Authors: Brian Freemantle
It was the half-light of the Mediterranean now, Cyprus lost beyond the horizon from which night was proudly approaching in a tumble of black clouds. There was a wind coming, too, and the boat began to rise and fall more steeply as the swell increased. Janet shivered, tightening her arms around herself: the jeans were adequate, but the shirt was for the heat of mid-day, not the numb of an open boat at night. The smell was getting to her, as well, combining with the rise-and-fall movement. She swallowed deeply against what lumped in the back of her throat, tight-lipped against showing the slightest weakness.
“Here!”
Janet became conscious of Costas before her, offering a bottle. Janet could see that it was unlabeled but nothing else. “No, thank you.”
“Make you feel better.”
“I'm all right.”
“It's brandy,” he said, belatedly.
“No, really. Thank you all the same.”
If her discomfort were that obvious it was ridiculous remaining any longer beyond whatever little protection the wheelhouse would give, Janet accepted: now that it was completely dark the excuse about drying her clothes didn't apply, either. Using the rail, greasy to her touch, for as much support as it would give, Janet groped amidships to the tiny hut. Nearer she saw that Stavos had lighted the red and green navigation lights and that there was also a dull white light in the place itself.
She got to the door and said: “I would like to come in now, please.”
From his look it was almost as if he were startled to find her on his boat at all. He jerked his head towards the bench and said: “Of course.”
Janet eased her way into the tiny hut and sat on the lumpy padding close to the open door. The door slid back and forth on runners, she saw. There was a matching entrance on the far side of the wheelhouse but it was secured by an inside bolt. In front of Stavos was a sloped chart table but there were no charts on it. What she could see was a magazine, well thumbed, with what appeared to be a naked girl on the front. It was partially concealed by pages of a newspaper, which Stavos was reading. There was also an empty tobacco tin, acting as an ashtray. And there was a radio, although not the type Janet expected. It looked like the sort of transistor those Larnaca Bay holidaymakers would have had: as the thought came she heard, very softly, a wailing pop song coming from it. The radio was taped against the side of the chart table and swung back and forth, like a pendulum, with the rocking of the boat. Beneath the table was a tangle of ropes and lines. Stavos had taken his shoes off, like the other two crewmen, and rolled his trousers up.
“How much longer?” Janet asked.
Stavos grunted away from his newspaper. He looked briefly through the salt-rimmed glass out into the completely empty blackness of the night, then at his watch, and said: “Maybe two hours: maybe less.”
Janet checked her own watch and said: “Before midnight, then?”
“Maybe,” said Stavos.
A man of definite opinions, thought Janet. She said: “Are you sure you will be able to find the people tonight?”
“I said I would come back with a decision: with something,” said Stavos, abandoning his newspaper altogether and turning to her.
“So they are expecting you!”
“They said they would be ready.”
Costas appeared at the doorway next to her. He still carried the bottle and in the better light Janet thought his face appeared flushed. He said something in Greek and offered it to the captain but Stavos shook his head in refusal. The young man then smiled at Janet, moving his outstretched arm so that the bottle was towards her.
“No thank you,” she said again.
The doorway was completely blocked by the arrival of Dimitri. He spoke in Greek to Stavos who glanced briefly at his watch before replying and Janet guessed it was a query about an arrival time. The younger man remained looking at her, smiling. Janet smiled back. Costas took a swig from the bottle and said: “Good stuff. The best.”
“I'm sure,” Janet said.
Stavos said something, brief and sharp, and Costas's smile flickered off. He replied, equally brief, his face sullen. No one moved for several moments and then the younger man screwed the metal top back on to the bottle.
“Would you like to eat?” Stavos asked, suddenly. “There's some fish and bread. Olives, too. Wine, as well.”
“I'm really not hungry,” Janet said, swallowing against the sensation that came once more to the back of her throat at the very thought of consuming anything.
“It's going to be a long night.”
“I'll ask, if I get hungry.” Anxious to switch the conversation from food Janet gestured to what she thought was a gradual lightening ahead and said: “Is that it! Beirut!”
