Silent Partner

by Leigh Brackett

  “Karim sees that I’m comfortable.” She handed him a bowl of yogurt and some bread. “I’m sorry there isn’t more."

  “That’s fine. Thanks.” He ate ravenously. When he was finished, Ellen took the bowl away and then sat down again and waited for him to speak. Tony listened to the oil lamp hissing in the niche and searched for words. It was a futile effort.

  “I don’t have any excuses,” he said helplessly. “I don’t have any explanations. It’s all been said. So what’s the use?"

  “I’d still like to know how you got here."

  He told her, sketching it short and hard, right down to the moment. She listened, making no comment. He was painfully aware that he did not come out of it too well, but he told it as it was. Then he said, “You were going straight on to Isfahan. How did Karim get hold of you?”

  “He was very well informed, and of course, now I see how. I was in Teheran only two hours, between planes, and I never left the airport. It didn’t occur to me that he could know. When I arrived at Isfahan, there was a man at the airport holding up a card with my name on it—you know how they do—and the name of the hotel I had booked into. He had a car, with the hotel name on it, to drive me in. So naturally I went with him, and here I am. I understand another girl was sent off to Rome with my passport."

  “Yes. I was afraid you were dead.”

  Her brows went up. “You sound as thought it might really have mattered to you.”

  “It was bad enough thinking I might have got Harvey killed. When I heard about you, it was just too much.”

  She offered him no vast amount of comfort. “They had a sound enough reason not to kill me. I inherited Harvey’s share, you remember. If I had really disappeared, there would have been years of folderol about getting me declared legally dead, during which time the company would be hopelessly tied up. I think the idea was to keep the body alive until they were ready to produce it somewhere, properly identified, at their convenience. Meanwhile, I've been careful not to sign any papers.”

  “Thank God, anyway.”

  She shook her head. “Careful, Tony. You're beginning to sound involved.”

  “Involved,” he said. His face flushed, and he fought down a furious impulse to cuff her. “I’m involved, all right. And I can’t help what's already happened, so get off my back. I’m through saying I'm sorry.”

  He got up and began to prowl the room. There was no window, only a small opening under the roof for ventilation. He tried the door and found it immovable, then went on to peer into the two adjoining rooms. Ellen watched him, her eyes narrowed and thoughtful.

  “Did Karim say what happens next?”

  “Only that he had a use for me, and I’m about to take a long trip.”

  “Mm. This village is too close to Teheran to be safe for very long. They’ll be beating the bushes, turning over every stone. Besides, it’s only a way station, part of the chain. Karim will want to get back to his own headquarters. I'd guess that he's taking you along as a hostage in case he runs into trouble.”

  “Possible.” The lamplight did not go far into the other rooms. Only far enough to show that they both were small and lacked windows. “This is a hell of a way to build a house. What do they do for light and air?”

  “Leave the door open. In this sort of climate the object is to keep cool when it's hot and warm when it's cold. And did you think it would be as easy as climbing out a window?" He looked at her, and she said, “Well, you are thinking of getting away.”

  “Damn right I am.” He returned to the door and scowled at it, testing it again with his weight.

  “You’d wake the whole village battering at it,” she said, “and you’d still be inside the wall. And the dogs here don't like strangers. Did Karim mention me at all?”

  “No.” He turned from the door, knowing she was right, feeling desperate, wishing Zacharian were here to tell him what to do. He thought of Zacharian’s tiger-eyed delight in the game for its own sake. He didn’t think he would ever be like that even if he managed to live long enough. “There’s got to be some way. You’ve been here awhile; you must have some ideas.”

  “I have, most of them negative. What’s the object, Tony?”

  “What do you mean, what’s the object?”

  “Are you running just to be running? And what about me? Karim can hardly leave me here alive now, you know. He’ll either take me for a hostage as well, or—” She made an expressive gesture. “Obviously, my usefulness to the company no longer exists.”

