The tape recorder …
24
It was a hazy, grey Thursday morning as Arthur and DiPalma boarded the ferry to cross the mile of choppy blue water from the Greek holiday island of Corfu to the hardscrabble republic of Albania. DiPalma went below, away from the smokers, but Arthur stayed above with his phrasebook, packing burley into his pipe bowl, and was soon watching Corfu’s tony villas fade into the mist.
After a three-day Greek layover, the adventure had begun, with Arthur feeling amazed at himself, at his spunk in undertaking so perilous an errand. But it had to be done — not just out of professional duty but for pride. A Thirst for Justice deserved a nobler ending than a nosedive into obscurity behind the ever-extending shadow of the hero’s rookie M.P. wife.
Ray DiPalma was the catalyst for this, cockily sure he could worm his way into the confidence of Abzal Erzhan’s keepers. Trust me, he kept insisting, eager for intrigue, eager to prove his global spying expertise. But for the moment, the poor fellow was doing battle below, conquering his pain, at the very nadir of nicotine withdrawal, though still on the patch.
The mainland loomed, the customs dock, a welter of tumbledown structures by the shoreline. Arthur tamped out his pipe as DiPalma, breathing heavily, burst outside and advanced toward the railing with cold determination.
Aghast, Arthur feared he was about to drown his misery by jumping, but it was the nicotine patch, ripped from his arm, that went overboard. DiPalma grimly pulled a pack of Greek cigarettes from a duty-free bag, refusing to meet Arthur’s censorious eye. His first effort at ignition failed, either because of the breeze or his shaking hands. He squatted in a corner like a whipped dog and finally got a cigarette going, pulling on it ravenously.
By mid-afternoon, they were in the Gjirokaster Hills. Their clanking taxi made slow headway among the grunting transports and donkey carts and errant flocks of sheep. Arthur’s impression was of a country bypassed by the modern world, so derelict as to seem barely recovered from the last world war.
But the sense of timelessness was lulling, and while DiPalma, fully re-addicted now, chain-smoked his foul-smelling cigarettes, Arthur sat back and enjoyed the views as they twisted up a tall range of hills to the town of Gjirokaster, a jumble of rectangular, slate-roofed Ottoman houses strewn haphazardly about steep, cobblestoned streets — a wonkily attractive town, crowned by a massive fortress.
They disembarked at the Gjirokaster Hotel, four storeys, a look of ill-restored elegance. It was opposite an empty plaza that, DiPalma explained, had once been dominated by a statue of Enver Hoxha, the despised native son of this town.
Free enterprisers had displaced the dictator — the plaza hosted a dozen hawkers and food vendors, the aromas from their braziers sending enticing greetings to Arthur’s empty stomach. The nearest of them called out. “Very good lamb shish kebab. Beef, goat, chicken. Excellent price. Name is Djon. Speak English.” Middle-aged with thick glasses, a paunch, and a Salvador Dali moustache. He waved a thickly laden skewer. “Here, try, on my house.”
Arthur and DiPalma sent the porter into the hotel with their bags and crossed the street. The braised chunks of lamb looked delicious and the posted price ludicrously low.
“Also change dollars. Arrange excursions. Help with translation. Anything you want. Best prices for souvenirs. Girls also.”
They ordered two lamb skewers to go. Djon held Arthur’s ten-euro bill close to his astigmatic eyes, examining it for flaws. “Not able making change right now.” When told he could keep the bill, he shook Arthur’s hand powerfully.
The shish kebabs had been honestly advertised, and were gone by the time they entered the Turkish-style lobby. “Well coming in,” said the clerk. “Best rooms for you top floor, only fifty dollars, includes satellite TV and hair blower. Sorry, no elevator working.”
They were escorted up three flights to side-by-side rooms, baronial with carved wood ceilings, that rewarded with balcony views of twisting, serpentine streets, hillside forests, and promises of Ionian sunsets beyond the foothills.
It was too late to seek out Hanife Bejko. DiPalma planned to reconnoitre his neighbourhood the next day, then they might come calling in the evening. They’d speculated a lot about Bejko — had he shared a prison with Erzhan? As an enemy of the state? An Albanian mafia figure? A murderer now paroled?
They spent the remaining daylight hours puffing up and down the unforgiving cobblestones, then settled into a restaurant to try its specialty, yogurt soup and tongue of veal. DiPalma washed down his with a jug of wine, all the while flirting with a comely barmaid, who couldn’t have been older than twenty and wasn’t inhibited in response.
Sipping an after-dinner slivovitz, DiPalma adjusted his glasses to better view the young woman’s bottom as she leaned over a counter. “God, she’s hot.” He butted his cigarette, and wandered over to engage her, winning a smile and a whispered word in his ear.
“Ledjina, entrancing name,” DiPalma said on his return. “Speaks excellent English — she’s taking day classes for a degree in tourism. She wants to practise on me tomorrow, show me around town.”
The next day, while DiPalma went dallying off with Ledjina, Arthur explored Epirus’s rocky coast and its preserved Greek and Roman temples — the Troy reborn so celebrated by the Aeneid. On wearily returning to his floor, he paused to rap on DiPalma’s door. No response.
He lay down for a catnap, a refresher before the business planned for the evening, the Bejko visit, and in seconds was carried off by the Lethean current, past pillared shrines and palaces from which the shadowy figure of Abzal Erzhan flitted into view, then vanished in the mists.
It was already night when he was aroused by DiPalma’s reverent roar from the next room. “Sweet Jesus!” That was followed by female laughter.
As Arthur rose to shower, he glanced at the bedside clock: eight-thirty. He’d slept three hours and missed dinner. They must head out directly — Hanife Bejko might be an early sleeper. He hammered the wall with a shoe, shouted a summons to meet in the lobby.
It was after nine as Arthur paced impatiently near the front entrance — DiPalma was taking an inordinate time parting from Ledjina. Grumbling under his breath, he stepped outside, lit his pipe. His stomach was vocalizing too, responding to the kebab vendor across the street: “You, friend. Best lamb, pork, chicken killed today, two-for-one Christmas special.”
Arthur had developed a taste for these greasy, meaty morsels, and in short time was nibbling from a skewer, nodding or shaking his head in response to Djon’s interrogation.
“Not American? Not English? Ah, Canadian, very good. Am giving deep regrets over your prime minister kicking bucket. Now you have lady like Maggie Thatcher, except more pretty. Djon Bajramovic is my name, student of politics, keep up with world, support Canada in war with Bhashyistan. You come as tourist? No? You look like professor. Wrong guess. Businessman then, what else is left? So what business?”
Arthur swallowed. “We build resorts.” It was an uncomfortable lie. What was that false front of DiPalma’s? Apex something.
“So is obvious you need translator, yes? Also I speak Italian and Greek, some Serbian. Many contacts, in Gjirokaster province, in capital city Tirana, whole country. Can get best property agents, best lawyers, help with bribes.”
The multitalented Djon Bajramovic began a cheerful story of his decline and fall. “My father was partisan, good communist, never liquidated in purges. Yours truly also was big wheel in party, managed state farm after cultural revolution. Now Socialist Party is out, Democrats in. Now no government job, no work, because of bourgeois revanchists. But still many connections.” He stroked his long curling moustache.