Act of God

‘cleansing.’ The newspapers, the television, they call it the ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Rape, burn, bomb. I tell you, the Serbs, they rape girls, Croat girl, Muslim girl, twelve, thirteen years, don’t matter to them. They rape like Ford make cars, the ‘assembly line’ thing. They rape them in front of parents, then kill them. Dead girls can have no children, so no more Croat, no more Muslim after the cleansing. But the Serbs, they don’t care which ethnic, so long as she not Serb. Hungarian, Greek, Italian, don’t matter to them.”
    The Croatian Nazi government slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Serbs during World War II, but it didn’t seem like the time to bring it up. “Mr. Radja—”
    “Grgo, please. Nobody know Mr. Radja, everybody know Grgo. I tell you what you want, you ask.”
    “You knew Mr. Rivkind well?”
    “He was good customer, good man. I open up this restaurant, there not many in Leather District. Mr. Rivkind, he come here once. I recognize him from street, I wait on him myself, he come back. Then he come back all the time.”
    “The police think he was killed by a burglar, a robber.”
    “I think so. That night, I hear the alarm noise, even in here. I go out to see, the fire trucks and the police cars come everywhere.”
    “Did you see anything else?”
    “I don’t know what you mean?”
    “Did you see anyone else that night, anything strange?”
    “No. I am in this room until the alarm noise.”
    I nodded. “Did Mr. Rivkind bring his wife here very often?”
    Radja took the cigar out of his mouth, pursing his lips as he scraped off more ash. “Not so much. She live in Sharon , long drive for her to meet him or them to come on weekend.”
    “How about people from the store?”
    “Yes, so. Everyone from store. You work for Mr. Rivkind, I give you discount.”
    “Did Mr. Rivkind bring people from the store to eat with him?”
    “Yes, I just tell you.”
    “Darbra Proft?”
    The hooded eyes became sad again. “Her I don’t want in my restaurant anymore.”
    “Why not?”
    “There is... argument. She throw things. Not good for business.”
    “When was this?”
    A shrug and a small puff. “Month? I don’t know.”
    “Can you tell me about it?”
    Radja looked away from me, toward the center of the room. “She come in, with man I don’t see before. Seem nice, but old for her. She come in, make big thing that she know me, that I know her. They sit. Then I am in kitchen, waiter come for me, he say come quick. I see her stand up, throw wine at the man. She is very loud, very...” He flapped his hands wildly around him in a limp-wristed way. “She act like end of world. Then she leave, poor man red from wine and red from shame, too. I try to help him, but he want to leave. Who can blame this? No, I tell you, I don’t want to see her again.”
    “Did she come here often?”
    A big puff. Around it, “Like others.”
    “Like the others from the store?”
    “Yes, I tell you already.”
    “Did she eat here with Mr. Rivkind a lot?”
    A bigger puff. “Everybody from store eat here with Mr. Rivkind. This is the way he is. He take people out to lunch and dinner at Grgo’s.”
    “Did it seem that they had more than a business relationship?”
    “I don’t talk on my customers that way.”
    “Loyalty?”
    “Loyal, yes. When I come here from Zagreb , I don’t have the two cents. I work hard, I start this restaurant, I starve if Mr. Rivkind don’t find me, come back all the time with his people. I go to his funeral, I cry like the babies. Loyal? I learn in Croatia , when you loyal for communist party, for Soviet ‘guests,’ for anything big like that, it don’t get you nothing. It take advantage of you. When you loyal for country, like my Hrvatska, you feel good, even if it don’t help you. But when you loyal for person, for person help you, they remember you. Mr. Rivkind remember me, I loyal for him.”
    One last try. “Grgo, if nobody will talk to me about Mr. Rivkind, how can I help his wife?”
    “I don’t know this. I just know I don’t talk on these things.”
    “Did Mr. Rivkind ever talk with you about his business?”
    “Yes, so. All the time.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He tell me things are hard. He has to tell me? What is this first thing people stop when they lose job? They stop eating in restaurants close to job. Shame to see other workers still there, shame, too, for those workers still have jobs. You not have job, you still need the hair