Adamsberg made a vague sign without replying. ‘Don’t mention the war.’ Danglard had dinned this into him several times.
Nobody else got off at the stop for Kiseljevo. Once they were outside, Adamsberg glanced quickly up at the window and it seemed to him as if the man in the unusual couple was watching them.
‘Alone,’ said Vladislav, stretching his arms up to the clear blue sky. ‘Kiseljevo,’ he added, pointing proudly to the village with its multicoloured walls and close-packed roofs, and its white church tower, nestling in the hills with the Danube sparkling lower down. Adamsberg got out his travel papers and showed him the name of the place they were staying: Krčma.
‘That’s not anyone’s name,’ said Vladislav, ‘it means “inn”. The landlady, if she’s still the same, is called Danica. She gave me my first sip of pivo – beer.’
‘How do you pronounce this word?’
‘With a “ch”: Krchma.’
‘Kruchema.’
‘That’ll do.’
Adamsberg followed Vladislav to the kruchema, which was a tall house with wooden timbers painted and carved decoratively. Conversation stopped as they went inside and suspicious faces turned towards them, reminding Adamsberg of the Norman drinkers in the cafe at Haroncourt or the Béarnais in the bistro at Caldhez. Vladislav introduced himself to the landlady and signed the register, explaining that he was Slavko Moldovan’s grandson.
‘Vladislav Moldovan!’ exclaimed Danica, and from her gestures, Adamsberg gathered that Vlad had grown, that last time she had seen him he was only so high.
The atmosphere immediately changed and people came up to shake Vladislav’s hand, the body language became more welcoming and Danica, who seemed as gentle as her name, sat them down immediately to eat. It was twelve thirty. Lunch today was burecis with pork, she said, putting a carafe of white wine on the table.
‘This is Smeredevka, a little known but reputed wine,’ said Vladislav, pouring out two glasses. ‘And how are you going to find any traces of your Vaudel? Show photos? Bad idea. Very bad. Hereabouts they don’t like people who ask questions, cops, journalists, nosy parkers. You’ll have to think of something else. But they don’t like historians either, or filmmakers or sociologists, anthropologists, photographers, novelists, nutters or ethnologists.’
‘That’s a lot of people they don’t like. Why don’t they like nosy parkers? Because of the war?’
‘No, just that they ask a lot of questions and they’ve had enough questions. All they want is to live in peace now. Except for him,’ he said, pointing to an old man who had just come in. ‘He’s the only one dares to get things going a bit.’
Looking happy, Vladislav crossed the room and caught the newcomer by the shoulders.
‘Arandjel!’ he cried, ‘To sam ja! Slavko unuk! Zar me ne poznaješ?’
The old man, who was very short, thin and rather unkempt, pulled back to examine him, then embraced Vladislav warmly, explaining with gestures that he had grown a lot, he was only so high last time he’d seen him.
‘He can see I’ve got a foreign friend here, he doesn’t want to interrupt,’ Vladislav explained, rejoining Adamsberg with flushed cheeks. ‘Arandjel was a big friend of my dedo. Not afraid of anything, either of them.’
‘I’m going for a walk,’ Adamsberg announced after finishing his dessert – some sugary balls whose ingredients he could not identify.
‘Have some coffee first, so as not to offend Danica. Where are you proposing to walk?’
‘Towards the woods.’
‘No, they won’t like that. Walk along the river, that would look more natural. They’re going to ask me about you, the minute you go. What shall I say? I can’t possibly say you’re a cop – that won’t do you any favours round here.’
‘It doesn’t do you any favours anywhere. Tell them I’ve had a nervous breakdown and have been told to take a rest in a quiet place.’
‘Why would you come all the way to Serbia for that?’
‘Because my baba knew your dedo.’
Vlad shrugged. Adamsberg gulped down his kafa and took out a pen.
‘Vlad, how do you say “hello”, “thank you” and “French” in this language?’
‘Dobro veče, hvala, francuz.’
Adamsberg made him repeat the words and, as was his habit, wrote them on the back of his hand.
‘Not towards the woods,’ Vladislav said again.
‘I understand.’
The young man watched him move off, then signalled to Arandjel that he was now free to talk.
‘He’s had a nervous breakdown, he’s going to walk along by the Danube. He’s a friend of a friend of Dedo’s.’
Arandjel put a little glass of rakija in front of Vladislav. Danica, with a slightly anxious expression, watched the stranger going off on his own.
XXXI
FIRST, ADAMSBERG WALKED ROUND THE VILLAGE THREE times, his eyes wide open to absorb the new sights. By following his instinctive sense of orientation, he quickly grasped the layout of the streets and lanes, the main square, the new cemetery, the stone staircases, the village fountain and the market hall. The decoration of the buildings was unfamiliar, with notices in Cyrillic script, and red-and-white bollards. The colours, the shapes of the roofs, the texture of the stones, the weeds by the wayside, everything was different, but he could make his way around and even feel at home in these remote places. He worked out the paths leading to other villages, towards the woods and fields as far as the eye could see, and towards the Danube, where a few ancient boats were pulled up on the bank. On the other side, the blue fortresses of the Carpathians cascaded abruptly down towards the river.
He lit one of Zerk’s remaining cigarettes, using the red-and-black lighter, and set off westwards, in the direction of the woods. A village woman was pulling a little go-cart along, and as he passed her, he involuntarily shivered at the memory of the woman on the train. They were nothing alike, this one having a rather wrinkled face and wearing a simple grey skirt.
But she did have a wart on her cheek.
He consulted the back of his hand.
‘Dobre veče,’ he said. ‘Bonjour. Francuz.’
The woman neither replied nor did she move on. She ran after him, pulling her cart, and caught him by the arm. Using the universal language of yes and no, she explained that he shouldn’t be going that way, and Adamsberg made it clear to her that he did intend to head that way. She insisted at first, but finally let him go, looking distressed.
The commissaire carried on. He walked into the outskirts of the wood where the trees were still far apart, then made his way across two clearings containing ruined huts, and after a further two kilometres came to a denser band of trees. The path stopped there, on a final space covered with wild flowers. Adamsberg sat on a tree stump, perspiring a little, listening to the wind rising in the east, and lit his last-but-one cigarette. A rustle made him turn his head. The woman was standing there, having abandoned her cart, and was staring at him with a mixture of despair and anger on her face.
‘Ne idi tuda.’
‘Francuz,’ said Adamsberg.
‘On te je privukao! Vrati se! On te je privukao!’
She pointed to a spot at the end of the little clearing, where the trees started, then shrugged her shoulders in discouragement, as if she had done all she could and it was a lost cause. Adamsberg watched her go, almost at a run. Vlad’s advice and the woman’s persistence drove his determination in the other direction, and he looked over at the end of the clearing. Where the trees began in the spot she had indicated, he could see a little mound covered with stones and sawn-off rounds of wood. Where he came from, that might have been the remains of a shepherd’s hut. This must be where the demon lived, the one Uncle Slavko had talked about to the young Danglard.