Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (19 page)

Magda was lifted, still encased in her rug and still inert. The flashlight was turned on and Uncle Hu leaned over Magda with the cup.

The cup suddenly slipped from his fingers to the floor.

“What is it?” gasped Mrs. Pollifax, who could see Ramsey’s face. “Colin, he’s ill—do something!”

Uncle Hu shook his head; his face was white.
“Who is this woman?”
he demanded in a shaken voice.

“It’s Magda,” said Mrs. Pollifax, regarding him with astonishment. “We’re taking her to the gypsies.”

He shook his head violently. “Where did you find her? Where does she come from?”

They stared at him stupidly.

His voice rose. “Don’t you understand I know this woman? She was supposed to have died in Buchenwald twenty-six years ago!”

Mrs. Pollifax said blankly, “Magda?”

“Not Magda!” He leaned forward and peered into the flashlit face. “I tell you she’s Alice. Alice Blanche.”

Something stirred in Mrs. Pollifax’s jaded mind; a face, a recognition, a memory. Alice Blanche … but Blanche meant white in French, didn’t it? Alice White—Alice Dexter White.… “You know her?” she faltered.

He nodded. “During World War Two, when I escaped from prison camp. She hid me for three months in Paris—occupied Paris. She—I—” He hesitated and then said simply, “She was very beautiful and very brave. Reckless, really. I thought she was captured and imprisoned. Charles said so. The Hawk said so. Red Queen said so. You must think I’m talking absolute gibberish,” he said, looking up at Mrs. Pollifax. “She was an agent, you see.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. She said quietly, “She still is. That’s why you never found her.”

He said in an appalled voice, “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m very serious. Surely you’re aware that you’ve just helped rescue some rather controversial people from a house in Yozgat, and that we may be pursued even now?”

“Yes, but it’s you, isn’t it? Surely it’s you who—”

Mrs. Pollifax said briskly, “Only superficially. It’s this woman they’re really after, and it’s this woman we must get to Kayseri for a plane out of this country. If you’ve had time for newspapers on your trip you may have read about a certain Magda Ferenci-Sabo.”

He nodded. “Yes, that defecting Communist agent.”

Mrs. Pollifax glanced down at the still-unconscious Magda and said with a sigh, “Meet your defecting Communist, Mr. Ramsey. Now we really must leave before it grows any darker or we’ll never find the gypsies. Is there enough water in the radiator now, Mr. Ramsey?”

“Yes,” said Ramsey, still staring at Magda. “Good God!” he exclaimed again, incredulously, but he turned off the flashlight and followed them out without delay. They poured the last of the boiling water into the radiator. The sun had set with finality while they were inside the van, and twilight was rapidly replacing the long shadows. It would be dark in a matter of minutes.

Darkness came, and nothing existed for them except the twin beams of the van’s headlights on the stony road ahead. Yet lacking darkness Mrs. Pollifax realized they would never have seen the gypsy camp, for it was the light of the campfire that drew their eyes: like an earthbound star it shone at some distance off the main road, made luminous by the opaque blackness surrounding it. Seeing it, Colin’s uncle
turned off the road and they bumped and jolted over a cart track of eroded earth and scrub.

“More dogs,” groaned Colin as there mingled with the roar of the van the sound of howling cur dogs.

“Never mind, these are Magda’s gypsies,” Mrs. Pollifax told him warmly. “We’ve found them.” Peering out she saw that there were two fires, one at either end of a camp laid out in a rectangle among rocks and a few stunted trees. Six or eight wagons had been drawn up to this rectangle, and Colin’s uncle drove neatly into the middle before he brought the van to a halt.

“We’re here,” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax gratefully, and opened the rear door and stepped down.

Gypsies had appeared like shadows and formed a ring around the van. “Good evening,” said Mrs. Pollifax eagerly. “We’ve brought you Magda, we’re looking for—”

She stopped uncertainly. She realized that the gypsies formed a solid circle around her of folded arms, grim eyes and hostile faces. Not one of them moved but their eyes almost physically forced her to step back in retreat. For one nightmare moment Mrs. Pollifax wondered if they were going to stone her to death. She had never met with such an impenetrable wall of hatred. Something was terribly wrong.

