At noon they found a cave in a rock cliff above a slope. Shepherds used it as a shelter, and they had piled a low wall of stones across the opening. Inside, the cave roof was blackened by the smoke of many fires. It was cool in there out of the sun. They sat down and Tony said, “Get some rest. I’ll watch.”
Ellen muttered something, and her eyes closed. Tony shifted to where he could see out over the wall. Some kind of bird, a kite or vulture, rode the high air on motionless wings, the ragged flange tips sharply outlined. Otherwise the world was empty. Tufts of low gray-green scrub grew scantily on the slope between crumbled drifts of stone. Ridges—one high and dark with a saw-toothed crest and a face all torn and rotten with erosion, the other low and smooth and chocolate brown—enclosed the landscape on each side. In front, stretching from the foot of the slope, was a barren plain across which dust devils raced and whirled. The line of a qanat, almost obliterated, was traceable by the broken wells, and where there had once been a village, only the shell was left, abandoned and forlorn. Beyond the village other ridges rose. And there was no sign of a road.
There had been no sign of pursuers either. Tony hoped they had given up and gone home for lunch, but he didn't think it likely, not with Karim urging them on.
Anyway, he and Ellen had got loose from the village. They had made it this far. With luck they might get through. And then—
He was trying to make up his mind whether it would be wiser to stay here until sundown and cross the plain by night, when the darkness would hide them, or to push on again as soon as the midday heat had lessened, and he closed his eyes only for a moment to rest them from the piercing light and monotonous circlings of the ominous bird. He did not realize that he had gone to sleep until he started up in a spasm of alarm and saw that the shadows had stretched themselves out from the ridges, down the slope and onto the plain. The air was cooler. It was past three in the afternoon, and a truck was moving across the plain. It was the sound of the motor that had wakened him.
He stared down. The truck had a canvas-covered body and an official look, augmented by insignia and some lettering on the door panel. Tony let out a cry and shook Ellen awake.
“Look," he said. “Look!”
She did, rubbing sand and sleep from her eyes. The canvas tilt swayed, trundling across the dry land, the motor grunting and churning, wheels grabbing, throwing clots of dust.
Obviously an official truck. “Water conservation, land survey—who cares? It’s government.” Tony took Ellen’s arm, and they ran out of the cave and down the slope, waving, shouting at the oncoming truck.
Somebody else shouted. Tony turned his head. On the crest of the low chocolate ridge the figures of five men showed clearly against the sky. They plunged downward, running, agile as goats, their dark-blue trousers flapping.
Meanwhile, the truck had altered course and was coming toward the foot of the slope. Tony measured the distance and laughed. He bounded down, spuming rocks and tufts of scrub, Ellen fairly skimming beside him, her face alight with triumph. They were going to make it. They were going to make it with furlongs to spare.
The truck stopped. They rushed up to it, and the door opened and a man in khaki uniform looked out at them, smiling. He held a nice new Colt .45 revolver in his hand, pointing straight at Tony’s middle. In quite good English he said, “I think you wait.”
Tony said, “You don’t understand. We need help, the police—"
The smile widened. “I understand, Mr. Wales. You wait.”
They waited, and the men from the village came up, not even hurrying.
17
The truck did in a trifle more than an hour what it had taken Ellen and Tony half an agonizing day to accomplish, winding expertly on an unmarked and intricate track that kept to the level most of the way, resorting to four-wheel drive and steep ascents only occasionally. It was all in knowing what you were doing, Tony thought.
He sat in the back of the truck under the canvas, on a low bench, with the five men from the village. His hands and feet were tied. Ellen was in the cab beside the man in uniform. Through the rear window Tony could just see her head, leaning forward as though in total dejection. He knew how she felt. He watched the landscape unreel behind them with a kind of blank and sullen despair, and the villagers watched him with interest and talked among themselves. They had strong faces, brown and tough as old leather, with wide, gap-toothed smiles and alert dark eyes. They were dressed in coarse dark-blue cloth and homespun shirts. Their hair stuck out black and curling around felt caps, and they all needed shaves. They looked like good men. Tony thought he would have liked them under other circumstances. At the moment he was filled with unlove.