Without looking, Stavos said: “Yes.”
Here! thought Janet; I'm here! She said: “How much longer now?”
“Maybe an hour.”
Janet sat practically oblivious to anything and anyone around her, occupied only upon what was ahead. There was a definite break in the darkness now, an actual horizon line although she could not make out the shapes of buildings. She was surprised at so much light: without positively thinking about it she'd imagined it would be a place of enforced and protective darkness, like the Second World War blackouts in England that her parents had described. She strained to hear any sound, and realized thatâridiculouslyâshe was listening for the sound of gunfire. All she could hear was the grating, reverberating throb of the engines, behind her. Soon, my darling, she thought: I'll be there soon.
Stavos broke into her reverie. He said: “There's a part of the harbor, to the west, where we can go alongside. You'll stay aboard, while I go to find them.”
“Why can't I come with you?”
“West Beirut isn't a place for evening strolls,” rejected the captain. “It's safer this way.”
“How far is it from the harbor to where you expect to meet them?”
“Not for.”
“It can't be that dangerous, then?”
“This is how it is going to be done!” Stavos said loudly.
Janet winced, not wanting to alienate a man upon whom she was so dependent. “I'm sorry,” she said at once. “Of course.”
Beirut was more discernible now and Janet saw that the brightness was not as uniform as she had imagined it to be. The street lights and house and building lights and even the lights of cars moving along coastal highways were all to the east. Which Stavos had described as safe:
practically like it was before 1975
, Janet remembered. It was much darker to the west and what she calculated to be the south, the war areas. Street illumination was intermittent, over large areas none existing at all, and there were hardly any building lights, either. Nothing seemed to be moving on the roads; if there were cars they were driving without headlights.
Stavos extinguished the dull white bulb inside the wheelhouse, leaning forward in complete darkness against the glass, which he scrubbed with his hand to remove something obstructing his view. The harbor, like the city, was divided by light. To Janet's left a lot of boats and ships showed themselves at anchor or against jetty or harbor moorings but in the direction in which they were moving, very slowly, hulls and outlines were black and indistinct, whatever was showing nothing more than the barest glimmer. Stavos began to talk, in Creek, and Janet became aware that Dimitri was between the wheelhouse and the front of the ship, as a relay, and that Costas was in the actual V of the stem, guiding them through the channels and past obstructions. A shout came louder than the rest and Stavos jerked the gear lever into reverse but they still came against the mooring hard, bouncing away from the wall so the man had to go back and forth between the gears to maneuver himself into position again. The two crewmen jumped onto the jetty with securing lines and at once Stavos turned to her. He said: “You must wait.”
“Yes,” Janet said. She added: “In the dark?”
“It is better.”
“Why?”
“Just better.”
“I can't see anything.”
“It won't be long.”
He brushed past her to get out of the tiny hut and there was a mumble of inaudible conversation near the shoreside rail where Janet assumed the other two men to be. Blackness was all around her, stifling, like a blanket that was too thick: she felt positively hot, despite the coldness of the night. She got up and groped to the other side of the wheelhouse, twitching her fingers until she located the bolt and tested it to ensure that it was locked. To be doubly sure, she found the opening handle and tugged against it: the door shifted but only slightly. Reassured, Janet returned to the bench and sat down.
It was getting easier to see, Janet decided. The blackness wasn't blackness any more but a kind of gray: her eyes had adjusted so that she was able to make out shapes and objects, able to differentiate. Black lumps, gray lumps, black lumps, gray lumps: boats and boat equipment she supposed (what else could they be?), but she could not definitely be sure. With her improving vision Janet tried to locate Dimitri and Costas but she couldn't: everything around was totally quiet and unmoving, just the lap of water and the creak of the boats. Black lump, creak creak, gray lump, creak creak. Maybe they'd all gone together. Which would mean that she was all alone on the boat. Janet wasn't hot now. Cold. She shivered, violently, and remembered that when she'd done that as a child her mother had invoked a folklore expression about someone walking over her grave.
“Drink?”
