THE HEART OF DANGER (54 page)

when he had sat on it, straight-backed, she had hit him the first

time.

"You can be a very sensible man, Ham, or you can be a silly man ..

.

Where, when, is the rendezvous?" She punched straight into the

fullness of his mouth, and the wide dulled gold of her wedding ring

318

clipped the cap of his front tooth and broke it. He reckoned the

interrogator was a pretty woman, but 'fanny' always looked good in

uniform, always looked best with a webbing belt and a holster. She

had

no cosmetics and there was a great weariness at her bagged eyes, and

her breasts were heavy in their fall into the fatigue tunic when she

stretched her back after each blow, like they'd suckled children.

He

couldn't see the First Secretary because the bastard was behind him,

and he couldn't see the Intelligence Officer because he was away to

the

right of him, and his right eye was already closing from the

interrogator's blows. He could read her face, and her face was iced

calm. From what he read in her face, the fanny was bloody tired,

but

she would go on hitting him until she dropped, and she wouldn't care

if

she rasped her fists, and she wouldn't care if she hurt him. He

thought she was without mercy. He knew that sort of fanny, in the

Defence Force, all the fucking same. All the same because they'd had

a

man killed somewhere on the fucking line, some time in the war, and

they'd parked the kiddies with their mothers, and they'd put on the

uniform, and they hated. There was no mercy from the fucking women.

The women were the fucking worst. He had his hands up, tried to cover

his face.

"You don't leave here, Ham, before I have the time and the place of the

rendezvous. When, where .. . ?"

Because he tried to protect his face, he did not see the short swing

of

the interrogator's boot. She kicked him hard, boot into his shin,

toecap onto the bone of his leg. He cried out.

He didn't doubt her. He seemed to see himself bloodstained and

screaming and cringing. He seemed to see the guys who had been behind

in the open field amongst the trees. He seemed to see her with the

knife bent over the guys who had been wounded and could not save

themselves. All the goddamn same, fucking Serb bastards and fucking

Croat bastards. He did not know how long it had been, whether he

had

been in the chair in the Intelligence Officer's room for half an hour

or an hour. A goddamn awful pain in his leg. And Penn was nothing

to

319

him, goddamn nothing. He should come first, second, tenth, he should

come ahead of goddamn Penn every fucking time. He owed Penn nothing.

"Come on, Ham, what's the time and what's the place?"

She had hold of his head. The interrogator's fingers and sharp nails

seemed to be able to take a grip on the folds of the skin over his

scalp, and she shook his head until he thought his mind would

explode.

Dumb and stupid enough to let himself get hacked around, kicked

around.

He owed Penn nothing .. .

Ham told where he was to be waiting to take the inflatable across

the

Kupa river to collect Penn and the German woman and the eyewitness,

and

the prisoner.

The First Secretary said, "That's a good boy."

Ham told when he was to be beside the Kupa river to pick up Penn and

the German woman and the eyewitness, and the prisoner.

The First Secretary said relieved, "That's a sensible boy."

"Will you, please, close your mouth."

But she didn't. He thought it was excitement, adrenaline, whatever

unnamed chemicals were screwing about in her bloodstream, that made

her

need to talk. He supposed she was a town person and had to

communicate, and he knew that he was a country person able to subsist

on his own company. He didn't bloody well need to talk, she did ..

.

They had been on the move for ten hours before he had signalled the

long halt. They had gone slow through the darkness and faster in

the

dawn light, and quickest when the sun had started to stream down

through the thickening foliage above them. The sun was up now,

throwing down gold shards, picking out and spotlighting the mulch

floor

of the forest.

"If we don't talk then you don't know why. It should be important

320

to

you, why. You must wish to know why I have come .. ."

"What I know is that sound carries in the forest. You think you are quiet, you are like a rhino .. ."

"What is a rhino?"

"God, a rhino moves like a double-decker .. ."

"What is a double-decker?"

"A rhinoceros is a very big, very fat, noisy animal. A double-decker is a two-floor, very big, very heavy, noisy bus .. ."

"I know what is a rhinoceros and what is a bus. How can you say I

am

like a rhinoceros and a bus?"

"God, Ulrike .. . will you say what you have to say, and then, please, be quiet."

"Don't you need to know why?"

They were off the track. He thought they might be an hour going fast,

probably more than an hour, from the place where there were the bones

and the cases and the bags. He felt so tired. He lay on his back

and

his head was crooked up against the backpack and she sat cross-legged

beside him. His eyes were opening, closing, opening again, and he

could see the excitement in her face, the adrenaline and the

chemicals,

and he thought that if he slept and she stayed awake then he would

have

lost control of her. He was frightened to lose control of her in

case

a dog came, in case a patrol came, in case a group of loggers came,

in

case .. . He had not told her about the skeletons of the refugees

and

their bags and their cases, and he did not know if he could bypass

the

place so that she would not see them. "It is not required for me

to

know why. I have told you that I am grateful that you have come.

It

321

does not help me to know. But you insist .. . So, tell me why, then

be

quiet." So serious: "You have to know why." Tell me." "It is about a

future." Brutal, he said, "Not our future. We have no future."