The damned driver with his uniform and his emblems of officialdom. Whom could you trust?
Whom indeed, if not your friend?
They struck the main track below the village and sped along at a good clip. Tony saw the fields and the poplar gardens, and then they were through the gate, and Yadollah in homespun blue was looking in through the back of the tilt. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
The entire village seemed to be on hand to witness their return. Little boys in ragged shirts and striped trousers. Little girls in short frocks and long leggings. Women in chadors, with long trousers under their full skirts. Men in blue pants and round jackets. Dogs, goats, donkeys, chickens, pigeons. It was like a triumphal tour, walking the dusty streets. They passed a water channel, where women and girls washing clothes stopped their work and peered sidelong. One of them was bathing a naked infant. It stood squalling in the cold water, its belly protruding like a cantaloupe, while she turned to look. She had a lovely face, slender-featured and delicate, with sparkling eyes. It seemed to Tony that the eyes held kindness and pity along with the curiosity. Then she busied herself with the child again.
They passed through into the courtyard with the dye shed and the weaving room and the upper floor, whence they had fled with such labor. They were not allowed to go up there but were thrust into a small storage cell at one side of the court. It had a door of saplings, sufficient to keep stray animals out and people in, as long as Yadollah stayed beside it.
Ellen sat on the earthen floor, her legs stretched out, her back against the wall. Tony stood, his head thrust forward. He made a few tentative motions, like a tethered animal, and then he shouted at Yadollah to bring water, full of an impotent fury against the forces that were making them slaves and prisoners and would presently make them dead. He felt like hurling himself against the door, clawing and screaming. Yadollah regarded him through the saplings with maddening detachment.
“He doesn’t understand you,” Ellen said. “Ab. Ab, Yadollah. Lotfan—"
Yadollah seemed to find this tremendously amusing. He repeated the word, mocking her accent, laughing. Across the court the women had come out of the weaving room. They ranged from a handsome mature woman with a babe in arms down to the seven-year-old, a beautiful bright-eyed charmer in a cut-down chador, her native impishness subdued by shocked astonishment. She came suddenly running across the court, the chador slipping away from her to trail in the dust. "Khanum! Khanum!” she cried, and clutched the saplings.
Ellen smiled and said, “Zhale. It’s all right, love.”
Yadollah growled at the child and thrust her away. The woman with the baby, evidently Zhale's mother, caught her hand and attacked Yadollah in furious Persian, her eyes ablaze. The others—two teen-age girls and a young woman—joined her. Yadollah flung up his hands and cursed the lot, then turned his back on them. The girls ran away and presently returned with water jars and bowls of food. Zhale’s mother opened the door for them, and Yadollah did not try to prevent it. The girls spoke to Ellen, smiling, glanced shyly at Tony, and hurried out as soon as they had set their burdens down. Zhale watched, the unaccustomed chador pulled askew over her black curls.
Tony wished he knew the Persian for "Thank you,” but made the English do. Ellen evidently did know it. At any rate they got the message. Giv
ing Yadollah a scornful look, they went back to the loom. Tony picked up one of the water jars and drank—and thought of Sandra who had wanted no part of his problems.
When they had fed and used the last of the water to clean themselves up a bit, Tony sat beside Ellen, and she said, "I don’t suppose I ever really believed I’d get away. It was just that I had to do something. I wonder what Karim will do with us now.”
"I don’t know,” Tony said. He took her hand and held it.
The shadows stretched across the court. Through the wide open door of the weaving room Tony could see the women crouching comfortably on the bench in an attitude that made his legs ache to see it, fingers flying as they knotted and cut, knotted and cut the many colored threads, following a pattern drawn on paper and tacked to the headpiece of the loom. Zhale’s mother nursed the fat baby under her chador while she worked. When the light was too far gone to show color, they left the loom and went away, looking toward the sapling door as they passed. Doubtfully, Zhale waved.
