Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (16 page)

“Us?” echoed Farrell in astonishment. “You said ‘us’?”

Mrs. Pollifax looked up from her map in surprise. “You can’t possibly think I’d leave you behind!”

Farrell shook his head. “My dear Duchess, it must have escaped your notice that for most of today I’ve been off my rocker with fever. I also have a broken right leg and a bullet in my right arm.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded indifferently. “Yes, I’d noticed. But I’ve asked for permission to cut the bullet out of your arm, and if you can bear another operation—I know it won’t be pleasant—then your temperature ought to go down, and that will leave only the healing leg.”

“That’s right—only a broken leg,” rasped Farrell.

Mrs. Pollifax returned impatiently to her book. “It isn’t clear to me yet, but I’m hoping it will come. The simplest way would be lowering you over the cliff, but we would need at least a hundred feet of rope for that. We ought to have a gun, too, and some sort of clothes for disguise, and food, and I suppose to be really efficient we ought to have a compass, although if the stars are out—”

She found that Farrell was regarding her as if she had gone mad. He said with sarcasm, “A rope, a gun, a disguise, food and a compass—anything else? How about ordering a limousine?”

“I don’t think you’re being at all receptive,” she told him stiffly.

It was their first quarrel. He said scornfully, “I think you’ve
gone off your rocker, too, Duchess, but if it gives you something to keep your mind occupied—well, have lots and lots of fun. And now if you’ll forgive me I’ll go back to sleep, which is the best escape
I
can think of. You know—‘sleep that knits the raveled sleeve of care’ and all that?”

“Coward,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a sniff, and then was sorry for the word as soon as it left her lips. But it was too late; Farrell’s eyes were closed and a kind of gentle snore was issuing from his half-open mouth. Mrs. Pollifax, watching him, wondered if he knew how becoming a beard would be to the shape of his face. A few more days, she mused, and he would have a very striking one, and then with a start she went back to
Albania: Land of Primitive Beauty
.

The boiling water, a penknife and a towel arrived at dusk, brought in by Major Vassovic, who looked disapproving and then somewhat distraught as he added that he had been ordered to remain behind to help with the operation. In a gruff, nervous voice he addressed the walrus-moustached man who now shared their cell. “His name is Adhem Nexdhet,” he told Mrs. Pollifax. “I have asked him to hold the candle for you, Lulash is not on duty tonight.”

“For me,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, “he means hold the candle for me,” and her knees suddenly felt very wobbly. She put down the pack of playing cards and stood up, trying to recall the dozens of splinters and the broken glass she had extracted from small knees and fingers in her lifetime, but finding little comfort in the thought. She remembered only one bit of advice given her by a doctor: never bleed for the patient, let him do the bleeding, you just get the job done.

Mrs. Pollifax took the knife from Major Vassovic, saw to its sterilization, glanced just once at Farrell, whose eyes were open, and proceeded to go about getting the job done. She mentally granted to Farrell his own right to dignity, assuming he could manage his own hell just as she must somehow manage hers. Quickly and ruthlessly, knowing that speed was kinder than gentleness, she probed the rotting flesh for the bullet. When the knife met its hard resistance she thanked heaven that it was not embedded in a muscle and with one swift, cruel turning of the knife she lifted the pellet to the surface and heard it drop to the stone floor. Not knowing how else to complete the job she poured the hot water over the infected skin, and this at last brought from Farrell a yelp of pain.

“I wondered when we’d hear from you,” she told him.

“They’d never hire you at Mount Sinai, Duchess.” His face glistened with perspiration.

“Really? And I was planning to apply next week—what a pity.”

He grinned weakly. “Just can’t keep you from volunteering for things, can we. Have you finished your butchery?”

“Quite.”

Farrell nodded and turned his face to the wall, and Mrs. Pollifax realized what he had already endured and must still face, and the resolve to escape hardened in her. She would not,
must
not, save Farrell only for General Perdido. Even if an escape attempt brought only death it was certainly a cleaner way to die than by whatever means the general was planning. In that moment she realized they were going to have to try it, and with this all her doubts ended; it was no longer a matter of
whether
but
when
and
how
.

Major Vassovic had disappeared, leaving her the basin of water and several towels. Mrs. Pollifax dipped a towel into the water and began swabbing blood from Farrell’s mattress.

“You did that well,” said Adhem Nexdhet suddenly. “Without emotion.”

Mrs. Pollifax stepped back in surprise. “You really do speak English,” she said accusingly.

He smiled wryly. “But you already knew this, did you not? I am not unaware of the little trick Mr. Farrell played on me. Allow me,” he said, taking the towel from her. “You are not young, you must be tired.”

Mrs. Pollifax backed to her cot and sat down. “I suppose you’re also in the secret police then!”

“Yes, I am Colonel Nexdhet of the Sigurimi.”

Mrs. Pollifax winced. “I see. That makes you the major’s superior then.” She sighed. “It also makes it especially kind of you to help. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “A good officer knows when to break rules here and there. Major Vassovic is not a good officer, except for his rigid obedience, which is the mark of a follower, not a leader. He is afraid of life.” The colonel wrung out one towel and picked up another, saying over his shoulder, “There is one thing that General Perdido does not know about you, Mrs. Pollifax.”

Startled, she said, “Oh? What is that?”

He turned to look at her. “He does not know how well you perform under pressure.”

There was a long silence. Nexdhet’s words were ambiguous, but the man’s stare made Mrs. Pollifax feel distinctly uneasy. Until now the comic moustache had obscured the fact that his eyes were both penetrating and intelligent. As pleasantly as possible Mrs. Pollifax said, “I’m glad to hear that.”