  He went and squatted down in front of her. “Let’s get this understood. I am going to nail that bastard to the cross if it’s the last thing I ever do. I—”

  “Why?"

  “Why? Look, I’ll admit I’ve been a bum—all right, I’m sorry, make it a no-good—all my life, but I’ve been one on my own time. And I’ll admit I never did anything for my country, but I never did anything against it either. Now he’s made me responsible for a lot of things I don’t want to be responsible for, and if he pulls off this revolt or secession or whatever you call it, he’ll make my country responsible, too. It’s like inviting somebody into your house and treating them well and liking them and thinking they like you, and then finding out—”

  He ran out of breath. When he got it again, he said, “I want to get out and back to the main road, where I can get help. I want to stop him right here. Or at least stop him from getting very far away. Is there any chance of doing that?”

  "There might be. I still want to know—”

  “Could you keep up with me?”

  She laughed. “I’ll give you three furlongs and beat you handily." She studied his face, probing him as she had done once before. This time he bore it steadily, and she nodded. “You have changed. It’ll be interesting to see how much. What time is it?"

  He checked his watch. “A little after midnight."

  “We have to make it before daylight or wait until tomorrow night."

  “That’ll be too late.”

  “Well, we can try.” She rose and took the lamp. “How are you at working, Tony? Nasty, mean, hard work.” She led the way into one of the small rooms, a tiny cubicle with storage niches and a couple of chests, reed matting on the floor, a ventilation hole high up on the outside wall.

  Tony looked around. “So what?"

  She pointed to a spot above his head and behind him. He craned his neck while she held the lamp higher. In the low ceiling just at the angle of the wall where it was least likely to be noticed by anyone glancing into the room, there was the gnawed beginning of a hole.

  He reached up and touched the haggled poplar poles. Two of them had been cut through and the sections removed. “My God," he said, “what did you do, chew them out with your teeth like a beaver?”

  From a hiding place under the mat she produced a curious little knife with a wooden handle and a short, curved blade. “I only managed to get this two days ago. It's a weaver's knife. The yarn is knotted, and then the ends are cut, so." She made a sharp downward stroke. “Makes the nap of the carpet. I’m something of an expert now."

  “How come?”

  “I told Karim he’d have to give me something to do if he didn't want me going straight around the bend. He's not an evil man, Tony. He's a true believer. He doesn’t do anything for pleasure, for gain, or for meanness, but only for the cause. In between times he’s quite decent. He was actually very badly cut up about Harvey."

  “My heart bleeds.”

  “In any case he let me go down and work in the weaving room. If I manage to get out of this alive, I’m going to buy that carpet. I must have made a good quarter of it myself. The girls were delighted to teach me. Do you know, the littlest one is only seven?” She handed him the knife. “I hid that in a hank of yarn and waited for them to search these rooms. Yadollah tore through everything like a whirlwind, then made some of the women strip me and search my clothes. They finally decided I didn’t have it, so I was able to smuggle it up. They blamed the little one for
losing it, poor child. I couldn’t help that.” She produced two strips of cloth, much the worse for wear. “You can wrap your hands in these. I was reckoning on another two nights, if nobody caught me. It ought to go better with two of us, especially if we don’t have to bother cleaning up.”

  “So we do make it through to the roof,” said Tony. "What then?”

  “We jump to the top of the wall. It’s only about three feet. The wall is, oh, eighteen feet high, I would judge. We hang by our hands and drop. Then we run like hell. Don’t break that blade, or we will be doing it with our teeth.”

  Tony looked at her in awed admiration. “You had this all worked out, and you were going to do it all by yourself?”

  “It comes of watching The Avengers," she said. “Would Emma Peel have sat meekly awaiting her fate? Unfortunately —” She cocked an eyebrow at Tony.

  “I know,” he said sourly, picking up the unspoken comment. “I wouldn’t look good in a bowler.”

  They laughed. Then Ellen went abruptly quiet. “All the same,” she said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  She went to watch the door, and he went to work, wishing he had her kind of guts.

