The Book of Q (46 page)

With a gentle tap, he reengaged the phone line. Another connection, this one somewhere in Barcelona. A second tap.

All four files went at once.

Von Neurath had given him a direct order.

The contessa, however, had always given him far more.

And she would understand.

“No, no. That’s more than enough.” Mendravic placed what he thought was the last bag of food in the back of the van, the woman at his side insisting he take one more. “We’ll be able to pick up what we need along the way,” he tried to explain.

“Not if someone’s looking for you,” she answered, and pushed the bag into his arms.

The woman was somewhere in her late forties. She held her hands atop two full hips, broad shoulders below an equally wide, if almost square, head. Her face, though, was that of a much younger woman, lovely pale skin, with bright blue eyes that peered over at Mendravic. Pearse sensed there was something of a history between them. Funny that he’d never thought to ask about that part of Salko’s life. Or any part of his life, come to think of it. An affinity built on circumstance.

“All right,” said Mendravic, smiling, “but if I take it, I get to take you, as well.” He bent over and placed the bag alongside the others in the van.

“You’d be so lucky. You barely fit inside the car yourself.” She reached underneath and pinched the middle of his stomach. “You’d probably make me sit in the back with all the food.”

“Would I do that?” Mendravic answered, still fiddling with the bags. “I’d have Ian drive. Then I’d show you what the back of this van is really good for.”

A mighty wallop landed on his back, the woman looking over at Pearse, the paleness of her skin unable to hide the hint of a blush.

“He didn’t mean that, Father,” she said, the red growing on her face.

“Oh yes he did,” said Mendravic, head still buried inside the van.

Another slap on the back.

She smiled. “Well, maybe he did.” And with that, she turned, giving Mendravic a final swat before heading back to the house. “But not likely it’s going to happen.”

Mendravic emerged from the van just in time to see her step to the door. “Poor woman doesn’t know what she’s missing, Ian,” he said, loudly enough for her to hear.

“Oh yes she does,” she answered, not bothering to look back. A moment later, she was gone.

Mendravic laughed to himself, then turned to Pearse, handing him the keys. “Lady friend or not, you drive. I’m tired.”

“I wanted to say good-bye to Petra and Ivo.”

“Of course. So do I. You wouldn’t be needing the back of the van, would you?”

“I can hit a lot harder than your friend can.”

“Does Petra know that?”

Pearse started to answer, only to find he had nothing to say. “Do we know where she is?”

“I said quarter to. Give her another five minutes.”

As if on cue, Petra emerged from the house, a pack on her shoulder. “Is he in the front?” she asked, tossing the pack into the back of the van.

“What are you doing?” asked Mendravic as he retrieved the pack and handed it to her.

“Getting ready to leave,” she answered.

“I thought we discussed this.”

“No, you told me what you wanted me to do. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided that we’re going with you.”

“I think that’s a mistake,” answered Mendravic.

“Yes, I know that’s what you think. And I think we’d be worse off staying here if they did get a trace on the place.” Again, she tried to toss the pack in; again, he stopped her.

“I told you this morning,” Mendravic’s tone more pointed, “they’d have been here by now.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Getting out of here is the only way to be sure.”

“She does have a point,” Pearse piped in.

The look from Mendravic was enough to stifle any other helpful comments.

“If it were just you, I’d understand,” Mendravic continued. “In fact, we’d be better off with you. But I’ve no interest in taking Ivo into God knows
what. They might or might not show up here. Fine. But they’ll definitely be in Visegrad. That doesn’t seem like too difficult a choice to me.”

“Then you stay here.”

“You want me to …” His frustration was mounting. “Fine, then Ivo and I will stay here.”

“Ivo comes with me.”

Pearse had forgotten how the two of them approached “discussions.”

“You’re not making any sense here, Petra.”

“No. You’re just not understanding what I’m saying.”

“I understand perfectly well what—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Look, if you’re afraid of losing Ian again—” Mendravic stopped, realizing he’d overstepped the bounds. The ice in Petra’s eyes was all the confirmation he needed. “Try and understand,” he said, his tone less shrill. “My only concern here is Ivo.”

Petra held his gaze, the venom no less intense. She tossed her pack past him and into the van, then started for the front. “I’ll take him on my lap for the first part of the trip.” She opened the door, the cold stare replaced by a look of confusion. She turned to Mendravic. “Where is he?”

It took a moment for the question to register. “What?”

“Ivo. Where is he?”

“I thought he was in the house with you.”

An anxious look crossed her face. “I told you that he was coming out to help you with the car.”

Mendravic continued to stare at her, his eyes replaying an earlier conversation between them. “I thought—”

“He never came out?” she broke in, now looking past Mendravic to Pearse.

Pearse shook his head. “He must still be in the house.”

It was an obvious answer, but one that seemed to catch Petra completely by surprise. Without even so much as a nod, she raced back up the steps, shouting Ivo’s name as she went.

Clearly addled, Mendravic turned to Pearse. “I could have sworn she said—”

“I’m sure he’s just waiting for her.”

Mendravic nodded slowly.

“He’s not there,” she said when she reappeared. “I told you that he was coming outside—”

“I’m sure you did.” It was Pearse who spoke, trying to calm her. Strange, he thought, to have the roles reversed, Petra and Salko always so unflappable. Not that he didn’t understand their reaction, but somehow he trusted little Ivo, sensed that he was all right, no reason for panic to cloud the response.

“He’s probably just taken off on another adventure,” Pearse continued, waiting for Petra to turn and look at him. When she did, he said, “I’m sure he’s fine. We just have to find him.” Before she could answer, he added, “I’ll take the houses down this way, Salko can take the ones up that way, and you stay here in case he shows up.”

Petra listened, then nodded.

