Uncertain Voyage

by Dorothy Gilman

  When the woman was finished Melissa was allowed to dress again, and both her purse and her coat were returned to her. Surprisingly, the two paperback books remained in its pockets.

  “Vamos. De se usted prisa,” the woman said harshly, and without understanding the words Melissa guessed that she was to follow her. They walked down a hall whose shining floor reflected in its surface the flowers on a mahogany stand and the lacy grillwork of the door at the other end. This time they entered a large library, and Melissa was told to sit. The woman left, and almost at once a man entered the room from a small corner door.

  He surprised Melissa. He wore a strikingly iridescent gray suit—Adam would have approved, she thought wryly—with trousers tapering to a dramatic leanness. His white shirt was ruffled, and he wore a scarlet string tie. His face was dark, wise and clever. There was a faint suggestion of a mustache no heavier than a pencil line—this was a man who overdid nothing. He said to her with a flash of white teeth, “But you are very attractive.” He drew out a damask-covered chair behind the small rosewood desk and gestured her to a matching chair behind it. “Do join me,” he begged.

  She had not expected anyone so charming, so suave, and she braced herself as she walked to the chair he indicated. She sat down, and he seated himself across the desk and regarded her with interest. “Permit me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Señor Castigar.”

  “I am Mrs. Aubrey,” she told him warily.

  “Yes, of course. We have been following you for quite some time.” He was watching her closely, awaiting her reaction to this.

  She said evenly, “You have kidnapped me and submitted me to a search and I should like to remind you that I am an American citizen.”

  He smiled faintly. “But we are not going to take your American citizenship from you. All that we want from you is the Baikonur code which the man Stearns gave to you. And we want it now.”

  “Baikonur code,” she repeated.

  “Sí.”

  “I have never heard of a Baikonur code,” she told him.

  He gestured this aside impatiently. “It scarcely matters since you are not—I don’t think—an agent. We wish what Stearns gave to you, and what you were about to deliver to number eleven, Plaza Veri Rosario.”

  “But you’ve searched me,” she pointed out. “You didn’t find any code, did you?”

  “We scarcely expected to,” returned the Señor. “Of course one always hopes—” He shrugged. “But Stearns was a man on the run; there was not the time for him either to notify Washington of his fantastic discovery—a factor in our favor—or, alas, to put it into a suitable form for traveling. But once he knew he was to die he gave you something. And what he gave to you, whether tangible or memorizable, he put into a form understandable to the Anglo-Majorcan Export Company. Presently you will tell us what he gave to you, please.”

  She said indignantly, “What makes you so sure of that?”

  He shrugged. “If you do not tell us then you will die.”

  She said quickly, “If you kill me then you will never learn what Stearns gave me!”

  His smile was silky. “I do not think you understand the situation, Mrs. Aubrey. The Baikonur code is ours, it belongs to us. What is of supreme importance is to prevent your people from acquiring the Baikonur code. It would quite frankly be a catastrophe to us, exposing the nature of certain secret documents which your people already possess but which they cannot decipher. They would learn at once, for instance, of one particular alliance in the Mediterranean that would change the entire nature of the Conference which begins tomorrow morning.”

  She laughed. “But if this is your code what is the point of your needing to hear from me what you already know? Why not simply kill me?”

  He smiled faintly. “You see that. However, if you see this then perhaps you can understand also that possessing the essential key to any code is like the unraveling of wool, it can work in either direction, for us as well as for your people. For your experts to decipher the Baikonur code Stearns would have had to specify a clue—a key—that would unlock the Baikonur code by means of one of your American codes. The opposite is also true. If we learn with what key your experts were to unscramble our Baikonur code—which we already know—then by working in reverse our experts may have some hope of deciphering your code.”

  “Oh,” she said, and into her mind leaped the words George is very sick. Was this the key? she wondered.

