16
When I looked at the time, I saw it was after two in the morning. I would have liked to read a little longer, but I was meeting Max early.
The light from the street lamps filtered through the thick iron bars on the window, casting ominous shadows on the walls that seemed to dance and whimper, whispering to me stories of the inmates who lived there when the building was a prison. A gang of drunks passed by on the street, and their shrieks and screams reverberated like thunder, muffling the chaos that only I could hear of the souls of the inmates trapped forever in the hostel. I had to wrap myself tightly in the duvet before I fell asleep, like a larva well protected in its chrysalis.
***
The sound of the phone ringing woke me up much later. I had spent the night dreaming about Pedro. He had begged me to come back and promised that he would leave Almudena, and we would be happy once and for all.
“Pedro?” I mumbled, still half asleep as I picked up the phone.
“Who’s Pedro?” Max”s voice answered. “I”ve been waiting in the car for twenty minutes. Are you coming down or what?”
“I”m sorry, I’ve overslept,” I mumbled, looking at the time. “I”ll be right there!”
I hurriedly got dressed and raced down the steps two at a time. Max was parked in front of the hostel, listening to his classical music at full volume and waving his arms in front of the steering wheel like an orchestra conductor.
“I”m sorry,” I apologized again. “I stayed up late reading my grandmother”s diary and forgot to set the alarm clock.”
“Did you discover anything interesting?”
“Not yet, but I think she spent a few years here in Slovenia after the war. Though I haven”t gotten to that part yet.”
“It must have been very rare for a Spanish woman to move to Yugoslavia alone in those times. People would remember her because it was quite unusual. Do you happen to know how she met your grandfather?”
“I think they were together on the frontline in Madrid. My grandfather was in the International Brigades.”
“Ah, the ?panski borci! The Spanish fighters, as they call them here,” Max exclaimed as he pulled onto the highway. “I know the story, yes. They were a group of volunteers from the former Yugoslavia who went there to help the Republican side. It should be easy to find a list of all their names. Have you searched on the Internet?”
“I”ve tried, but my grandfather”s name never appears on any of them. It”s as if he never existed.”
“Strange, don”t you think?” Max thought for a moment, then added, “I hope the dowser can help you. We’ll be there soon.”
The road took us through several villages of white houses with red gabled roofs flanked by the typical kozolci: hay dryers built with horizontal wooden logs and an elongated roof to protect them from the persistent rain.
We pulled up next to a farmer selling apples and asparagus on the roadside. He showed us the way to the house of Drago Krivec, the dowser, who was apparently well-known in the area.
“Drago is good at what he does,” said the farmer, “but he’ll only help you if he likes you, and he”s a cantankerous old goat. But he does love asparagus,” he added, slyly pointing to his wares.
We bought some asparagus, just in case, and followed his directions. A muddy path led us to the dowser”s residence, which was little more than a hut, albeit built in a fairytale setting. The small wooden house stood alone and apart from the rest, not far from the colorful gardens of the Arboretum. A sea of haughty tulips surrounded its peeling walls, and, in the morning sun, the house”s old-fashioned windows sparkled and glinted, reflecting the lush greenery that surrounded the house.
We had to knock several times, and just as we were about to leave, the door opened to reveal a man in his seventies with a long gray beard and straggly, greasy hair. He wore dirty brown dungarees and a baggy plaid shirt. The owner of the house, clearly immune to the idyllic setting in which he lived, greeted us with a sullen grunt, clearly annoyed by our visit.
“A vama lahko pomagam[7],” he growled from the doorway, blocking our way.
I had no idea what that meant, but Max did his best to reassure the man, speaking in a gentle tone and reaching behind his back to present the asparagus we had just bought. He dropped them in the man”s hands like a bouquet of flowers, and the dowser”s expression softened. He finally let us in, seemingly appeased by our humble bribe, though he forced us to take off our shoes first.
