Perplexed, the most stylish man in the world studies the hand that the boy is holding out. He shakes it quickly, and turns round again to glance towards the beach.
‘Robespierre. We might as well call Napoleon and Lafayette to save our hide.’ ‘What?’ *
The voices emerge from the cave.
The gunfire did for three of them. The fourth must have captured Robespierre. He’s interrogating him.
Vittorio creeps forward, careful not to make a noise. He skirts the wall that opens on to the cave, until he is a metre from the opening. He concentrates for a second, then jumps forward, Mauser levelled, ready to fire.
‘Stoj!’
The shout resonates, and the echo mixes with Robespierre’s voice. ‘Don’t shoot, dad, I’m with Cary Grant, don’t shoot!’
When they reach the other beach, the bodyguards are still lying there.
Cary patiently listens to the questions of the Italian with the French name, a pleasant young man who has seen lots of his films and wants to learn to smile the way he does
His father, surly and shabby, insists on having a question translated, but the boy doesn’t give him too much encouragement.
In any case, shabby or not, he was the one who fired, putting his pursuers to flight.
Cary is first to hold out his hand, as a gesture of gratitude. The boy asks him not to tell the bodyguards they are on the island.
‘Cross my heart!’ Cary replies, running a finger across his chest.
Behind him, a bodyguard struggles to wake up.
Heavy arms, misty vision. Captain Franko Spiliak tries to get to his feet, but his muscles aren’t responding well. Three men, or perhaps only one multiplied by the narcotic hallucination.
In fact, when he manages to get back on his feet and his eyesight has returned to normal, he sees there is only one man there.
Cary Grant, safe and sound, sitting more or less in the same position as before, the same sunglasses, the same polo-neck and no book in his hand.
Seven hours later, even more confused, Pierre will go down to the beach to inspect it.
‘Fine,’ his father urges him. ‘He didn’t know who those people were. But have you asked him what he was doing around here?’
‘Yes, dad, I told you. They want to make a film about Tito and Cary Grant came to meet him. That’s all, there’s nothing strange going on.’
‘So who were they? They turn up, they knock out the bodyguards, chase after the American and run off after three shots have been fired. All that, when he’s just here for a film. No, Robespierre, something isn’t right.’
‘In any case, you’ve got nothing to worry about. They didn’t come here for you, did they?’
‘You never know. This is the kind of thing that attracts attention. Soldiers could turn up here tomorrow. You’ve got to think hard about what we’d have to do.’
A few feet away from the cave, the dog will bury his nose in the sand and start scratching.
‘Radko, show me, what have you found?’ Pierre will hold out his hand under the animal’s muzzle.
A book. Nine bleeding hearts around the title, gold letters on brown cardboard. Casino Royale, by a certain Ian Fleming. In English.
He will turn it around devotedly in his hands. He will curse the swiftness of events and the Babel of languages that prevented him from prolonging the encounter.
Like winning the lottery and losing your ticket.
He will flick through the pages in the hope of finding some trace of the owner, a surrogate, however small, for an actual autograph.
But Cary Grant will not have written anything: not on the frontispiece, nor at the end, nor anywhere.
Chapter 53
Sipan, 1 May
‘I’ve been thinking: on this forgotten island I’ve met my favourite actor and you’ve saved his life. But what do you think about it?’
‘He might well be famous, but he didn’t seem as bright as all that. You say women like him?
‘Are you joking? All the women in the world! And I didn’t even ask for his autograph. No one’s going to believe me!’
‘You did well, Robespierre. He’d have told you to fuck off. In English, but he’d have told you to fuck off if you’d asked him for his autograph.’
They laughed, and the tension of their farewell eased.
Vittorio handed Pierre a leather bag.
After so many years without speaking the language, the days he had spent with his son had done wonders for his Italian.
‘Thanks.’
Pierre closed the case. Dawn was just beginning to filter from behind the hill, and the stars were still visible in the sky.
‘So is that all clear? You go to Dubrovnik on the coach. You go to the harbour, to Petar’s taverna. There’s a famous sign, everyone knows it, with a. what do you call it? A dove. A homing pigeon, you know?’ Pierre nodded. ‘Once there, you’ve got to ask for Dragan Petrovic, remember, Dragan is a tall guy, very strong, he has two fingers missing from his right hand. He lost them in the war when we were fighting together. Tell him I sent you, that you’re my son, and that you’ve got to get back to Italy. Is that clear?’
‘You’re sure he won’t give me away?’
Vittorio shook his head. ‘I saved his life once, during the war. Listen: you can send me a little message through him.’
‘How?’
‘Dragan keeps homing pigeons.’
‘He’s a pigeon-fancier!’
Vittorio tried for a second to work out what he meant, and when he worked it out he nodded his head. ‘He can give you a pigeon in a cage. You bring it to Italy and when you let it go it’ll come back. Then Dragan tells me. That way I’ll know you’ve managed to get home, and everything will be fine.’
The extraordinary coincidence made Pierre smile as he thought of Renato Fanti, perched on the roof of the building among his dovecotes.
He said, ‘Perfect. But what are you going to do?’
Vittorio stroked the barrel of the Mauser that leaned against the door frame. ‘What do you expect me to do? I’m going to leave too. After all that’s happened, they will come to the island, and if they discover that I’m here, they’ll find an excuse to send me to Goli Otok.’
‘Come to Dubrovnik with me, then.’
‘No. I’m going into the mountains.’ He glanced towards the horizon, which was now tinged with pink. ‘I know the mountains. I’ve fought there. I’ll tell Dragan where I’m going. I trust him, so when your message arrives I’ll know what’s happened.’
‘But you can’t go on living like this. Always in hiding, always at the risk of being caught. You’ve got to do something, you’ve got to leave!’
‘And where am I going to go? In Italy they’ll put me in jail. And they don’t want someone who’s been friends with Tito. What am I going to do? Same as I’m doing here. I’m too old, Pierre, and defeat is like a weight you carry inside yourself, it drags you down.’
They said nothing for a while, each immersed in his own thoughts, searching for words.
Pierre understood that the defeat weighing on his father was not just the loss of the cause he believed in.
He had thought long and hard about it during those two weeks. Many times he had been on the point of talking to him about it, to loosen the knot he could feel deep in his stomach. But each time he was anxious. Anxious that he wouldn’t be able to explain himself. Anxious that his father wouldn’t want to talk about it. He realised that he couldn’t leave like this, without saying anything. He hadn’t set off on this journey just to know what had happened. Not just for the adventure.
He opened his mouth, still trying to find the right words, but it was Vittorio who spoke first, as though a kind of telepathy had formed between father and son.