Diary of Interrupted Days (13 page)

“I hope, for his own good, that Johnny is more cynical than that.”

She laughed.

Miki took a pair of gloves from one of the many pockets in his jacket. “It’s freezing out here,” he said. “How about another drink?”

Johnny could not stand the cold anymore. No matter how
many branches he piled beneath himself, he still felt the snow. He was sorry that he had not taken the advice of one of his comrades and brought a hip flask with him. But no matter how ridiculous this all seemed, it was still a war, and he wanted to keep his head clear.

By the degree of numbness in his feet, he decided he must have been out here for three hours at least. He started doing squats and then froze, reacting to something he could not yet quite sense. He raised his gun to his chest, released the safety as inaudibly as he could, and held his breath. The normal murmur of the forest had returned. Still, he lay down slowly behind a fallen trunk. There was that sound again: this time he was sure of it—a large animal, or a man. Slow steps, very careful, a few seconds between each one. Then a bunch of stars disappeared behind a human silhouette. The officer in charge would not approach like this. Johnny took aim. He inhaled deeply, and just before he yelled a warning into the night, the silhouette quietly called his name.

Again: “Johnny?”

“Who is it?” he whispered back.

“It’s me, Black. Where are you?”

Still pointing his gun, Johnny stood up. “Over here.”

“You fucking scared me, bro. You’re not where you’re supposed to be. I thought maybe someone got you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“This is the only place where we can talk in private. And it’s freezing, so I brought you a little something to keep you warm.”

He sat down on the tree trunk, pulled out a bottle from the inside of his coat, took a swig and handed it over.
Johnny wiped the bottle’s mouth against his sleeve, and drank. The sharp punch of the homemade brandy warmed him up. He handed the bottle back.

“The Candyman’s first reaction was to eliminate you, bro.”

Black was clearly waiting for a reaction, so Johnny said, “Eliminate me?”

“Yeah. But I told him he was overreacting. You’re not an idiot, I told him. You had to do what you did. There were two people with you—you couldn’t have pretended our guys were not doing that pussy. I told him that for our cause you were better alive than dead. I think that’s what made him change his mind. I mean, totally change his mind, full circle. To the point that you will get your piece from our little business with the locals. You haven’t talked to anyone about it, have you? Not Pap, I hope?”

“No.”

“That’s what I told him. The Candyman. He never trusts anyone. Got a light?”

“You can’t smoke here.”

“I won’t smoke. I’ve got a paper for you to sign.”

Johnny heard rustling inside Black’s coat and then there was a sheet of paper in his hand.

“What’s that?”

“An oath. I mean, they call it an oath but I think of it as a confidentiality agreement, really. I have a flashlight somewhere, wait, here’s a pen, and, oh, okay, here’s the light.”

Johnny sat next to Black on the trunk and flattened the paper on his knee. Black switched his tiny lamp on, protected it with his other hand, and held it so Johnny could
see. As Johnny waited for his eyes to get accustomed to what seemed like a blinding light, someone in the forest yelled, “Stop!” Instinctively, Johnny hit the hand holding the lamp and it shone on Black’s chest. A short and sharp sound, like a branch snapping underfoot, came from somewhere near and Black jerked and fell behind the trunk. Johnny reached towards him, lost his balance, and fell too. Another branch cracked, and Johnny clearly heard the whistle of a bullet above his head. A third snap, and a short scream. Johnny was on his back, clutching his gun, his heart thumping in his chest. He looked around. There was no safer place than where he was. Black was making a strange, quiet, gurgling sound.

“Johnny?” someone hissed. He did not recognize the voice.

“Johnny, are you okay?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“The Commander. Watch the one next to you. Take his weapons away. They came to kill you.”

The Commander was what the Black Lions called the Candyman. What was he doing here? And why did he shoot his own soldier? What was that other scream in the forest? Johnny started searching Black and found a handgun in the outside pocket of his coat. He took it and pulled Black’s rifle towards him. Then he searched for the tiny lamp. It was next to Black’s hand. He switched it on, left it on the tree trunk, and rolled away from it, and farther from Black, who was still making that strange noise.