“You are more than you appear to be,” he said, smiling.

“Really?” He was clearly testing her, she decided. “I have no idea how I appear.”

“It is very interesting to me,” continued Nexdhet. “I underestimated you at first glance. To General Perdido you are an embarrassing mistake. Now I wonder if he may not have underestimated you as well.”

“What you have underestimated,” retorted Mrs. Pollifax firmly, “is my experience in first aid. However, if it pleases you to think otherwise—”

The cell door opened. The guard who did not speak English came in to collect the dinner trays and the conversation was mercifully ended. Mrs. Pollifax spread out her playing cards for a last game of solitaire, but whenever she glanced up she was aware of Colonel Nexdhet watching her with a mixture of speculation and amusement.

The next morning Mrs. Pollifax began to plan in earnest. When Colonel Nexdhet was removed from their cell, presumably for his exercise, she brought from her purse everything that could be used as a bribe or trade, and spread the items across the little table. There were three lipsticks, two of them brand-new and in smart bejeweled gold cases; a tin of Band-Aids, her wallet containing five dollars and thirteen cents; traveler’s checks amounting to fifty dollars (the rest were in her suitcase in Mexico City) and a small memo pad with gold pencil. To these she reluctantly added her Guatemalan jacket, and distributed the small items between the two pockets of the jacket, keeping only the memo pad. On one of its pages she had jotted down the few Albanian words with which the author of
Land of Primitive Beauty
had salted his book. The words were as follows:

It was meager fare for her purposes, but after an hour spent in arranging and rearranging the words she had selected four of them for the message she wished to write in Albanian. It was a crude affair but it was the best that she could manage, and now she carefully copied out the four words on a fresh sheet of memo paper.
Night—Sleep—Bring Voice
. To this she added hopefully in English, since everyone else here seemed to speak it, “We are two Americans here, who are you?”

“What’s up?” asked Farrell from his cot, watching her.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” said Mrs. Pollifax hastily, and slipped the memo into her pocket. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak but human at last.”

She nodded. “Your temperature is almost normal, I felt your forehead while you were asleep.” She stood up as the cell door groaned open and a guard appeared. “I believe it’s time for my walk now,” she told Farrell.

From his cot he said dryly, “You look like a cat planning to swallow the canary, Duchess. Whatever you’re up to it won’t work, you know. This is Albania.”

“Yes, Albania, land of primitive beauty,” she told him, and swept from the cell.

She had no more than closed the door behind her, however, when a familiar voice said, “There you are, Mrs. Pollifax, I have been waiting for you.”

It was Colonel Nexdhet, the very man she would have preferred to avoid. He wore a pair of binoculars around his neck and carried a book under his arm. “We can walk together,” he said.

“You are to guard me?” she inquired coldly, and then as they entered the guardroom she said warmly, “Good morning, Major Vassovic, and how is your back today?”

“Ah, Zoje Pollifax,” said the major, beaming. “It is still sore, yes, but last night I sleep like the baby.”

“Mrs. Pollifax,” cried Lulash, coming in from outside and holding the door open for her. “You have good walk before the sun climbs high?”

“Thank you, I hope to,” replied Mrs. Pollifax.

“Take my sunglasses, please,” insisted Lulash, peeling them from his eyes. He winked. “Remember we are jurors, you and I.”

“What did that mean?” asked Colonel Nexdhet as they emerged into the brilliant sun.

“Nothing important,” Mrs. Pollifax assured him airily. She stopped a moment, adjusting to the bright tawny landscape, and then moved on. “There are so many of you here to guard so few of us, it seems such a waste.”

“We will go in this direction,” said Colonel Nexdhet, gesturing to the east. “No, it is not waste. There are other prisoners in the larger building.”

“I didn’t know that. How long have you been here, Colonel?”

“Oh, for several months. I was brought here to be second in command to General Hoong.”

“You must find it bleak?”

“At times. I take many walks, I fancy myself as a bird watcher.” He gestured toward the binoculars around his neck. “I enjoy walks.”

“So I gather,” she said dryly.

He helped her across a deep cut in the earth, and they began to climb a little, toward the forest.

“And do you enjoy being a colonel in the Sigurimi?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It is my job.” He looked at her and smiled. “You question everything, and this is good. But you doubt nobody, and this is bad. We are neither of us young, you and I, we are each nearing the end of long lives and so can speak frankly. I observe in you the desire to trust, even here. This is weakness in a human being, a foolish thing, the desire to lean.”

Mrs. Pollifax followed him among the trees, her face thoughtful. She had already forgotten that he made her uneasy. “No,” she said honestly, “no, I don’t think I agree with you. I don’t lean on people, as you put it. It only comforts me to know that people are there. You don’t find this to be so?”

He looked at her and again she was aware of the tired wisdom in his eyes. “Then it is because you are a woman.”

“Perhaps. You mean you trust no one at all?”

“No one but myself.”

“Why?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

He shrugged, and helped her over a fallen log. “That is only common sense. Perhaps I have seen too much of life, I don’t know. I am sixty-three, I have perhaps watched too many knives in the back, too many sudden changes of the face. Nothing endures except the
idea
, the
mind
. I served Albania under the Turks, I served her under King Zog. We were friends
with Mussolini and then Mussolini turned on us and conquered us and I fought in the resistance then, for communism. After the war it was Hoxher who came to power and ruled, with Russia our friend. Now we have quarreled with Russia and it is the Red Chinese who help us.” He shrugged again. “It is the way life is. Nothing endures except the idea. This alone is clear, pure, not soiled by change.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “Yes, you have seen too much of life—the bitter side, at least.”