The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  Fourteen

  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; travelers' 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:

  dunti—hope chest

  shke—proc

  kzee—voice

  rhea—cloud

  gjume—sleep

  bjer—bring

  pes'e—five

  Zgarm—fire

  nat'e—night

  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 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, 1 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."

  "In the Balkans, in Albania, life is bitter," he said.

  Mrs. Pollifax considered. "Of course by the idea you mean the political idea—communism—but aren't you wrong to say it never changes? There is this matter of Stalinism—"

  "One adapts," he said. With a wry smile twisting his preposterous moustache he asked, "Politically you are what?"

  "Republican," acknowledged Mrs. Pollifax. "Although twice I voted for Adlai Stevenson—such a charming man."

  He smiled. "Then you, too, adapt." He touched her arm and directed her to the right. "We have gone far enough," he said. "We will follow the cliff back. There is a good view here, you will see the valley from a new angle."

  There was indeed an excellent view, and she was grateful to stop walking for a minute. "Beautiful, is it not?" said Colonel Nexdhet, standing beside her. "And those men below, how small, like ants."

  "Yes, I just noticed them," said Mrs. Pollifax. "What on earth are they building down there?"

  "A missile site," he said without interest. "Seeing Man like this reminds me always of Man's fragileness, don't you agree?"

  A missile site, he had said. A missile site? A shock of excitement moved down Mrs. Pollifax's spine disc by disc. The Chinese were building a missile site in Albania? She forgot her failure in Mexico; if she could bring news of a missile site to Mr. Carstairs then she would not have failed as a spy at all. It was obvious that Colonel Nexdhet would not have mentioned such a thing if he was not absolutely sure that both his secret and Mrs. Pollifax would remain in Albania, but this was only a new goad. Aloud she said disapprovingly, "They would do better to build roads, why do you need a missile site?"

  Colonel Nexdhet gave her his arm. "Shall we start back? The Chinese are very patient, Mrs. Pollifax, they build for the future. They are not taken seriously yet as a major power, but see what they have already accomplished! They have fought and won a small slice of India. They have their finger in a dozen pies in southeast Asia. They are proving extremely successful in infiltrating Latin America—every Communist party there has its Mao-ist wing. They now have trade relations with most of western Europe and with Canada, Australia and Japan. They have exploded a primitive atom bomb. But most of all they are
here to help and to protect my country, which you must not forget is a European country. The Chinese have arrived in Europe."

  "Good heavens," said Mrs. Pollifax as she absorbed the meaning of all that he said. "It's really quite shocking."

  "If you are an American, yes," he said with a shrug. "As for the Chinese—they look ahead."

  "Very enterprising of them," she said weakly, and wondered how to change the subject before she gave away her profound interest. "But I have not seen any of your birds, Colonel Nexdhet."

  He said gravely, "That is what makes bird-watching so fascinating, Mrs. Pollifax. There are so few of them up here along the cliffs."

  Presently they came out into the hot sun again, and the stone buildings lay ahead.

  Mrs. Pollifax had left her cell at half-past nine in the morning. It was quarter-past five when she returned, flushed from the sun and a string of small, happy accomplishments. She found Farrell livid.

  "Don't you ever do this to me again," he sputtered, sitting up on his cot and glaring at her. "Don't you dare."

  "Do what?" she said in astonishment.

  "Go off for a whole day like this. I've been nearly out of my mind picturing you in front of a firing squad or being stretched on a rack somewhere being tortured. And now you have the audacity, the unmitigated gall to walk in here looking happy."

  She walked over and kissed him fondly on the top of his head. "Bless you for worrying. I'm sorry."

  "Then try to look sorry," he snapped. "I'm a very sick man. Where have you been?"

  "Oh, here and there," she said airily. "Walking with Colonel Nexdhet, picnicking on the cliff with Lulash, rubbing Major Vassovic's back. We have even been discussing holding a small party in the guardroom tomorrow night."