“Come slowly to where the light hits you,” he said. “Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll shoot.”

A man appeared in the beam. He raised one hand to protect his eyes but there was no doubt about his identity.

“Are you armed?”

“Of course I am,” said the Candyman. “If I wasn’t you’d be dead by now.”

Johnny could not think of any logical retort he could make at this point so he slowly got up, his gun still ready.

“What is this?” he said.

“You chose the wrong person to confide in,” the Candyman said. “Pap wasn’t happy about you being so well informed.” He sat down on the trunk and lit a cigarette. Then he switched off the lamp.

“Who was that in the woods with you?”

“Another of my men. A triple murderer who had recently escaped from jail. I did not trust him, anyway. Too easy to blackmail. That’s why your captain chose him.”

“Pap sent that man to kill me?”

“Yeah. And Black too. Pap probably offered him a nice sum. Black was a greedy bastard.”

“I think he’s still alive.”

The Candyman listened awhile, then said, “Not for long. His lungs are perforated. Not a nice way to die.”

“But why did you—?”

“Save you? I did not come to save you, Johnny, but to punish my men for making deals behind my back. This is my army and I run it like one. I ordered the other one to stop when I found him”—he pointed with his thumb behind his back—“and he made the mistake of turning his gun on me.”

Johnny sat down next to him. “Why did it bother Pap
that I knew about the deal? Others probably know about it, too. They live with the locals.”

“The locals won’t tell—none of them except your little hostess, who is already in a basement. The others know that the deal is off if they tell conscripts about it. Not only would it be off—they would have me as an enemy. They’ll keep their mouths shut. Maybe she didn’t know the score because she just got here.”

“What will you do with her?”

“I intend to keep her locked up as long as we’re here, that’s what. If you’re worried about her pussy, don’t be—fucking our clients would be bad for business.”

“Those trucks outside the village—protection is not the only business going on here, is it?”

The Candyman puffed on the smoke, then smiled. “I reckon there’s no reason not to tell you. They’re loaded with weapons and equipment. I’m selling them to Croats.”

“To Croats? But—”

“Ah, but of course—you think you know right from wrong, that everything is clear in this war. Well, listen to this: we fought in Croatia last year and we seized those trucks in a village close to the Hungarian border. In them we found all brand-new stuff, and all American. How did the Croats get it when the arms embargo was in place against both sides? That is a question worth five million Deutsche Marks, my friend. The Americans apparently broke the embargo in order to supply their friends. It would be very unpleasant if I took those trucks to Belgrade and opened them in front of the foreign cameras. I don’t know who’s paying me not to—Yanks or Croats—but I don’t care.”

“So what about me?”

“I’m still thinking.”

Johnny knew the reputation of this man—there was nothing he could do but wait for his fate to be decided. The Candyman had a baby face, gentle eyes, and a kind smile, but some of the stories that circulated in Belgrade claimed that he had already had some ten murders behind him when he started working for the secret police, long before this war. Then he had murdered for them all over Europe, dozens of people—the count was lost in the secret vaults.

“The best solution would be for you to join me. I could keep an eye on you and you would have the best time of your life, I promise you.” He laughed. “This is like love: two people who would be a perfect fit but they will never get together. Or I could finish you off right now. All witnesses dead, no one would ever know what happened here. Perhaps my men popped you for arresting their friends. Or the Croats came. Whatever. That’s actually very good. Hmm.”

Johnny clutched his rifle tighter.

“But I believe in fate. I never wanted to kill you and you survived the attempt on you tonight. But if I let you go, you can’t go back to Belgrade. Some people will think you killed our boys and you wouldn’t last long.
Your
friends won’t like that you’ve been with my army. If I were you, Johnny, I’d take a hike and start anew.”

Johnny sighed. “If this gets reported, they’ll catch me when I try crossing the border.”

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours. And I have a few foreign
passports here. We can take your photo from the military card and you’ll be good to go.” The Candyman blew out another lungful of smoke. “You have it with you? The military card?”

Johnny found it in his wallet and handed it over.

