Amazing Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  “You wish to see him?” she said in astonishment.

  “I must.”

  She recoiled, obviously disturbed, and then she looked into his face and suddenly laughed. “Your moustache has slipped! It is crooked!”

  He grinned. “I’m not surprised, the blasted thing itches, too.” He felt for it with two fingers and began to peel it off, the girl watching gravely, as if the most important thing in the world at the moment was to learn how moustaches were removed.

  But he had underestimated her intelligence, which had continued to assess and appraise him as they talked. She nodded suddenly, as if she had made up her mind. “Come—I will take you myself to the gypsy,” she said. “You would not be able to speak to him if you found him, would you? I’m sure my friend won’t mind if I borrow the bicycle a little while longer.”

  “I say—that’s awfully kind of you,” he said gratefully, and then he heard himself ask, “Your friend—is it a girl or a boy?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him with amusement. “It is my girlfriend.”

  Colin turned his bike around and followed her back down the road into town. When they reached the square the bus had finally departed and in its place stood a small dingy cardboard suitcase and a string bag. “Good grief—my cameras! And Magda’s suitcase!” he gasped. He had forgotten all about them. He stowed them away on the back of the bicycle, and with Sabahat in the lead they set out to look for the gypsy.

  * * *

  The gypsy’s cart stood at some distance from the road, half-hidden within a grove of scrub and stunted trees. His campfire burned in a circle of stones, guarded by an ugly, ferocious-looking dog. “He must be at home because the bear is tied up to the wagon,” Sabahat said, and added nervously, “But the dog is not tied.”

  “I’ll go first,” Colin told her. “Stay well behind, until I can get him to tie the dog. If he’s there.”

  They didn’t need to shout; they had no sooner left the road than the dog sprang up, growling, snarling, barking, baring his teeth in a terrifying manner, and when this did not send Colin into retreat the dog flew toward him as if to devour him. Colin stood still, his heart hammering. The gypsy appeared suddenly from the woods and stood watching, saying nothing, his gaze hostile, arms folded.

  “I must talk to you,” Colin shouted. “Call off your dog, will you?”

  Behind him Sabahat bravely translated, her voice quivering only a little.

  The gypsy spoke to the dog and the dog slunk away, head down, eyes still on Colin. Colin and Sabahat wheeled their bicycles nearer.

  “Be careful,” Sabahat said in a low voice, “I am sure he would like to steal the bicycles—see how he looks at them! Gypsies will steal anything.”

  “You’ll translate?”

  She nodded, eyes huge.

  “Tell him I come to Yozgat to find the gypsies who were here yesterday. Ask if he knows them.”

  Sabahat translated and the man shrugged and replied. “He says if you give him money he will tell you anything you wish to hear.”

  Colin said sharply, “I don’t want him to tell me anything I wish to hear, I want the truth. I’m looking for a family of gypsies who were supposed to be here in Yozgat.”

  Sabahat and the gypsy exchanged words. “He says he wonders what you want of a gypsy family.”

  “I have a message from a friend of theirs.”

  “A friend of the gypsies?” faltered Sabahat.

  “Yes. Tell him I come to Yozgat with that friend; she crossed the border into Turkey with them. Now she’s in trouble and needs help.”

  The man’s glance was sharp and inscrutable but when he had listened to Sabahat his face grew less closed. With much casualness he asked what the name of that lady might be who was a gorgio yet a friend of the Rom.

  “Magda,” said Colin, not daring to speak her well-publicized last name.

  The man shrugged. He said he knew of no such person, nor anything of the gypsies who had been in this place.

  “What you say is true?” whispered Sabahat.

  Colin nodded. What could he produce to prove that he was speaking of Ferenci-Sabo, or had really known her? He suddenly remembered the passport photographs he had taken of Magda, and kneeling down beside the suitcase he burrowed through it. “Ah,” he said triumphantly as he found two discarded pictures of Magda, and he carried one of them to the gypsy. “Magda,” he said.