  “This is why you have some importance,” went on Señor Castigar. “Some usefulness to us alive, and why I am instructed to deal with you as a person of some use to us. But do not underestimate your situation, you remain entirely helpless. It is not known in Washington or in Majorca that Stearns had the fantastic luck to steal the Baikonur code from us. Your Central Intelligence is aware that he was murdered, but at the moment they are completely in the dark as to why, and why he was traveling by ship under a false identity.”

  She said coolly, “I think you underestimate them, Señor. They know very well that Stearns was carrying something of infinite value to the Conference here.”

  Señor Castigar said lightly, “Oh? And how do you know this?”

  “I was visited in Paris by a CIA agent.”

  Señor Castigar smiled. “On the contrary the CIA entered the picture only three days ago when they sent an agent here to Palma to question you, a gentleman by the name of Mr. Marc West.”

  “Marc West?” She stared at him in horror. “I don’t believe you,” she gasped.

  He smiled. “You must not think all CIA agents are as intelligent as Stearns.”

  “I still don’t believe you,” she said flatly.

  “No?” He lifted one eyebrow. “That is because you are perhaps remembering Grimes, but he was one of our men.” Señor Castigar leaned back comfortably in his chair. “Come now, Mrs. Aubrey, you must see that you are very ill-equipped to cope with international espionage. It is quite useless to fight me, you have no weapons.”

  “Grimes,” she echoed, appalled. “But—then nothing he told me was true?”

  “On the contrary everything that he told you was true. We remained certain that you must be the person we looked for, but it became a strong possibility that you had forgotten Stearns, or had dismissed him as a hysteric. It became vital that you know precisely who Stearns was. A little pressure, a little enlightenment, a small appeal to your patriotism appeared in order.”

  She said dryly, “You are indeed very clever.” She hesitated, and then, rigidly controlling her voice added, “There was another man—in Copenhagen. Was he, Adam Burrill, one of your men also?”

  Señor Castigar shrugged. “I could of course say yes, but actually he was a total stranger to us. Now I have been extremely frank with you, you will please be equally as frank with me.”

  But Melissa was rallying. “I think not,” she said coolly.

  “You prefer death then,” he said harshly.

  “But I am not afraid to die,” she said, and was surprised to realize that at this moment it was almost true, and that she did not speak out of bravado. What Stearns had given her possessed value—which gave meaning even to death—and she had just learned that her trust in Adam, so timidly, hopefully given, had not been misplaced.

  Señor Castigar was regarding her with amusement. “Now that is very interesting—and quite improbable.” With scorn he said, “Everybody is afraid to die, I do not believe you.”

  She smiled. “Nevertheless, for the first time in my life—I feel this—it won’t matter as it used to.”

  He said dryly, “You must by all means tell me your secret formula.”

  She said steadily, with a lift of her head, “In the past weeks I have experienced enough—just enough, you understand—to feel what it can be like to be really alive.”

  He shrugged. “All the better to continue life then!”

 
At this moment, holding her future lightly, he seemed to her very earth-bound and obtuse. She shook her head, feeling her way toward the truth of this. “Perhaps we clutch at life only when we have never lived or trusted it. Then death seems the last and greatest defeat, the end of something never felt.” She lifted her head and looked at him. “Now I have experienced just enough to make it”—she shrugged—“possible. Not welcome, you understand, but—if necessary—bearable.”

  “I see,” he said, studying her face. “And so death does not frighten you.” His eyes suddenly narrowed and he said, “Perhaps life frightens you more.”

  She gazed at him. “I don’t think I know what you mean.”

  He smiled. “We know something of you, we are very thorough. Your life has seemed difficult lately, no? But you have experienced something on your travels. Yes, I can see that death could feel for you like the good ending, the closing of a symphony on a high note.” He leaned back in his chair and his smile was amused. “So you are ready then to meet death, even torture, with great nobility?”

  “Or as best I can,” she said.

  “Very good.” His smile deepened. “Then I will not condemn you to death, my dear, nor even to torture. I shall condemn you instead to the more exquisite torture: to living.”