  Well, who knew? Perhaps he did have, buried away down at the bottom underneath all the rubbish. He had always taken such good care never to find out. He had even managed to skate around his Army duty, petering out a hitch in the Reserves with the aid of college deferments and the careful nurturing of some useful allergies, so that he had been able to spend most of his camp time in sick bay admiring his own cleverness. It wasn’t that he had any particular bias against the Vietnam War. He simply disapproved of anything that interfered with the disorderly existence of Tony Wales.

  Sir Johnny-Jump-Up, gentle knight, never did learn how to fight . . . Now he was in a mess he couldn’t skate around, and he could have used some survival techniques.

  It was difficult working overhead, and he was amazed that she had done as much as she had. The little knife curved the wrong way, and the edge was rapidly losing its keenness against the poplar wood. Clay dust sifted down over him, gritting in his mouth and eyes and ears, caking with the sweat on his face. His shoulders ached, screamed, became numb. When he could no longer lift his arms, he stumbled out for air and let Ellen take over while he listened at the door.

  Time pressed, suffocatingly. He was afraid to look at his watch. They took turns in spells that became shorter as they tired, and Tony bitterly regretted the loss of the pep pills he had brought from home, which had gone to invigorate the air above the burning villa. After they had hacked away another section of pole to make an opening, the work went faster. The thin layer of stucco came away easily. Above that were reed matting and peeled branches and a layer of thorn to hold the clay roof. The floor became a shambles. Choking in dust, blinded by things falling in his face, Tony pulled and tore, snapping dry branches by sheer weight, using the cut sections of pole to break out chunks of mingled clay and thorn.

  Eventually, suitably, it was Ellen who punched through to the cold night air and the stars.

  16

  They stood on the sturdier of the two chests, widening the hole, exhaustion forgotten in hope and the overriding fear that someone would hear or happen in, catching them at the very edge of freedom.

  Ellen said, “I think I can make it now.”

  He gave her a leg up, and she squirmed through, as mud-colored as the roof she lay on. In a moment her face appeared.

  “It's all right, but we must hurry. They don't lie late abed here.”

  They were not worried now what they did to their hands, and with her working from the top, the edges of the hole crumbled swiftly to a size that Tony thought might fit him. He handed her his jacket and went up, ripping his shirt and the hide underneath, and for one awful moment he thought he was stuck. Ellen braced her feet and heaved without mercy, popping him out like a cork onto the roof. They crouched there panting, shivering as the cold air touched their inelegantly sweated bodies. The village still slept in the starlight, a companionable huddle of small buildings all leaning together for comfort. Beyond the wall was a vast, empty quiet.

  As Ellen had said, the top of the wall was close by and a little below them. An easy jump by daylight, less easy by night. Nevertheless, they made it. The hanging-by-the-hands bit was well and good except that there was nothing to hang to but a rounded crumbling edge. Tony decided to jump free. He came down on all fours, knocking his wind out with his own knees. Ellen was more graceful. They picked themselves up and ran over stony wind-scoured ground toward the gardens where the poplars grew, roof poles for future generations. When they had the wall of the nearest garden between themselves and the village, they halted and listened, standing close together, and all Tony could hear was Ellen’s hard breathing and the hammering of his own. heart.

  “I think we made it.”

  Her hand found his, held it tightly. “Now what? The track lies over there—”

  “If we stay on it, they’ll have us back in nothing flat. No. We'll go the other way and try to circle around.”

  “We may get lost.”

  “It's that or get caught.” Tony was inexperienced, but even to him it was obvious that the clear way to the main road would be the first place they would look. “How long do we have before they find out we’re gone?"

  She looked at the sky and considered. “They open my cage and feed me as soon as the morning bread is baked. Perhaps an hour, perhaps less.”

  Tony said, “I wish I had a gun.”

  They started off into the wilderness.