  A flash of recognition lighted the man’s eyes but as quickly as it arrived it was replaced by suspicion. Colin groaned. “Blast it, now he thinks I’m the police no doubt. Sabahat, I want you to tell him something very carefully, translating it for him sentence by sentence.”

  She nodded.

  “Tell him Magda is in Yozgat. Tell him Magda was captured an hour ago. Abducted. Kidnapped.”

  Sabahat looked at him in astonishment. “Abducted?” she gasped.

  “Please—tell him,” Colin begged. “Tell him if he does not believe me then he can go and see for himself. You know the name of the street?” he asked Sabahat. “Tell him that, too. Tell him she is in an abandoned house, two men took her there.”

  The man’s eyes had narrowed, and he looked at Colin so quickly that Colin wondered if the man did not know a little English after all. The man began to speak.

  Sabahat said breathlessly, “He says the gypsies you look for left here late yesterday and began moving south on the road to Kayseri. And—” She gasped. “And he says he would like to see the house in Yozgat of which you speak.”

  Colin drew a sigh of relief. “Thank God—then he does know what I’m talking about!”

  The gypsy began speaking again. “He asks you,” said Sabahat, “to sit down with him on the steps of his caravan and tell him more clearly what has happened. He also wishes me to tell you that unfortunately he has no guns.”

  Colin said gravely, “Tell him I am a believer in nonviolence, anyway.”

  “Are you really?” cried Sabahat breathlessly. “Oh but so am I! So are all my friends here and at college,” she said with shining eyes. “Tell me, have you experienced any—what are they called—love-ins?”

  Colin shook his head regretfully. “I’m sorry, no.”

  “You have spoken of such violent things—abductions, kidnappings—it is very difficult to imagine this. Who could do such a thing? Is it one of my own people who has done this to your friend?”

  “Actually a Frenchman, I think,” Colin said.

  “So many foreigners in Yozgat?” she exclaimed. “Oh how my friends would love to know of this, you cannot imagine our hunger to speak to people from other lands. The summers in Yozgat are so very long, so very hot and tedious.”

  Colin abruptly halted on his way to the caravan. “How many friends have you in Yozgat?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “Why, there are about twelve of us home from college.” Her eyes suddenly slanted mischievously. “You are thinking of the same thing? You must be! I know you are!”

  Colin looked at her and she looked at him, communication leaping between them. He thought he had never met anyone so perceptive unless it was his sister Mia.

  The gypsy grunted—he had been waiting patiently for them. He spoke in a rush of Turkish to Sabahat, who leaned forward courteously to listen. When he had finished she nodded and smiled at Colin. “It’s all right—he says he will trust you. He says he remained here, behind the others, to wait for the woman Magda and to guide her to the other gypsies. He says if you are the police then he will kill you with his knife. Otherwise he will help us.”

  “Us?” Colin said in surprise.

  She smiled at him gravely. “If I abandon you now, how shall I ever learn if you succeed?”

  Colin grinned. “Somewhere I’ve heard that before,” he said dryly. “All right, let’s make plans. This won’t be easy but tell him I’m awfully glad to have him on my side.”

  “Me, too?” she asked boldly, her cheeks turning pink.

  “You too,” he said, smiling.

  Fr
om where Colin and the gypsy crouched, the town seemed far away. They had crossed fields and then empty land to reach the shed behind the house in which Magda, Mrs. Pollifax and Sandor had been hidden. They had been taken here at twenty past one o’clock; it was now half-past three in the afternoon. Ahead of them nothing stirred, and they slipped around to the front of the shed and inside. The darkness of its interior was welcome. They had come to reconnoiter, to make certain that the three were still in the house.

  The gypsy pointed to the car and Colin nodded. They crept from the shed across the barren yard to its shadows, where the gypsy unsheathed his long knife and slashed each tire. When he sheathed his knife again they moved to the wall of the house and sat down under one of the two shuttered windows, pressing their ears against the wall.

  A moment later Colin was hearing Sandor’s voice repeat over and over, “Ikiyuzlu … Ikiyuzlu …” It was a word Colin had heard his uncle use several times and so he was familiar with its meaning, which was hypocrite, or more literally, his uncle had explained, someone who wore two faces. Then Sandor abruptly said, “Canavar …” and was silent. He at least was still alive.

