. The only thing to do at a time like this is make money. People turn into arseholes. Fortunately they turn into hard-drinking arseholes.’ He puts the glass down. ‘So where is Javor?’ he asks, picking up another glass.

‘At his house,’ I say and shrug, like the question means nothing, though my heart beats a little faster. I keep my eyes on the counter in front of me, but I watch everything he does, for a sign, for a hint.

Fabjan polishes the glass very carefully. ‘Sure,’ he says and sets it down. For a moment neither of us says a word. Then Fabjan starts to tell me about an idea he has for pond-raised catfish, he saw it on TV, wonders whether it would work here.

Parked outside the school is an old-fashioned grey van. Nothing looks very changed, there are a couple of guys, the ones from the Zodijak, cleaned up and given caps. Hardly Fort Knox, I say to Javor and Anka later. Anka watches me and nods without smiling. ‘OK,’ says Javor in answer to each new piece of information. ‘OK, OK, OK.’ He is sitting with his legs crossed, hunched over himself as though he is very cold, sucking smoke through a rolled cigarette; he used to smoke occasionally but now he smokes a lot. The foot of the crossed leg flips up and down, all the while he is staring at me very intently. I wish I could offer him more; I can’t tell whether he is satisfied with what I am able to tell him; he just taps his foot and jerks his head forward, blinking, a woodpecker searching for grubs. ‘OK, OK.’

‘Is there anything you want from the shops?’ I ask, getting up to go.

‘You can ask Fabjan for my share of the profits. We need money. Anka hasn’t been selling. Fabjan knows that. Tell him I just need enough to get by for a few days more.’