14 DECEMBER 2005
ANNA WAS EXHAUSTED by the time she reached the Kurhaus reception desk and gratefully handed her belongings to the porter who stood next to a large Christmas tree like a helpful elf. Booking a room here had stretched her thin budget and she winced as she handed over her credit card. All she wanted to do was climb into a warm bed with fresh linen, but Pierre would be here soon, so after she had the luggage sent to her room she headed up the wide marble staircase to the bar. A song, popular when she was a teenager, grew louder and louder as she ascended. At the top of the stairs, she looked up into the vast space beneath the hotel’s dome. A raucous, booming voice filled the space and, looking for the source of it, she saw a diminutive black man in sunglasses bent over a grand piano. The man’s head rolled about with the unselfconscious awkwardness of the blind. He sang about feeling kind of seasick and of a room humming harder and a ceiling flying away, words that seemed wildly out of place here in this nineteenth-century ballroom. Far from crying out for more, the crowd of elderly women, scattered about the place taking high tea, merely wobbled their coiffured heads like novelty nodding dogs.
Behind a circular bar near the small stage, a man in a monogrammed waistcoat with the moustache of a 1970s cricketer sang along as he cleaned glasses and lined them up neatly on the counter. The bar occupied an alcove framed by high walls with trompe l’oeil drapery that suggested old stage curtains.
As the blind man sang of vestal virgins leaving for the coast, Anna slid onto a bar stool. High up in the frescoed dome she made out, on its largest panel, a corpulent Neptune afloat in a giant conch shell. Surrounded by dripping mermaids and minions, the dissolute fellow clutched a trident in one hand and draped the other over the shoulders of a naked nymph. Anna found something oddly appealing about his concupiscence. Then again, like all immortals, he was careless of the creatures around him: he paid no heed at all to the panicky horse hauling him through the sea with its foaming head and nostrils barely above the waves.
‘Can I get you something?’ the barman’s mildly accented English interrupted her reverie.
‘Some binoculars?’ Anna squinted at the immense chandelier that hung from the centre of the dome like a great crystal stalactite but did little to illuminate the frescoes.
‘You can see it better in the daylight,’ said the barman.
‘I’ll have a martini.’
‘To ease the pain?’
‘To pass the time.’
‘Gin or vodka?’
‘Do you have to ask? You’ve got London Number 3—I’ll have that.’
‘Olive or twist?’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘Olive,’ the barman said, and began the ritual. ‘Have you come far?’ he asked without looking up.
Anna paused, then relented: ‘Australia.’
‘Ho! You’ll need this, then.’
The puckish piano man was building to a big finish. There were wild thatches of remnant hair on his shiny head and Anna noticed that the trousers of his outmoded suit were too short. These little signs of decrepitude made her sad. So did thoughts of the ghostly woman whose face had just turned a whiter shade of pale. The singer repeated that line over and over, his voice rising in volume until the lower chandeliers quivered on their flimsy chains.
The barman wiped the marble top and placed a chilled glass in front of Anna before pouring.
‘What brings you so far?’ he asked.
‘I’ve come to see a man I once knew,’ said Anna, and abruptly decided she had revealed too much. She took the martini and a bowl of nuts and moved to an empty table. Before long she heard a familiar voice, and looked up to see a dishevelled figure shambling across the room. Pierre Villiers skirted tables, moving gracefully for a big man. Anna stood to greet him and he hugged her hard, then held her at arm’s length, clutching her shoulders.
‘Hello, Pierre,’ she said, modest under the scrutiny of his clever eyes. They were swimming, as ever, in and out of focus behind the Coke-bottle lenses that made him look a lot like the Trotskyite revolutionary he once claimed to be.
‘Still a beautiful creature.’ Pierre gave his verdict at last, pronouncing the last word ‘cweature’. Anna smiled, recalling his famous radio sign-off: Pierre Villiers weporting fwom Zagweb.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘Especially after another decade of the great unravelling.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Pierre chided her. ‘Time’s stood still for you. There’s no gruesome portrait in my attic, but at least I’ve lost a few pounds with all the cycling.’