The interior of the house had dark hardwood floors and black bookshelves bending under the weight of too many books. Plants invaded every corner, stretching their branches like spider’s legs in search of light. I spied the spines of the books, mostly in foreign languages, and spotted the words ‘astrologija’ and ‘numerologija,’ quite in keeping with the services the man offered.
Drago left the asparagus on top of a dusty grand piano and asked us to sit on the sofa, which, like its owner, had seen better days. He explained to Max that he didn”t understand Spanish, so I summarized what I was looking for and waited for him to translate.
When he finished listening to my explanation, Drago got up from his chair and approached me. He brushed my hair away from my face and felt my skin with his hands. I could smell his sour breath, a telltale sign of old age and ill health, and perhaps the habit of drinking too much coffee and adding raw garlic to every meal. It bothered me, but I let him do it, assuming it was a necessary condition to connect with the energy of my ancestors or whatever he did to find people.
“He asks if you have any photographs of Martin, your father,” Max translated.
“No. My mother got rid of them all when he died. She couldn”t stand the sight of him.”
Drago”s face remained impassive, and he asked another question.
“Don”t you remember what he looks like?”
“I was so young the last time I saw him. I know he had fair hair and eyes but very little else. My mother didn”t talk about him. Speaking his name was practically forbidden in our house, and most of what I know I was told by other people.”
“He’s asking if you have any pictures of your mother.”
“I have her identity card if that would help?”
I held it out to the dowser, and he rubbed his thumb against the tiny black-and-white image of Beatriz before handing it back to me. His eyes glazed over for a second.
“He says it conveys something strange to him. A disturbing kind of energy.”
No wonder, Ithought. Maybe she”s here with us, listening to everything we’re saying.
“Anything else? Any personal effects, any jewelry she used to wear?”
“There’s a bag in the hostel with things they found in my mother”s car after her accident: a pendant and a broken phone. I could bring them another day, if necessary. I”m staying at the Celica in Ljubljana.”
“He says it”s not necessary but asks you to describe your mother’s accident to him.”
“It wasn”t really an accident.” I sighed. “I”m pretty sure she did it intentionally. She drank too much that day―she drank too much regularly, to tell you the truth. She drove into a swamp at 120 miles an hour. We hadn”t spoken in months when it happened.”
I was about to add that I had spoken to her after her death, but I held my tongue. Just because the man worked as a dowser didn”t mean he was going to believe all my ghost stories.
As I turned to Max, I noticed that he had turned pale as he listened to me. I shook my head, playing it down, and he laid his hand on my forearm. Even Drago Krivec looked shocked, though he couldn”t have understood a word. He could probably feel the tension in the air or, quite possibly, Beatriz”s ghost hovering in the room.
“Drago would like to know what you plan to do if you find your father”s trail,” Max said in a quiet voice.
“I think the best thing to do would be to sell everything,” I said after a brief reflection. “I”m not interested in living here. Depending on the amount, I could finish paying off my mother”s mortgage. If I don”t, the bank will take her apartment. Or I could use it to pay the rent while I look for another job. I don”t like the one I have now.”
Drago shrugged with indifference. Then he pulled a pendulum out of a drawer and held it over a worn map of Slovenia. He closed his eyes, and the pendulum began to draw circles in the air. The dowser swung the pendulum gently from left to right and up and down until it stopped abruptly over a specific point. His eyes snapped open, and he wrapped the chain around his index finger. His eyes darkened.
“He says he”s found something,” Max explained. “But your presence here disturbs the energies, and he can’t read them properly. He”s asking us to leave for a while, and he”ll call us when he can see things more clearly.”
I nodded, glad to have an excuse to escape the dark, cluttered house that was beginning to overwhelm me.
Once outside, Max excused himself and left to find a café because he needed to use the restroom.
“Are you coming with me?” he asked.
“No, I”m fine. I”ll stay here,” I replied, sitting down on a large flat rock by the road and taking my cell phone out of my bag. “I”ll wait here and read my grandmother”s diary. It”s starting to get interesting.”