Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  “Didn’t dare trust you—sorry,” the Genie said over his shoulder, and as the car regained the road he added, “I don’t know how long we can stick with this car. There are only something like four hundred cars in the whole country but there are wirelesses and things like roadblocks. And I’m not very good at driving the bloody thing, had to watch what buttons the guard pushed to learn how it started. Whole dashboard is full of buttons.”

  He was leaning grimly over the wheel as he spoke, and noting the speedometer Mrs. Pollifax reached for Farrell’s arm. “We’re going one hundred miles an hour,” she told him in horror.

  “That’s kilometers, not miles, Duchess. We’re in Europe now.”

  It still felt alarmingly fast. Mrs. Pollifax turned to look out of the rear window, and the men who were scattered all over the landscape—guards, working prisoners and search party—were already receding into the distance.

  Farrell said with his old briskness, “This road leads into Shkoder. Hell, we don’t want to go there, do we?”

  Mrs. Pollifax, surrounded by so much masculine profanity, said firmly, “Hell, no.”

  Farrell turned to stare at her and his old debonair smile crossed his face. Gently he said, “No, Duchess, absolutely no more swearing. Absolutely.”

  “All right,” said Mrs. Pollifax meekly. To the Genie she said, “We have a map, you know. There look to be two villages between us and Shkoder, and to the west of us there’s a huge lake called Lake Scutari. Shkoder lies at the southern tip of it. Would you like to see the map?”

  “They’re following us,” interrupted Farrell savagely. “Damn it, they’ve found one of those four hundred cars the country owns.” He had turned around to look through the rear window and Mrs. Pollifax turned too. It was all too true: she saw first the cloud of dust and then the small gray car racing in front of it.

  “Three, maybe four miles behind us,” said the Genie, his eyes on the rearview mirror. “No time for maps. I say we stick to the car as long as we can. A car moves faster than six legs, one of them broken.”

  “They must have wirelessed—”

  “I know, I know.” The Genie was peering at the panel in front of him. “There’s plenty of gas, thank heaven.” He shoved the accelerator to the floor and the car surged ahead in a burst of speed.

  “One hundred kilometers an hour,” thought Mrs. Pollifax in dismay, and wished that she dared close her eyes. The landscape moved past them like a projector that had run wild: olive trees, scattered farms and wells all blurred together. Ahead of them Mrs. Pollifax saw the outlines of a village and had no sooner seen it than they were upon it and the Genie was braking to avoid an oxcart plodding through its street. The next obstacle was a sheep that stood its ground in the center of the narrow road and baa-ed at them indignantly. They swerved around it and through a cobblestoned main street with stone houses on either side, and then the village was behind them and the Rolls resumed its breakneck speed. Mrs. Pollifax wondered how the Genie managed to hold tight to the wheel, for the ruts in the road, which could at best be called primitive, produced a strange undercurrent of jolts that not even the magnificent upholstery of a Rolls could overcome. At the same moment she heard a growing, indefinable noise and looked out and up in time to see a small plane zoom over them, bank and fly over them again at low altitude. Farrell said grimly, “They’ve heard about us in Shkoder, too.”

  “We’ll have to ditch the car,” the Genie said. “But where and how I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Pollifax didn’t know either, but her mind grasped at once that just ditching it wouldn’t be enough, not with a car following behind them and their progress observed from the air. They wouldn’t have a chance of getting away, not with Farrell unable to run. “An accident,” she said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “An accident. Isn’t there some way to tip over the car and set it on fire? They would think for at least a few minutes that we were still inside.”

  Both men were silent, fumbling with the idea, and then the Genie said, “You haven’t any matches, have you?”

  “Two,” said Farrell.

  “You said there’s a lake to the west of us, to the right?”

  “Yes.”

  The Genie had seen a cart track branching from the road into Shkoder and with a squeal of brakes the car slowed enough to turn its wheels down the track and head west. The car bounced hideously, and Mrs. Pollifax’s head hit the ceiling. “They’ll see our dust, won’t they?” she gasped. She had no sooner spoken than they left the cart track to plunge toward a copse of trees.