"Won’t all these people talk?” asked Tony. "Somebody’s bound to come asking.”
"They know better,” Ellen said. "This isn’t a free village yet. I don’t know who owns it, but whoever it is must be working with Karim, or at least willing to help him. Otherwise, of course, he wouldn’t dare do this. You can depend on it that the people have had their orders.”
"Convenient.”
"Yes, very.”
"Efficiency,” said Tony. "The good old American know-how. There’s nothing like it.”
The line of shadow slid high up the eastern wall. In the dusk someone came to speak to Yadollah, and the sapling door was opened. The someone was Karim, though Tony did not recognize him at once. He was dressed like a villager, and his jaw was shadowed by a dark stubble.
“What are you going to do with us?” Tony asked. He stood close to Ellen so that their shoulden touched.
“That,” said Karim, “is in the hands of God.”
They moved through the village streets in the smoke of the evening fires. The government truck and the man in uniform were waiting beside the gate. Saad was with him. Ellen and Tony were put into the back amid a litter of folded sleeping rugs and bundles tied up in cloth. Karim, Yadollah, and several men from the village got in and sat on the benches. Saad got into the front seat with the driver. The truck rolled away in a fury of barking, the village curs running after.
Karim spoke.
“We are village men going to work on a government irrigation project. If the truck is stopped, you will lie quietly under those rugs. If we should be forced to make a break for it, your bodies will be between us and their guns. It’s just possible they might hold their fire. At least for a few moments.”
Tony said, “That’s fine. And what happens if we get through to wherever we’re going? Do you pat us on the head and tell us to go and sin no more?”
“You wonder about that, Tony. It’ll keep you better occupied than tearing holes in roofs.” With a touch of completely human viciousness he added, “If it’s any consolation to you, you didn’t even come close to making it.”
“It’s no consolation,” Tony said, “but it’s no surprise either.”
The truck churned on, apparently retracing the path it had taken earlier in the day. The clear dusk deepened into clear night. The village men dozed and swayed on the benches. Karim and Yadollah, one on each side, remained awake and alert, each in his own fashion—Yadollah with the unquestioning patience of an animal, Karim taut and still as a waiting bowstring. Ellen and Tony rolled with the rolling of the truck, and Tony did as Karim bade him and wondered. He was distracted by the fact of Ellen’s body packed close to him, a strong but very female body jolting in unison with his. It was the first time he had thought about her that way. He seemed to have a genius for the inopportune.
They reached the plain where the dead village was and trundled across it, then climbed what appeared to be a short stretch of road, rough and narrow as a goat track, over a ridge. The driver seemed to know his way so well that he was almost lighthearted about it, running at speeds that made Tony think all their problems were likely to be solved at once in a single grand crash.
The truck halted abruptly in a place of rock and sand beneath a line of ragged cliffs. There were voices, and men appeared in the darkness, leading donkeys. Tony heard Saad get out of the truck. It started on again, leaving behind the small group of shadows. One of the donkeys brayed, a harsh sob that sounded like the very voice of loneliness. Then again the night was empty and still, except for the grinding and snorting of the truck.
They ran on for another two hours or so, and then Tony realized that they were on a road, a stony track rutted with use. Karim had shifted his position on the bench, and there was a new feeling of tension. Presently the driver rapped on the window and Karim said, “We’re coming out on the main road now. Yadollah—”
Yadollah began roughly to bury Ellen and Tony beneath the rugs and bundles.
“There’ll be roadblocks,” Tony said, fighting to keep his face free.
Yadollah kicked him for his pains, and Ellen said, "Get off me, you great lout.” He felt her struggling away on the hard metal floor of the bed. Eventually they settled without choice, side by side, embedded in the heap of dunnage that stank of smoke and sweaty wool and goats.
Karim said, “We’ve bypassed one block. If there are others—” He shrugged and left the sentence hanging.