  She stared at him in astonishment.

  “And the emptiest living possible.” He leaned forward and his lip curled. “You have had a glorious experience? It will pass. I will let Time work its way on you, my dear, for I am in no hurry as yet. You are neither saint nor mystic, I will banish you to isolation—to solitary confinement—where day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, you will experience—why, nothing at all. For nothing lasts—above all these brief, daring flights into life. You will learn soon enough that there is no meaning in life, that all of life is meaningless.” He rang a bell. “Arturo,” he told the man who appeared, “take her downstairs to the cell and lock her inside.”

  Melissa felt a whisper of uneasiness. She stood and looked curiously at Señor Castigar, and he looked at her with a little smile playing about his lips.

  “You see?” he said. “Even your courage was meaningless.”

  She wordlessly followed Arturo out of the room.

  16

  Arturo left, closing and locking the iron door behind him, and there remained only the deep, implacable silence of an uninhabited place. Melissa stood with her coat over one arm. She could feel the door at her back; if she took but one step forward she would stumble across the bare sheet of plywood that had been laid across metal juts to make a cot. High above her—far beyond reach—hung a small square window from which light came. This was her cell, no longer than six feet, no wider than five, the dimensions of a cement tomb.

  She sat down suddenly on the bunk and placed her coat across her lap. It made a small rustling sound that shocked the silence. She noted that there was no window in the door—she was to be spared the horror of being watched, at least—and they had left her both coat and purse, but this was no consolation either. She could not believe just now that this had happened to her. A part of her stood off at a great distance so that she was divided and unfeeling. She felt a little cold, that was all, as one does when frozen. Yet she did not shiver; this chill was deep inside. She thought coldly, “Something is happening to me,” but she did not feel it. She couldn’t understand, couldn’t grasp the why of this when she had behaved so well. Everything had gone terribly wrong. Hadn’t God heard her when she had sat in the park and pledged herself to life, hadn’t she made it clear to God that she was doing this, not just for herself, but also for Stearns? She had been resigned even to dying for Stearns’ book, and this gesture, so implicitly selfless, had been wasted and even laughed at. Had her vows fallen on deaf ears?

  “It should have been different,” she whispered. “It shouldn’t have happened this way; I don’t understand.” She had cast off her fears and acted, and for this first positive act of her life there should have been an answering affirmation, even applause and praise, but instead she was being punished, for how else could she construe being hurled into a cell? Punishment…it was ironic when there should instead have been a handwrought miracle waiting for her. A happy ending. An Adam.

  Oh, if only it could have happened the way she’d assumed it would: she saw herself shaking off her pursuers to walk at last into the Anglo-Majorcan Export Company. She saw the shop as long, narrow, and dim, its counters piled high with colorful fabrics. The man in the rear of the shop looked pleasant, paternal, and very British. She saw herself walk up to him to say coolly, “I have here a small package given me by a mutual friend of ours named Stearns.” She pictured his growing astonishment, the open mouth and incredulous eyes. “You knew Stearns? You know then why he was murdered?”

  “Yes.” Again coolly, “He was bringing you the Baikonur code.”

  “The Baikonur code!” he gasped. “Good God! Fantastic!”

  “It’s why he was murdered, of course.” She would slip the book across the counter. “I was also to tell you that page 191 is of vital importance, and give you the message that George is very sick.”

  “George is very sick.”

  “Yes.”

  He would shake his head incredulously. “But if he was murdered for this how on earth did you manage to get through? I know the people who murdered him—ruthless and shrewd, all of them. And the Baikonur code—how can we ever repay you! But come, you are exhausted, I see this. Come into the back office for a little tea and tell us everything. How on earth you ever managed to get here when we’re constantly watched—but what courage, I am speechless. You’re not traveling alone, are you?”

  “Quite alone.”

  “Good God!”

