Cold War in a Country Garden

by Lindsay Gutteridge

  The sun lit up the creek bed, revealing the subtle whites and yellows and brown of its eroded sides. Since the death of their hunters the girl had shown less compulsion to stay close to Dilke; now she bathed in the stream, washing away the white dust from her face and body; the deep-blue sky was reflected in the water. Sky, sand, water, girl: it was singularly beautiful.

  He put the transmitter to his mouth, “00.25/1 calling Department 7a.”

  He repeated the call a dozen times. The girl looked up at the sound of his voice then rose from the water and waded out of the stream, lifting her feet out of the shallows in high, graceful steps, shaking the water from her hands like a cat with wet paws.

  “This is an emergency. The original escape plan will not now work. I want you to arrange a new pick-up point with the agents in Bucharest. Listen carefully: in the aerial photograph of the terrain you will see a fence post at the south-west corner of the camp perimeter. Pick us up there; they will need a container because we are on foot. We will be there in six or seven hours. We will wait.”

  Though the transmitter might not be working, or the message might have been intercepted, Dilke had done something positive, and he now had a sense of direction.

  The girl had joined him in the shadow. She stood before him resting her weight on one leg, her hands clasped behind her, completely silhouetted except for the glimmer of her eyes which were fixed intently upon him.

  He touched the ground with his hand.

  “Sit down and rest—then we must move on.”

  She stooped obediently and sat in the sand beside him.

  “What is your name?”

  “Hyacinthe,” she replied.

  “My name is Mathew Dilke.”

  She smiled shyly at his courteous exchange of names.

  “What are you doing in Rumania?” he asked.

  “I was a student at Bucuresti University.”

  “And what were you studying?” he asked with new interest.

  “I was taking Economics and Political Science.”

  She spoke precisely, yet softly, with a musical inflection in her voice. Till now, she had followed him like a mute Girl Friday; he had thought of her as a primitive—someone to be spoken to in simple words.

  Now he explained his plans and traced on the map their route to the pick-up point. He concealed from her the possibility that the radio was not transmitting and she eagerly assumed that they would be picked up; this, together with Dilke’s friendliness, created in her a mood almost of gaiety. She was eager to move on and to help in some way and he gave her the map case to carry.

  The creek ran towards the south-west and Dilke decided to travel along the bed of the stream till it met the western fence. They followed the sun’s curve till it glowed red in the west. As they left the desolate plains and approached vegetation they saw more and more wild life, sand fleas and hoppers watering at the stream, ants crossing the water on their overland tracks. The girl became fearful and followed Dilke closely once more. At twilight they reached the towering mesh fence and turned south. The moon rose round and bright at their backs and lit their way; but Dilke walked slowly and watchfully, looking intently into the shadows, aware that he was unarmed. At intervals during their journey he repeated his broadcast and at midnight they reached the corner post. It towered three thousand millimetres above them, shining in the moonlight, supporting the high, coarse-meshed fences, one going north, the other to the east. The post was sunk into concrete which was smoothed into a dome round its base.

  They scrambled up the curve of the dome till they reached the post and Dilke looked along the road to Bucharest. It lay clear in the moonlight for miles, curving southwards to the mountains, empty of traffic. The only sounds were the wind in the high grass and the creaking of the huge metal post as it stirred in its concrete socket.

  They spent a long night sitting in the lee of the post trying to shelter from the wind, but morning found them stiff with cold and haggard from lack of sleep. A glorious sun rose, lighting the rivulets of condensation on the post and the drops of dew on the mesh. The air became warmer; the valley came to life. A man on a horse rode past at a jog, the horse wiry and slim-legged, the rider wearing Genghis Khan whiskers and a sheepskin coat. He rode with his head turned towards the camp, his eyes fixed on the old farm buildings. A boy drove goats along the road. The day passed slowly.

  Dilke made a quick excursion for food, leaving the girl to watch, and returned with seeds and eggs and they sat eating and luxuriating in the heat.

  Dilke watched the road and talked to Hyacinthe.

  Her name was Hyacinthe Yelwa Kasama. Her home was in Uganda. Her father had been a prosperous merchant who found a place in the new government when his country got its independence. Her country received loans and technical assistance from the Soviets and Hyacinthe came to Bucharest on a student grant. Things did not work out well, the new regime in Uganda did not last long, their politics were turbulent and bloody.

  The honeymoon period with the Soviets was soon over; Rumanian/Ugandan relations cooled; Negro students were not popular in Bucharest; some of the men were beaten up.

  Hyacinthe sat with her back against the post. Dilke watched her profile from where he lay. Her eyes were sad and her voice was low; she gazed across the fields of maize and sunflowers towards the Transylvanian Alps. The sound of cicadas, the tremulous songs of skylarks and her air of resignation combined to create a pervasive air of melancholy.

  “My father and my mother and my sisters and brothers were all killed in the massacres in Kampala.”

  She leaned her head back against the post and closed her eyes. He reflected that her mood of sadness made her for the moment oblivious of the new dimension in which she lived and which made her old world inaccessible.

  There was a shallow crack in the concrete, starting at the top where the post entered it. Some thistledown fell and rolled across the side of the dome. Dilke caught it, pushed it into the trench which the crack formed and trampled it down till it made a soft and springy mattress. He roused the girl from her doze and she lay down and slept.

  He sat and watched the road. During the long hot afternoon not a single vehicle, neither a car nor a tank nor a cart, passed along it.

  The sun turned red and lay in the shallow bowl of the valley; the goat herd wandered home; a grey blanket of cloud crawled over the wall of mountains and rolled down their northern slopes. The air suddenly became cold, the soft breeze dropped and the bird and insect song ceased.