‘Sit down, sit down,’ she urged. ‘Let me get you a drink. I couldn’t wait.’
‘Right.’ He pointed at the martini. ‘I’ll have one of those and some more nuts.’
From the bar, Anna watched her friend hoover up the little bowl of peanuts. Pierre was certainly trimmer, but his generally unkempt appearance hadn’t changed much. It had been a long time between haircuts and there were unshaven patches on his cheeks. He had never managed basic maintenance very well, nor cared about it. Clearly no one was taking care of him and she wondered about that. The barman tipped his head towards Pierre, as if to say, ‘Is this really the man?’ Anna shrugged, scooped up another bowl of nuts and left him wondering.
‘He thinks you’re my squeeze,’ she said as she passed over the bowl.
‘An easy mistake,’ said Pierre, straightening his spectacles in a mild effort to measure up.
‘Still got the same goggles.’
‘Propinquity. I got so used to them that I don’t look like myself when I take them off.’
‘Propinquity, propinquity,’ Anna laughed. ‘Zelda Gilroy, right?’
‘That’s right, good memory.’ Pierre grinned back. ‘The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Poor Zelda could never get him to take an interest.’
Anna crumpled her nose.
‘Dobie was a dickhead. Zelda could have done better.’
‘But it was Dobie she wanted,’ said Pierre. ‘And she hung in there waiting for it to kick in—propinquity, I mean. It’s from the Latin propinquitas, by the way, a genuine sociological theory about how proximity eventually leads to attraction.’
‘Right,’ said Anna, remembering that Pierre never missed an opportunity to display his erudition.
‘But somehow,’ he sighed, ‘it never worked for you and me.’
Anna smiled at the old trope and raised her glass.
‘That’s why we’re still friends.’
‘I’d have coped if things had worked out differently.’
‘Really? What about Chiara?’
‘Chiara! We have been out of touch, haven’t we? She left me years ago … And so you’ve obviously missed out on Emina altogether.’
‘Emina?’
‘I met her in Sarajevo. She’s a philosopher.’
‘I guess you do look a bit like the young Sartre.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a compliment,’ said Pierre. ‘Anyway, she had an existential crisis and ran off with a Bosnian house painter.’
‘Ten years reduced to a haiku.’
‘Well, I did leave out all the important stuff. How we met. Who the house painter was. All big issues, not that it matters now … So, tell me, are you with anyone?’
‘No,’ Anna said as the waiter interrupted them, putting the cocktail down on a placemat. Pierre sipped it, then had a longer drink. Anna took the opportunity to change the subject.
‘Have you said anything about Marin Katich?’
‘I told you I wouldn’t do anything until you got here,’ he said, unable to hide his irritation. Then he stopped, realising what she’d just said: ‘So it is him. You were bullshitting when you said you weren’t sure.’
‘I was. Sorry about that. I had to be sure you wouldn’t tell them.’
‘Why the hell are you wasting energy on this fellow? Did you read the indictment?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Why is it sealed?’
‘I couldn’t find out. Something to do with the danger to witnesses. The prosecutor keeps this stuff close to her chest. But what did you think about it?’
‘It’s unspeakably horrible.’
‘It’s hardly a surprise, is it? He was raised to be a fascist. Anna, you’ve got to let me tell the investigators who he really is. I don’t even know why I sent those pictures to you.’
‘You needed confirmation.’
‘I could have worked it out myself. I was just trying to make a point, I think. I shouldn’t have involved you. I shouldn’t have made it personal.’
‘But you did, Pierre, and it is personal, in ways you can’t imagine.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Anna paused, watching her old friend. She had always treated his amorous approaches as comical, but she realised now that he had nurtured deeper feelings. She saw him compose his face as if preparing for a blow. Before this moment, she had been debating whether to tell him everything. She knew now that she had no choice.
‘Marin Katich is Rachel’s father.’
Pierre blanched. Speechless for a moment, he gulped down the rest of his drink.
‘I need your help, Pierre,’ she said. ‘I have to get in to see him before anyone finds out who he is.’
‘I’m going to need another one of these.’
‘Me too. I’ve got a story to tell you that won’t make a lot of sense if we’re sober.’