  "Party!" exploded Farrell.

  "Yes, you see Lulash knows some old Albanian mountain songs and he wants to sing them to me, and Colonel Nexdhet will bring a musical instrument and Major Vassovic went so far as to volunteer something alcoholic for the occasion, and one thing led to another, and now it's to be a party."

  Farrell stared at her open-mouthed. After a minute he closed his mouth with a snap. "All right," he said crossly, "what exactly have you been up to, Duchess?"

  She sat down beside him and drew from the pocket of her jacket a sheet of onionskin paper and placed it in his lap. "For tracing the map in Lulash's book," she whispered. Drawing out a flat, round, metal case she added it to the sheet of paper. "And I won't have to tell you what this is."

  He pried open its lid and whistled. "A compass! But how on earth—and who—"

  "I traded with the major after I rubbed his back. I said I was getting rid of my effects early. It cost two new lipsticks, one Petal Pink and one Hug Me."

  "Yes, but didn't he wonder at a compass?"

  She smiled reminiscently. "He gave me several things to choose from in return, it was quite fun. He offered an old watch, a pen and this surveyor's compass that has been in the guardroom for years, he said. Does it work?"

  "It moves," Farrell said, frowning over it.

  "East," she told him, "would be in the direction of the guardroom, and west behind the wall you're leaning against."

  He looked up. "And just how do you know that?"

  "Because we traveled into the rising sun when we came here," she said. "We arrived from the west, from the city of Shkoder, where our plane landed. And according to the map the River Drin, which I can see from the precipice, flows from east to west, into the Adriatic, which places Yugoslavia just behind us."

  She had captured his attention at last. He closed the lid of the compass with a snap and said quietly, "Perhaps you'd better tell me exactly what you're thinking of, Duchess, if it's not too late to ask. You really have been busy."

  "Of course I'll tell you," she said warmly. "I'm only an amateur, you know—although a very determined one, I warn you—and I desperately need your professional advice. Have you been trained in escape procedures?"

  "Afraid not," he said in amusement.

  "Oh, what a pity. Well, I guess that can't be helped."

  "Good of you to see it that way."

  "What I do think I ought to tell you, though—and I would have sooner if you hadn't been in such a state—is about the person in the cell next to us." She described in a whisper the rappings on the wall that had taken place on the day that Farrell jumped from the cliff. "I've heard nothing since, you understand, but this afternoon, walking around the building, I dropped a note through the window slit of the cell next to us."

  "A note?" echoed Farrell. "But this is Albania, and an Albanian jail. I really doubt that whoever it is would speak English, you know."

  "Well, it wasn't the most articulate message, but I made it up out of scraps of Albanian from Lulash's book," explained Mrs. Pollifax. "It said night—sleep—bring voice, if I remember correctly, but I did rather hope our neighbor would get the point that we'd like to hear from him again somehow." Footsteps echoed in the hall and Mrs. Pollifax seized compass and paper, stuffed them into her purse and moved back to her cot. She was seated on it fingering her deck of cards when the door opened and Adhem Nexdhet—no, Colonel Nexdhet, she remembered—walked in. "Have a good walk?" she inquired pleasantly, and was suddenly all too conscious of the contraband book under her mattress, the gun cartridges distributed around the cell, the food and compass in her purse.

  "What is this game you always play?" he asked, stopping beside her table.

  "Different kinds," she told him. "All sorts of solitaire. Very healthy for the mind and the nerves, I enjoy it. Has General Perdido returned yet?" she added casually.

  "He comes late Thursday, in the evening," Adhem Nexdhet said absently, his eyes on the cards she was arranging.

  Mrs. Pollifax managed a rueful laugh. "And I don't even know what day it is today!"

  "Tuesday." Nexdhet abruptly sat down beside her. "Show me," he said. "The cards in a circle, what is the key to this?"

