The Black Mountain (8 page)

To build Rijeka all they had to do was knock off chunks of rock, roll them down to the edge of the valley, stack them in rectangles, and top the rectangles with thatched roofs; and that was all they had done, about the time Columbus started across the Atlantic to find India. Mud from the April rains was a foot deep in the one street, but there was a raised sidewalk of flat stones on either side.

As we proceeded along it, single file, Wolfe in the lead, I got an impression that we were not welcome. I caught glimpses of human forms ahead, one or two on the sidewalk, a couple of children running along the top of a low stone wall, a woman in a yard with a broom, but they all disappeared before we reached them.

There weren’t even any faces at windows as we went by.

I asked Wolfe’s back, What have we got, fleas'

He stopped and turned. No. They have. The sap has been sucked out of their spines. Pfui. He went on.

A little beyond the center of the village he left the walk to turn right through a gap in a stone wall into a yard. The house was set back a little farther than most of them and was a little wider and higher. The door was arched at the top,

with fancy carvings up the sides. Wolfe raised a fist to knock, but before his knuckles touched, the door swung open and a man confronted us.

Wolfe asked him, Are you George Bilic'

I am. He was a low bass. And you'

My name is unimportant, but you may have it. I am Tone Stara, and this is my son Alex. You own an automobile, and we wish to be driven to Podgorica. We will pay a proper amount.

Bilic’s eyes narrowed. I know of no place called Podgorica.

You call it Titograd. I am not yet satisfied with the change, though I may be.

My son and I are preparing to commit our sympathy and our resources. Of you we require merely a service for pay. I am willing to call it Titograd as a special favor to you.

Where are you from and how did you get here'

That’s our affair. You need merely to know that we will pay two thousand dinars to be driven twenty-three kilometers - or six American dollars, if you prefer them.

Bilic’s narrow eyes in his round puffy face got narrower. I do not prefer American dollars and I don’t like such an ugly suggestion. How do you know I own an automobile'

That is known to everyone. Do you deny it'

No. But there’s something wrong with it. A thing on the engine is broken, and it won’t go.

My son Alex will make it go. He’s an expert.

Bilic shook his head. I couldn’t allow that. He might damage it permanently.

You’re quite right. Wolfe was sympathetic. We are strangers to you. But I also know that you have a telephone, and you have kept us standing too long outside your door. We will enter and go with you to the telephone, and you will make a call to Belgrade, for which we will pay. You will get the Ministry of the Interior. Room Nineteen, and you will ask if it is desirable for you to cooperate with a man who calls himself Tone Stara - describing me, of course.

And you will do this at once, for I am beginning to get a little impatient.

Wolfe’s bluff wasn’t as screwy as it sounds. From what Telesio had told him, he knew that Bilic would take no risk either of offending a stranger who might be connected with the secret police, or calling himself to the attention of headquarter Belgrade by phoning to ask a dumb question. The bluff not only worked; it produced an effect which seemed to me entirely out of proportion when Wolfe told me later what he had said. Bilic suddenly went as pale as if all his blood had squirted out under his toenails. Simultaneously he tried to smile, and the combination wasn’t attractive.

I beg your pardon, sir, he said in a different tone, backing up a step and bowing. I’m sure you’ll understand that it is necessary to be careful. Come in and sit down, and we’ll have some wine.

We haven’t time. Wolfe was curt. You will telephone at once.

It would be ridiculous to telephone. Bilic was doing his best to smile. After all, you merely wish to be driven to Titograd, which is natural and proper.

Won’t you come in'

No. We’re in a hurry.

Very well. I know what it is to be in a hurry, I assure you. He turned and shouted, Jube! He might just as well have whispered it, since Jube had obviously been lurking not more than ten feet away. He came through a curtained arch - a tall and bony youth, maybe eighteen, in a blue shirt with open collar,

and blue jeans he could have got from Sears Roebuck.

