Assignment - Mara Tirana (20 page)

It was probably true, Lissa thought. And she wished that she herself could weep for Jamak. But there was no time for tears. And the trip into Viajec was necessary.

She had talked it over with Adam. They needed to know how far the alarm had spread, and how seriously the search was being conducted around Zara Dagh. If they continued to hide in the hut without word from the village, without hope of warning they would be like the ostrich burying its head in the sand. They needed information, so they could make intelligent plans.

“We will have to go out over the mountains,” Lissa said. “It can be done. There is the old Roman road I showed you. I do not know how far it runs, but it follows the ridge crests, going south. Perhaps it connected a series of watch towers in the old days. If so, it will get us as far as the Danube.”

“We’ll have to walk, right?”

“Yes,” Lissa said.

“I could do it. And you. But Jelenka?”

“She will find it difficult, but she can do it. It will be cold. We’ll get hungry and tired, Adam. It will take a long time, moving on foot through these mountains. It may be very bad. And there will be snow any day, soon. If that happens, we could die of the cold, exhaustion—”

He kissed her gently. “We’ll decide tomorrow if it’s necessary. When you come back from the village. . . .” Now she knew that even this modest move was a mistake. Something was wrong with Medjan, beyond an embarrassment he showed because of the bam. The barn was really nothing to him, she knew; he placed no value on taking a woman by force, and did not concern himself with her sensitivity. No, his manner was different for other reasons. It was that man in the car with him, perhaps, bald-headed, cruel, a stranger who looked at her with odd eyes and looked away again.

“Come to the police station, Lissa,” Medjan said. “Whatever happens, believe me, I did not want it like this,” he added in an undertone.

“Petar, what is it?”

“You know what it is,” he said. “You should have told me about it, Lissa. You could have asked for my help.” “Your help? Would you give it to me?”

“Perhaps. I do not love the people who have come to Viajec lately. Why should I? What do they know about us? They give orders, tie things up in red tape, they have powers they don’t deserve. They could order my execution in a moment. Now walk quietly beside me, Lissa. You must come into the station with me.”

“Very well.” Her heart began to pound wildly. “Am I arrested?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me why?”

He looked down at her. He was an enormous man. “We found Jamak in the river. And Corporal Nagatov.”

“I see.”

“You will have to explain. Do nothing foolish. Protect yourself, Lissa.”

“How can I? I am already condemned.”

“Tell everything. Speak the truth. Then I will speak for you, afterward. Something might be arranged.”

She felt confused. She had thought of Petar Medjan as an enemy. Yet his brutal peasant’s face seemed honestly perturbed as he walked with her into the police station. She had known pain and animal lust in his hands. She hated him, and he knew this, yet he was trying to help her. She shook her head briefly in mute astonishment. The human heart was too difficult to fathom. Nothing about a man or woman was simple.

Kopa waited in a back room of the police station. There was a barred window overlooking the steep bank of the rushing stream under the village bridge. Opposite were barren reeds, a square white house—it belonged to Subro, the farm cooperative supervisor, who did nothing in response to the directives except to fill out endless reports and complain about peasant stupidity. The sun made the rushing river look like molten steel. Kopa stood with his back to the window, his bald head thrust forward on thick shoulders. The smell of his cigar did little to cover what Lissa thought of as the smell of blood and anguish in the interrogation room.

“Sit down, Lissa,” Kopa said.

“Why am I brought here?”

“You will help us. Surely you wish to cooperate?”

“I don’t know how I can help you.”

“I have been studying your family’s record. Anti-Soviet activity carried on by your brother, Giurgiu, surely could not still be cherished by you. You have been treated well in Viajec, have you not?”

“We live,” Lissa said.

“Yes. You live. All of you?”

Lissa looked up. “All of us.”

“Your father, Jamak? He lives, too?”

She said nothing. Everything was known. Kopa was impatient, she guessed, to bring such a blunt challenge so quickly into his game. She heard him demand an answer and sank down on a chair, aware of Petar Medjan beside her. Medjan’s big hand moved as if to touch her shoulder, but then he dropped it aside. Kopa was insistent, asking about Jamak, about Adam Stepanic. So everything had indeed been a foolish game, played by blind mice, she thought. She was doomed. Kopa could go up and take Adam and Jelenka whenever he was ready. Perhaps the soldiers were already on the way.

