The Rainy Day Man: Contemporary Romance (Suspense and Political Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

             
"Don't shoot!" I yelled and stepped into the square. 

             
There was no need.  The soldiers had by now realized that firepower was inferior to inflamed minds. 

             
"Don't leave us here!" they implored me from behind.

             
I turned to face the crowd in front of me, held my hand up, filled my lungs with air and emptied them out, "Uskut!!!  Quiet!!!"

They responded with a roar.  The man in the dressing-gown spat in my face.  The young man brandished the crowbar.  The widow in black clasped her hands and began moaning out loud about a misfortune.  Someone came in from the outside, bent at my feet and, with a deft movement, threw me forward.  The blind girl's screeching suddenly stopped, but the widow's voice grew louder and I realized that she had not been mourning but was rather rejoicing over my ruin.

              I curled over, pushing my head between my legs, leaving my back exposed.  A shoe kicked me in the ribs.  A hand pulled at my hair.

             
The light from the torch that struck my closed eyelids melted the last band of defense.  Whatever was still there of my cool composure came to a full stop.  Fear filled my chest, dulling my senses with drops of rage.  What a way to go; a fortuitous and stupid accident.  Where the hell were all the soldiers?  Why were they letting this happen?

             
I realized then that quiet had returned.    

             
I did not yet dare to do more than peer cautiously through the shelter of my arms.  The attackers were shuffling to the side, leaving a narrow path.  The priest appeared, his arms spread out, spreading his blessing and making his way through the murmurs and sighs.  He stopped, facing me.  His gray jaw was clenched, his eyes dark and cool. 

             
"What do you seek here?"

             
I stood unsteadily.  His wide body stood between me and the door. 

             
"What do you seek here?" he asked again.  He squinted over my shoulder.  The young man with the crowbar said excitedly: 

             
"One of them already had his trousers off and the others were touching her."

             
"You're not going to believe that."

             
"Why not?"

             
The crowd replied with murmurs of assent.  "Kill them," the widow burst out again, "like my husband..."

             
I looked at him closely, feeling all his human aspects in him, his smell, the roots of his hair, the pores of his skin. 

             
"You wouldn't let it happen."

             
He did not react.  His facial nerves spoke of the oppressiveness of the room, the impermeability of the walls and the crowd of people which was surging forward again.

             
"Tell them to stop."

             
His look was dark, remote, detached.  But something deep within him seemed aware of what was happening and responded faintly.  His eyebrows, cheeks and forehead were still furrowed but a certain relaxation was noticeable in his lips.  Slowly, gradually, my confidence returned.  Rescue was now a question of time.  He was making an internal inventory, a balance of punishment and forgiveness.  I could see words being chosen carefully, with difficulty, eventually becoming an ironic, bitter, thin smile.  He turned round and slowly held his hand up.  His people watched him hypnotized.  They stared at the tips of the long fingers, the large ring, the burning red stone, the fist, which was clenched and then released.  A calming sign.

             
Released from the spell, they took on normal expression.  The crowd began to stream outside.  The old man bobbed up at the entrance, responding to greetings and sympathetic looks.  The blind girl turned her face to the wall and wept.

The last out were the soldiers, who climbed unobtrusively into the command car.  I laid my hand on the priest's arm, the one which had stood in the breach. 

"Thanks."

             
He did not reply, merely turned silently to the entrance.  Our man, torn between loyalties?  A village priest whose tolerance had been put to the test by a sudden occupation?  His behavior indicated neither one nor the other.  Were other possibilities likely?  A split agent, a former agent, a double or triple agent?  My relief led me to pursue the notion further.  It might even be possible to benefit from the contretemps. 

             
"We must talk..."  I said.

             
He stopped.  The bitter smile returned to his lips.

             
"Well?"  I asked.  "When?"

             
"Why not today?" he said and disappeared into the bright light outside.

***

              By the afternoon the embarrassment had found its way into normalcy.  The street facing the gate to the Athenaeum was lined with passersby, faces to the garden wall, arms and legs spread.  The mechanics gave them body searches, raiding their bodies with heavy taps.  Other soldiers went through pockets, questioning each one about his whereabouts that morning.  In the garage courtyard were a few more mechanics along with the supervisor of the shop, who handed me a stapled sheet of paper.

             
Scheckler's convoluted handwriting lunged at me like a host of insects: 

"I'M SENDING YOU THIS LETTER WITH A DRIVER BECAUSE ALL KINDS OF THINGS ARE HAPPENING AND I HAVE TO STAY ON LONGER.  I ASKED ABOUT THE DOCTOR WITH NO RESULT.  I ASKED SOMEONE VERY HIGH-UP.  HE SAID THAT WE MUST HAVE MADE A MISTAKE IN THE NAME, THE DATE,
THE NUMBER OF THE TELEGRAM OR SOMETHING.  THAT SEEMS TO EXPLAIN IT."

Beneath his long signature was another sentence: 

"P.S. THE HIGH-UP WAS SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT YOU WERE WITH US.  HE'S NEVER HEARD OF YOU.  THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES IN WAR, A MESS."

              I crumpled the piece of paper.  The shop supervisor reached out for it.

             
"He'll want to file it when he gets back..."

             
"I'll file it," I turned toward the street.  "You'd better calm down your men..."

