‘You don’t like cafe latte?’ he says to them.
They shake their heads.
‘Do they give you tummy troubles?’
They shake their heads again.
‘Look. We’re in Norway. You want everything to be like home? Go home. You want to be here, you take advantage of what they have here. Here they have cafe latte and cinnamon buns, pretty girls in fuzzy boots, and old American cars that come out in the summer. It’s not so bad, really.’
‘Kadri, we have things to do. Can we get on with it?’
‘Senka is dead.’
‘We know.’
‘The boy is missing.’
Burim, who slouches lower in his chair than Gjon, says, ‘We know this, too.’
‘Enver is looking for the boy. That means you’re going to look for the boy.’
Burim pulls on his cigarette. ‘I don’t know where the boy is.’
Kadri swallows the soft centre of the bun and says, ‘The centre is the best part, all sweet and sticky. You don’t know what you’re missing. Really. Look, shithead, if you knew where he was, I’d say, “Hey, shithead, where’s the boy?” And you’d say, “Oh. He’s right here in my pocket, with the lint and the chewing gum.” But you don’t know, and I know you don’t know, which is why I say you’re going to look for him.’
Burim scowls and then says, ‘If Enver is following the couple to get to the old man, and the old man is with the boy, what do we do? It sounds like it’s done.’
Kadri holds up a finger and says, ‘Because we may be wrong. Maybe the boy isn’t with the old man. Maybe the old man isn’t even connected to the people who own the flat. Maybe he is just some Norwegian pensioner who was standing on the street watching the car go by, and that’s who Enver saw. Maybe the old man isn’t going to meet up with the couple. Maybe Senka stashed the kid someplace else and then fooled us by running the other way. We don’t know. We are… ’ and he put his finger into his mouth, sucked on it, and then put it wet and glistening into the light breeze, ‘speculating’.
Gjon, who sips an espresso with a great deal of sugar, says, ‘If not the old man, who? Kid’s about seven years old. Can’t stay on his own. Maybe he’s with the police?’
Kadri wipes his finger with a napkin. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. If they put a missing-person announcement on the news, I’ll know there’s still hope.’
‘Then who?’
Kadri doesn’t look up. He just shrugs and casually says, ‘Maybe the Serbs.’
At this, Burim and Gjon both moan and wiggle in their seats.
‘Look,’ says Kadri, licking his lips. ‘Senka was Serb. She has Serb friends. She doesn’t want the boy going to Kosovo with Enver. She knew he’d come to take him away. Kosovo is free now. A new state. A new beginning. Time to start afresh. Take the boy back where he belongs. Reap the spoils of all our labour. As soon as Norway recognised Kosovo in March, it was all over — the universe was conspiring against her. So maybe she hides the boy with the Serbs for protection. It makes sense, no? And maybe now is a good time to get that box back, no?’
‘Why not just ask Zezake? Put him on this?’
Kadri becomes very serious. ‘Because Zezake is a killing machine. He’s not Colombo. Are you even old enough to remember Colombo? Never mind. Point is, you use a knife for knife things. Now, we are reaching for a magnifying glass to play Sherlock. Not the same thing at all. No such thing as an all-purpose tool. This is what my father taught me.’
Burim and Gjon look at each other for support, for a way out, and then Burim says, ‘OK. It makes sense. But, what? I give a call to the Serbs?
‘People know people,’ Kadri says. ‘Start asking around. Just be discreet, OK?’
Burim and Gjon both nod. Then Gjon says, ‘How?’
Kadri sighs and rubs his face. ‘Do I have to spell it out for you?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Romeo and Juliet. Find a boy and girl from different sides who are fucking. Get the Serbian one to find out if the community is protecting the boy. In return, we don’t tell their parents. And their parents don’t kill them. Makes sense, no?’
Gjon, who is older than Burim and remembers the old country well, takes one of Kadri’s cigarettes and lights it. He leans back in his chair and takes a long drag. ‘What about me?’
Kadri digs deep into his back molar to find something. He takes his finger out and looks at it, disappointed. ‘I wouldn’t mind recovering the contents of the box.’
‘What’s in it?’ Gjon asks.
‘Things Senka collected from Kosovo. Things we don’t want remembered. It’s time to forgive and forget, you see. Not to wake sleeping beasts.’
Gjon says, ‘This could get out of hand very quickly. Like you said, people know people.’
Kadri nods. ‘There have been four hundred murders in Norway in the last ten years. That’s forty or fifty a year, in a country of over four-and-a-half million. Which isn’t high. The cops solved over 95 per cent of them very quickly. Over 80 per cent of them involve a man between thirty and forty years old killing a woman with a knife, and most of these people know each other. Enver strangled the girl. It’s already out of hand. And they’ll catch him if we don’t help him. What we need to do now is make sure it plays out nice and smooth. Get the boy back. Get them over the border. Take a private boat to Estonia. From there, it’s like sliding into a Ukrainian whore. If we can keep our noses out of any mess, we get to stay here,’ and Kadri smiles. ‘With the sticky buns. And the fuzzy boots.’
Burim puckers his lips and sucks on his front teeth. He says, ‘Why did Enver kill her?’
Kadri’s face goes very stern. He raises a finger, and his eyes are fierce. ‘Enver is a legend. He does what he wants. You don’t question him. You do what he says, and remember that it is because of men like him you have a country now to call your own. You stay here with the fuzzy boots if you want. Or you go to Kosovo. But you have a choice because of Enver.
‘Besides, I already explained how the times were conspiring against her. She failed to negotiate with them. She met her fate. It could happen to any of us.’
Then he sits back in his chair and opens his palms.
‘I want to clean the mess. And as much as I love him, I wouldn’t mind if Enver went away. You know the Norwegian police? They’re a bunch of pussies. They don’t carry guns, just like the English. But they stay after things for years and years, nagging and nagging. They’re like herpes. You think you’re rid of them, and then, when you’re a little stressed out, boom! There they are. In the end, they catch all the killers. They exhaust their prey into submission.
‘So, we need to stick together. We band of brothers! Huh? Right? In twenty-four hours, this is all over.’
Kadri reaches even farther back into his mouth. He gets most of his hand in there. He comes out with a piece of dental floss. He holds it up.
‘Because victory, victory is wonderful!’
Gjon nods, but Burim says nothing.
Chapter 13
Burim gets off the metro at Toyen centre and walks a few blocks to the apartment in the intense sunlight. He walks up five flights of stairs, pants a bit, and hears that the music in the hallway is coming from his own flat.
The music is old fashioned and airy, and the woman is singing in an operatic voice in English. As he turns the key and opens the door, he knows it can only mean one thing.
Adrijana bursts into the hallway, barefoot and in what must be a new shirt from Zara, and yells in English, ‘Pink Martini is coming to Oslo!’
Before Burim can reply, Adrijana says, ‘Take off your shoes.’
