The Broken Penny

by Julian Symons

  ‘We’re wasting time.’ Bretherton led the way downstairs again into the garage. The Colonel pulled down a switch at the top of the stairs and the wall at the end of the garage rolled up to reveal a silver aeroplane.

  ‘A hangar,’ Arbitzer said in surprise. The Colonel chuckled.

  ‘No, Professor, a warehouse. Pull down another switch, make it two rooms as shutters roll down from the roof, pull down another, make it four. No room for a plane then, eh? Never heard such nonsense, a plane indeed. Then take the shutters up, got a ready-made hangar. Fine flat meadow outside, good landing field. Useful, eh?’ The Colonel scratched his bald head. ‘Uncommon useful sometimes for our friends.’

  ‘You talk too much,’ Bretherton said. The doors that opened on to the landing field rolled up. Slowly and silently they rolled out the plane and then stopped in darkness lightened only by Granz’s torch. This disappeared abruptly as he jumped inside. He reappeared wearing a helmet. ‘Come on.’ The women got in first. The alsatian Nicko gave vent to one protesting howl, and jumped in. Arbitzer followed and then Garden. ‘Good luck,’ the Colonel shouted hoarsely. Garden waved an invisible hand and slammed the door. Inside he struck a match, sat down opposite Arbitzer and listened to the throbbing engines. From in front Granz shouted, ‘All right’. The plane taxied along the ground for what seemed an interminable time. Shall we never rise? Garden thought, and realised that they were in the air.

  It has often been remarked that there is something about air travel which offers a release to the spirit. So Garden now, embowelled in this great insect buzzing meaningfully over the earth, felt doubt and distrust washing away from him, leaving pure and free the spirit of adventure that a few minutes ago he had been lamenting as lost. He put away from him the thought of Peterson’s body as he had seen it on the pier, his doubts about the organisation headed by the Colonel. All that appeared now to belong to the past, to be unimportant, and in a way absurd. Danger, excitement and the chance of death lay ahead of them and he could face them now, as he had done long ago, with a calm and even happy heart.

  From the seat beside him, Arbitzer’s voice said, ‘Charles.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you worried about our mission? About me? Do not worry.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ Garden said truthfully.

  ‘Katerina does not believe me, but I feel in myself a passion and strength more than that of an old man. It is good to be going back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whatever happens I shall not regret it. For you it is different. You have much to lose, little to gain. I want you to know that I am grateful. And glad you are with me.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Garden said. ‘People do what they want to do. If we succeed this is the kind of thing I’ve wanted to do all my life. And if what Granz and the papers and everybody else says is true, there’s very little danger.’

  ‘Granz was always an optimist.’

  The lights came on and made them blink. Ahead of them Granz held up a thumb. Arbitzer was looking with mild earnestness at Garden. His wife presented pathetically slumped shoulders with a little dandruff on them. Across the aisle from her Ilona stared out of the window into darkness, one hand smoothing the fur of the dog Nicko.

  Garden walked up the aisle, squatted behind Granz and shouted, ‘How long?’

  ‘About three hours.’ Granz turned round and grinned like an overgrown boy. ‘Time for a little sleep. How do you feel?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Jacob?’

  ‘He’s fine too. You’re sure everything’s laid on at the airport, there won’t be any trouble?’

  For answer Granz stuck his broad thumb into the air again. On the way back to his seat Garden stopped by Ilona. Nicko put up his head and growled.

  ‘What did you really come on this trip for?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you. I might meet the man who took away my husband and my son.’

  ‘I don’t believe you want revenge as badly as that.’

  ‘Believe what you like, why should I care? I am not going back because of those fine words you used, that is what you would like to believe, isn’t it? It’s not so.’ The hand that was stroking the dog bunched into a ball. The hand was thin, the fingers long and narrow. ‘The world is not like that. Force and weakness. What else is there?’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  She shook her yellow head angrily. ‘Of course you do. There are those who use force and those they use it on, nothing else. Not only in the Communist countries, everywhere. Stand up and talk about the brotherhood of man, somebody puts a bullet in you, where’s the brotherhood of man then? You talk cant about your ideals, other people’s totalitarianism. What does it really mean? They shoot their enemies, you put yours in prison for twenty years and call yourselves humanitarian. What have you had in England the last few years but the poor robbing the rich? Let them rob them then, but do it honestly, not as if it were an honour to be robbed. What is it but cant? I hate it.’