  The gypsy had begun sitting back on his heels to stare at the wall above their heads, studying it fixedly with half-closed eyes, and now he astonished Colin by running his hands lightly over the surface. Colin saw that a seam ran up and then down the wall in the shape of a doorway that had some time ago been bricked-over, but clumsily. The gypsy’s fingertips came together at one particular brick, he braced himself, leaned a little, and lifted the brick out with his hands. Just as quickly he put it back and turned to smile at Colin. It was a smile of infinite triumph and satisfaction. At once they both began to check the surface for other loosely mortared bricks, and together found a dozen, all in the area that had once been a door. Like all the houses in Anatolia, this one had been built as a child would build a house of blocks: by simply placing one row of sun-baked adobe bricks on top of the other without resorting to beams or joists, and then at a later date a thin veneer of cement or stucco had been added. The veneer had peeled away from most of this abandoned house, exposing the crumbling mortar; sun and wind had done the rest.

  Having discovered the dozen bricks that were loose, the gypsy brought out a knife for each of them and without a word spoken they began to gently pry loose the mortar surrounding the other bricks. They worked for half an hour and then Colin glanced at his watch, touched the gypsy’s arm and whispered, “Sabahat.”

  The man nodded, signaled that he would remain, and Colin crept away to hurry back into town and meet Sabahat.

  After waiting fifteen minutes for Sabahat, Colin grew restless. She had instructed him to wait in the cafe, where he would be less vulnerable to curious passersby; on the other hand she had also pointed out that women never entered cafes in Anatolia, and so he must watch the window—grimy and fly-specked—for her face and her signal. He was reduced to sitting on a bench near the door and nervously fingering the identity card in his pocket and then his reapplied moustache.

  The men seated around him in the cafe looked as if they had been turned into stone fifty years ago—he swore none of them had moved since he entered except the two men playing chess in the corner; twice they had reached forward to move a chesspiece. The others remained oblivious: unblinking, lips closed around hubble-bubble pipes, eyes blank. Colin felt he might have stumbled blindly into an opium den.

  Two more men entered the cafe, followed by a third, and in fascination Colin watched to see how they would distribute themselves. The first to enter neither nodded nor spoke but moved to a corner and joined the silent ones. The second sat down and spread out a newspaper. The third said in a clear voice, “Raki,” and turned to survey the room.

  Colin gasped. The man who had just violated the silence was his uncle Hu. There he stood in his usual faded blue work shirt and khaki shorts, looking around him for a face that interested him, his streaked hair and moustache bleached a shade closer to white after a week in the sun. Colin’s first instinct was to dive under a table and hide, and then he remembered that he was in disguise. He met his uncle’s gaze without flinching.

  But this time he should have hidden. His uncle’s trained photographer’s eye slid over him, looked away and then slid back. A moment later, glass of raki in hand, Uncle Hu strolled over and sat down at the table nearest Colin.

  From the corner of his mouth, very pleasantly, he said, “Do you mind telling me what the devil you’re doing here in Yozgat in that absurd moustache?”

  Colin froze. He wished desperately he knew Turkish well enough so that he could get up, mutter something appropriate to an Anatolian peasant, and stalk away insulted.

  “Of course I don’t mean to trespass,” his uncle continued in a mild voice, “but I have just spent one of the most horrible nights of my life in the local jail here. It seems that anyone driving a Ramsey Enterprises vehicle is being stopped by the police, searched and detained while the Istanbul police are consulted. I have been released—at last—because I don’t answer to the description of the young sandy-haired chap they’re looking for, who is traveling in the company of a woman wanted for questioning in some fiendish murder in Istanbul.”

  Colin said desparingly, “Let’s go outside.”

  “Delighted,” said his uncle. “I wondered at the time why I chose such a gloomy place to celebrate the end of my incarceration.”

  The sunlight was almost blinding. “How did you recognize me?” asked Colin miserably.