She

hissed, peeved, "There is more than our future. There is the future of

the principle." His eyes closed again, he forced them open. "I know nothing of principles." "Rubbish. You are not here without

principles. You are a man of principle .. ." "Principles get people killed. That's not for me." "Silly, stupid man. Without principle you

would have been on the aircraft, you would have been at your home.

You

sell yourself too cheap. You have principle, and you have anger ..

."

"The anger is because you won't shut your mouth." "You have anger and

principle, and they ride together, that is why I came." "Brilliant, thank you, good night. Lights out and silence, please .. ." And

he

could not push open his eyes. Eyes closed and the tiredness clinging

in him. Typical of a bloody woman that there must be a bloody

discussion .. . Just like at Five, just like the women graduates in

General Intelligence Group. Why must the mountain be climbed?

Analysis

and thought and team discussion as to why the mountain must be

climbed.

Best to have a paper written on Aims and Objects for Climbing the

Mountain, then have a subcommittee report on the paper to the full

team. Penn was climbing the mountain because the bloody mountain

was

there. Penn was going up the bloody mountain because Mrs. Mary

bloody

Braddock was holding a bayonet, sharp as hell, against his backside

for

him to impale himself on if he should bloody well stop climbing the

bloody mountain. Penn was crawling up the bloody scree slope of the

mountain because she was there, Dorrie was at the top with the wind

in

her hair and the rain on her face and the mist about her, bloody

laughing and mocking him .. . Ulrike was close to him. He sensed

her

bent over him. There was a garlic taste on her breath. Her fingers were smoothing the hair from his forehead .. . Because the bloody

322

mountain was there, with Dorrie astride it. She said into his ear,

"I

understand that there is no future, and the future for us is not

important, but the future of the principle is everything. If nobody

speaks, if nobody calls out, if there is only silence, then there

is a

new dark age of barbarity .. ." He murmured, "Principles are not important. What is important, if we take Milan Stankovic, when we

run

with Milan Stankovic, then the wasps' nest is well stirred. It's

shit-frightened running then, and when you're running it's not bloody

principles that'll help you along. And if we try to take the

eyewitness, she's old, slow, needing to be carried .. ." Maybe it

was

just the movement of her lips speaking into his ear, maybe she kissed

his ear, but they had no future. The future was Jane, was Tom. It

was

not important whether he wanted it, or what he wanted. There was

no

future with Ulrike. "It is the difference between us and them, we

have

principle and they have only barbarism .. ." "Christ, Ulrike, principles don't stop bullets, can't blunt knives." Tenn '...?"

"Yes." So tired, and slipping, and her lips breathing the words to his

ear. Tenn, if you had him, if you have taken him, but you are blocked,

and you cannot bring him out, would you kill him?" "I don't know."

"You have to make an answer. Would you kill him as justice? Would you

kill him as revenge, for what he did to the wounded?" "I don't know."

"Kill him for what he did to Dorrie?" "I don't know." "You will remember what I told you .. . if he is begging you for his life, you

will have to be cruel. Do you have it inside you, good and ordinary

and decent man, to be cruel .. . ?"

"Please, don't talk, please."

"I want to know what he is like. I want to see his face, hear his

speech, watch him move. I want to know how he is different. He is

married, he has a child, he is a leader of his people. I understand

all of those things. I do not understand how he could have beaten

the

wounded and knifed them and shot them. I do not understand how he

could have looked into the face of your Dorrie and beaten her and

knifed her and shot her. I have to believe that I will find something

of him that is different. If he is not different then we are all

323

lost.

I see only victims. I do not know those who make the victims. I

see

the results of their violence but I am not able to see the source

of

the violence. Penn, surely you don't believe that I came here only

because I was afraid for you. Penn, I despise sentiment .. . There

are

2,400 souls in the Transit Centre, and they do not even own hope,

and

their number is minimal in comparison with the greater number who

have

suffered. They deserve some, however small, act of retribution ..

.

Half a century ago it was my own country that bred the evil, and the

evil was made by men and women that you would have passed in the street

and thought no different from yourself. The evil must be isolated,

stopped .. . If he is a good and ordinary and decent man then there

is

no hope for any of us, none, then it is indeed the beginning of that

dark age. I have to pray that he is different .. ."

Penn slept.

"You will give me the wit to believe that you are not joking with

me?"

"No, sir, I am most serious; would that it were a joke."

It was a part of the First Secretary's upbringing that he would

address

a more senior man with respect. And a lesson of his teenage years

at

Marlborough School, well learned, that evasion of a problem came back

to haunt. He sat stiffly in the chair while the Director of Civilian

Affairs paced, heaving on his cigar.

"He got himself out, and now he has gone back in?"

"That's what I am saying."

The smoke of the cigar spat from the Director's mouth. "You

appreciate

the implications of what you tell me?"

"It is because I appreciate them that I have come to you."

324

"I am not a highly educated man, just a fucking Paddy, I have a bad degree out of Dublin, Business Management crap, maybe I don't have

the

intellect for this job. Maybe a man with a greater intellect could

do

this job without having to spend fifteen, seventeen, hours a day stuck

at this desk or sitting in on meetings with the most God-awful people

Christ ever invented, maybe. I spend those hours every day trying

to

stamp out the nastiest brush fire Europe has seen in half a century.

I

hate this place, I hate its bestiality and its barbarity, its love

of