Then from the shadows a voice said, “Good evening, Mrs. Pollifax!”

Dr. Belleaux strolled smiling into the circle of light followed by Stefan and Assim. “You musn’t expect a welcome here, Mrs. Pollifax. I arrived twenty minutes ago by helicopter and warned these people about you.” He said softly, with a helpless shrug, “They already know that you’ve hidden Magda in the van, and that you’ve beaten and drugged her. I’ve told them they musn’t kill you but they are so very aroused, what is one to do?”

For a moment Mrs. Pollifax thought she was going to faint but that would have been too merciful; she did not faint. He had said what,
helicopter
? It smacked more of black magic against this wild, primitive backdrop of sky and stars and earth lighted by campfires. “It’s not true!” she flung at the gypsies and looked into their high-cheekboned, mahogany faces but her glance met no response. The frozen mute hostility did not waver; she felt whipped and shriveled by their bitter and accusing eyes.

“He lies!” she protested. “You musn’t believe him! We’re Magda’s friends!”

Behind her Colin said in a shaken voice, “I don’t think they speak any English, Mrs. Pollifax.”

“Not at all?” she cried passionately. She swung around. “They must know Turkish then! Sandor—Mr. Ramsey—translate, tell them quickly!”

“Good God, yes,” murmured Uncle Hu, and stepped forward. He began to speak Turkish, and had produced several sentences when Stefan calmly walked up to him and hit him with his fist, sending him unconscious to the ground. At the same moment Mrs. Pollifax heard a startled grunt from Sandor on her right—he ducked his head and ran.

The wall of gypsies shattered. With shouts the men took off after Sandor into the darkness while the women tightened the circle around Mrs. Pollifax, presumably to prevent
her bolting too. “No no no!” cried Mrs. Pollifax, impatiently stamping her foot. “Do understand! Magda is our friend, that man lies!”

One of the women spat contemptuously.

“Inglis,” said Mrs. Pollifax in case her baggy pants and shawls confused them. “You must listen to me! We’re all in danger from that man!”

Half a dozen women climbed into the rear of the van. There were murmurs and gasps at the sight of Magda, and then little crooning sounds as she was lifted and brought out. Gently they carried her toward the more distant campfire, with Dr. Belleaux following and speaking to them, obviously pointing out each bruise and cut to them in an effort to whip them into a new fury of hatred.

Mrs. Pollifax looked at Stefan, who looked at her mockingly. She turned and looked at Colin, who was leaning over his uncle. She wondered if Sandor had been caught yet. She wondered how she could possibly make the gypsies understand that if they didn’t act quickly they would all be killed, and their beloved Magda too. She wondered how long it would be before Magda regained consciousness. That was something only Dr. Belleaux knew, and he seemed very confident that Magda’s ability to speak was not an imminent threat.

He was shouting to Stefan now, and to complete the irony he was shouting in English. “Tie them up,” he called. “We can use the helicopter radio to contact the police. They can be here by dawn.”

Police—dawn; what was he planning, she wondered as Stefan pushed them forward. Could Dr. Belleaux really afford to call in the police, or didn’t he plan to be here when they came, or would they all be dead when the police arrived? Certainly by dawn he must expect to retrieve whatever document Magda had stolen from the Communists; if he already had this he would not be here. Now that he had established himself to the gypsies as Magda’s protector was he counting on this to provide him with the gypsies’ confidence? She was growing too tired to think.

Stefan led them past the second campfire where Magda had been placed between blankets. A dark, tousle-headed boy of nine or ten sat cross-legged beside Magda, watching
a woman apply ointment to Magda’s face wounds. The woman looked up at Mrs. Pollifax as she passed and hissed,
“Baulo-moosh!”
Clearly it was an epithet of the worst kind.