  ‘That’s not what your husband believed.’

  ‘He was a fool. If he hadn’t been a fool he and my son would be alive today.’

  ‘You don’t like me, you make that very plain.’

  ‘I don’t dislike you.’ She stared out into darkness. ‘Or like you. I think you’re a fool.’

  ‘But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.’

  ‘Because I’m a fool too.’ She spoke with a note of finality.

  Garden returned to his own seat and closed his eyes. Now we are over Europe, he thought, over the melting pot where the violence of men’s hope and suffering has simmered down in the last decade to hopeless acquiescence in what is done to them. Can we flutter that acquiescence, change it to some kind of action? Will people open their papers in two or three days’ time and read about changes that give them some hope for the future? Hope for the future, he thought comfortably, hope for the future, hope for the, hope for, hope… He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and felt the bulk of the revolver. Then he fell asleep. The next thing he knew was a shout from Granz, ‘Ten minutes.’ He opened his eyes and sat up. Arbitzer and his wife were talking together. The girl had taken out her bag and was making up her face. She said to him, ‘You were snoring.’

  Part Two

  FULFILMENT

  Chapter One

  The plane landed like a feather. Garden opened the door and jumped out. A light rain was falling. Three men, two short and one tall, advanced toward them over the shining tarmac. Granz got out and stood beside Garden. His voice bubbled with excitement. ‘Cetkovitch, the one in the middle is Cetkovitch, you remember him, a good man. The others, Udansky and Matchek, I don’t know if you remember them, were they in your time? Good men anyway, all good men. Let us go to meet them.’ Arbitzer was with them now and Granz pulled his arm, as though prepared to propel him along by sheer exuberance. Garden dropped behind, and followed with the two women and the dog. The airfield was perfectly quiet except for the sound of their feet on the tarmac. Lights showed in the control tower and the reception hall.

  ‘Not many to receive us,’ Ilona said to Garden. Her voice was not loud, but Granz heard her. He turned his head and snapped, ‘Did you expect the whole committee to come?’

  A moment later the two groups met, and Cetkovitch stepped forward to embrace Arbitzer. ‘Welcome home again, Mr President. On behalf of the National Liberation Committee, I greet you.’

  ‘Thank you, Cetkovitch.’

  ‘May I present committee members Udansky and Matchek.’ It was all too polite and formal, Garden thought. Udansky was a little barrel-like man with a gigantic smile. Matchek was thin and dark. There was an all-round shaking of hands. Garden remembered Cetkovitch. He was a handsome man with curling grey hair, by profession a lawyer. He said to Garden, ‘Very happy to see you, Charles. It has been a long time.’ They walked toward the reception hall. ‘It is perfectly safe here, only our men are on duty, the commandant has seen to that. But still it is better not to
linger. We have two cars outside. That is just as well I see. We were not expecting such a large party.’ He glanced at the two women.

  ‘It was difficult.’

  Cetkovitch took off the scarf he was wearing and gave it to Arbitzer. ‘Put this round your face as we go through the hall. We must not take chances.’ Arbitzer obediently wound the scarf round the lower part of his face.

  There were three men in the reception hall, wearing the light blue uniform of the national airways staff. They straightened up as they saw Cetkovitch and Granz, looked curiously at the others. Cetkovitch merely nodded, and in two minutes they were out of the building and in the cars. Cetkovitch drove one, with Granz, Arbitzer and his wife and Garden in it. Matchek drove the other car. He said to Ilona as the dog jumped in, ‘You are very fond of this dog, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am touched. Are you not untouched, Udansky?’ The little barrel of a man merely chuckled and slammed the door.

  ‘Come now, tell me how things are going?’ Granz said to Cetkovitch as they drove off. ‘There have been no suspicions, no accidents, no trouble? Everything is ready for tomorrow?’

