The biggest surprise to Vlado was the random, aimless nature of it all. Even in the ghastliest descriptions he’d read of past wars, there was always the semblance of a plan. Even the senselessness of World War I had borne the stamp of some huge, unstoppable organism of flesh and steel, with a vast network of communications strung out to all corners of the front. Bombardments were coordinated, lasting days at a time, if only to bring on a single frenzied moment of suicidal assault. Every massive wave of murder was premeditated.
And here? The war lurched through the dark like a beast with every limb disabled. Firing was sporadic, as if by whim. Desultory sniper exchanges quickly turned into heated personal vendettas, then just as quickly subsided. Gun crews worked or didn’t work depending on their supply of shells, sleep, and brandy, though most often upon the latter. Command and control were concepts for some other hillside, some other part of the country where the line shifted occasionally, perhaps for some other war altogether. Or perhaps this was the way a war always felt from the inside, as if one were part of a vast portrait that only assumed shape and order when viewed from a distance.
Toward 4 a.m. it began to rain, beginning with a heavy mist that progressed into a steady drizzle of cold, fat drops. Vlado lowered his head, straining his eyes in the dark to watch the water sluice off his sodden cap into a puddle at his feet.
The narrow beam of a penlight swept into his trench, illuminating other men similarly posed. A hand latched onto his right shoulder from behind, jostling him as if he’d dozed off. “Let’s go if you’re going.”
It was the officer who’d brought their unit up the hill. They were pulling out.
He climbed out, the soft ground sinking beneath his weight, his joints stiff from hours of standing and sitting in the cold.
They formed up in the grove of splintered trees and began their parade downhill. Vlado was too tired to bother checking who was in front and back of him. They all stared at their own feet. No one spoke. The cookfires that had been burning hours earlier were out now.
It was another twenty minutes before he took stock of the situation, making a mental roll call as he glanced from the front to the rear of the shambling column. Leading the way were the older men, still grouped by age and attitude. Turning toward the rear he saw to his alarm that two of the teenage boys were carrying a blanket between them, slung heavily like a stretcher. It was obvious someone was in it, dead or wounded. Probably dead, judging by the way the bulge kept bumping the ground.
It was the boy with the ponytail, it turned out, the one with the radio. He’d been hit square in the nose by a chunk of shrapnel, which tore off half his face but left him otherwise untouched. The other boys had turned his body face down into the blanket, hauling him as if he were only napping in a sodden hammock. A corner of his plaid shirttail dangled over the side. His radio was nowhere in sight, either destroyed in the same blast or nimbly confiscated by some veteran of the line.
By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, a dim light was bleeding into the deep gray of the eastern sky, and the rain had stopped. They reached their rendezvous point from the previous evening, and the commander began handing out the day’s ration of cigarettes. You got a whole pack for a night at the front. Frontline regulars even got filter tips. The officer thrust a pack toward Vlado, a pleasant surprise until it occurred to him how the pack had suddenly become available. Vlado waved it away. “Give it to one of his friends instead.”
“What friends?” the officer asked gruffly. “Everyone hated him. Him and his damn radio.”
Vlado numbly reached out to take the pack, then thought better of it, pulling his hand back.
“Give it to one of them,” he said, motioning toward the others in the unit. “I’m finished with handouts.”
“Just as well,” the officer said. “I’ll keep it for myself. Anyone who’s tired of taking handouts in this place might as well shoot himself before he starves.”
It was another half hour’s walk to home, and it was all Vlado could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The conversation with Neven already seemed as if it had taken place days ago, the memory of the scene almost surreal with its flashes of light, the sharp taste of the Turkish coffee. Surely that other world up the hill no longer existed except in Vlado’s mind.
He arrived on his doorstep soaked to the bone, and it was times like these when he most wished for a hot shower and a warm bed. Instead he peeled off his clothes and laid them across the bathroom sink, wiping the mud from his body with a damp, sour sponge. He lit two gas flames on the kitchen stove, one to heat a pot of beans he’d left to soak overnight, another to heat water for coffee. The Nescafe was down to the last grains so he used them all, preferring a single strong cup to a pair of weak ones.
A few moments later he sipped down the scalding brew, the brief pain of the heat feeling good in his throat and stomach. Then he pulled on thick dry socks and long underwear, a T-shirt and a sweater, and crawled under his blankets.
He slept until almost noon, waking groggily to the sound of a distant explosion. His stomach was cramped and gassy, and his breath smelled of stale beans and coffee. He tried calling the office to let them know where he was, but the lines were down again. He checked in the mirror, rubbing a hand across stubbly cheeks, but didn’t have the heart to drag a cold, dull razor across two days of growth. Outside it was still gray. He swished a glass of water in his mouth, spit into the sink, then pulled a soiled but dry pair of trousers on and shrugged into his overcoat. It was time to walk to the office.
Damir greeted him as if in amazement.
“You’re back from the dead!” he shouted, then asked for a complete rundown on the evening. Vlado told him what he’d learned, giving only a few details, mentioning a smuggling operation but nothing about what was being smuggled. Further details could wait until he had the list from Glavas. Otherwise, he still felt bound by his promise to Kasic to hold back what he could. He sagged into a chair, exhaustion catching up to him already.
“Hard to believe the bastard can’t read,” Damir said. “No wonder Zarko trusted him. Once the war’s over we’ll have to recruit a better class of criminal or else they’ll never let us join the European Union.”
“Any further word from anyone?” Vlado asked.
“All quiet. Nothing at all. This morning I was so desperate for something to do I was almost hoping for another murder. No such luck. But this Vitas case-we need new leads, Vlado, or else we’re up against a dead end. Whatever trail there was a few days ago is probably cold by now.”
“That’s the longest stream of Western detective cliches I’ve heard out of your mouth since we started working together,” Vlado said.
Damir laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it. For a moment Vlado detected a shadow of the bleakness that had washed across Damir’s face a few days ago, when he had strolled through the sniper zone.
“What’s bothering you?” Vlado asked with concern, although he already had a pretty good idea. “I figured you at least had your new friend Francesca to help pass the time. Either way your evening couldn’t have been as bad as mine.”
“You’re holding back on me, Vlado. When you asked me to help out on this investigation I was excited, but I’ve been completely shut out. I’m nothing but an errand boy. You spend a night with probably the city’s most notorious surviving mobster and you sum it up in three minutes of vague chit chat. The other day you spent four hours interviewing some old man in Dobrinja. Four hours! Then you explain it to me in two minutes of broad assurances that soon we’d have a lot of new leads. I’m supposed to take you at your word without even knowing his name or what he does, and then I’m supposed to keep myself happy by talking to whores, which I suppose is all you think I’m good for. Why is it that I think that even when I’m running down these leads I still won’t really know what I’m looking for?”