The Good Mayor: A Novel Read online

  Agathe almost laughed. “Mayor Krovic is my boss. He’s not interested in me—and I’m not interested in him. I’m a respectable married woman.”

  “Who sleeps alone. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Agathe looked into her cup again. “No, you’re not wrong.”

  “Coffee, chocolate. Drink, eat.”

  Agathe obeyed like a schoolgirl.

  “I’m not telling you to jump into bed with Tibo Krovic. But the time is coming, my girl, and you could do a lot worse, a lot worse. Finish your coffee.”

  Agathe gulped it down. It left her with a frothy white moustache.

  “Now turn the cup over, spin it three times and give it back to me. Use the saucer. Don’t touch the cup any more.”

  Now it was Agathe’s turn to look disapproving. “You’re making fun of me,” she said. “You can’t read my fortune in a coffee cup. Nobody reads coffee cups. It’s tea leaves. People read tea leaves.”

  “Just give me the cup!” said Mamma Cesare. “Tea leaves, coffee cups, it doesn’t matter. In the old country, I am strega from long line of strega. If I tell you I can read the future in your bath water, you should listen.” Mamma Cesare turned the cup over and looked closely at the milky patches inside. “Huh, like I thought. Nothing. I knew it.”

  “Don’t say that. I must have some future. Don’t say ‘nothing.’ Tell me what you see! Tell me.”

  Mamma Cesare made an impatient noise in her throat. “I see you are making a journey over water to meet the love of your life, I see you are coming back here to talk to me at ten o’clock tonight and I see you are going to be late for work.”

  Agathe sat up straight on her stool and looked anxiously at her watch. The high table by the pillar was empty except for an almost-full bag of mints, and the big double doors were closing quietly. “I have to go,” she said. “I’ll be late for work.” She got down awkwardly from the stool and her dress rode up improperly over her thigh.

  “Ten o’clock,” said Mamma Cesare. “There’s something I want to show you. Now run.”

  “For goodness’ sake, I can’t come back at ten. It’s late.”

  “Ten o’clock. Pay for the coffee then. I won’t wait.”

  Agathe banged the door on the way out and hurried into Castle Street.

  Outside, the sun was still shining brightly. Agathe stopped in front of the big curved window of The Golden Angel, put on her gloves and checked her reflection in the glass.

  Mamma Cesare waved at her from behind the counter, a tuberous hand appearing above the mahogany, like the last glimpse of a drowning sailor about to vanish beneath the waves. Everything was neat, everything was straight, Agathe was ready for work but she would have to hurry.

  Above the noise of the traffic she imagined she could hear machinery starting to whirl up in the towers of the cathedral, weights shifting, chains uncoiling, great metal gears whirring. Agathe hurried down Castle Street without even bothering much to watch herself in the shop windows. By the time she reached Verthun Smitt’s, the big double-fronted ironmonger’s, she could see Mayor Krovic up ahead, just stepping on to White Bridge. Somewhere up on the hill, doors were opening above the cathedral’s great west front, a painted copper apostle with a shiny brass halo was getting ready to roll out on his trolley and a black enamel devil was getting ready to run away for another hour.

  Mayor Krovic had crossed the bridge and he was stepping smartly into City Square but Agathe was close behind him, a little out of breath. She hurried on.

  An old woman raised her red umbrella—honestly, an umbrella on a day like this—and waved it. “Mayor Krovic, Mayor Krovic, a word please. It’s my grandson’s school.”

  And Good Mayor Krovic, because he always stopped to listen to the people of Dot, stopped to listen to the old woman with the red umbrella as the first, deep, bronze-throated stroke of nine o’clock filled City Square and Agathe trotted past towards the Town Hall steps. “Good morning, Mayor Krovic,” she panted and he nodded at her politely. Agathe never even noticed the queue of ducklings quacking in the waters of the Ampersand she had just crossed.

  NSIDE THE TOWN HALL, PETER STAVO WAS clanking away from the bottom of the green marble stairs with his bucket. “I’ve washed that!” he yelled as Agathe ran for her office.

  “Sorry, I’ll be careful.” She slipped off her shoes and trotted upstairs. When he came in from the square a moment later, Good Tibo Krovic saw the image of Agathe’s toes was still evaporating from the stone and he sighed.