My son is on vacation from the university, Bilic informed us. He returns tomorrow to learn how to do his part in perfecting the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia under the leadership of our great and beloved President. Jube, this is Mr. Tone Stara and his son Alex. They wish to be driven to Titograd, and you will -

I heard what was said. I think you should telephone the Ministry in Belgrade.

Jube was a complication that Telesio hadn’t mentioned. I didn’t like him. To get his contribution verbatim I would have to wait until Wolfe reported, but his tone was nasty, and I caught the Yugoslav sounds for telephone and Belgrade,

so I had the idea. It seemed to me that Jube could do with a little guidance from an elder, and luckily his father felt the same way about it.

As I have told you, my son, Bilic said sternly, the day may have come for you to do your own thinking, but not mine. I think these gentlemen should be conveyed to Titograd in my automobile, and, since I have other things to do, I think you should drive them. If you regard yourself as sufficiently mature to ignore what I think, we can discuss the matter later in private, but I hereby instruct you to drive Mr. Stara and his son to Titograd. Do you intend to follow my instruction'

They exchanged gazes. Bilic won. Jube’s eyes fell, and he muttered, Yes.

That is not a proper reply to your father.

Yes, sir.

Good. Go and start the engine.

The boy went. I shelled out some Yugoslav currency. Bilic explained that the car would have to leave the village by way of the lane in the rear, on higher ground than the street, which the mud made impassable, and conducted us through the house and out the back door. If he had more family than Jube, it kept out of sight. The grounds back of the house were neat, with thick grass and flowerbeds.

A walk of flat stones took us to a stone building, and as we approached, a car backed out of it to the right, with Jube at the wheel. I stared at it in astonishment. It was a 1953 Ford sedan. Then I remembered an item of the briefing Wolfe had given me on Yugoslavia: we had lent them, through the World Bank, a total of fifty-eight million bucks. How Bilic had managed to promote a Ford for himself out of it was to some extent my business, since I paid income tax, but I decided to table it. As we climbed in, Wolfe asked Bilic to inform his son that the trip had been fully paid for - two thousand dinars - and Bilic did so. The road was level most of the way to Titograd, across the valley and up the Moracha River, but it took us more than an hour to cover the twenty-three kilometers - fourteen miles to you - chiefly on account of mud. I started in the back seat with Wolfe, but after the springs had hit in a couple of chuckholes I moved up front with Jube. On the smooth stretches Wolfe posted me some on Titograd - but, since Jube might have got some English at the university, he was Tone Stara telling his American-born son. As Podgorica, it had long been the commercial capital of Montenegro. Its name had been changed to Titograd in 1950.

Its population was around twelve thousand. It had a fine old Turkish bridge across the Moracha. A tributary of the Moracha separated the old Turkish town,

which had been inhabited by Albanians thirty years ago and probably still was,

from the new Montenegrin town, which had been built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Twisted around in the front seat, I tried to deduce from Jube’s profile whether he knew more English than I did SerboCroat, but there was no sign one way or the other. The commercial capital of Montenegro was a letdown. I hadn’t expected a burg of twelve thousand to be one of the world’s wonders, and Wolfe had told me that, under the Communists, Montenegro was still a backwater - but hadn’t they changed the name to Titograd, and wasn’t Tito the Number One'So, as we jolted and bumped over holes in the pavement and I took in the old gray two-story buildings that didn’t even have thatched roofs to give them a tone, I felt cheated. I decided that if and when I became a dictator I would damn well clean a town up and widen some of its streets and have a little painting done before I changed its named to Goodwingrad. I had just made that decision when the car rolled to the curb and stopped in front of a stone edifice a lot bigger and some dirtier than most of those we had been passing. Wolfe said something with an edge on his voice. Jube turned in the seat to face him and made a little speech. For me the words were just noise, but I didn’t like his tone or his expression, so I slipped my hand inside my jacket to scratch myself in the neighborhood of my left armpit, bringing my fingers in contact with the butt of the Marley.