  “In there looks the place,” said the Genie. “The trees will be cover for getting away. You’ll have to have a head start, Farrell—that’s your name, isn’t it? I doubt if any one of us has the strength to tip the car over but I’ll try to ram it into a tree. Start running as soon as we stop.”

  As soon as they were in among the trees he braked the Rolls and jerked open the door next to Farrell. “Out,” he said. “Out and hurry in a straight line that way.” He pointed. “Go as fast as you can.”

  “Me too?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  The Genie shook his head. “Out, but wait for me. I’ll need your help.”

  They left the car, Mrs. Pollifax to stand uncertain and nervous as she watched Farrell hobble away for dear life. Dear dear life, she reflected, and how tenaciously people held on to it and what things they did to remain alive!—that is, physically alive, she amended, for to remain alive inside was far more intricate and difficult and defeating. Her thoughts were interrupted by the roar of the Rolls engine as the Genie pressed his foot to the accelerator. Aghast, she watched the car pass her at top speed, the Genie leaning half out of the door. Faster and faster it went, heading inexorably toward the largest of the trees, and then the tree and the Rolls met with such force that the front of the Rolls crumpled like an accordian and the tree shuddered to its roots. Then Mrs. Pollifax saw the Genie, shaken but entirely whole. He had leaped at the last minute and now was fumbling for the matches Farrell had given him. She ran to help. “How? Where?” she cried.

  He was wrestling with the cover to the gas tank, his hands trembling. Mrs. Pollifax gave it a twist and lifted it off. “Start running,” said the Genie as he lighted one of the matches.

  Mrs. Pollifax obeyed, too numb to protest. She did not look back until she heard the explosion, and then it was only to see if the Genie was still alive. He was both alive and running, with more vitality than she possessed, and she envied him. Together they came out into the open country beyond the copse of trees, and there they discovered Farrell leaning on his crutch and looking very ill again. It was obvious that he could go no farther.

  The landscape offered no hope of concealment, and when it was discovered that their bodies were not in the Rolls General Perdido would expect to find them nearby. Mrs. Pollifax could see the roof of a han some distance away, a good many rocks, another dried-up creek bed, and a pen of some kind where goats or sheep were kept at night. Her eyes moved over and then swerved back to an object in the corner of that pen: a two-wheeled primitive wooden cart filled to the brim with hay.

  “Look,” she whispered and without a word they moved toward it, recognizing it as only a slim hope and not at all sure what to do with it. But it did have the advantage of being out of sight of the han, which presumably housed the owners of the farm, and it was the only object in sight that could possibly shield them. They stood and looked at it; rather stupidly, thought Mrs. Pollifax, until she realized that both Farrell and the Genie were exhausted and that as the senior member of the party—rather like a Scout leader, she thought with blurred, semihysterical humor—she was going to have to assume command whether she was exhausted or not. At that moment, as if to emphasize the need for decisiveness, she heard the plane returning. It was still some distance away but obviously it was flying back to scour the countryside for signs of life.

  “Into the cart,” she cried, pulling out tufts of hay. “Quickly, both of you.”
There was barely room for the two; both Farrell and the Genie had to curl up in womblike positions and she prodded them mercilessly.

  “What about you?” demanded Farrell.

  “They don’t know I’m in peasant clothes,” she pointed out, devoutly hoping this was true. “And they’re looking for three people.” She was recklessly piling the hay back on top of them. “For heaven’s sake don’t move.”

  One of them replied by sneezing.