At some distance from the fires their bandaged hands were tied behind them again, and then to the trunk of a stunted, low-flying tree that looked curiously Japanese in its distortion. From here they could no longer see the van or Uncle Hu lying in the dust beside it. They could see one gypsy wagon and the silhouette of a horse grazing behind it in the shadows. They could see the fire and Magda’s blanket-shrouded body, the woman and the boy. Beyond this circle of light the far-away cliffs were etched sharply against the deep blue night sky. The silence of the plain was almost complete except for the sound of the wind and an occasional muffled shout from the men who searched for Sandor.

“Well,” said Mrs. Pollifax dispiritedly.

“Well,” said Colin.

Stefan had disappeared. The boy who had been sitting beside Magda at the campfire arose and walked across the open space toward Mrs. Pollifax and Colin. He chose a position a few yards from them and sat down, cross-legged, to watch them now. He watched without expression, his face impassive. Two young men suddenly appeared and began to search Mrs. Pollifax and Colin. Their faces were dark, swarthy and leanly handsome, their hands expertly light. When they came upon Mrs. Pollifax’s wad of money and unpinned it they shouted and held it high to show the boy, who laughed delightedly. The two young men added Colin’s watch and pen to their treasure and happily walked away.

“A pretty kettle of fish,” said Colin savagely.

Mrs. Pollifax said wearily, “I don’t know how to make them understand. Surely someone here must have heard English spoken once or twice?”

Colin said doggedly, “They undoubtedly speak Bulgarian—no mean accomplishment—since they came from across the border. Of course they speak Romany, and probably some Hungarian as well, and a little Turkish. But even if they understood some English our dear old friend Dr. Belleaux got here first.”

“But why would we come here to the gypsies at all—with Magda—if we’d beaten and drugged her?”

“For the same reason Dr. Belleaux came here: to get from the gypsies what Magda left here with them. In his case before she wakes up and calls him a bloody liar.”

“If only she would—right now!” said Mrs. Pollifax with feeling. “She’d give one long loud scream at sight of him, and tell these people who he is in their own language, and—but will Dr. Belleaux
allow
her to wake up?”

“No, but he can’t very well kill her in plain sight of her friends.” He added wryly, “At the moment I’m more worried about us. Nobody here would mind seeing
us
killed, and we haven’t one single state secret up our sleeves to prolong our living. He can keep Magda drugged while he goes to work on the gypsies but we’re only nuisances. I keep remembering Sebastien. He was going to hitch up his wagon, feed his dancing bear and follow us, remember?”

Mrs. Pollifax said gloomily, “But he didn’t expect to find us before dawn, and it can’t be midnight yet, can it? And it’s more likely he fed his bear and then decided to curl up and sleep for a while. I’d rather put my money on Sandor, who at least—”

She stopped. The gypsies were bringing Sandor back into camp. One large and muscular gypsy carried him slung across his back like a slab of venison. In a long procession the men crossed their line of vision, passed the campfire and disappeared. “Unconscious,” she said despairingly. “Not even capable of explaining in Turkish to the gypsies who we are!”

Colin said soberly, “What do you think Dr. Belleaux has in mind—that is, if you can enter that mind of his at all?”

Mrs. Pollifax considered. “I can at least guess. With Magda he has two possibilities: either he will fly her off to Russia with whatever papers he mentioned, or he will kill her and fly off to Russia himself with the mysterious papers. He has that helicopter. I daresay it’s provided him by the Russians, and he need only radio ahead and cross the border at some prearranged spot with very little risk of being shot down.”

“Either possibility disposes of his pleasant life in Istanbul at least!”

Mrs. Pollifax laughed. “Don’t be naïve, my dear Colin.
He can easily salvage his pleasant Istanbul life by saying that I murdered Magda.”

“And risk a trial?” asked Colin. “Or am I being naïve again?”

“Yes, you are, really,” Mrs. Pollifax told him. “Because by that time he will have seen to it that the gypsies kill
me
. Stone me to death, no doubt,” she said tartly.

Stefan and Assim reappeared suddenly, carrying a trussed-up but still breathing Sandor. They knotted him to the tree as well—it was becoming heavily populated. Stefan said with a grin, “The gypsies hunt well for us, eh? We’ll even let them kill you soon.”