No trouble, Alex, Wolfe assured me. As you know, I asked him to leave us at the north end of the square, but he is being thoughtful. He says it is required that on arriving at a place travelers must have their identification papers inspected, and he thought it would be more convenient for us if he brought us here, to the local headquarters of the national police. Will you bring the knapsacks'

He opened the door and was climbing out. Since the only papers we had with us were engraved dollars and dinars, I had a suspicion that his foot condition had affected his central nervous system and paralyzed his brain, but I was helpless.

I couldn’t even stop a passer-by and ask the way to the nearest hospital, and I had never felt so useless and so goddam silly as, with a knapsack under each arm, I followed Jube and Wolfe across to the entrance and into the stone edifice. Inside, Jube led us along a dim and dingy corridor, up a flight of stairs, and into a room where two men were perched on stools behind a counter.

The men greeted him by name, not with any visible enthusiasm.

Here are two travelers, Jube said, who wish to show their papers. I just drove them from Rijeka. I can’t tell you how they got to Rijeka. The big fat one says his name is Tone Stara, and the other is his son Alex.

In one respect, Wolfe objected, that statement is not accurate. We do not wish to show papers, for an excellent reason. We have no papers to show.

Hah! Jube cried in triumph.

One of the men said reasonably, Merely the usual papers, nothing special. You can’t live without papers.

We have none.

I don’t believe it. Then where are they'

This is not a matter for clerks, Jube declared.

Tell Gospo Stritar, and I’ll take them in to him. Either they didn’t like being called clerks, or they didn’t like Jube, or both. They gave him dirty looks and exchanged mutterings, and one of them disappeared through an inner door, closing it behind him. Soon it opened again, and he stood holding it. I got the impression that Jube was not specifically included in the invitation to pass through, but he came along, bringing up the rear. This room was bigger but just as dingy. The glass in the high narrow windows had apparently last been washed the day the name had been changed from Podgorica to Titograd, four years ago. Of the two big old desks, one was unoccupied, and behind the other sat a lantern-jawed husky with bulging shoulders, who needed a haircut. Evidently he had been in conference with an individual in a chair at the end of the desk -

one younger and a lot uglier, with a flat nose and a forehead that slanted back at a sharp angle from just above the eyebrows. The husky behind the desk, after a quick glance at Wolfe and me, focused on Jube with no sign of cordiality.

Where did you get these men'he demanded. Jube told him. They appeared at my father’s house, from nowhere, and asked to be driven to Podgorica. The big fat one said Podgorica. He said he would pay two thousand dinars or six American dollars. He knew we have an automobile and a telephone. When his request was refused he told my father to telephone the Ministry of the Interior in Belgrade,

Room Nineteen, and ask if he should cooperate with a man calling himself Tone Stara. My father thought it unnecessary to telephone, and commanded me to drive them to Titograd. On the way they talked together in a foreign tongue which I don’t know but which I think was English. The big fat one told me to let them out at the north end of the square, but I brought them here instead, and now I am fully justified. They admit they have no papers. It will be interesting to hear them explain. Jube pulled a chair around and sat down.

The husky one eyed him. Did I tell you to be seated'

No, you didn’t.

Then get up. I said get up! That’s better, little man. You go to the university in Zagreb, that is true, and you have even spent three days in Belgrade, but I have not heard that you have been designated a hero of the people. You did right to bring these men here, and I congratulate you on behalf of our great People’s Republic, but if you try to assert yourself beyond your years and your position you will undoubtedly get your throat cut. Now go back home and study to improve yourself, and give my regards to your worthy father.

You are being arbitrary, Gospo Stritar. It would be better for me to stay and hear -

Get out!

I thought for a second the college boy was going to balk, and he did too, but the final vote was no. He turned and marched out. When the door had closed behind him, the one seated at the end of the desk got up, evidently meaning to leave, but Stritar said something to him, and he went to another chair and sat.

Wolfe went and took the one at the end of the desk, and I took the one that Jube had vacated. Stritar looked at Wolfe, at me, and back at Wolfe.

He spoke. What’s this talk about your having no papers'

Not talk, Wolfe told him.

A fact. We have none.

Where are they'What’s your story'Who stole them'

Nobody. We had no papers. You will find our story somewhat unusual.