Decision at Delphi (57 page)

“Ochi, ochi!”
the woman said angrily, as the man slowed down at a rough road. The car regained its speed. So they were searching for a branch-off, Cecilia thought; and perhaps the next opening would be the right one. That is where I’ll have to drop this little package. If I can just get my hand up, near the opened top of the window, if I can just... She raised her hand to her head and let it rest there.

The man’s eyes looked up for a moment, studied Cecilia in the rearview mirror. But he seemed satisfied. His eyes went back to the road. The woman was pointing ahead, talking quickly. The car slowed, turned to the left. Cecilia’s hand dropped the neatly packaged lipstick as the front wheels bumped over the first ruts of the side road.

The woman had turned to look at her, perhaps thinking she might try to open the door as the car’s speed slowed on the rough surface. Cecilia didn’t draw her hand away. She kept it at the side of the window as if she were holding it there to steady herself from the jolts. Her head drooped against her arm, her eyes half closed. She actually did feel a return of the nausea. Her hands were trembling. Then she felt the attack of fear pass over and leave her. The car had not been halted; no one had got out to search. And now, instead of fear, there was a growing excitement. It was extraordinary what a small piece of resistance could do for one’s morale.

What next? she wondered, as her hands began searching blindly in her bag again. There was Ken’s book—the Cavafy poems—but she wanted to hold on to that, somehow. Even touching it was a comfort. And besides, she couldn’t tear out pages without drawing attention to herself. She had to keep up the illusion that she was weak and thoroughly tamed. And pages would blow away in this open road with the first touch of a breeze. It had to be something heavy enough to fall straight, and lie. Her compact was the next choice, a difficult one, though, for it was not easy to hide in the palm of her hand. She would have to wait for the right moment. It came, about half an hour later, when they left the rough road—it ended as it had begun, in a series of deep ruts of hard-dried mud—and the jolts were so bad (the man had not eased up sufficiently, in time) that even the woman on the front seat bounced around like a ping-pong ball. She turned her head to look at Cecilia just
one second too late to see the compact disappear. She spoke urgently, as if she sensed something was wrong. Or had she heard the sound of the compact smashing on the road? The man swore and put on the brakes. The car stopped, and the woman got out and walked back along the road, her flashlight sweeping across it like a brush.

There was a falling sensation inside Cecilia’s stomach. Please, she prayed, oh please let the woman think that the noise was only a loose stone cast up by the wheel. Suddenly, the man called a warning. There were, Cecilia saw as she glanced back, the lights of a car far behind them coming along the highway which they had entered. The woman had not yet reached the intersection. She gave one last sweep of the flashlight, turned, and ran back. She climbed in quickly, speaking reassuringly, rapidly, and glanced around—as the car leaped forward into high speed—angrily at Cecilia. She had found nothing, it seemed. But she leaned over and closed the window.

Well, thought Cecilia as she drew a deep steadying breath, it had been a nice little game while it lasted. She pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders—the draught from the opened window had almost frozen her in the last fifteen minutes—and pretended to be falling asleep.

She listened to the two voices, talking, talking. She wished she knew Greek. Anastas, the man was called. And the woman had a strange name. It sounded like Kseneea. Cecilia puzzled over that. Not that the names mattered to her—except as a little proof that the man and the woman were so sure of her, now, that they were talking freely. Xenia? Anastas and Xenia. Where were they taking her? What part of the country was this? South or west or north or east? Outside, there was nothing but the
lonely highway, running between dark fields or dark hillsides; inside, the two strange, unintelligible voices.

Cecilia’s small moment of triumph left her. Oh, Ken, she thought. Ken. She felt hot tears sting her eyes. She bit her lip, and forced herself to stop crying. Tears were of no help, no help at all. Ken would be looking for her; so would all the others. But no one could help her if she let herself be blackmailed by fear. Not tears, but anger. Not fear, but determination. These were the answers. She might have little hope, but at least she was not going to think her way into despair.

The car drove on through the black, anonymous night. And as she rested, with her eyes closed, she thought of Ken and what he would do if he were here, dear, darling, stubborn, determined Ken. He wouldn’t yield one inch. He wouldn’t accept the fact that he was helpless. He would resist, and go on resisting. He’d say, “Damn your eyes, all of you!” And so shall I, she thought. That is all I can, meanwhile. That is one thing they cannot stop, unless they kill me. They cannot stop resistance.