“You wait here,” he said. “I’ll send that little slut to bring the passport to you. Make sure she goes back to Germany.”

He stood up.

“Should I thank you?” Johnny asked.

“Not at all, not at all. Because this is not over. If you decide to rat against me, remember that I travel fast and can turn up anywhere.” Suddenly the Candyman had his handgun pointing at Johnny’s forehead. “And then, pop!”

Johnny glimpsed a smile on the man’s oddly gentle face, as if the gun belonged to another person, someone who happened to share the same hands. He took Johnny’s rifle away from him, put his own gun back into his pocket, and walked towards the man he had killed. He turned Johnny’s rifle on the corpse and fired two bullets into it. He then walked to Black’s body and shot again.

“Just so I know you won’t come back, artist,” he said and threw the rifle aside. “It’s official now—you’ve murdered two people.”

The Candyman turned to go, but then stopped. “How did you put it in that song of yours? ‘I’m fucking my destiny’? Well, the bitch is cheating on you.”

He vanished in the night.

NIGHT TRAIN.
December 24, 1992

It was dawn when Johnny and Mira crossed the Danube into Serbia. She had taken him to her friend’s house in another village to find him some civilian clothes and then they were driven to the river, where a man took them across in his motorboat. Two hours later, they boarded a bus from Sombor to Belgrade. At half past ten, they were in Johnny’s apartment.

The air was not stale. There were even a few sausages and sardine cans in the fridge. Sara had kept it alive for him.

“You get some rest,” he said to Mira. “I need to make some calls. But we should leave today.”

“I’ll take a shower first, if you don’t mind. Where will you go?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Johnny said. “What about you?”

“I have enough cash with me to get to Budapest. I’ll take a train from there to Munich. You can come with me if you wish. You can stay for a few days in my apartment until you find something.”

She did not say, “stay with me.”

“Thanks,” he said. “But I think I might go to Amsterdam.” He had no friends in Amsterdam. But he had been there a few times and it looked Babylonian enough for a fugitive to get lost in it.

He gave her a towel and she closed the bathroom door behind her. He waited until he heard the sound of water and then went to the phone.

Sara felt as if her insides were a broken fridge full of eggs
and meat. When she woke up, she dragged herself to the kitchen to make coffee, took a quick shower (was she not supposed to take a long, scalding shower now?), and then put on her bathrobe. She looked briefly in the mirror and pulled the bathrobe up to her chin. She sat at her desk. Her head was throbbing and she downed a painkiller with her coffee. There was nothing in the mail except bills. She switched the radio on and returned to her desk.

She picked up the handset to call someone, then put it back. Her head wanted to separate from her body, because it knew who Miki’s hands had touched, and wanted none of it.

The phone rang. At first she thought that it was the tail ring, because she had lifted the handset, but then it rang again. Her mother? Not now. Another ring. Boris? Not now. Miki, for a thank-you chat? Another ring. Someone from her old job? They wanted her back. Not now, not ever. Another. News about Johnny? Bad news? She started crying. Another ring. She picked up and held the handset to her ear, but didn’t say anything. The person on the other end was already disconnecting.

Boris stood in front of his bookshelves. This was freakishly difficult. He could take two bags of sixty pounds each with him to Canada, but when he started calculating what he wanted to bring, it added up to something over two hundred pounds. He had to decide fast if he wanted to have enough time to sell some of the stuff he would not be taking with him.

Bulgakov was a no-brainer. He had read
The Master and
Margarita
a dozen times. Varlam Shalamov’s
The Kolyma Tales
also had to come. A few comic books, mostly from Pratt’s
Corto Maltese
and Magnus and Bunker’s
Alan Ford
series. Some of the early
Asterix.
He who loses touch with his childhood is doomed. He’d already filled a good part of one of the suitcases. His eyes skipped to the shelf with the reference books. The Oxford Dictionary? Too big, although it was as important as his passport in the West. He would sell his copy and buy a new one there.

The telephone rang. When he picked it up, Johnny had to say his name twice before he realized who it was. Half an hour later, he was climbing out of a cab in front of Johnny’s building.