“I already find it unusual. You had better talk.”
“I intend to, Mr. Stritar. My name is Toné Stara. I was born in Galichnik, and at the age of sixteen I began to follow the well-known custom of spending eleven months of the year elsewhere to earn a living. For seven years I returned to Galichnik each July, but the eighth year I did not return because I had got married in a foreign land. My wife bore a son and died, but still I did not return. I had abandoned my father’s craft and tried other activities, and I prospered. My son Alex grew up and joined in my activities, and we prospered more. I thought I had cut all bonds with my native land, shed all memories, but when Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform six years ago my interest was aroused, and so was my son’s, and we followed developments more and more closely. Last July, when Yugoslavia resumed relations with Soviet Russia and Marshal Tito made his famous statement, my curiosity became intense. I became involved in arguments, not so much with others as with myself. I tried to get enough reliable information to make a final and just decision about the right and the wrong and the true interest and welfare of the people of my birthland.”
He nodded sidewise at me. “My son’s curiosity was as great as mine, and we finally concluded that it was impossible to judge from so great a distance. We couldn’t get satisfactory information, and we couldn’t test what we did get. I determined to come and find out for myself. I thought it best for me to come alone, since my son couldn’t speak the language, but he insisted on accompanying me, and in the end I consented. Naturally there was some difficulty, since we could not get passports for either Albania or Yugoslavia, and we chose to go by ship to Naples and fly to Bari. Leaving our luggage — and papers and certain other articles — at Bari, we arranged, through an agent who had been recommended to me, for a boat to take us across to the Albanian coast. Landing at night near Drin, we made our way across Albania to Galichnik, but we discovered in a few hours that nothing was to be learned there and crossed the border back into Albania.”
“At what spot?” Stritar asked.
Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t intend to cause trouble for anyone who has helped us. I had been somewhat inclined to think that Russian leadership offered the best hope for the people of my native land, but after a few days in Albania I was not so sure. People didn’t want to talk with a stranger, but I heard enough to give me a suspicion that conditions might be better under Tito in Yugoslavia. Also I heard something of a feeling that the most promising future was with neither the Russians nor Marshal Tito, but with an underground movement that condemned both of them, so I was more confused than when I had left my adopted country in search of the truth. All the time, you understand, we were ourselves underground in a way, because we had no papers. I had, of course, intended all along to visit Yugoslavia, and now I was resolved also to learn more of the movement which I was told was called the Spirit of the Black Mountain. I suppose you have heard of it?”
Stritar smiled, not with amusement. “Oh yes, I’ve heard of it.”
“I understand it is usually called simply the Spirit. No one would tell me the names of its leaders, but from certain hints I gathered that one of them was to be found near Mount Lovchen, which would seem logical. So we came north through the mountains and managed to get over the border into Yugoslavia, and across the valley and the river as far as Rijeka, but then we felt it was useless to go on to Cetinje without better information. In my boyhood I had once been to Podgorica to visit a friend named Grubo Balar.” Wolfe turned abruptly in his chair to look at the flat-nosed young man with a slanting forehead, seated over toward the wall. “I noticed when I came in that you look like him, and thought you might be his son. May I ask, is your name Balar?”
“No, it isn’t,” Flat-nose replied in a low smooth voice that was barely audible. “My name is Peter Zov, if that concerns you.”
“Not at all, if it isn’t Balar.” Wolfe went back to Stritar. “So we decided to come to Podgorica — which I shall probably learn to call Titograd if we stay in this country — first to try to find my old friend, and second to see what it is like here. Someone had mentioned George Bilic of Rijeka, with his automobile and telephone, and we were footsore, so we sought him out and offered him two thousand dinars to drive us here. You will want to know why, when Bilic didn’t want to oblige us, I told him to telephone the Ministry of the Interior in Belgrade. It was merely a maneuver — not very subtle, I admit — which I used once or twice in Albania, to test the atmosphere. If he had telephoned, it would have broadened the test considerably.”
“If he had telephoned,” Stritar said, “you would now be in jail and someone would be on his way from Belgrade to deal with you.”