32
When we left the Rossi’s apartment, Max looked as if he had seen a ghost—which was ironic when I was the one constantly being harassed by the dead.
“Okay, Max,” I said, holding out my hand to say goodbye. “Thank you for everything. You’re free to leave, just as you wanted. I’ll go to Ljubljana by bus, and I won’t bother you again. I”m sorry I upset you earlier, but I understand your decision. Tomorrow, I plan to visit Bled, although, if what Mr. Rossi said is true, I probably won”t find anything because the house was sold a long time ago.”
“Our deal still stands,” Max interrupted me with a strange twinkle in his eye. “Now more than ever.”
I blinked, confused. Before entering the translator”s office, he’d made it clear that he didn”t believe in my mission and was tired of helping me.
“Wait, is this about the violin story?” I laughed. “You didn”t believe it, did you? The poor man thinks my grandmother is twenty-five years old. You heard his son. He”s got dementia, and he”s talking nonsense. There”s no violin. It’s absolute nonsense.”
“Vesna, no.”
Max grabbed the collar of my shirt and opened it slightly.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, pushing him away from me. I was starting to get fed up with his mood swings. An hour before, he wanted to leave, and now he wanted to kiss me.
“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized, flushing. “I just wanted to see the pendant again, that”s all. Where is it?”
I felt my neck and tried to remember. I’d taken it off at the hostel before taking a shower around the time my mother appeared. I had forgotten to put it on the next day, and after the visit to Drago Krivec, the room had been turned upside down.
“It must be at the hostel.”
“I need to see it again.”
“But why?”
“Because that wasn”t a pendant. It was a broken violin peg, and it looked very, very old.”
***
Max accompanied me back to Ljubljana and came up to the room with me. I had to pick up my suitcase anyway. I had left it there because, after all, nothing had been stolen.
Or so I had thought.
I searched the entire room but could not find the pendant.
“Well, this is strange,” I said at last, putting my earrings back on. “They left my gold earrings here but took the old wooden pendant right next to it.”
“I told you. It wasn’t a simple pendant.”
I grunted. He could have told me earlier.
“Vesna, I need you to describe it to me in detail. Tell me everything you remember about it.”
“Well... I don”t know. It was like a kind of screw with a flattened head... with some dark little balls above and below. And it also had a mark, handmade, with an awl. A notch in a zigzag shape. My friend said it could be a Viking rune.”
Max tutted. “What nonsense.”
I unlocked the phone and typed ‘Runes and their meaning’ into the search engine. Several images appeared, and among them, one that looked quite similar to the engraving on my pendant.
“Look. Like this one. It says here that it means... horse.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Absurd.”
‘Gemini sign... travel... soul mates...’ I continued reading.
“Stop it, please,” he interrupted me, pushing the phone away. “We’re talking about a fiddle which would be more than two hundred years old. In those days, no one in this part of Europe had ever heard of Viking runes, let alone their esoteric meaning. I don”t think the answer lies there.”
I folded my pajamas and threw them into the suitcase, which was still open in the corner of the room.
“Do you really think my pendant could be a part of an antique violin?”
“I don”t know. I”d have to take a closer look at it. But now it”s gone, so that’s going to make it difficult.”
“Then I guess I should go to the police. Now I really have something to report.”
“A wooden pendant valued at fifty cents. They”re going to think you”re crazy.”
“But you just said it belonged to a very old violin!” I shouted, putting the phone down on the table with a thump.
“I didn”t say that! I only said that there’s a possibility that it is. Besides, I don”t like the police. I have enough problems without them.”
I exhaled, frustrated. I would never understand men, regardless of their nationality, age, or marital status.
“So, what do you suggest I do?” I asked with arms raised in the air.
Max was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the suitcase.
“First of all, get your things. You will stay at my place from now on. Second, let”s go to Bled. We can try to find the house your grandmother described in the diary. And, third, I...”
He fell silent as if he had said too much.
“What? What is the third thing?”
“Nothing. I”ll wait for you downstairs.”