  “And don’t sneeze either,” she added crossly. The plane was circling now over the woods where they had abandoned the car and she saw what she had not noticed before—a plume of fading black smoke above the trees. The Rolls was still burning then, or had been until a moment ago, and presently the remains of it would be cool enough to examine. Hadn’t she read somewhere that bodies, turned to char, still held their shape until breathed upon or touched? She supposed it depended upon the heat of the fire. At any rate they couldn’t remain here indefinitely. The first time she was seen from the air she might be mistaken for the farmer’s wife contemplating clouds or earth, but if she was seen a second time in the same place such rootedness would be suspicious. Mrs. Pollifax regarded the cart speculatively, glanced over the terrain and then kicked the rock from under the wheels. Bracing herself she picked up the tongue of the axle, moved between its two shafts and tugged. Oddly enough the cart moved quite easily, being high enough from the ground to balance the weight of two grown men, and the earth sloped conveniently downward to aid momentum. With a squeak of wood against wood the cart began to make progress toward the next copse of trees with Mrs. Pollifax feeing rather like a ricksha boy. At any moment she expected to hear shouts from the direction of the han, but none occurred. Without any challenge, and having achieved a precarious speed, Mrs. Pollifax marched sturdily on, the cart at times pushing her in front of it. It was rough pastureland they crossed now, but a wood lay less than half a mile away. The noon-hot sun glared down but there was grass—green grass—in this pastureland and it led Mrs. Pollifax to hope that they were nearing the coast. She was in the middle of the pasture when another plane passed overhead. Its presence ought to have alarmed her, but as it roared over them and then headed west Mrs. Pollifax saw its pontoons and her heart quickened. “It’s a seaplane, and where there are seaplanes,” she thought with a flicker of excitement, “there has to be water.”

  Water!

  CHAPTER 20

  After ten minutes of being pushed by the cart, and another ten minutes of pulling it, Mrs. Pollifax had to concede that she was neither an ox nor young enough to imitate one. The ground was rough, and after thoughtfully slanting downhill it had begun to slant uphill, but what was most discouraging was the field of maize that lay ahead directly in their path. She could not pull such a broad cart through narrow corn rows, and the field stretched from left to right almost as far as the eye could see: the thought of walking around it utterly dismayed her. Mrs. Pollifax stopped and laid down the shafts, wiped the sweat from her brow with a sleeve and said aloud, in an anguished voice, “I just can’t pull you any more.”

  It was the Genie who emerged first from the straw. “Quite so,” he said in his clipped British voice. “Farrell badly needs a rest too. I suggest we crawl into the corn and rest a few minutes.”

  It was a very bad idea. Mrs. Pollifax knew it and the Genie must have known it too, for if the burning Rolls had confused and diverted General Perdido it would not be for long. Ashes would be sifted: for rings—her wedding ring, for instance—or teeth or gold fillings or bone fragments. Even if the general remained in doubt he would be compelled to assume they had gotten away because he was not a man who could afford doubts; his reputation and his pride were too valuable and both would be at stake.

  Yet Mrs. Pollifax conceded there was nothing else for them to do. Certainly she could not go on much longer in such an exhausted state, and what was worst of all her mind felt battered and senseless. It was a major effort even to weigh what the Genie was suggesting, and all of her instincts told her that a mind was needed to compete against the general’s cunning. “Yes,” she said simply, and stood back and let the Genie help Farrell out of the hay.

  Farrell looked utterly ghastly but his mind at least was unaffected, for he took in the situation at a glance and said, “We’ll have to be careful not to break off any stalks as we enter. And the cart can’t be left here.”

  The Genie’s eyes shone with their usual birdlike brightness, half mockery, half inquisitiveness. He bowed with his hands tucked into his sleeves and said, “I, too, have read your Leather-stocking tales. You go, I’ll move the cart and cover your trail as I join you.”

  Together Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax tottered in among the cornstalks, each helping the other, but neither of them impressively secure. They did not stop until the rows of corn neared an end and then they fell apart and sank wordlessly to the ground. Here in the shade of the tall stalks there was at least shelter from the blazing sun and the illusion of a faint breeze as the stalks rustled and creaked and whispered. With a groan Farrell stretched out his damaged leg and studied it with bloodshot, menacing eyes. “Damn thing,” he growled. “Never gave it a thought before, but damned if legs aren’t pretty useful appendages. I’m hungry, by the way.”

  Mrs. Pollifax roused enough to explore the capacious pocket of her first petticoat. She drew out the pistol, the map, the compass, and then one slice of stale bread and a small amount of cheese. “There isn’t much and we have to save some for later,” she reminded him.