“Why are you silent?” Kopa asked. “Can you see how hopeless your situation is?”

“You know everything already,” she whispered. “Why ask me?”

“You know why.”

“Why do you wait? You can take the American any time now.”

“We are not ready. We do not have everyone we want in our net.” Kopa laughed. “Eh, Medjan?”

Petar Medjan nodded. Kopa’s words were like a twist of a knife inside Lissa. Of course. She was even more stupid than she thought. There was Gija, and the Americans he was bringing down-river to take Adam home.

She knew what they would do to Gija, that laughing, reckless one. They would break his body, tear his blood and tissue, turn his amusing mind into an idiot’s jungle of mumbled confessions. Yes, they could do it. They were waiting for this, for Gija and the others. This Kopa would not act until all the fish were in his net, as he said.

But how could she stop it? She could think of no way, except by keeping silent.

“Petar, make her talk about it,” Kopa said negligently.

“Comrade Colonel, I have known this woman—”

“Then shall I send for one of my men, if you are squeamish?”

“Colonel, we can raid and take them in now.” Medjan was not aware of Kopa’s biggest scheme. He sweated. “We can hold this woman here and take some platoons into the mountains—”

“My men are already posted, with the hut under observation. I want the story now, from this woman. She must talk. You can use my cigar, if you like. A few caresses with a hot coal where she may be tender—it is done, and then she will cooperate.”

Petar loomed over Lissa. His face was like something anguished, carved in dark and frozen stone. “Tell us, Lissa. Talk to us.”

“No.”

He shut his eyes and slapped her. Her head snapped to one side and she felt the blow like an explosion. She made herself look up and smile at Medjan, meeting his tormented eyes with scorn and derision.

“Lissa, pleasel”

“Again,” Kopa said.

He hit her again—harder, this time. His face dripped sweat. Lissa fell from the chair and sprawled on the floor. Kopa prodded her with his boot.

“Again, Lieutenant.”

Medjan pulled her up and put her back in the chair. His voice was a shout. “Lissa, tell us everything! Why be stubborn? We know you helped the American. He was there when I last inspected your father’s place, was he not?”

She spoke through a bloodied, thickened mouth. “Ah, you remember your visit, do you?”

“Lissa, I could not help myself, or stop what I did—”

“I spit on you,” she whispered.

He hit her. In his anguish, he found refuge in a dark and furious comer of his mind. This girl could not and would not destroy him. Whatever happened, he had to end her defiance. He struck her again and again. Her dark red hair flew back and forth in a screen across her face. Kopa looked on patiently, smoking his cigar.

Below the prison walls, the little river ran between the icy banks with a sound like the chuckling of steel.

The
Luliga
forged downstream toward the junction of the Drava in convoy with other barges, tugboats and steamers. Here was the famous Backa of black soil, wheat farms, and white village houses, of fishermen stolidly tending their nets. Not even the new regime had made much of a mark here. At dawn, Durell and Deirdre sat on the forward hatch and watched larks shoot high into the cold sunlight in a sky alive with soaring swallows and herons.

Durell felt curiously at peace. Gija lounged at the pilot’s wheel with Captain Galucz and Mara Tirana. An air of respite touched everyone aboard.

A tugboat’s whistle echoed over the broad waters, and Durell thought of the Mississippi delta country. But this was different. The fishermen on the banks wore baggy trousers and shaggy moustaches, with an occasional fez, and it would continue like this until late afternoon, when they approached the canal through the wild narrows of the Iron Gates.

Deirdre had been clothed in baggy trousers and a rough workman’s sweater, and her dark hair was tucked up under a ragged cap. She sat hugging her knees as she watched the river at the ruins of Golubac, where the Danube’s left bank lifted into piney foothills scarred by old mines. Far ahead, the Transylvanian Alps presented a solid wall of craggy rock.

"Now I know why they sing about the Danube,” Deirdre sighed. “It’s truly beautiful.”

“Blue, red, and bloody,” Durell said grimly.

She looked at him gently. “No rest for the weary, darling?”

“Not until you and Adam Stepanic are safely home.” “Sam, that’s over. Surely you know how I feel now—”

“We’ll know better when you meet him again,” Durell said. “But you’re right. Let’s not talk about it.”