  Halfway along the corridor to his office, Tibo stopped in the middle of the thick blue carpet and looked admiringly at the big picture hanging outside the council chamber—The Siege of Dot. And there were Mayor Skolvig and half a dozen friends, holding out in the tower of the old Customs House, still firing at the invaders as they pillaged the town. The graceful stonework of the windows was half shot away, everybody but Skolvig was battered and bandaged and he stood there, in a manly suit of black and a stiff lace ruff, his arm raised in heroic encouragement, urging them on to one more fusillade. Tibo found himself standing in front of the picture as if it was a mirror, raising his arm to mimic Skolvig and, as he posed there, he wondered, “Would I? Could I?” Tibo’s name was already written in gold on the wooden panels that recorded all the mayors of Dot—“Tibo Krovic” gleaming in last place at the end of a long line that ran through Anker Skolvig and back to times before there were surnames to “Vilnus, Utter, Skeg,” men lost at the bottom of a well of history who existed only as bits of broken seal on scraps of parchment locked in the charter box.

  Inside the council chamber, all around the walls and on either side of the stained-glass windows hung portraits of the mayors of Dot—men with magnificent whiskers in respectable, broadcloth suits, fading into the shadowy darkness of treacle-tarry varnish. In the quiet of the empty chamber, Tibo sat for a while in his grand chair and picked out a spot on the opposite wall. “There,” he thought, “I’ll go there, I think.” And, for a moment, he imagined all the councillors’ desks cleared away, the chandeliers lit and the chamber filled with guests drinking to his health before he walked out of the Town Hall for the last time. And what then? There would be time to fix that garden gate but, after that, what?

  Tibo pictured himself doddering back into the Town Hall on a cane, just at the hour for morning coffee, and slipping into the councillors’ lounge. He saw himself giving wise advice to a new mayor and a new generation of councillors who met, every week, under his portrait and grew up fed on stories of what Tibo Krovic had done for Dot. He saw their embarrassed smiles. He saw them looking at their watches and recalling urgent meetings as they tried, politely, to get away. “But do call in again at any time,” they would say. “Always a welcome for Tibo Krovic. No. No. Stay and finish your coffee. Help yourself to biscuits.” And the door would bump politely shut and he would be alone.

  “That’s years away,” said Tibo sadly and he went back out into the corridor and past The Siege of Dot again. In spite of the blood and the gun smoke, Anker Skolvig looked suddenly smug. “You had it easy,” said Tibo and he opened the door to his office.

  Agathe was already at work on the morning post when he arrived and he smiled at her as he walked past her desk and on into the inner office. He couldn’t help it. He’d tried but everything about her just thrilled him—the way she was holding that envelope, her sharp, efficient wielding of the paperknife, the dainty way she dropped the “special” stamps into that old jam jar on her desk, the tip of her tongue held in the corner of her mouth, her eyelids opening and closing, the smell of her, her smile. “Good morning again, Mayor Krovic,” said Agathe.

  “Hello, Mrs. Stopak. Sorry I’m late.” And the lush municipal carpet felt as queasy as molasses under Tibo’s feet as he covered the last few paces to his desk. She was watching him. She knew. She could see how he felt. He knew it. But, when Tibo looked back from his doorway, Agathe hadn’t even moved in her chair. She sliced through the last envelope, removed the folded letter inside
and added it to her pile. Without so much as turning round, she called, “I’ll bring the post in shortly. Would you like another coffee?”

  Tibo put his jacket on a wooden hanger and hooked it over the hat stand in the corner of his room. “I’ve just had one, thank you,” he answered. And then, “Another coffee? How did you know?”

  He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, took out his pen and sat at the desk. From the other side of the room I looked down at him like a motherly Santa Claus suspended on the town coat of arms.

  “Much help you are,” he told me angrily.

  Agathe overheard him from the door. “Did you say something?”

  “No, I was just talking to myself,” said Tibo. “It’s old age catching up with me.”

  “Sometimes it’s the only way to get any sensible conversation.” She handed him his letters. “The mayor of Umlaut has written. Something about celebrations for the anniversary of their town charter. He’s inviting a delegation from Dot. It’s on top of the pile.”