  His uncle said witheringly, “My dear chap, you’re my nephew. Oh, don’t look so worried, I can’t imagine anyone else recognizing you. I have a remarkable memory for faces, you know. When I saw you I thought, ‘Those are Colin’s cheekbones and eyes, in fact that looks precisely like Colin in peasant clothes and moustache.’ And then—considering the circumstances, which have been somewhat jarring—I thought, ‘Why not Colin in peasant clothes and moustache?’ Now for heaven’s sake tell me what the hell you’ve been up to while I’ve been in Erzurum. I don’t mean to mix my metaphors—”

  That was his uncle, thought Colin, concerned over metaphors in the midst of a trying situation. “Yes, sir,” he said as they sat down on the bench outside the cafe. “Well, you see it’s this way, sir—and I’ll have to talk quickly—three friends of mine have been kidnapped here in Yozgat and are in a house about a mile away.”

  “I see,” said his uncle. “Well, of course then you’ve got to get them out,” he said without so much as a blink of the eye.

  “Yes, sir,” Colin agreed with a faint smile.

  “One of these—er, friends—is the alleged murderess the police are looking for?” he inquired.

  “Yes, sir—but she didn’t murder anyone, Uncle Hu. I was with her when Henry’s body was left in the studio—your studio—” He stopped. He could not think of any possible way to explain the events of the past two days to his uncle. “It’s all quite complicated,” he added weakly. “Can’t you just pretend you didn’t see me and go on to Istanbul?”

  His uncle considered this. “I could,” he said reflectively, “but not without hearing your plans first. You have made plans, haven’t you?” he said sharply.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stop sir-ing me, I’m not your father.” He frowned. “The thing is, I won’t have you going to jail—horrid places, Turkish jails. I could volunteer. I’m not without experience in this kind of rescue operation—I was in the war, you know, and God knows these jails are to be avoided, your mother would never forgive me if—”

  At that moment Sabahat hurried around the corner, gave a cry of relief at seeing him, and cried breathlessly, “We’re ready—it’s all settled! Yozgat’s leading poet is going to read a poem of welcome—the same one he made up for the Premier’s visit two years ago!—and the Greek Orthodox priest is going to say a prayer!”

  “Poets? Priests?” said Uncle Hu with interest. He looked appreciatively at Sabahat and then at Colin. “I say—you do seem to be
managing something rather well, do you mind terribly if I come along, too?”

  CHAPTER 13

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed and opened her eyes. She had fallen or been pushed to the floor, still tied to the chair, so that her cheek rested on the hard earthern floor and any spontaneous movement was impossible. She heard Sandor say in a loud voice, “Canavar …” and she knew that something had happened to awaken her but she did not know what. From the other room—the door was open—she heard Dr. Belleaux say in a low voice, “Bring the serum out anyway. We’ll have to risk its killing her, there’s no other way …”

  “Magda,” said Mrs. Pollifax in what she believed to be a loud clear voice, but realized a second later was only a whisper. She could not see Magda from where she lay—it must be Magda they had taken into the other room. She could see Sandor’s feet not far away, the toes springing from his torn sneakers, but she could not see any more of him without lifting her head, and her head was on fire with a ribbon of pain that moved from cheekbone to brain. Concussion, she thought drowsily; could cheekbones have concussion? and then she drifted off again into unconsciousness.

  When she next opened her eyes it was with the impression that she was in danger of being attacked by rats. She realized that she had been dreaming of rats gnawing their way through the wall, and for a moment, awakening, she thought she might still be within her nightmare because she distinctly heard rustling noises in the wall. But that is definitely a rat in the wall, she thought, listening. I’m not losing my mind after all. I’ve regained consciousness! There was not a great deal of reassurance in this thought because her circumstances had not changed. She remained huddled on the floor in the semi-darkness, her cheek pressed to the earth, the murmur of voices ebbing and rising from the other room. But she discovered that she was feeling better: still stiff and bruised but no longer aflame. She knew that it was blood she could taste when she licked her lips, and her nose ached, but it no longer throbbed, and the ribbon of pain had vanished. She dared to hope that no bones had been broken.