“Yes, it came from what is known as the transfer file, a very important but little-known part of ‘our cultural heritage,’ as the art bureaucrats like to call it. I told Mr. Vitas that I was very surprised to see that he had the card at all, and he merely smiled and said nothing. So I proceeded to tell him all that I knew of that card, and of hundreds of others like it, and I suppose you’d like a repeat performance, even though you have only Drinas, not Marlboros, and most likely you haven’t got any coffee with you, either.”
“Not a grain.” Vlado smiled.
“No. I should think not. And I have no hot water anyway, although I suppose I could have imposed on one of my lovely neighbors by offering a spoonful of Nescafe in exchange. But you have none, so …”
Then, with great effort, Glavas took as deep a breath as his wheezing lungs would permit, as if steeling himself for a dive into deep water. He looked down at his hands, as if he might have been holding the very card that Vitas had brought that day. And he began his story.
CHAPTER 10
“The card is all about art, you see,” Glavas said. “Fine works of art.”
Vlado felt a twinge of worry. So would this be the essence of the secret Vitas had died for? Some paintings from the museum? A bit of culture wrenched from a wall?
“Ah,” Glavas said. “I see that I bore you already. Not even interested enough to take notes.”
Vlado realized with a flush that he had put his pen down.
“Was I that obvious?” he asked. “I guess I had hoped that it might be something more. More than a few cases of liquor or cigarettes, or a few sides of mutton. And I’m sorry, but a few pictures strike me as an even less inspiring reason for getting yourself killed with a war on. Assuming that that’s where this might lead, of course. Meat, at least, you can eat.”
“Yes, meat,” Glavas said. “That and alcohol and gasoline and cigarettes can make you rich on the black market. Over time. And with a great deal of competition to worry about. But with a mere few pictures, as you put it, you can make yourself wealthy almost overnight. A millionaire, several times over, if you make the right choices. Even with the meager offerings of this town.
“And in the process, you can begin the destruction of an entire culture. Either one of those things alone, Mr. Petric, would seem reason enough for killing someone in this climate of looting and genocide, wouldn’t you agree? After all, what could be more calming to one’s conscience, being able to boast that you were destroying a nation’s emotional heritage even as you were lining your own pockets with a fortune to last a lifetime.”
“I guess if you look at it that way, it does seem a little closer to the heart of things.” Vlado pulled his own cigarette from the pack of Drinas that lay between them.
“And in the case of the transfer file, or these cards with the red circle on them,” Glavas said, “we’re not only talking of paintings, but also of manuscripts, sculptures, icons from the churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. Even a few old Jewish relics that the Communists managed to lay their hands on. A few old coins here and there, and some swords, vases, nice old boxes, that sort of thing. And each piece, or at least each piece of art in the ‘transfer file’ has ended up in the museum’s inventory files with a little red circle in the upper right corner, and my name on the bottom. And if you care to explore further, you’ll find that each of these cards tells its own tale of the way art moves and migrates, comes and goes, hither and yon, depending on the fortunes of war, the greed of bureaucrats, the cunning of politicians, and the whims of fate. Because, make no mistake, Mr. Petric, in every tale of war there is always a tale of art on the move, of one culture trying to steal the soul of another, whether in the name of booty or under the gentling guise of ‘preservation.’
“Which is why, in telling you of the transfer file, I must first go back to the spring of 1945, at the wretched end of yet another wretched war. So we’ll start there, if you don’t mind.”
“Please do.”
Glavas eased forward on the couch, shifting the rough blanket about his shoulders, collecting himself again with another deep breath.
“It was a hell of a lot worse then than now, I will tell you,” he said. “And that’s not just the generational carping of an old man determined to prove he’s had it worse than anybody nowadays. I sit here now under a pile of blankets with no heat and maybe two hours a week of running water, and that’s on a good day. And by God this is luxury compared to that war. The food now is the same every day, but it is food. The walls now are full of shrapnel, but they are still standing. The enemy shoots at us but he at least stays in the hills. This is a bad game of roulette. That war was one massacre after the other. You want to learn about some real ethnic cleansing? Then go back and read about that meat grinder. Or better still, ask your father, or your uncle.”
Vlado didn’t need to ask anyone. He’d heard most such tales in all their gory detail. And while the more glorious tales of heroism tended to be exaggerated-just ask Damir’s father, for example-the stories of hardship and horror had if anything been toned down. Croats killing Serbs, Serbs killing Muslims, Communists killing royalists, the Germans killing practically everybody-and for the survivors the old anger and mistrust had never been far from the surface. From their memories had come the embers that now burned so brightly across Bosnia, as if the fire had only gone underground for half a century.
“My village was gone, burned to a cinder, a small place in the east, barely a dozen houses altogether,” Glavas said. “Wiped out by the Nazis and those nasty Croats in the Ustasha. I’d been a university boy before everything shut down, an art history major with dreams of someday running a state museum, and I’d just won a curator’s internship in Belgrade when the fighting started. All that was over then, of course. And the village was gone in about the time it took you to buy your groceries. By the time the soldiers came I’d made it out of town on a farm wagon with four other boys my age. Then we ran from a roadblock and through the woods until I reached here. None of the other three made it. Shot while we ran, though I never once looked back. Just felt them falling around me, going down as if they’d suddenly gotten tired and given up on the spot. Amazing I wasn’t hit. For three days I lived on snow and a single heel of bread, and I spent the rest of the war holed up in cellars and back rooms, hiding from what passed for the authorities then.”
Glavas went on for another twenty minutes about those times, his voice rising with a passion as if the events had occurred just last week. Vlado sought a way to steer him back toward the subject at hand, but it was obvious Glavas was going to have his say. A man like this didn’t get much in the way of visitors anymore. So let him talk it out, Vlado figured, glancing at his watch. By the sound of it, Glavas was finally nearing the end of World War II.
“By the time you survived something like that you not only had the fear of God worn out of you, you also had the fire of revenge burning in your belly, and you were ready to take this revenge any way you could get it. My chance would come through art. A few months after the war ended I was invited to join the delegation going to Germany to recover the items that had been plundered from the new nation of Yugoslavia during the war. I say delegation, which makes it sound grand, but it was actually just me and one other fellow. If so many museum people hadn’t been killed or taken off to the camps, I never would have been chosen. But as it was I was an easy choice for them. My training made me stand out, and when I heard they were looking for help I jumped at the chance. I could extract revenge canvas by canvas. And let me tell you, from the very beginning I had no intention of sticking by anyone’s rules. I was full of zeal, ready to claim anything and everything that wasn’t tied down, particularly if I suspected it was a piece that really belonged in Germany. My chief worry was how I’d be able to keep my boss from finding out-Pencic, the museum director from Belgrade. And then, of course, I’d also have to deal with the Allied officers in charge of the operation. The Monuments officers, they called themselves. Americans, mostly.