So she rested, for there was nothing she could do while the car travelled at this speed. But when it stops, she thought, I am going to be one of the most unhelpful, most intransigent, most ornery prisoners that these two barbarians, have ever snatched. From her handbag, she began, carefully, slowly, to transfer every useful little object she could find into the pockets of her coat.

For the last twenty minutes or so, the car—without lights—had been travelling steadily uphill, a long, gradual curve between bare hills. There was moonlight and clouds, a sky not altogether clear, throwing strange shadows over the desolate countryside. Yet the road seemed smooth, a first-class road. By day, there would be several cars travelling along here. But, now, nothing. Not a house to be seen, far less a village. Abruptly, the road swept round to the left. The car stopped. Xenia put away her map. She turned to Cecilia, the revolver very evident. She opened the door and got out, gesturing impatiently to Cecilia to follow. Anastas still sat at the wheel. He must be leaving them here.

“Out!” Xenia said impatiently, and spoke some last directions to the man.

So she knew a word or two of English, Cecilia thought. She pulled herself, very slowly, out of the back seat. The weaker she looked, the better. She sat at the open door of the car, feeling the road under her feet, wondering if she had enough strength in her legs to run. But the woman, although she was talking to Anastas, was watching. Cecilia pulled the collar of her coat up around her neck and her handbag over her arm, plunged her hands into her pockets. She did not have to pretend she was cold.

In front of her was a gently rising meadow, wide and deep. To one side, a stream, with its melancholy ripple. On the silvered grass were small trees, perhaps fruit or olive trees, their gnarled and twisted branches making grotesque patterns in the moonlight. At the top of the meadow, rising above it, there was a huge band of dark shadow: a wood or a thick grove. Behind that, gleaming coldly—and then darkened into an abyss as a cloud drifted over the face of the moon—was a precipice of rock. Above that, was a jagged patch of stubbled shadows, a hillside with sparse trees; still higher, there rose the bold slope of a mountain. She could not see the peak, even when the light clouds floated free from the moon, and the silvers and blacks and greys all took sharp shape once again.

“Come!” said the woman, and grasped her right arm.

Cecilia rose. Her legs were cramped and stiff. But any impulse to run was checked not only by the woman’s paralysing grip but by the lack of cover, down here by the road. Behind her, across the road, there was only a bare hillside, open, no possible shelter. She would have to reach the woods above the meadow, before there was a chance to reach a hiding place. Suddenly, she froze, and so did the woman, as the wild barking of a dog tore the silence to pieces. It came from some distance away, higher up, but the hillsides and precipices, which rimmed round the amphitheatre of meadow funnelled the frenzied far-off sounds down to the road. The barking ended. Then came two long howls, lengthened by a ghastly echo. Wolves? Were wolves still to be found here? Or perhaps it had been a shepherd’s dog, disturbed by a prowler. Remembering what she had heard about the savage dogs that guarded the lonely flocks of sheep in Greece, Cecilia did not envy the prowler.

The woman was staring up at the mountainside. Cecilia dropped to her knees as if her legs were weak. She took her left hand out of her pocket to help her rise, while the woman tried to jerk her to her feet. She got up, slowly, her hand leaving her small key wallet on the ground, her foot covering it lightly as she stood and faced the woman. From the car, the man’s voice called a question impatiently. The woman laughed as she answered, and pulled Cecilia off the road, on to the silvered meadow. The car started quickly, gathering speed, and raced along the road to start climbing again.

Across the meadow there was a goat track, not a bare path, but a narrow ribbon of grass worn down by small neat hoofs. Cecilia walked slowly over it, her right arm twisted behind her waist,
the woman at her heels, the hard mouth of the revolver digging into her ribs. Well, she thought, they must be understaffed or else I wouldn’t be here, alone, with this woman. And where had the man gone? To some place where he could hide the car? Where he could report that his mission was accomplished? I don’t quite follow this routine of theirs. Where am I being taken? Why? But better not think of that, better to stage another little stumble, now that the road was ten yards away.

