by Ronald Seth
"Six months ago, comrade doctor," I said. "I had gone to Lake Tana to see if the waters really are blood red, and when I looked up at Mount Tana, the snow on Mount Tana was blood red too."
For a moment I thought he had not grasped what I was saying. He gave no sign at all that he had understood me, and my heart sank.
"I see," he said. "Comrade, are you going back to Kobo-Vazon today? You see, I shall have to examine you very carefully. I don't want to worry you unduly, but I may not be able to save the sight of this eye. I will, of course, do all I can, but there is no time to lose."
"I had prepared for that, comrade doctor," I answered. "I have arranged to stay for a few days with friends here in Tredentz."
"Ah, that is good!" He went back to the desk and picked up a diary. "I don't want to waste any time, comrade. Could you come to my house tonight at nine-thirty, do you think?"
He wrote on a pad, tore off the sheet and handed it to me. It said: "31/5, St. Birgitta's Avenue. Welcome, but take care. Danger."
"Will you write your name down here for me, comrade?" he said, pushing the pad toward me. "I have a shocking memory for names."
I took the pencil he held out to me, and wrote quickly: "David Bremer, L.P.R. agent—waiting room—following," hoping the nurse would not realize I was writing more than my name.
"David Bremer… David Bremer. I will try to remember."
The nurse came forward with fresh bandages, but Paranu waved her back.
"The bandages will do no good, comrade," he said. "It will perhaps be better without them."
I thought I understood what he meant. If the L.P.R. agent in the next room were to follow me I would have a temporary advantage if he was expecting to find me still wearing bandages.
"Then I will see you at my home this evening, comrade," the doctor repeated. "Come this way. There is no need for you to go out through the waiting room."
At the far end of the consulting room was a door which led directly into a corridor. As I stepped through into it the doctor shut the door on me quickly and I heard the L.P.R. man's voice raised.
"Where is your last patient, comrade doctor?" he shouted.
"I don't know what concern that is of yours," the doctor retorted.
"L.P.R.," the agent snapped.
"That still gives you no right to come bursting into my consulting room. Will you…"
Paranu was obviously playing for time, to give me a good start. But I was momentarily confused by finding myself not in the corridor along which the elevator boy had led me. However, I had to get away from the doctor's office as quickly as possible, so I started off down the corridor.
I had not gone far when the alarm bells throughout the whole hospital went off in a series of six short bursts. I remembered seeing a notice of fire precautions pinned on the wall of Paranu's waiting room, and it had said that the fire alarm would be one long continuous blast. This was another kind of alarm, and something told me that it was for my benefit.
I hurried along the corridor and ran down the first flight of steps I came to, two at a time, and found myself on another landing. But the stairs continued down, and at the bottom of them I came into the great main entrance hall of the hospital, opening onto Karl II Square. I made straight for the door, but the porter standing by it barred the way.
"Sorry, comrade," he said. "No one may leave the hospital until the L.P.R. check is over."
As he spoke the wail of a car's siren came from the distance growing louder and louder, and within seconds one of the long gray limousines with which the secret police seemed to be equipped came screeching to a stop at the bottom of the steps, followed by a second and a third.
"Here they come… our heroes!" the porter said quietly, but with the sarcasm putting a sharp edge to his voice.
"How long will it last?" I asked, as I watched agents getting out of the cars.
"One hour, perhaps two," the porter answered. "Until they find the poor devil they're looking for or are convinced he is not here."
"I'll go back to my office then, and wait for them," I said.
"You're new here, aren't you?" he said.
"Dr. Vriesson. It's my first morning," I told him. "Did you come in by the back entrance?"
"Yes. It's more convenient for me." The first agents were running up the steps toward the door.
"I'll leave you to face them, comrade," I smiled, and turned away.
I turned into the first corridor I came to and strode along it, trying to look like the member of the hospital staff that, on the spur of the moment, I had made myself out to be. But I was very perturbed. Something had happened at the police station at the west gate—of that I was convinced, otherwise I could think of no reason why there should be this sudden check on the hospital.
It could not be the agent who had followed me into Paranu's waiting room who had discovered anything about me, since he could not have given the warning to L.P.R. headquarters in time for their arrival in the short time it had taken me to get from the first floor to the main hall. I thought it was much more likely that he had received a message while I was seeing the doctor and that had been the reason for his bursting into the consulting room just as I left it. I wished I knew what had happened, though my main concern at the moment was to avoid capture.
In a hospital the basement is generally a vast warren of passages and rooms: boiler rooms and laundries, cleaners' rooms, X-ray darkrooms and storerooms. If I could lose myself there I should, I believed, have much more chance of escape than anywhere else in the great building.
So when I came to the first flight of steps leading down I turned into them. I was in a hurry, for I heard the loud voices which secret police agents always seem to have turning into the corridor behind me.
Halfway down the stairs twisted sharply, and it was on the bend that I crashed into an orderly carrying a tray of X-ray plates.
"Why can't you look where you're going," he demanded. "If I'd dropped these… Who are you, anyway? What do you want down here?"
"What's your name?" I countered sharply.
"That's nothing to do with you."