  ‘Everything is ready, Theodore. Nothing will go wrong.’ Cetkovitch’s voice was calm, with a slight note of superiority. ‘We have been waiting only for you, Jacob, your presence makes things certain. You sleep tonight at my house. Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock we move to take control of all radio stations, telephone exchanges and public buildings. That is all arranged. Peplov has done wonders with the organisation in the north–’

  Arbitzer murmured, ‘Peplov. I shall not forget that name.’

  ‘All leading figures in the government will be placed under arrest. The army is on our side, and they will look after the People’s Police in case of fighting. But I do not think there will be fighting when we are able to announce the President’s return.’

  Unexpectedly Katerina Arbitzer spoke. ‘They love him. They all love him. Jacob, my dear, we were right to come back.’

  Garden had been peering out of the window. ‘The streets are very quiet.’

  Granz chuckled. ‘They are preparing for the – national holiday. What’s that?’

  They had passed out of the town centre into one of the western suburbs. Four men in the black coats and stiff caps of the People’s Police were pulling a fifth man into a car. The fifth man’s face was covered with blood. A woman was tugging at the coat of one of the policemen and as they passed he struck her head with his blackjack. Garden saw her fall, almost in slow motion, to the pavement. Under the blue electric moons of the lamp standards the street was silent, except for the purring of the long black car at the kerb, and the sound of their own car passing it.

  ‘Stop,’ Granz cried. He pulled at Cetkovitch’s arm. ‘That was one of our men. Stop, Cetkovitch.’

  Cetkovitch accelerated a little. ‘Don’t be a fool. Do you want the President to be involved in a street brawl tonight?’

  ‘How long are we going to let those bastards–’

  ‘Until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘All right, I know I am wrong. I am always wrong. I have nothing in my head but sawdust, I know that, but when I see them–’ He left the sentence unfinished and then said meditatively, ‘They’ve been too frightened to try any strong-arm stuff for a long time now. Why should they start again tonight, that’s all I want to know.’

  Nobody answered him. Five minutes later their car ran into the garage of Cetkovitch’s house, with Udansky’s just behind it.

  Cetkovitch’s house was that of a prosperous lawyer who, Garden remembered, had made his peace with the new government quite early, at a time when they had been anxious to keep the professional classes on their side. The lighting was indirect, the carpet luxuriously thick, the furnishings delicately opulent. A tall woman with a fine aquiline nose and a firm chin waited for them in a wide, high hall. This must be Cetkovitch’s wife, Garden thought. The woman embraced Katerina Arbitzer and led her upstairs. The girl followed, trailing behind them with the dog at her heels. A murmur of voices came from a room at the right.

  Arbitzer suddenly said to Cetkovitch, ‘No.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Katerina has shared my journey. There is much more that she will have to face. She should be at my side when I meet our friends.’

  ‘Come now, Jacob, this is serious business.’ The women had paused on the stairs.

  ‘For a few minutes,’ Arbitzer said with a kind of old man’s obstinacy. ‘Let her come in for a few minutes.’

  The diplomacy of Cetkovitch’s voice was wearing thin. ‘This is a revolution, Jacob, not a reception.’

  ‘For a few minutes,’ Arbitzer repeated. Cetkovitch began to say something and then stopped. Katerina came slowly down the stairs again, and put her hand on her husband’s arm. Ilona, as before, trailed behind them with the dog following her. Udansky hurried forward and opened the door. In the room a dozen people stopped talking as the door opened. Arbitzer and his wife went through it together. It was all, Garden thought again, much more like a reception than a revolution. A yard inside the door Arbitzer stood still and said in a firm, clear voice: ‘My friends, you have asked me to come back. Here I am. Let us work together for the good of our country.’

  Now people were crowding round the visitors, talking and laughing. Garden was introduced to half a dozen people as ‘the Englishman who has come to help the fight for freedom’. It was all like old times, wasn’t it? Perhaps. Yet there was about the whole thing – this room with the Impressionist paintings on the walls, the porcelain shepherdesses on the mantelpiece – something of a dreamlike absurdity, something so removed from Garden’s past experience that he felt as if he were taking part in a musical comedy. In an effort to shake off this deepening impression of unreality he said to Granz, ‘Which is he, this famous Peplov?’