Mendravic was already halfway to the first house, shouting out a resonant “Ivo” every few steps; Pearse turned and began to do the same.

The streets were all but deserted, everyone either enjoying lunch or an early nap. The few who were out hadn’t seen the boy. Pearse was nearing the edge of the village, his faith in his own intuition dwindling, when he heard a voice from above.

“Little guy?” the voice said. Pearse looked up, to see a man sitting on his roof, various tools for repairing a leak scattered about. “Light brown hair, with a thousand questions?”

“That sounds like him,” said Pearse.

The man nodded. “He had to know what each one of these pieces was for,” he said, positioning a sheet of tin as he spoke. “Why I hadn’t made the roof better the first time. Why I was the only one who had to fix his roof. Turned out that all he really wanted to talk about was Pavle.” When Pearse continued to stare, the man said, “The boy who died yesterday.”

Pearse nodded. Evidently, their distraction hadn’t worked quite as well as they’d thought.

“You ask me, he was a little too curious. Things like that shouldn’t … Anyway. I finally told him to go find the
hohxa
if he was so interested. He went in maybe fifteen minutes ago.” The man nodded toward the holy man’s house.

Pearse thanked him and made his way to the edge of the village.

It was clear why the little hut stood off by itself. Smaller than the rest, it seemed overburdened by its own dilapidation, a rutted heap of veined stonework lumbering against the hillside, the right-hand side with a pronounced hump. The two windows on either side of the door seemed equally downtrodden, staring groggily out from behind a haze of dirt
and dried rain, no indication as to when they’d last been cleaned. But it was the roof that looked most out of place, unlike anything he’d seen in the village, a misshapen dome atop four clumsy walls. A distant reminder of the church of San Bernardo, pious inelegance reduced here to a rural oafishness.

And yet, it retained an undeniable spirituality, a stillness amid a world trampling it underfoot.

Pearse stepped up to the small porch.

The door stood ajar, a faint light coming from inside, the odor of incense wafting out to greet him; he pushed through, uttering a hesitant “Hello.” The state of the windows made outside light an impossibility, a few candles here and there to bring the place to life—table, chairs, oaken chest lost to the shadows. Otherwise, the room slept in a kind of stasis, even the candlelight unwilling to flicker.

No response.

He moved farther in. He noticed a staircase along the left wall, uneven boards rammed into the stone, no railing, naked steps, barely wide enough for one. More light from above. He headed across the room and made his way up.

Reaching the second floor, he came upon the
hohxa
eating quietly in front of a flimsy wooden table, an equally ancient chair supporting what Pearse could only describe as one of the thinnest bodies he had ever seen. The man wore a brimless hat far back on his head, the panoply of colors having faded to a dull brown, a few threads of blue and red still visible at the crown. No less aged, a vest hung loose on his shoulders, a striped long-sleeved shirt—no collar—beneath. He kept his legs tucked neatly under the chair, his back and head stooped painfully over the bowl, a gnarled hand clutching at a wedge of bread that seemed more prop than meal. He squeezed at it repeatedly as he brought the spoon to his lips, always careful to scoop up the excess from his chin before plunging in for another helping. When the bowl was all but empty, he mopped the bread across the last few drops, then slowly began to gnaw at the soggy crust.

Only when Pearse had drawn to within a few feet of him did he look up.

“You’ve misplaced your boy,” he said.

“Yes,” Pearse answered, not exactly sure what protocol demanded.

“Nice little fellow,” said the
hohxa
. “Clever. You don’t seem too worried.”

Pearse realized he wasn’t. Again, no answer why. “I’m not.”

“Good. Do you want some soup? I have plenty.”

“Actually—”

“You want the boy.”

Pearse nodded. There was something oddly serene to the little man and his bread, much like his house, both broken beyond repair, yet somehow comfortable in their easy deterioration.

With significant effort, he pulled himself up, his back only marginally straighter, a quick adjustment of the hat as he shuffled to the far end of the room.

“You’re the priest, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m the priest.”

“Strange how it all comes together, isn’t it?”

Pearse had no idea what the man meant; he nodded.

“It’s important for children to see this. You could learn something.” He slowly pulled back the edge of a curtain to reveal a tiny alcove, the smell of incense and camphor oil at once stronger. “This isn’t something to protect them from.”

Inside, Pavle’s body lay on a bier, shrouded under three large white linen sheets. At his side sat Ivo, hands in his lap, baseball in hands, his back to the curtain.

“He wanted to know,” said the holy man in a whisper. “And when they’re curious, you have to tell them.”

Pearse started in, but the
hohxa
held his arm.

“We sat together for a while. He wanted to stay. I told him to come out and eat when he was ready.”

The
hohxa
released his arm; Pearse pulled the curtain farther to the side and stepped into the alcove as the man returned to the table. As quietly as he could, Pearse crouched by Ivo’s side.

For perhaps half a minute, he said nothing. Ivo seemed content to sit, as well. “Pretty brave coming here by yourself,” Pearse said at last.

Ivo nodded, his eyes still on the covered body.

He wasn’t sure exactly what was holding the boy’s fascination, beyond the obvious. He decided not to press it. Another few seconds, and Ivo finally turned to him. “It’s different from last time.”

Pearse nodded slowly.

“When you don’t know someone,” said Ivo, looking back at the body, “it’s different.”

Petra evidently hadn’t told him everything about their stay in the country during the Mostar bombings. Again he waited.

“It doesn’t make me as sad this time. Is that bad?”

“I don’t think so,” said Pearse. “It doesn’t make me as sad, either.”

Ivo turned to him. “You didn’t know Radisav.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. But I’ve known other people. When your Mommy and Salko and I fought in the war.”

Ivo thought about it, then nodded. “I guess so. But you didn’t know Radisav.”