She staged a perfect one, falling forward on the cool damp grass, almost pulling Xenia down with her. Again she had to take her left hand out of her pocket to help her rise. “I need two hands,” she told Xenia faintly. The woman released her arm and stepped back at once, the revolver well aimed. Very very slowly, Cecilia began to rise. This was going to be difficult. On her knees, she looked quickly up at the mountainside. “What was that?” she asked. “The dog?”

Xenia listened, too. Cecilia .stood erect, her foot hiding what she had left there; the key, with its metal label numbered and “Grande Bretagne Hotel” in large letters across its face. Swiftly, she moved beside Xenia, hoping her body would block all sight of the key lying on the path. Her eyes held Xenia’s. “There was something up there.” She pointed to the woods.

Xenia was watching her. “You are afraid?” she asked. “You are afraid the big dog will come and eat you?” She laughed, but not too convincingly.

And you are not unafraid, Cecilia thought, as she kept looking at Xenia. Thank God, the woman was too busy studying her face, waiting perhaps for some rapid movement, expecting some trick, some attack. Then she gestured with her revolver toward the part of the wood that lay near the stream. At the edge of the trees, in a sheltered corner of the meadow, Cecilia saw a square of rough stone wall and, beside it, a small lean-to. At that moment, the wild barking began once more. It sounded near, now; much nearer, certainly.

“Quick, quick!” screamed Xenia. Cecilia did not need any prodding this time. In spite of high heels, shoes sodden by the heavy dew into paper slippers, she could run as quickly as Xenia. Her arm was no longer being so tightly held. Was this the time to escape? But another series of deep harsh barks, much much nearer, made her decide that Xenia—meanwhile— was preferable. She did manage to get her notebook out of her right-hand pocket, and throw it back, to the side, as she ran. Then she was pulled through the door that Xenia had tugged open, and they were both inside the hut. Xenia barred the door, and they stood, their heads almost touching the thatched roof, in a room no more than ten feet square, with the moonlight streaming through the spaces between the vertical, stripped branches that formed three of the walls.

“Why, it’s a wickiup!” said Cecilia. She looked at Xenia, standing in moonlight stripes before her, and felt a moment of triumph. She laughed softly. “If that animal is half the dog he sounds, he will chew this place to pieces in no time at all.” She saw the angry face, distorted still more by the bars of moonlight, staring at her. All right, all right, she thought, don’t blame me because you felt so frightened. She looked now at the striped floor. It was of earth, of course, not particularly clean earth; but the hovering, rancid smell of sheep was faint. There was a lot to be said for so much ventilation. She moved over to one wicker wall, and tested its seemingly fragile strips with the palm of her hand. They would hold.

There was no furniture, just a low pile of twigs and thin branches against the one wall of rough stone opposite the door. Cecilia kicked the pile with her foot and waited to see what would run out. Nothing did. Even the mice had deserted the shepherd’s hut. She tried the bed of twigs. They were perhaps less uncomfortable, if a little noisier, than the earth floor.

“Quiet!” Xenia whispered angrily. She was listening to the soft padding of the dog around the hut. There was a clatter of stones as he leaped on top of one of the sheep-pen walls.

Cecilia moved silently to one side of the hut and stood close to a slotted opening. In front of her was the long stretch of meadow sloping gently away, and part of the road, white in the moonlight. And near the hut, not more than thirty feet away, she saw a small black patch lying on the grass. It was her notebook. She stared at it in despair. Xenia had only to step out of that doorway and look down toward the road, and she would see it. She would search the rest of the way across the meadow and find everything, everything...

“What are you looking at?” Xenia asked sharply, and took a step towards her. But the dog leaped down from the stones and ran out on the meadow. He turned to face the wicker wall, his massive muzzle pointing, his long fur rising around his thick neck, a deep growl beginning in his huge chest, working its way slowly up into his throat, barking out from the yawning jaws. Cecilia flinched back from the sound. Xenia had retreated to the door, making sure of an exit if this enormous animal came lunging through the thin walls.

Strangely, there was only that one bark. The dog still faced the hut, but he was silent. There must be someone with him, Cecilia thought. He is waiting for a signal. Someone? Not anyone that Xenia had expected, certainly.