‘That’s a nice memory,’ said Reinhardt, more out of politeness than anything else. He hesitated a moment, wondering if he should be polite and offer a memory of his own, but he had nothing like that to offer. His childhood had been happy enough, but austere in its way; school, the church, duty, holidays once a year at Wismar on the Baltic.
‘Then the Austrians strengthened the other bank too, and it never flooded again. This place’ – he gestured down at the river – ‘became too dangerous to play in. Because of the new banks, the waters would rise too fast and too quickly.’ Begovic looked up, then around and behind him. ‘This city and water have always gone together, you know. There’s the valley, and the Miljacka. There’s the Zeljeznica, and the Bosna. The water flows through in the way it wants. Sometimes gently. Sometimes not. Like life. The Ottomans understood that, I think. All the Austrians could do was dam it, and channel it. Make it work for them and call it progress. Which,’ he sighed, ‘I suppose it was, in a way.’
They carried on walking up to the Emperor’s Bridge, which led back over the Miljacka to the barracks, where they stopped. Reinhardt waved away a pair of policemen on foot patrol. He looked up at the night sky. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘there are times I hate this place. The mountains. The streets. They seem to hem you in. You move and move and never get anywhere. Whichever way you turn, there’s always a wall.’
Begovic looked up as well. ‘Walls have doors, Captain. And windows. Have you been to Travnik? No?’ He smiled, running his eyes up and along the roll of Trebevic against the night. ‘Now there is a town squeezed in between its mountains. I can see how you might think that of Sarajevo, Captain, but I don’t see walls, or confinement. My city is a flower. A rose, in the shelter of her mountains.’ He looked up at Reinhardt. ‘This is my city, Captain. Mine. And she is beautiful.’
Reinhardt offered his hand, and Begovic took it after a moment. For some reason, Reinhardt was absurdly grateful that the doctor had not looked around to see if anyone might be looking before shaking the hand of a German soldier. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ he said. ‘For your help, back there. I do apologise for my behaviour.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ replied Begovic. He paused. ‘If it can help, I can tell you Topalovic will not suffer much more. It will soon be over for him. For them both.’
Reinhardt’s mouth twisted. ‘Yes. A show trial and an execution. Very quick, if it’s done properly.’
Begovic blinked at him past his thick glasses. For a moment, it seemed to Reinhardt he wanted to say something else. Share something. ‘I wish you a good night, Captain. Until the next time we meet.’ He tipped his hat and was gone, a small, thin shape disappearing into the night.
17
Reinhardt ate alone in the officers’ mess, making a point of not staying away as much as he wanted to. He sat at a table facing the bar and the corner with the easy chairs. Kurt served him in silence with his usual impeccable style. Pork again, in some sort of cream sauce. The bar was not as full as it might have been, with so many troops gone to the front. It was mostly officers from the Sarajevo garrison, most of whom ignored him, a couple looking his way just long enough for him to be sure that word of what had happened that afternoon had spread. A couple of times he heard whispering, barely restrained snorts of laughter, but he ignored it, even if it did make the flush rise that bit higher in his cheeks and neck.
When he had finished his meal, he made himself go to the bar, but the only other person he exchanged a few words with was Paul Oster, a captain he knew in the medical corps, who sat slumped against the bar, exhausted by the preparations for Schwarz.
‘Now all we can do is wait for the casualties to come in,’ he muttered into his beer. ‘Got everything ready. From here to Mostar. Clean sheets. Soft pillows. Sharp saws. A train ticket home for the lucky ones,’ he giggled, staring into the bottom of his empty beer glass. ‘But those badly wounded will be lucky to get up those bloody roads out of the valleys and through all these damn mountains. And as if that weren’t enough, the idiots have to keep getting themselves hurt,’ he said, as he nodded thanks to the beer Reinhardt bought him.
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, you know. Carelessness. Idiocy. Self-inflicted wounds. Treated a pair of infantrymen for burns the other day. Quite bad ones, actually. Stupid buggers. They said it was an accident but I’ll bet they were burned siphoning fuel for the black market or some other brainless bloody stunt.’ Oster slurped from his beer, his eyes glazed with fatigue and booze. He left soon after, waving a bleary goodbye as he weaved off.
Reinhardt stayed a while longer with his drink, absently tracing his fingernail through the wood grain on the bar top. There was a pile of magazines and newspapers at one end of the bar, and he flicked through back copies of Signal and Das Schwarze Korps, half hoping to find something by Vukic. He thought back to what Padelin had said about her work. He remembered the sparkle she brought to that Christmas party when she had danced with him and could imagine the light and warmth she must have brought to the lives of soldiers far from home. He could easily see her posing for a photo sitting on a tank with her arms around a couple of lucky men or leading them all in a song.
‘Are you Reinhardt?’ He jerked slightly. A captain of infantry stood behind him, a cloth-covered helmet under his arm with a pair of goggles strapped to them. An unloaded MP 40 hung across his chest and a long pair of leather gloves were shoved behind his belt. His uniform, with the red stripe of the Winter Campaign medal, was covered in dust and his face was dirty, his cheeks showing the crescents of his goggles. ‘Reinhardt?’ he asked, unscrewing the top button of his uniform. Reinhardt nodded, cautiously. ‘Hans Thallberg. Good to meet you,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Barman,’ he called. ‘Give me a wet cloth. Been driving most of the day,’ he said to Reinhardt as he dropped his helmet on the bar. ‘Come on, man, quickly now,’ he snapped as he was handed a towel. He wiped his face and hands on it vigorously, wadded it up, and tossed it back over the bar. ‘Anyone drinking that?’ he asked Reinhardt, pointing to Oster’s half-empty glass. Reinhardt shook his head and Thallberg knocked it back. ‘Barman, don’t go away. A beer. Tall and cold. And… another slivovitz?’ His nose wrinkled. ‘You’ve a taste for that stuff, do you? A slivo for the captain.’
Reinhardt watched him, somewhat bemused by all the breeze and bluster. Their drinks arrived and Thallberg’s beer went down his throat in three gusty swallows. ‘If you’ve a moment, I’d appreciate a word,’ he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Table over there? Barman,’ he barked. ‘Another beer.’
The two of them took their seats at a table in the corner of the mess, a couple of battered armchairs arranged around it. Thallberg put his helmet on the table, unstrapped his MP 40, and laid it with a metallic clack on the floor next to him. His equipment belt followed, and he sank into his chair and stretched his legs out. His second beer arrived, and half of it went straight down. He sighed in pleasure, scrubbing fingers through his cropped blond hair. ‘By Christ, I needed that. This is not bad stuff,’ he said, twirling his glass in his hands. ‘They make it here, you know. Sarajevo Brewery. Just up the hill, in fact. Built it right on top of a freshwater spring. Haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’ Reinhardt lit one for each of them and sat back.
‘What do you want, Captain?’
‘Hans, please.’ He sat up in his chair, sipped from his beer, and spoke quietly, the happy-go-lucky demeanour suddenly gone and replaced by something more serious. ‘I understand you’re investigating the murder of Stefan Hendel?’