  He would press a buzzer, or speak into a telephone, and at once his assistant would appear, a tall and distinguished young man named Cartwright who subtly resembled Adam. “He too is in The Game, my dear, you may speak openly. Cartwright, lock the front door, will you? Hang up a sign, we’re taking our siesta early today.”

  Admiration. Consolation. The childish fantasy faded. Proofs and rewards, thought Melissa wearily—but how did one function without them? What else was there? The kind word, the soothing hand on the brow—She pressed trembling hands to her temples. Longingly she recalled her past innocence and longingly yearned for its return, for if this was reality—this raw and brutal end to an effort of promise—then it had obviously been an act of genius on her part to avoid both life and reality. One could bruise oneself over and over again, it seemed, and still find no meaning, no reason for which to go on. This very cell was proof of this: she would die here and no one would ever know, nor would there be anyone to mourn her at this halfway point between two lives: her parents were dead, Charles was already a part of the past, and to Dr. Szym she was only a patient. And Adam—tears of self-pity dimmed her eyes as she realized that Adam would never know. He would mail his Christmas note, and when he received none from her he would reflect sadly upon her shallowness and the brevity of her memory.

  If she could only cry she might feel again, she thought, but she was too numb to cry. “Perhaps tomorrow I can cry,” she thought. Tomorrow? But she could not believe that tomorrow she would still be here, she could not believe that life could be so brutal. Surely at any moment Señor Castigar would open the cell door and say, “It has been a little joke to test you, Señora, but now you may come out…”

  “I am in a cell,” she said aloud, again trying to make it feel real to her. A part of her responded, saying, “But what on earth are you doing in a cell?” and she nodded mutely. “Yes, isn’t it preposterous? That’s why it’s so unreal. It can’t be true, I won’t let it be true.” She reached out a hand and touched the wall, which was not smooth after all, but pebbly because it was made of stucco. She drew her hand very quickly down the wall and this hurt, and she had a faint sensation of having briefly established a relationship between he
rself and the wall because when the contact hurt she knew the wall was there. “A promising sado-masochistic relationship,” she thought dryly, and quickly dropped her hand. She wished they had not taken her wristwatch from her because she was sure that all this would be easier for her if she knew the time. She brought out the mystery novel that she had carried with her and settled down to read it but the words proved meaningless for between her eyes and the page stood an invisible barrier of anxiety so that her mind remained rigid and stunned and she had to read whole paragraphs a second time and then a third time yet was still unable to grasp their meaning. She forced her eyes to continue following the lines even as her dialogue continued…“I want to go home, this is not the way life should be, I cannot believe this is happening, I refuse to believe it…”

  She thought suddenly—and it briefly pierced the fog—“A part of me does know this is real.” Was it that she had long ago made up her own reality, like a child fashioning a make-believe world, and then forever after selected only what fitted into a pre-conceived pattern? She thought, “It isn’t that I cannot find reality, it’s I who evade it when I glimpse it, I drive it from me with incredible contortions of mind.”

  * * *

  —

  Several hours later a tray was thrust inside her cell, the door immediately closing again. Melissa glanced with apathy at the food, then arose and wearily lifted the tray to her lap. Señor Castigar ate well: the food was strange to her but palatable and nourishing. When she had finished eating the light in her cell had grown dimmer, and she realized that soon it would be dark.

  Dark…it seemed just now the greatest horror of all. She was alone, and night was coming. Was it truly only illusion that she was alone, as Dr. Szym had implied? But if one had no real sense of God, or even of belonging to life, then it became necessary to draw support from people, and there were no people here and there would be none. She was thousands of miles from home, completely cut off from friends and familiar surroundings by both distance and time, and what was worse, she was locked away in a cell in the home of a Majorcan madman. She tried to conceive of some realistic manner in which her disappearance could have been noted: in novels there would have been someone passing the Anglo-Majorcan Export Company at the moment of her abduction who would have immediately understood the abruptness of the taxi’s departure and witnessed the look of horror on her face, and drawing the proper conclusions would have written down the cab’s number and gone off at once to the police.