"Very well," I said. "Come to my office and I'll speak to the superintendent about you."
If he had agreed to come I don't know what I should have done. But now that he had seen me I had to impress myself on his memory as a member of the staff who had a right to be down here. Then, if he were asked if he had seen any strangers, he would not think of me like that.
He turned a little pale.
"I'm sorry, comrade," he muttered. "I was afraid I was going to drop these plates and damage them. Please don't report me to the superintendent. It would probably cost me my job. But I haven't seen you before."
"That's better," I said. "I didn't think the discipline of our greatest hospital was as bad as that. I am new. I arrived only this morning. So that you shall know me again, I am Vriesson of the cardiac department."
"Yes, comrade. I won't forget."
"Now, where shall I find the X-ray laboratory?" I asked.
"Turn right at the bottom of the stairs and take the second turning on the left. I will show you," he offered.
"No," I said firmly. "I shall find it. You take those plates wherever you're taking them."
"And you won't report me, comrade doctor?"
"Not this time," I promised, and he disappeared up the stairs as quickly as he could.
As I had hoped, the basement was a maze of passages, and I began to wander slowly down them looking for a place to hide. The L.P.R., whatever they may be in other directions, are methodical searchers—all secret police are—and would be sure to include the basement in their program. So I must find a hideout which would give me a chance of escape if I were hard pressed. I wondered whether I might not have more success if I wandered about these passages, avoiding the searchers.
It was difficult to know what was best to be done, and as I was trying to come to some decision I heard women's voices coming nearer. These passages acted a
s sound tunnels, and voices and other noises rippled down and around them in a most confusing manner. I could not tell from which direction the women were coming now by the sound of their chatter, which swirled all around me. But by the increasing loudness of it I knew they would soon be on top of me.
I looked about me feeling trapped for the moment. The fewer people who saw me the better, and I very much wanted to avoid all I possibly could.
As I tried to judge the direction of their approach, looking this way and that, I suddenly saw a door a few yards away from me. On the door was the one word: cleaner.
In a couple of strides I was at it, and in as many seconds had opened it and slipped inside. I was only just in time, for my hand was still on the handle as the laughing women passed in the passage outside.
I passed my hand across my forehead in relief and let out my breath; and it was at that moment that I realized a light was burning in the tiny cupboardlike room into which I had let myself. I was also conscious of something else, too.
Slowly I turned round and found myself face to face with a little gray-haired man who was sitting on a stool in a corner, looking up at me through metal-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose.
"Hello!" he said. "You in trouble?"
I gulped. "There's an L.P.R. check on," I said.
"I know. A nuisance, ain't they?" he smiled. "You're not a friend of theirs?"
"Just the reverse," I answered. "If they find me…"
I made a gesture round my throat with my finger.
"H'm! As bad as that!" He peered at me more closely.
"You look too decent a chap to have killed anybody."
"I haven't," I said. "I don't like the government, that's all."
"It's enough, if you let them know it," he remarked. "I don't know what our country's coming to. Rivers of blood, lakes of blood. Where will it end?"
Again, I do not know what prompted me to say it. Perhaps it was his reference to "lakes of blood."
"The waters of Lake Tana are blood red," I said, looking at him searchingly to see if it would have any effect on him.
His mouth was already open to say something, but instead he stood up and peered right into my eyes.
"Are you one of us?" he whispered.
"Gallia?" I said. "Yes."
"Are you the man they're looking for?"
"Yes."
"How can I help?"
"Can you hide me until this check is over?" I asked.
"It is not easy," he replied seriously. "Here there is nowhere, and besides, they search every corner and cranny whenever they come down here."
"Is there no place at all?" I said desperately.
He shook his head. Then suddenly he began to undo the strings of the baize apron he was wearing.
"I have it. Put on this apron and take this brush and pan and do my sweeping for me," he said. "You're my nephew, Jo. You're a bit simple. You live with me and your mother, who is my sister and a widow, at 57 Kalledanja Street. Take the elevator right up to the eighth floor, sweep the corridors and work your way down here again. If anyone wants to know where I am say my rheumatism is bad and you've come to help me. When the L.P.R. men see you sweeping, they'll believe you work here regularly and not bother you. If you are questioned, act simple."
"What's my surname?" I asked.
"Drevas. You're Jo Drevas. Mine is Juri Mikla. Got it?"
"Yes," I told him.
"Good. Now don't finish your sweeping until the check is over. That's one half-minute ringing of the alarms. Off you go." And thrusting a wide broom and a dustpan into my hand, he pushed me out of his little room.
Juri had been quite right. No one took any notice of me as I made my way up in the service elevator to the eighth floor. Hurrying nurses smiled at me, white-gowned doctors seemed not to see me and even L.P.R. agents did not look twice at me as they went from ward to ward and room to room.
At the end of an hour I had reached the fourth floor, pushing the wide brush before me and at the end of each long landing sweeping the dust into my pan, which I then emptied into a refuse chute at the end of each corridor. I had just decided to slow down, so that if the search went on longer than an hour I should not have come to the end of my work, when I heard a sound which sent my heart racing again.