  “Later,” mused Farrell. “I can’t imagine anything more distant than ‘later.’ ”

  They could hear the Genie looking for them, his footsteps stopping and then starting again as he peered into each aisle of corn without finding them. Mrs. Pollifax carefully put aside his portion of food, returned the remaining cheese and bread to her pocket, picked up the pistol to put it away, and hearing the Genie’s footsteps virtually at their door she glanced up smiling.

  But it was not the Genie standing there and looking down at them, it was the guard Stefan who had accompanied General Perdido. He was staring at them with his mouth half open, his eyes incredulous and a look of blank stupidity on his face. For just the fraction of a second Mrs. Pollifax shared his stupidity, and then she realized that she was holding the pistol in her hand and without thinking she lifted the pistol, aimed it as her cousin John had taught her years ago and squeezed the trigger. The noise was deafening in the stillness of that hot, quiet, summer afternoon. The look of stupidity on Stefan’s face increased and Mrs. Pollifax realized with a feeling of nausea that she was going to have to shoot him again. She lifted the pistol but Farrell rolled over and clasped her wrist with his hand, deterring her, and that was when she saw the blood slowly spreading across Stefan’s chest. She watched with horrified fascination as he began to crumple, his knees carrying him steadily downward until they struck the earth and his hips and shoulders following. Farrell was already reaching for his crutch and struggling to get to his feet. Mrs. Pollifax said blankly, “I’ve killed him. I’ve killed a man.”

  “He’d have gladly killed both of us in another minute,” gasped Farrell, standing upright. “For heaven’s sake, don’t just sit there, Duchess, they must have heard that shot for miles.”

  Certainly the Genie had heard it. Mrs. Pollifax became aware that he was with them again; he was kneeling beside the dead guard removing his pistol and checking his pockets. She stuffed pistol, map and compass away and stood up, curious as to whether her knees would hold her or if she would slowly sink to the ground as Stefan had done; Stefan, the man she had killed—she, Emily Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey. “Madness,” she muttered under her breath. “Madness, every bit of this.”

  “They certainly know we’re alive now,” Farrell was saying grimly. “God how I wish I could run.”

  “I saw him and had to hide,” the Genie said in a stunned voice. “There wasn’t a chance of warning you.” He was tugging at Mrs. Pollifax’s arm to get
her moving, and Mrs. Pollifax automatically took a few steps, then turned to look back at the dead man, but Farrell reached over and forced her face to the west. “Don’t ever look back,” he told her harshly.

  So he understood in his rough, compassionate way. With an effort Mrs. Pollifax pulled herself together, lightheaded enough by now to see the three of them, blood-smeared, exhausted and harassed, as absurdities pitted against the whims of fate. They entered the forest of pines that lay beyond the cornfield but the shadows brought only meager relief and this was from the sun rather than the heat. Yet it was lovely among the pines, the earth soft and springy with layer after layer of pine needles, some old and brown, others freshly green. It seemed very peaceful and Mrs. Pollifax yearned to forget General Perdido and sink to the ground to rest.

  The Genie said suddenly, “I smell water,” and he began hobbling stiffly ahead, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to wonder how anybody could smell water. She stayed with Farrell, whose pallor alarmed her; he looked already dead, she thought, like someone embalmed and strung up on wires by a fiendish mortician. Then she realized that she, too, smelled water, except that smell was not quite the word, it was a change in the air, a freshness new to her nostrils. “Something’s ahead,” she gasped to Farrell, but he only grunted, not lifting his head. If it was the lake—and it could be nothing else from the look of the map—they must be very near Yugoslavia and very near to freedom. “Bless Tito and foreign aid,” she thought reverently, hope rising in her. The Genie was ahead of them waving his arms, but it seemed an eternity before they reached him. “Look,” he said.

  Mrs. Pollifax lifted her head to see water glittering in the sunshine, water to bathe in, water to drink, water to cool overheated flesh and relax parched dry throats. Water—she wanted to stumble through the scrub to the shore and bury herself in it, but as she started forward the Genie clutched her arm and she heard the sound of the plane again. “This way,” he said, and led them back in among the pines to head north along the shore of the lake.