  Tibo snorted. “That’s as much as my job’s worth. You know how much the Dottians hate the Umlauters. But I’ll have to look at it, I suppose. Thanks for pointing it out. And what did you mean, ‘another coffee’?”

  Agathe realised that Tibo had no idea she was at The Golden Angel earlier and, for some reason, she decided that she didn’t want him to know. “Sorry. Slip of the tongue. Nothing at all. Would you like a coffee? That was all I meant. Any coffee at all? No?”

  “No, thanks,” said Tibo.

  “Right. As you like. You’re on duty at the Magistrates’ Court at ten thirty. Just to remind you. The clerk says it’s the usual routine stuff. Mostly drunks and wife-beaters.” Agathe closed the door on her way out.

  Tibo got up, walked the long way round his desk and opened it again. For the hour or so until he left for court, there would be glimpses of her.

  By nine twenty-five, he had gone through the post. Most of it was rubbish and could wait until the afternoon. At nine twenty-seven, he asked Agathe back to his office so that he could dictate some urgent letters. As she sat down and crossed her legs, Tibo looked very hard out the window, studying the dome of the cathedral.

  “To His Honour Mayor Zapf, Town Hall, Umlaut,” he said efficiently. “I need two copies of this. Begins. Dear Mayor Zapf, The mayor and council of Dot have received your invitation to attend celebrations marking the anniversary of the Umlaut town charter. After due consideration, the mayor and council of Dot have decided to reject this thinly disguised insult. You cannot believe that Umlaut’s history of treachery, deceit and double-dealing can be wiped out by the offer of beer and mouldy sandwiches, knocked up in that unhygienic brothel which passes for a Town Hall. Speaking for myself, I would rather be the plaything of a Turkish cavalry regiment than soil my shoes by visiting your sordid little village. However, I understand the Turks are fully occupied with the wives of the councillors of Umlaut. Yours etc. Can you read that back please, Mrs. Stopak?”

  She did.

  “I don’t like ‘brothel,’” said Tibo. “Harsh word. Make it ‘bordello.’ Much nicer.”

  Agathe made a few tiny marks with the point of her pencil. “Bordello,” she said. “Two Ls and two copies.”

  Tibo looked back at her from the window. “Ready for the next one?”

  She nodded.

  “To Mayor Zapf of Umlaut. Begins. Dear Zapf, Thanks for the invitation. Hope to return the favour soon. I’m planning a fishing trip the weekend after next. Usual place. Bring beer. Best, Tibo. Just one of those, Mrs. Stopak, and send it in a plain envelope, not the city stationery, and nothing on file, thanks. Oh and you’d better mark it as personal. Thanks, that’s all for now.”

  Agathe stood up to leave and Tibo watched her go, waiting for the very last sight of her before he sat down again at his desk. Agathe’s typewriter began to click and whirr in the room next door and Tibo listened, imagining.

  At ten o’clock, the bells of the cathedral rang out over the square again. Tibo checked his watch and got ready to leave for court.

  The three letters were already waiting in a folder on Agathe’s desk. She held it up to him as he passed. “For signing, Mayor Krovic.”

  Tibo tapped his pockets, found his pen and signed two of the letters. He wrote something quickly over the last envelope, folded it roughly and placed it inside his wallet. “That’s a very nice dress,” he said. “You’re looking very nice today. Well, as usual, that is. Very nice.”

  “Thank you,” said Agathe, modestly.

  “Very. Nice.” Tibo was beginning to stumble. “The colour. Nice. And that …” He gestured vaguely at the piping Agathe had taken so long to stitch into place. “It’s very …” Tibo hated himself then. He could stand in front of the entire council and talk about anything, argue about anything, persuade anybody about anything, order anything but, in front of this woman, he was left mumbling “nice.” Still, with Agathe, even “nice” seemed to please her. It did please her. Good Tibo Krovic was the only man in Dot who ever said “nice” to her. “Nice,” he said again. “Right. Court.”

  Tibo put his pen back in his pocket and walked out of the office, past Anker Skolvig and his heroic hand gestures and back into the square.