  Granz was looking over heads. ‘Yes, where is he? Cetkovitch, where is Peplov? What can be keeping him?’

  ‘Don’t disturb yourself, Theodore,’ Cetkovitch said with his calmly superior air. ‘Peplov said he would be a little late.’

  Matchek sneered a little. ‘He wishes to show his importance. To be a little late, that is a good tactic.’

  Garden found Ilona by his side. ‘Are you disappointed, Mr Garden? It is not romantic enough for you, I expect. You like meetings in cellars.’ She bent down to pat the dog’s neck. ‘Nicko is hungry.’

  ‘Ah, here he is,’ said Granz.

  The door opened and a man walked in with a quick, slightly nervous step. He was of medium height, perhaps in his late thirties, with a plump friendly face, a pleasant colour in his cheeks and a thatch of dark hair. He was dressed in a neat dark suit, and looked like the keeper of a small grocer’s shop dressed up for some specially important occasion. A man who would smile readily, Garden thought, although his face was wholly serious now as he advanced across the room to Arbitzer, who stood leaning slightly on his stick.

  Just behind Garden Ilona Arbitzer screamed, a thin piercing sound that cut through the thin wave of conversation. Her words, perfectly clear and coherent, appalling in their sense and implications, followed close upon the scream. ‘That is the man who took away my husband and my son. He is an agent of the police. You have been betrayed.’

  They stood frozen into attitudes of passivity, staring at Peplov. The round-faced man himself stopped, for what may have been one or two seconds, but seemed an endless length of time. Then, with surprising speed, he moved for the door. Ilona cried, ‘Get him, Nicko,’ and the dog sprang after the man. Peplov pulled out a pistol, fired once and missed. Then the dog was on him and they rolled together on the floor.

  What followed was, like almost all scenes of violent action, extremely confusing. There were sounds of beating on an outer door, then shots. Two or three of the men had joined with the dog in tackling Peplov on the floor, with the effect of a rugby scrum. Peplov got free of the dog and struck it on the head with the butt-end of his pistol. The dog yelped once, a
high cry of pain, and by Garden’s side the girl cried out also. Garden pulled Cetkovitch’s arm and said, ‘We must get Jacob away. The car.’

  Cetkovitch pointed to a door across the room. ‘Out there, down the stairs to the cellar. At the end of the cellar a pile of wood. Push it aside, a passage leads to an empty house in the next street. There’s a garage with a car in it. You may be lucky. We will try to cover you. Take Granz.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘If you get away try to get to Baritsa and rouse our friends. While Jacob is free we have a chance.’

  ‘What about you?’ Garden asked again.

  ‘Jacob is our chance.’ The assumption of superiority had fallen away from Cetkovitch. ‘We shall manage. Now go.’

  There was a tinkle of glass as a bullet came through the window and buried itself in the ceiling. A voice outside shouted something unintelligible. A woman was screaming. Arbitzer seemed dazed. Garden seized his arm and pulled him toward the door. Katerina Arbitzer followed. ‘Granz,’ Garden shouted, ‘Granz.’ The big man had been helping to push a sideboard against the door. Now he ran over to them.

  ‘I trusted him, Garden,’ he said and kept repeating it. ‘I trusted him, I trusted him.’

  ‘Come on.’ Granz followed the Arbitzers through the door. There was an irregular but continual patter of shots. Cetkovitch had organised the men in the room remarkably quickly. Two or three guarded the door, the rest took cover and fired out of the windows. They all seemed to have revolvers. Glass from broken windows lay about the room, but nobody seemed to be hurt, although one of the china shepherdesses had been hit. Garden found himself pushed aside by Katerina Arbitzer, who was crying, ‘Ilona, Ilona.’

  The girl was on the floor, holding the dog Nicko in her arms. ‘Killed him, he killed him,’ she said. Peplov lay on the floor, dead or unconscious. The girl got up, drew back her foot and kicked him feebly in the stomach. There were more shots. Where were they all coming from?