Janet yelped in surprise. She'd imagined herself deserted and had not heard Costas approach. “You frightened me,” she said.
“I'm sorry: I saw you shiver.”
“You were watching me?”
“Yes.”
“I didn't know you were there.”
“No.”
“Where's Dimitri?”
“Somewhere.”
“Has he gone with Stavos?”
“Maybe.”
He was blocking the open door and through all the other smells Janet could detect the scent of brandy. She said: “They'll be back soon.”
Fully adjusted to her surroundings now Janet saw the shoulder hump.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Why not try a little drink? It's very good for the cold. Just a little drink.”
Janet felt the bottle against her arm. “I don't want to drink,” she said.
“You're very pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“You weren't upset by what I did when I helped you into the boat.”
“I don't remember what you did helping me into the boat,” lied Janet. Oh Christ, she thought.
“You're very firm. Big.”
“I don't understand what you are saying.”
“Big tits.”
Janet's immediate impulse was properly to scream this time, to drive him away with the fear of someone intervening to arrest him. And then she remembered where she was and how she couldn't expect anyone to intervene: that more than at any time in her life she was completely and absolutely and utterly alone. Pressing control upon herself she said: “Don't talk like that.”
“Why not?”
“I don't like it.”
“I like it: like big tits.”
“Please don't.”
“Shouldn't wear baggy shirts like that, covering them up. Want to see them.”
“Don't Costas. Please don't.”
Janet cringed when she felt his hand. He missed at first, groping her waist, but at once moved up, cupping his hand beneath her breast and feeling for where he imagined her nipple to be, squeezing hard. He didn't have her nipple but it still hurt and Janet snatched a breath but refused to cry out in case that was what he wanted.
“Liked that,” he said. “Feels good.”
“So did I,” Janet forced herself to say. “I liked it, too.”
The man giggled and Janet was engulfed in more brandy breath: his hands moved over her breasts, kneading and squeezing, hurting her badly. He said: “Knew you would. Big tits.”
Janet edged slightly away from him, further along the bench. “I'd like that drink now,” she said.
Costas stumbled awkwardly into the wheelhouse entrance, colliding with either side. “Sure,” he said. “Here.”
It gave Janet the excuse to stand up and get further away. She reached out, toward him: one hand grabbed for her but she was able to evade it. “The bottle?” she said. “Where's the bottle?”
“Here,” he said and this time the other hand connected and she felt the coldness of the glass.
Janet had edged backwards all the time, risking his inevitable entry into the tiny hut. She felt out, putting her hand against his chest and said: “Give me room to take a drink then!”
Costas stopped coming towards her and Janet raised the bottle to her lips, keeping them pressed tightly together, with her free hand reaching behind for the bolt to the other sliding door. She scraped her foot against the deck as loudly as she could to mask any other sound she made. Knowing where it was, she was able at once to locate the opening handle. She jerked sideways against it, anxiously, starting to turn to run through it.
Nothing happened.
It moved just slightly, as it had when she'd checked it earlier, but it remained rigid. Janet tried once more, harder this time, but it refused to budge, and she realized there were additional outside locks or securing bars. On top of one horrified realization tumbled others, all as terrifying: that she'd encouraged a drunken man intent upon rape into believing she wanted him sexually: that unquestionably he was stronger than she was, physically, and would succeed: that they were together, in the smallest of places; that she was trapped.
“Good stuff?” he mumbled.
“Very good.”
“Have another drink.”
Trying to delay what was inevitably to happen Janet raised the bottle again, feeling the cheap liquor burn her lips: a little got through, making her choke. He was against her, pressing her to the door through which she couldn't escape, one hand cruel against her breast, the other trying to work its way between her tight legs, fingers spidering through the cloth in what he believed would stimulate her sex. But worst of all he attempted to kiss her, smearing an open wet mouth against hers, trying to drive his tongue into her. Janet bit down against the inside of her lips, desperate to seal them, not caring if she bit herself to bleed. She was going to bleed anyway, elsewhere. His body ground into her thigh and she could feel his erection: it seemed huge. Bleed a lot, she thought.