A few moments later the Tortoise, accompanied by an angry-looking L.P.R. agent, came into the corridor.
Now, the Tortoise had seen me in a good light for several minutes. He had also had an opportunity of seeing my passport photograph, though that would not have helped him much, for like most passport pictures it was quite unlike me. At the police station I had been disguised by the bandages; but now we should meet face to face.
As he came trotting toward me with his womanlike steps, I leaned my brush against the wall, went down on one knee and pretended to be tying a loose shoelace.
The Tortoise was saying: "I'm quite sure I was not mistaken, comrade. I may forget a face, but I never forget a voice. Two or three words are quite enough. I distinctly heard him say to Comrade Gombroch as he left the office: 'I do indeed, comrade.' I'm prepared to swear…"
They were level with me, passing me, and I thought I had escaped again. But all of a sudden I felt a hand grasp my hair and jerk me to my feet. I let out a yelp and swung round, and found myself gazing into the face of the L.P.R. man.
"What's your name?" he demanded.
"Jo Drevas. I live with my Uncle, Juri Mikla, and my mother, who is a widow and my uncle's sister, at 57 Kalledanja Street," I recited rapidly, pitching my voice high.
"Jo Drevas… Drevas," boomed the Tortoise. "Was your mother Anna Paudak?"
I did not know whether she was or not, but I said yes, she was.
"You've grown, Jo, since I last saw you," he went on. "That's… let me see… ten years ago, just before I went to live at Kobo as sergeant in the passport control. How is Anna?"
"Well, thank you," I piped, shooting a quick glance at the L.P.R. agent to try to discover whether he would think it strange for a man of twenty-five to have grown, for that would have been my age ten years ago. But he did not appear to have heard. He was consulting a list he was carrying.
He looked from the list to me.
"How long have you been working here?" he asked.
"I don't work here," I answered. "My Uncle Juri is the sweeper, but today his rheumatics are bad and I have come to do the work for him."
"Do you often do this?"
"Not often. My Uncle Juri's rheumatics are not bad often. I would come more often, but he cheats," I went on. "He pays me only three drobny when I do the work, but he receives more than double that. If he did not cheat I would do it more often. I told my mother only this morning that if he did not cheat quite so much I would do it more often, and she said…"
"Oh, come on!" the L.P.R. man snapped. "We've wasted enough time!"
"Remember me to Anna Pauldak, Jo," the Tortoise said.
"I don't know Anna Pauldak," I said.
"Remember me to your mother, Jo," he said, tapping my arm lightly and smiling.
"Will she like to be reminded of you?" I asked.
He burst out laughing, and the noise reverberated along the corridor like a temple gong.
"Try and see," he advised me, and turned on his heel to catch up with the agent.
As they turned the corner out of sight, I heard his strange deep voice pronouncing again: "As I was saying, comrade, I may forget a face, but I never forget a voice."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Real Jo
It was after four o'clock when at last the alarm bells sounded the end of the check and I went down to the basement again to Juri.
"It went well?" he asked.
"Yes, it went well," I answered. "But I had one unpleasant moment."
I told him about the Tortoise.
"Ah, that will be that conceited little whippersnapper Quarter-liter Fred Makanes," he said. "Like all little men, he thinks far too much of himself. Now, what are y
ou going to do? What's your name, by the way?"
I introduced myself and he shook my hand warmly.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked again.
"I am to meet Dr. Paranu at his house at half past nine tonight," I answered. "I shall go to a cinema until then. It will be safer than walking about the streets."
"Have you eaten today?"
"Not since breakfast."
"Then you must come home to supper with me!" he answered.
"I can't put you in any danger," I said. "I have money. I can go to a restaurant."
"And risk your life every minute you are there? No, captain. We can't offer you much, but what we have you are very welcome to share. I will not take no. Don't you realize that Gombroch believes you are in Tredentz? Every policeman will be on the lookout for you and the streets will be full of L.P.R. agents. Besides, how will you find your way to Dr. Paranu's house? I will take you there when the time comes."
I appreciated the truth of what he said but still felt reluctant to get him involved in my trouble. But he would not listen to me.
"If we go now we shall get caught in the rush hour," he said. "They will never find you in the crowds. Please, don't let us argue, captain. I may never have another chance of doing anything for Gallia and what I can do is so little, even to help you."
Apart from involving him in danger, it would be a great relief for me to be out of public sight in Juri's flat. Perhaps I was selfish? I don't know. But I did not protest any longer and followed him out of the basement door into crowded Karl II Square and into an even more crowded streetcar, from which we disembarked a few minutes later under the wall of the city, but still inside it.
Without talking, he led me to a quiet street in what I could see, even in the darkness, was a poor quarter of the city. Great tenement houses reared up on either side, so that we seemed to be passing through a high, narrow mountain pass. We passed two or three of these blocks on our right, and as we came to the third Juri took my arm and spoke to me.
"I will go in first, captain. Give me three minutes. I live on the fourth floor. The door faces you on the landing, but it has my name on it. There is no elevator. If the porter wants to know whom you want, say Zinkas. He's the Party man for our section. He will be home by now."