Tony’s arm lay across Ellen’s body. He could feel her breathing. The rhythm of it broke, became uneven. He moved his head, and his cheek came against hers. It was wet. She was crying, not making any sound. He pulled her closer to him, if that were possible, with a totally unfamiliar desire to guard and comfort her. She whispered, "I'm frightened, Tony.”
“So am I," he whispered back, and kissed her, tasting bitter salt, and her mouth was hungry, tremulous, with a fierce need for . . . what? Tony felt it himself, and he wasn’t sure. Something more than physical contact, more than sex, although sex was part of it. The need, perhaps, to feel that one was not completely alone beneath the falling ax. And there was another of his defenses down. He was not at all sure that he liked it.
He held her, in their ludicrous and smelly bed, as gently as he could, and she clung to him and ceased gradually to weep. The truck clambered up onto a hard, smooth surface and swung about, clashing its gears. The motor settled to a steady whine as they went south, gathering speed.
Tony drifted into an uneasy doze, a physical necessity from which his mind kept rousing him with promptings of alarm, only to succumb again to weariness and the hypnotic motion of the truck. He had no idea how long they had been on the road when the motion broke in a long, sliding squeal of brakes and Karim shook him, saying harshly, “Roadblock. Lie very still. And pray.”
18
Tony’s mind began furiously to work. The truck had halted, and he could hear voices outside. If he shouted, called for help, fought, yelled Karim's name—
Ellen was motionless beside him, as though she were holding her breath.
Yadollah had pulled another rug over their heads so that they were completely hidden and completely blind. Tony sweated, almost crying with indecision. Help was so close. He could hear it moving about, hear it talking with the driver. He stirred convulsively, and a great weight descended on him, crushing the dusty rug into his face. Ellen’s fingers tightened on him, and he remembered Karim’s voice saying, “Your bodies will be between us and their guns.”
Not a good place to be. The chances of getting shot by the Iranian soldiery were about 100 percent. The chances of getting shot by Karim and Yadollah were even better.
He was still a coward, and he was afraid for Ellen. He decided to wait.
The conversation continued. The driver and the men on the roadblock seemed to know one another. The voices were easy, and there was laughter. A gleam of light showed through a chink in the rug, as though someone had beamed a torch in over the tailgate. It was gone again
almost at once. An official truck, a government conservation officer, a handful of sleepy villagers on their way to a job—who would suspect?
Apparently no one. There were some final words, and the truck started on again Tony felt weak with relief and disappointment.
When they were moving at full speed, the rug was pulled aside, and Karim said, “So far God is good. Now you have a chance.”
“We do?”
“I think I told you, Tony. There’s no reason for me to kill you now except as a personal act, to get back at you, and that’s Saad’s style, not mine. He wanted me to kill you both, just as a sensible precaution. He wasn’t at all happy when I said no. Owing to your blundering goodwill, Tony, I owe you both a life. I’ll try to see that you get it.”
Ellen said, “You’re going to let us go?” She sounded as incredulous as Tony felt.
“Of course I can’t do that, not yet. But if we reach Isfahan safely, I can arrange to have you looked after until—" He paused. “Until what will happen has happened. After that you can go, because after that, either way, it won’t make any difference."
They were silent, considering this.
Tony’s first reaction was an inner cry of joy. They were not going to die. All they had to do was play it safe and quiet and wait the game out.
And why not? It wasn’t up to him to try to be a hero. Karim and Maktabi could fight it out between them. This was their country. It was nothing to Tony Wales what happened to it.
All he had to do now was sit and be safe. It was a lovely feeling.
Ellen drew one deep, shuddering breath and let it out again. Her fingers trembled, clutching his so tightly that they hurt.
The truck roared southward. The village men snored on the benches. In the darkness under the tilt Tony could see Karim as a man-shaped featureless bulk against the paler canvas, the pose of the head suggesting remoteness and strength, as though it were contemplating a destiny above the understanding of most men, something grand and dreadful and unstoppable as earthquake or flood. He has given us our lives, Tony thought. I ought to be grateful. And I don’t care what he’s planning to do.
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