  The village stood in a flat, open space surrounded by low hills, an oasis held painfully against the desert. There were plowed fields straggling along the line of an ancient qanat with its humped wells. Then the dry land began, barren valleys laid between bare rock ridges. The air was cold and pure, the sky a clear glory of stars that faded as the hills began to grow and take on color, barely hinted at at first, pale tans and grays, a darker chocolate, the eastern ridges black against pearl flushing gently to rose-pink. The valleys gleamed. The hills seemed suddenly to leap forward in the crystal air, colors shifting now to amethyst and rose, very tender and beautiful. Then with incredible swiftness the sun had bounded up; the sky was a hard bright blue; the desert was stripped of all but its naked bones and the old wounds of erosion.

  Tony and Ellen came out on a brow of rock, whence they could see the village. They lay resting and watching, grateful for the first of the day’s heat. The smoke of cooking fires rose above the houses, bending to the west. Men were going to the fields. Flocks were on their way to pasture, black goats and gray-white sheep herded by little boys. A man passed through the gate riding a loaded donkey and driving five more ahead. The sound of their harness bells did not carry, but Tony could hear the faint barking of dogs. The scene had a timeless and enduring peacefulness that was almost hypnotic.

  “It looks as though they've been living that way forever."

  “Give or take a year," said Ellen, “they have."

  “What do they do?”

  “They work.”

  “I know, but what do they do for fun?”

  “Depends on what you mean by fun. The women laugh and chatter whatever they're doing. The children play games when they're done working. The men smoke and talk. Every once in a while there's a festival or a wedding. They survive.”

  “Are they happy?"

  “Amazingly enough, you know, they seem to be."

  “No need for sarcasm,” Tony said, and groaned. “I wish I had a benny. Or at least a cup of coffee. I'm beat. How are you?"

  “Got my second wind. I'll do.”

  “There are times," said Tony, “when I hate the British.”

  A battered farm truck with several men crouching in it came bolting through the village gate and off down the track, missing the donkeys which went plunging into a field while the drover shook both fists in the air after the truck. A plume of dust soared skyward, continuing to mark the progress o
f the vehicle even after it went out of sight behind a spur. A moment later little groups of men appeared, some mounted on donkeys, others afoot. They milled about in confusion for a time while the men in the fields came back to join them, and then apparently someone began issuing decisive orders. The groups separated and moved off in various directions.

  “I hope," said Tony, “they're not too good at tracking."

  He took a last sighting on the pale-brown finger of dust that smeared across the blue sky, trying to orient it with the sun. They slid back off the rock so as not to show on the skyline and set off in the direction the truck had taken, which should lead them to the main road.

  By midmorning they were hopelessly lost. It was all very well to use the sun as a guidepost, but the sun moved. The twisted gullies and tumbled ridges kept them moving as well, going this way and that until they were utterly confused. They took bearings frequently, using their own shadows as indicators, and Ellen was better at the business by far than Tony, having done much climbing on holidays in the Lake Country. Even so, the detours forced on them by the rough terrain left them uncertain of how much progress they were actually making in the direction they thought was right.

  Second wind ran out. Neither had slept nor eaten, and both were tired from the night’s strain. Now heat and thirst began to torment them. The rocks became scorching to the touch; the valleys were like ovens. The sun was a great gold burning sponge in the dry sky, sucking the moisture out of their bodies until even their eyeballs felt like pebbles sunk in sand. A wind rose and blew the dust along under the hills, whistling through the gorges with a cruel eagerness. From time to time, mockingly in the far distance, they could glimpse the high white head of the Elburz, cool with snow.

  It became necessary to rest more and more often. Ellen did not complain, but Tony could see for himself what she was too proud to say. She was already clay-smeared and draggled from the night’s work, and now her beautiful hair was blown in dusty tangles, her fair skin reddening under the fierce sun, her features pinched with thirst and weariness. A California child, he was much more used to sun and heat than she and took them better. He was glad there was one field in which he could excel.