THE HEART OF DANGER (20 page)

The man who had been a clerk was beaming a smile and gathering together

his papers, and there was a pistol at his belt, and his uniform was

washed clean. The chairs were scraping. Little knots of villagers

were sliding forward to beg favours. He did not understand how a

good

woman, Evica Stankovic, could share a life and a bed with such a man.

He loathed the man, he loathed the power of the pistol at the man's

belt.

It was the moment the Headmaster chose.

"Before we go, before we leave, there are matters that should be

discussed .. ."

Shoulders swivelled, heads turned towards him, and behind the table

the

smile faded. He spoke out loud, and he stood on his toes that he

might

be seen by all.

"Not one matter, several matters .. . Your children go to the school, my school. At the school we have insufficient books. For children

to

learn it is necessary they have books. I had discussed the shortage

of

books with the UNCIVPOL officers from Petrinja, and the UNCIVPOL

officers had promised me they would raise the matter with UNHCR,

attempt to get more books, but those UNCIVPOL officers were harassed,

sworn at, blocked, threatened by the militia of this village. It

was

the grossest stupidity to block the UNCIVPOL officers, and I will

get

no books for our children to learn from .. ."

The silence was around him. When he ranged his eyes across the sheep,

when he caught their eyes, they looked away. Evica Stankovic, she

had

looked away.

"We should not be led, my friends, by men of the grossest stupidity.

Nor should we be led by men who stain the name of our village. We

should elect our leader, to speak for all of us, by a vote that is

private and not by the vote of the bullet .. ."

He looked far ahead. Milan Stankovic stared back at him. He could

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not

see the detail of Milan Stankovic's face, but he believed he saw

surprise.

"We are a people who know suffering. Close to here is the great

forest

of Petrova Gora where our glorious Partizans fought with such courage

against the fascist Ustase of the Great Patriotic War. Close to

here,

in Glina town, is the church where our grandparents were burned alive

by the Ustase. Close to here, near to Petrinja, is the site of the

concentration camp where the Ustase slaughtered the children of our

grandparents. And we have here, amongst us, a new group of Ustase

who

stain the name of the Serb people .. ."

The Headmaster saw the movement at the table. The table was pushed

back. Milan Stankovic advanced on him. The sheep scattered their

chairs and moved aside to make a space for Milan Stankovic to reach

him. Evica Stankovic was among those who moved their chairs aside.

He

had come to make a denunciation and now his voice rose.

"I saw, you saw, the old American who came to Rosenovici. There was a

report about him on the foreign radio. He is a professor of

pathology,

he is an investigator of the dead. Because of what he searched for,

what he found, and took away, the name of our village is shamed ..

."

The fist of Milan Stankovic, standing in front of him, blocking his

view of the sheep, was clenched on the handle of the pistol worn in

the

opened holster. "We are disgraced, all of us, because of the wounded at Rosenovici .. ." The pistol whipped into the face of the

Headmaster. He felt the stinging pain, and the blackness blurred in

front of his eyes. He fell. There was no hand among the sheep to

halt

his fall. He was on his knees. There was wetness in his eyes. He

saw

the blood splatter below him. He groped his hand for his spectacles

that lay close to the shined boots. "We are all criminals because

of

the wounded at Rosenovici ..." He saw the sole of the shined boots cover the lenses of his spectacles. He heard the crunching of the

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broken glass. "What they promise on the foreign radio is that acts of

criminality will never be forgotten .. ." The shined boot hacking

into

his ribs. The Headmaster gasped, "Wherever we run .. ." The shined boot belting into his chin. A whispered voice, "Wherever we hide

.. ."

A fist in the collar of his jacket, lifting him, and the tightness

of

his tie around his throat, and the punching starting, and the kicking.

"Never forgotten .. . our shame .. ." The death of the Headmaster's voice. They let him drop, and when he had fallen they kicked him some

more. He saw above him the gravedigger, the carpenter and the postman,

and he saw Milan Stankovic bend and wipe blood from the toes of his

boots. And behind them the hall of the Headmaster's school was

emptied.

The chairs were scattered without formation, abandoned. None had

spoken for him, the sheep. He lay a long time on the floor, after

they

had gone, and he did not know for how long because the watch on his

wrist was broken ... He held, clutched, his secret, the secret was

the

location where a survivor of the destruction of Rosenovici still

lived.

The telling of the secret to the Canadian of UNCIVPOL had been the

payment for the promise of school books ... He lay a long time on

the

floor until he had the strength to push himself up to his knees and

his

elbows, and he gathered together the cracked shards of the lenses

for

his spectacles.

The Headmaster crawled to the doorway of the school hall. He saw

no

movement in the road. The lamplight from the houses came

indistinctly

to his eyes. All gone, the sheep. All barricaded in their homes,

afraid. It was difficult for him to lock the door of the hall. He

felt no fear, he felt only a loathing of the man who had been a clerk

.. . He, alone in the village, held the secret.

He could not be certain, but it was his training to know when a tail

was on him. The late afternoon and the early evening were spent in

his

hotel room making sense of the note form of the interviews, and then

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supper and a beer in the old town. It was when he had stepped off

the

pavement to give room to a whore negotiating her rate with a client

that he had thought he was followed. He had swung, amused, to see

better the face of the whore, and her dressed like a housewife, a

cardigan and a floral skirt, and there was a shadow moving behind

the

whore, and the shadow froze when Penn turned full face.

