26 June, 12:00 PM, Czernograd, Old Market Square
Jake did not tell Marina that someone got into his hotel room the previous night and ruffled through his things. That would have really stoked her paranoia. Come to think of it, Jake did not tell Inspector Maciejewicz about it either. A material fact of potential importance to the investigation; Jake wasn’t quite sure why he hasn’t shared it. Maybe because it was that word - investigation – with all its connotations, all undesirable, all bad, and his hope, silly hope, that if you don’t think about it and don’t talk about and don’t do anything about it it won’t be there; if you ignore it it will ignore you back.
They were sitting at one of the outdoor cafes lining up all sides of the Old Market Square. The square was enclosed by three or four storey townhouses that ranged in age and style from the late medieval to Baroque. They must have once belonged to the richest merchant families, some of whom had probably plied their trade in the long rectangular two-storey structure dividing the square into two halves, known as the Cloth Hall, now converted into an bazaar of folk art and local memorabilia.
“So what do you really know about your grandfather?” she asked after a waitress brought in the second round of coffees.
“Why?” Jake asked, “do you think?-“
“I’m just thinking aloud,” she was stirring in sugar with slow deliberate movements.
“Assuming that it wasn’t an accident-“ Jake opened his mouth, but she sped up not to be interrupted, “-someone was meant to harm you or at least scare you, send a signal, I don’t know. Sorry, I don’t want to spook you any further, but I’m just trying to figure it out... Just like you are, I’m sure.”
He took a sip from his cup. The truth was he was trying not to. And failing.
“Do you have any enemies?” she continued, “people who might?-“
“Not that I’m aware of,” Jake said. “I don’t know anyone in here, and it seems preposterous – if there was someone back home who would want to, you know... do something to me – that they would go to all the trouble of following me here and...”
“Which brings me back to my original question – what do you know about your grandfather?”
“You think this has something to do with my grandfather?” he said. A group of backpackers, talking and laughing loudly passed by along the front of the cafe. Marina waited until the noise receded.
“Well, if not you, then who?”
A good question.
“All I know is that he was – what? – about 86 when he died, and that he came to America when he was a young man, sometime, I don’t know, fifties or sixties.” He took another sip. “Actually, until we read his will, we didn’t even know he was from here. We thought he was from Ukraine or something. He never wanted to talk about his past before America. He never really talked much in general.”
“You said yesterday that you... the family... weren’t close?”
“There were a lot of, shall we say, history. Grandfather married quite late – for that time, that is – then he had my father and few years later my aunt, Lily. Then something happened and he and grandmother split up and he split. Disappeared. So Grandma raised the kids all by herself. Then she got cancer and died. And grandfather popped up again. By that stage he already made a lot of money – property development and all that – and he tried to patch things up with dad and aunt. But he was a very difficult man to get along with.”
“Sorry to hear all this,” she said.
“It’s life,” Jake shrugged. “I really don’t have many memories of him. My dad and him would have rows once in a while and he would drop off again. And then come back and the cycle would repeat. That last I’ve seen him was five or six years ago and then out of the blue we get the news from his lawyers that he passed away.”
There was a moment of silence.
“That’s pretty much it. Not much help, eh?”
“No, not much,” Marina smiled weakly, but he could see she was doing some thinking, her fingers frozen to the cup she hasn’t lifted for the past few minutes.
“I can sort of see how grandfather could make some serious enemies,” Jake said slowly. “If he dealt with others the way he dealt with his family... Well... But he’s gone now, and I can’t for the life of me see why anyone would want to take it out on me.”
“So he really never mentioned anything about his life... before?” Marina asked.
“No. It was a closed chapter for him. And to be honest I don’t think we wanted to know. Maybe we were just scared, you know, that that past of his life he never talked about, before America, had made him the way he was, and it would be dangerous to scratch at the old scabs. You know what I mean?”
Marina nodded, her finger absent-mindedly tracing the rim of the coffee cup.
“You take your name from him?”
“You mean Voynich?”
“Yes, Voynich.”
“Yes,” Jake said. “From grandfather, to father, to son.”
She sighed. “Even that’s not much help. It’s a pretty popular surname around here, particularly the south of the country, in the mountains. I had two Voyniches in my class at school and they weren’t even related to each other.”
“That’s my grandpa,” Jake shook his head. “He was like a ghost while he was still alive. Now... even more so. All I have are the damned ashes. Actually, rewind. The Customs have the damned ashes. But once I get them back, off I go to sprinkle them around like the old man wanted and magically my family will overnight become very wealthy. A happy ending for all.” He smiled a bitter smile so that she would know he wasn’t trying to be callous; at least not too much.
It was lunchtime by then and Marina had to attend a meeting somewhere nearby to translate the initial stages of negotiations for a possible business deal involving a consortium headed by a British businessman.
“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” she said as they were parting.
“Thanks,” Jake said. “Well, 86 is not a bad age to get to...”
“No,” she touched his hand, “I mean I’m sorry about how he was... to you... your family.”
Jake shrugged.
“I really am,” she said. “I wish he was different.”
Trudging on the cobblestones behind her, another group of tourists passed by, following a middle-aged tour guide in grey slacks and striped polo shirt, talking to them in a heavily accented but clear English about the history of the Old Town Square.
This group was American, the accents somewhere from the South. One woman, in her fifties and unaware of it, interrupted the guide to ask when they were going to see a real vampire. The guide, his train of thought successfully derailed stammered something Jake didn’t catch, before explaining to the woman that more than likely they have already passed by one or two vampires just now, walking around the Square. “They all look like... us,” he said defensibly. Well, the woman said to the guide, when you see one, could you point him out – Jake didn’t know why she assumed a vampire would be male; maybe too much “Twilight” and “True Blood” and not enough Fodors – ideally she would like a photo taken, too, for her grandchildren.
Marina tried very hard to stifle a giggle. She managed to get through just with a wide grin.
“Is that pretty standard?” Jake asked.
She nodded.
“Still? After all these years?”
She nodded again.
“I’m sorry,” he laughed. “On behalf of my people, and all the tourists of the world.”
“That’s OK. It’s the price we pay for market differentiation and a competitive advantage,” she laughed too. “Eat that, Czech Republic.”
They said their goodbyes. The clock on a church tower somewhere nearby struck one o’clock.
Photo by Elodie AGODOR on Unsplash
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