  "It's called Clock Solitaire," replied Mrs. Pollifax, and began to explain the rules. But her heart was thudding at the realization that General Perdido would return on Thursday, and already this was Tuesday. ... At once the general's face came very clearly to her mind: impassive and observant with only the eyes, sans spectacles, betraying shrewdness and cruelty. Over the cards she glanced at Farrell and saw him chewing reflectively on the moustache that would in time resemble Adhem Nexdhet's walrus-type adornment—if ever given the time. Haste makes waste, she thought a little wildly; escape in haste, repent in leisure; she wondered if Farrell remembered any of General Perdido's parting promises; he had been feverish and in pain and she hoped he did not recall them. It was far kinder for him not to know what lay ahead of him.

  But only two more days, and they had made almost no arrangements...

  Then something else occurred to her and she said in shocked astonishment, "But why is he coming back so soon? Is it you who told him Farrell is well enough to be questioned by then?"

  Colonel Nexdhet met her glance with a faint smile. "I believe I warned you that you must trust no one," he pointed out gently.

  On Wednesday morning during her walk along the cliff Mrs. Pollifax selected two round, fist-sized rocks from the ground and took them back to the cell and hid them. She then borrowed Lulash's sunglasses and walked a little farther, toward the clusters of fir through which she and Farrell had ridden on donkeys. What they needed most of all, she knew, was a crutch for Farrell; a very stout crutch or walking stick. Without this they might as well abandon all hope of reaching the valley.

  "Lulash," she called across the rocks. He was sunning himself on the bench outside while he cleaned his gun. "Lulash, I've had the nicest idea." She walked up to him, smiling. "But first I'll need your permission and your help."

  "What is that?" asked Lulash.

  "It's Mr. Farrell," she explained. "He cannot take walks, as I do—"

  "He would not be allowed," Lulash said bluntly.

  "I know that, and it's very diff
icult for him, shut up all day in that cell. Lulash, I should so like to hang some branches in the cell. Fresh green branches."

  "Branches?" repeated Lulash, scowling.

  "Yes, branches. Surely it would be all right? Surely no one would mind?"

  Lulash's brow cleared and he smiled indulgently. "Every woman, she likes to make things pretty, eh?"

  "Uh, yes," said Mrs. Pollifax. "You do understand, I'm so glad. Should I ask the major's permission, too?"

  "That I can do for you," Lulash said gallantly.

  Major Vassovic not only gave permission but announced that he would come too, and they set out for the line of scattered firs together, with Mrs. Pollifax pointing out the beauties of the sky—a horrid bleached blue—the uniqueness of the rocks, and the wild scenery above them. She talked mercilessly until they reached the trees, whereupon she became reverently silent, and for such a long time that the men became restive.

  "This one—or this one?" she asked at last, touching first one branch and then another. She stood still, struck with apparently spontaneous inspiration. "Or do you suppose we could take back a very small tree?"

  "Tree?" echoed Major Vassovic in astonishment

  "Tree?" repeated Lulash.

  "This little one, for instance. It looks just like a Christmas tree."

  "But this is summer," pointed out Major Vassovic.

  "Yes," Mrs. Pollifax said, nodding, and then, ruthlessly, she delivered the coup de grace. "But I will not—I will not be here—I will not see another Christmas."

  That did it. Lulash angrily tightened his lips. "She will have the little tree," he told Major Vassovic.

  "Of course," nodded the major, and at once twisted the tree to test the depth of its roots. Lulash gave a small assist and the young tree was uprooted.

  "Lovely," murmured Mrs. Pollifax with feeling, and with the tree between them like a fourth member of the party they marched back to the stone building.

  "What on earth!" exclaimed Farrell as Lulash leaned the tree against the wall of the cell.

  "Isn't it beautiful? Christmas in August," said Mrs. Pollifax, and added a warning frown because Colonel Nexdhet was seated on his cot reading a newspaper on which the banner head proclaimed the words zeri i populit. But he had already begun folding up his paper, and presently, with a nod, he went out wearing his binoculars.