Seven.

"I saw her, when the Partizans came into the village .. ." The smells were close to Perm's childhood. Eight years old, twelve years old,

at

harvest time, when the men were in the fields taking in the barley,

wheat, maize, and going to the hedgerow and squatting down and wiping

between their cheeks with yesterday's newspaper, and the sun settling

with the flies on their mess, and the smell. Six years old, ten years

old, and the milking cattle in the parlour and the shit running out

below their lifted tails, and splattering, and the shut-in heat

trapped

inside the walls and the low asbestos-sheeted roof. Penn, the boy

brought up on the farm, was close to the smells of the Transit Centre.

"It was only chance that I was in the village. You see, I am Bosnian.

I am a Muslim of Bosnia. I was trying to take the bus from Banja

Luka

to Zagreb. I have the cataracts in my eyes. The doctor in Banja

Luka

said I should go to the hospital in Zagreb. I thought it was possible

for a Muslim to travel through the lines of the Serbs and the Croats,

stupid of me. The bus was stopped on the Glina to Vrginmost road.

The

Serbs were very hard on me. I went where I thought I was safe, to

the

village of Rosenovici. There was a madness around there, but I did

not

think the madness could last. I thought I would stay in safety in

Rosenovici until the madness passed. When it became too dangerous

to

stay many of the village left, at night, to go through the woods and

the hills. Because of my sight I could not go. No one was prepared to

delay their flight to help a woman who could not see, it was necessary

for me to stay. Men, women, lose charity when they are in flight

for

their lives. I was there through the fighting for the village, and

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I

was there when it fell .. ." Penn thought he had started to

understand

the village where Dorrie Mowat had died. The village life and the

farm

life had gone away from him and he had taken the exams at the

comprehensive school in Cirencester, and the exams had turned his

back

on his parents and on the farm and on the fields and hedgerows and

woods, and on the smells. But he was learning, and the farm life

and

the village life seeped back to him. "It was on the third day after the attack had started that the village fell. I think it was the

Thursday. It was the second week in December. The village had been

preparing for Christmas, their festival. The people had no presents

for their children but they had cut branches of green leaves from

the

holly trees. They had tried to make a joy of their festival .. ."

Penn prompted gently. What had she seen, of Dorrie, when the village

fell? Jovic translated. "I had been in the church. It was the first time I had been in the church of Catholics. They called the place

the

crypt, and the walls there were thick, of heavy-cut stone. The girl

came on the night before the village fell. She came to ask the women

who were in the church if they could tear up some of their clothes,

their clothes that were most clean, for bandages. I could not see

her

well, because of the cataracts in my eyes, but there were other women

afterwards who said that she was beautiful. She took the clothes

that

had been torn and cut into strips and she went back to where the

wounded men were hidden. She had to cross the front of the church

and

then go across the lane and then she had to go through the garden

of a

farmhouse. It was all open, and when she went back there was much

shooting, as if they had seen her, the Partizans, and tried to kill

her. I know she had a great courage, and she was not afraid when

she

had the bandages and was about to go back into the open. I could

not

see her, but I heard her laugh. It was a sweet and happy laugh. You know why she laughed? Some of the women in the church, they had put

on

all the underpants they possessed and the cleanest were the third

or

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fourth pair from their skin, and she was going to make dressings for

the wounded from the third pairs or fourth pairs of the underpants,

and

some of the women were shy to take off their underpants. She laughed

... I did not see her again until it was over .. ." Remembering Mary's story. The story told in the comfort of the kitchen with warm coffee.

Mary speaking without hatred, but from the depths of pain. The

dinner

party in the Manor House, black tie. The celebration of the

elevation

of a neighbour to the lofty eminence of Master of Foxhounds, North

Sussex Hunt. Banter, silly but cheerful, spilling round the room

that

was panelled with old oak. Dorrie coming into the dining room,

bitter

face and holed jeans and a T-shirt too dirty to have been used as

a rag

for cleaning a floor. "It was the irregulars, their militia, that

came

into the church. We knew that a white flag had been raised at the

store, and we knew that most of the fighters, those who were not hurt,

had already gone. We were taken out into the afternoon light. I

remember that it was afternoon because the sun was low above the hills

and it was into my eyes. We were made to form a line. "We were

standing in front of the church and they took anything that was of

value from the women, and from me. We had nothing that was special,

only sentimental, but they took it. I heard her voice. She is only a

small girl, but she had so big a voice and she was shouting from inside

the farmhouse that was across the lane from the church. They had

their

guns, and she was shouting as if she had no fear of them .. ." Hearing the story, Mary's pain. Dorrie coming into the dining room and

holding

the jar of tomato puree. The quiet falling on the dining room and

the

cheerful joking killed. Dorrie marching to the Master of Foxhounds

and

shaking the jar and unfastening the lid. Dorrie pouring the rich

red

of the jar onto the head of the Master of Foxhounds. The tomato puree

dripping from the bald scarred scalp and down to the white of his

tuxedo jacket. "She was brought out of the farmhouse. All the time she was shouting at the Partizans. And she had her arm around the