  The court of Dot is not its most inspiring civic building and Tibo’s dread of the place grew deeper the closer that he got to it. The city fathers who built it skimped on the job. They chose a cheap, dung-coloured sandstone and the rain had soaked into it and bubbled it and winter frosts had sliced whole sheets of rotten stone off it.

  Now my image carved over the door was indistinct and runny—almost bloated—as if I had been dragged from the Ampersand like a week-old suicide.

  Outside, at the entrance, the court’s “customers” gathered every day in dirty clumps, smoking, swearing, squabbling. The pavement there was dotted with foul blobs of spit and gum and cigarette stubs. Tibo despised these people. He hated them for making him their mayor. He wanted to be mayor of honest, hardworking people who swept their doorsteps and washed their children before tucking them into clean white sheets. But he had to be mayor of these people too. He was also the mayor of scum. Whether they bothered to vote or not, they were his. He had to protect them—from themselves and from each other—and he would give his life for them. He knew it—just like Anker Skolvig—but he didn’t expect them to be glad of it or grateful or paint his picture in heroic poses or even say thanks. Tibo set his mouth into a stern flat line and walked firmly past them. Nobody spoke to him. One or two glared at him. Somebody spat but it landed on the filthy pavement and not on him.

  Inside the courthouse it was just as bad—everything painted in shades of municipal sludge, bile yellow over baby-turd brown or dead-cat green, the smell of the bleach bucket mingled with the grease and old cigarettes of the crowd and, always, inevitably, one lamp, someplace, broken or missing.

  Tibo looked into the courtroom. The place was deserted except for Barni Knorrsen from the Evening Dottian, sitting in the press box, reading a paper. The court would be quiet until the business started. Nobody liked to have to abandon their smoking and spitting until they really had to.

  “Hello, Barni,” said Tibo.

  “Good morning, Mayor Krovic. Any excitement for us today?”

  “I’m afraid not—just the usual drunks and wife-beaters, I’m told.”

  “It’s been ages since we had a good murder!”

  “And luckily that would be out of my league,” said Tibo. “But listen, Barni, I was hoping I’d run into you here. There’s a bit of something out of nothing that I wanted to show you—might make a tale for the paper. Here, tell me what you think.” Tibo reached into his jacket and took out his wallet. There was Agathe’s second copy of the letter to the Umlauters, bent to fit with “Private. In confidence” scrawled over one side in pen.

  “No, that’s not it,” said Tibo and he put the slip of paper on the broad wooden lip of the press box. Barni was slow to notice so poor Tibo had to keep up
a pantomime of burrowing into his wallet for quite a time. “No. No, that’s not it either.” Good God, there were only four pockets to go through. Small wonder Barni had never graduated to a big-league paper. “Maybe I should just take everything out and start from the beginning.” Finally, Barni casually picked up his folded newspaper and flicked the letter on to the floor of the press box and covered it with his foot. “Does that man never polish his shoes?” Tibo wondered. He put everything back into his wallet. “Sorry to have wasted your time,” he said. “It’ll turn up.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Mayor.”

  At the far side of the room, a door opened and the black-robed clerk nodded at Tibo. “We need you on the bench now, sir. Business is about to commence.”

  Tibo signalled his agreement. “Sorry, Barni, got to go. Busy, you know. Sorry. I’ll be in touch about that other thing.”

  When Tibo took his seat on the court dais at precisely ten thirty, he looked across at the empty press box and smiled.

  By eleven o’clock, Tibo had dealt with the first two cases of the day—an old drunk who had spent the night in the cells and a docker who’d come home from a night’s drinking and hit his wife with the kitchen table when she asked where his wages were. The drunk was easy enough. There was no helping him. He had no money for a fine—every penny that he could scrounge from playing a wheezing accordion on windy street corners went to the cheapest rotgut vodka he could find. You could see him every day, sitting on a bench under the big holly tree in the old graveyard, guzzling it straight from the bottle. Nobody bothered him and that was how he liked it. Next winter would find him frozen to the ground on a shroud of stiff brown holly leaves and nobody would mourn—least of all him. But, last night, some zealous new constable had found him asleep, nursing a bottle wrapped in lilac tissue paper, and decided to do his duty.

  “So you spent a night in the cells?” said Tibo in the sort of voice people reserve for deaf old aunts.