He stood up when he saw the bearded Captain Galucz descend from the pilot house and left Deirdre to go below with the fat man. He had noted yesterday the half-dozen scout cars crated in the hold. There were also boxes of uniforms, boots, and Russian-style helmets. Captain Galucz wheezed impatiently as Durell scrambled around the crowded, echoing hold.

“Can we rig up the booms to get one of these cars ashore?” he asked the captain. “I want to uncrate one, service it, and have it ready to go the minute the wheels touch the river bank.”

“It can be arranged.” Galucz was curious. “And then?” “Mara and Deirdre can sew us uniforms today. We’ll mount a machine-gun on the car and take along hand weapons, grenades, and perhaps a mortar.” He saw Galucz purse his lips. “Can’t it be done?”

“Of course. But it is sheer suicide.”

“It's the quickest way to get to Viajec,” Durell said. “And if you are discovered to be impostors by a road block? This whole consignment is for the Arabs of die Middle East—though why I* help put powder in that damned glory-hole is more than I can explain to myself.” Galucz slapped his big belly. “I have the feeling this trip will be the last for all of us, you know. It is a temptation to blow it all up”

Durell grinned. “Maybe that can be arranged.” “Uh-huh.” Galucz tugged his beard. “Tomas could paint insignia on the scout car. Gija can drive. Two hours should see you in Viajec from where I could put you ashore.” “Then let’s get started,” Durell said.

The
Luliga
was equipped with her own cargo booms. As they plodded downstream, the cables were rigged and the crates of munitions shunted aside so that Tomas and Pashich, the other crewman, could get at the nearest car. Servicing and equipping the car with a light machine-gun and mortar mounted on steel frames took most of the noon hours. Durell added a box of grenades, dynamite sticks and percussion caps.

“We won’t look for trouble,” he told Gija. “It will be best if we go in fast, pick up Stepanic and your people, and get out before anyone knows about it.”

Gija shrugged. “It will not happen that way. Nothing comes easily or with luck in my country.”

Mara was in the pilot house with Gija as they neared the Iron Gates. With the sun behind them, it seemed to Mara that the river narrowed until it met a solid wall of rock. Gija pointed out the Carpathian highlands, the limestone water caverns and crystalline schist in rocky shoals. The air was filled with a sharp essence from the pine woods, and it seemed to Mara as if the whole world waited in suspense for the struggle between the mountains and the on-rushing river.

There was more space between units of river traffic now as they entered the Greben Defile. The current was markedly faster, and Gija watched the channel signals intently.

“Gija, can you talk to me now?” Mara asked timidly. He nodded. “It is good to have you beside me, Mara.” “Do you say that just to make me feel better? To forget how I almost ruined everything over my foolish brother?” “I think only of you, Mara. I—I like you.”

“Yes, perhaps you do,” she said gently. “It is something in the heart, a sudden knowing, a quick thing like a bird in the air.”

“Do you feel it, too?” Gija asked. When she nodded, he sighed. “I keep wondering what will happen to you when this is all over.”

“I only want to live in peace. Perhaps in America— will you be going with Durell?” she asked.

He shrugged. “The underground will be destroyed by this mission. But this one coup will be worth it.”

Mara paused. “Can I explain to you, Gija, how it happened that you saw me with Durell that first night? I want you to know and believe how desperate I was—” Gija did not reply. The river suddenly boiled with furious currents under the high crags of limestone. Every time it seemed as if the mountains would triumph, the river found an opening ahead. Silently, Gija pointed to the south bank, then said:

“The Emperor Trajan built a road there in the first century. You can still see Imperial Rome’s words carved in the stone. Their glory ended, but those men left a permanent mark here. I want to leave a mark here, too, before I go to the West with Durell.”

“I only want you to be safe, Gija. Do nothing foolish.” He turned to look at her. There was a new quickness in her. Her blonde hair was neatly coiled in thick braids at the nape of her neck, and her face reflected some of the contagious excitement of the river.

“And you, Mara? Going to the West will mean a new life for all of us.”

“Yes, strange and new,” she nodded. “I thought once I wanted it so much, but now that I face it alone, I’m not so sure.”