             
Creases appeared in his forehead, as though he had difficulty understanding.  Slowly he chewed a thick fingernail. 

             
"They're angry with you about what happened this morning..."

             
"You insisted that they go with me."

             
He examined his fingernail, which had been torn off too near the flesh.  A small bubble of blood welled up around it. 

             
"How could I know?  This place was quiet..."

             
"It still is."

             
"After you came everything got complicated.  It would be easier if I knew what to expect, if I knew why you're here..."

"You don't expect me to give you the reasons..."  I put all the determination I could muster into my voice, but this merely served to stiffen the uncooperative look on his face.  And in
Scheckler's absence he was my only acceptable ally.  I found myself appealing to his morality, his thinning, greying hair, the weary expression he'd acquired in dozens of army garages.  "From you of all people I would have expected help..."

             
He was flattered but cautious.  "How can I help?"

             
"There are various problems here associated with Intelligence," I held on to the magic word which became more convincing the more obscure the circumstances, "and I need a vehicle..."

             
His openness outweighed his other qualities.  "If it turns out that you're really someone," he murmured as he fumbled in his pockets, "you won't be able to say that I didn't help..."

             
"Thanks," I took the keys, which smelled of oiled metal and stuffed pockets.

             
"...It's a shame you're not... very sociable," he added. "We could meet in the evening, to talk.  The other guys don't understand life..."

             
I left him watching me as I went into the courtyard.  Two soldiers were sitting on the side of the command car, smoking.  As I drew near they jumped down and walked away, turning their backs to me.  At the entrance to the kitchen a sad-faced boy was peeling potatoes, his legs stretched out in front on either side of the pot.  I hooted, but he did not move.  I maneuvered carefully to the gate.  The guard released the chain with obvious hostility.  In the mirror I could see him make an insulting gesture at me.

I did not much like myself either.  I drove forward slowly, through a river of battered cars and newly-arrived refugees.  The huge sycamore that grew in Anton
Khamis' yard appeared and disappeared among the rooftops of the houses as I made my way.  The loneliness within me, the sadness, the disintegration of discipline, made me think that god or some ancient forefather would have preferred the doctor to return to his patients, his wife and his son, his books and his friend, the priest, and me to leave.

***

              In the pine wood surrounding the house of the priest the heat of the day had not yet dispersed.  The scent of molten resin floated in the sobbing of violins.  A tenor lamented in a minor key, infinitely sorrowful.  The green Morris was parked in the courtyard, as usual.  The light I had noticed in the window on my previous visit was not to be seen.

             
The music stopped as I walked along the path.  The front door opened before I knocked on it.  The priest leaned against it impatiently, as though he had been interrupted in the middle of something important.  He seemed less grim than I remembered and there was a certain vitality in his eyes which belied the tension in his face.

             
We did not exchange greetings, or even shake hands.  We just nodded silently, and I walked across the cool floor into a world of whitewashed walls and cool isolation.  The soft light radiated through the windows.  A table, three chairs and an iron bed covered with a blanket gave the aura of a niggardly homeliness.  The priest went into the other room carrying an object he had been holding, a kind of primitive bellows, either a vacuum cleaner or a spray-pump.  He returned with a bowl of apples and a damp cloth, with which he wiped away a circle of green paint, the imprint left by a tin, from the tabletop.  Then he put the bowl down and indicated to me to sit.

"You wanted to talk," he began in the tone of someone holding all the cards. 

              The purposefulness in his voice and the fact that he was ignoring the morning's incident in the cellar aroused in me once more the certainty of a connection between him and us. 

             
"We have a common interest, " I said.

             
He assented with a nod of his head.

             
"We have delayed for too long."

             
His face, the way he was holding himself, his hands on the table - all signified agreement.

             
"How shall we begin?"

             
"With you bringing him back."  It took me a while to realize that he was referring to the doctor. 

             
"I don't deal with that."

             
"You arrested him."  He took an apple and sank a row of white teeth into the hard flesh.

             
To avoid losing the little goodwill I thought I had perceived in him previously, I tried to put things straight. 

             
"There's nothing to be done except wait until the investigation is finished."

             
"And what will happen if it does not finish?" he persisted intensely.  "A lot of time has passed, too much, even...  What if you arrested him by mistake and now you're trying to cover up?  Or maybe you've forgotten him in some remote prison, or killed him and gotten rid of the body...?"

             
"That sort of thing doesn't happen with us.  People aren't arrested without a reason and don't disappear afterwards..." I hesitated for a moment before adding, "You must know that..."

             
He did not respond to the hint.  "Prove it," he said earnestly, "bring him back or at least give some sign of him."  Strength exuded from him, from his penetrating eyes, from his dark skin and the thick, vigorous hair on his scalp and mustache.  I was no longer sure of anything.  The circumstances indicated a connection, but his behavior only touched on hostility.  I thought about other agents I had known, about all the hands in which I had placed money or its equivalent in return for documents left in places from where they could be collected, for films dropped into post-boxes, for rumors whispered into the right ears.  For a moment my memory became a hotchpotch of traitors and collaborators; those who loved money or feared poverty, idealists and others who would sell their mothers.  Where did this man, who combined craftiness with rural honesty, practicality with the sacred anger of a mountain prophet, belong?