  Dilke had stopped broadcasting for fear of interception. He was nagged by the fear that the the transmitter was not working. He placed it to his ear; it still sighed like a seashell. And yet he thought he detected a different sound when the switch was moved to “ON” from “OFF”—then realized that it could be the effect of a change of the instrument’s internal ascoustics.

  As it became darker it grew colder.

  A gusty wind shook the fence and the post creaked. The wind came from the mountains carrying a hint of snow and ice. Hyacinthe awoke and he climbed down into the trench and crouched beside her. They heard the thud of hooves and a slurred fragment of song on the road from Bucharest and a horseman passed them in the twilight. The horse travelled at a fast walk, its mane and the man’s jacket tossing in the wind. The rider lolled in the saddle, laughing quietly to himself.

  The storm of wind increased in violence, shaking the fence. A booming sound started in the metal corner post, fluctuating with the waves of vibration that passed along the fence. Low clouds covered the moon, the darkness was complete but for occasional flashes from the floodlights swinging over the main gate. The post rocked and creaked like the mast of a gigantic sailing ship.

  Suddenly Dilke felt the side of the trench move against his back and the mattress beneath him shifted. In a flash of horror he realized that the jerking post was opening up a fissure beneath them and he scrambled out and dragged the girl after him.

  Now they felt the full force of the wind as t
hey crouched on the curve of the dome; the singing of the fence and the clatter of dry maize leaves blowing in the fields had a soporific effect on him: his eyes closed, his head dropped on to his knees, he was exhausted after his day-long vigil and despite the cold he began to sleep.

  2

  “Mathew! Mathew!” He felt a hand on his shoulder. He came slowly out from his sleep. “Mathew!” He opened his eyes, then screwed them up against two stars of light which flared through the swaying grass blades. A car came up the road from Bucharest. He could hear the chatter of an air-cooled engine. The lights dazzled as they grew bigger and he shaded his eyes against them. The headlights, which were about to pass, suddenly swung in towards the fence, brakes squealed, the engine wheezed into neutral, a car door was flung open and a huge figure ran towards them. For a moment it shaded them from the glare, then there was a thud and the sound of metal scraping on concrete and Dilke saw a hand holding a tin box against the curve of the dome.

  “Dilke!” The word smelt of Gauloise. On the side of the box he read SICHEL VALVE TUBES. It was partly open. He took the girl’s hand and ran to it; he reached up, caught the edge of the box and pulled himself up astride it, then he pulled the girl after him. They both tumbled into the box and Dilke saw the anxious eyes of the agent staring down on them through his glasses. Dilke could almost hear the man counting the seconds; then they were plucked into the air, they heard his feet thudding through the roadside vegetation, the box crashed down on to the dashboard shelf, the door slammed and the gears jerked through first, second, third. The agent left the box partly open and the dashboard light threw a faint glow into its interior.

  The box was half-full of yellow valve tubes.

  They were big and flexible, like soft rubber drainpipes, and they rolled about the floor of the box as the car jolted over ruts. Dilke sat against the box wall fending them off with his feet when they rolled towards him.

  Enclosed by the bare metal walls the cold was even more biting than it had been out in the wind.

  Hyacinthe huddled against him, shuddering. He slackened his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering but still they clicked together.

  The car stopped at the border.

  Dilke dragged one of the big tubes crosswise in the box and jammed the rest against the end wall. The valve tubes were seven millimetres long and about two millimetres in diameter and—compared to the box—were warm to the touch.

  “Hyacinthe!”

  She jumped up to help him with the tubes.

  “No!” he cried, “Get inside.”

  She crawled in and as the engine started he crawled in beside her.

  The soft tension of the tube drew their cold bodies together.

  They were across the border and travelling west. All day he had been aware—though he had pushed the thought away—that they might never escape, but might die of hunger and exposure at the side of the Bucharest road.

  After a while their shared body-heat within the confined tube warmed them. They lay on their sides, facing each other, the girl’s long thin body against Dilke; she shifted slightly and the sharp prominence of her pelvic bones pressed into him.

  The warmth and intimacy and the sure knowledge that they had crossed the border eased Dilke’s tension.

  “You are a bony girl!” he said lightly. “We must fatten you up when we get you home.”

  The girl’s body shook. The jest was a poor one, he put an arm diffidently around her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. Hyacinthe stifled a gasp and suddenly, Dilke realized that she was laughing.

  The movement within the box was erratic, but the thick rubber wall cushioned them against the jolts.

  The road became smoother, the engine sound steadied into a drone.

  “I’d like to be fat,” she breathed drowsily.

  3

  The morning light shining through the translucent yellow rubber was soft and warm. Dilke woke and looked down at the girl; she slept against him with her forearms together, her palms on his chest and her head on his shoulder. Dilke felt cramped but did not want to disturb her. His belly rumbled and suddenly he realized that they had not eaten for twelve hours. He gazed out of the tube into the container. Hyacinthe had thrown the map case into a corner of the box, but Dilke knew that it contained no food, and he calculated that it might be three days before they reached London.

  As if prompted by his thoughts he heard the woman say, “We can’t leave them like that, John. We must find a better thing to put them in. And let’s stop at the next coffee place for breakfast.”

  The car drew off on to a graveiled surface and stopped. John bent his head to the glove box and boomed, “We’re just going for a coffee, we’ll try and bring you something back.”

  After fifteen minutes the key clicked and the door swung open; Dilke crawled out of the tube and peered over the edge of the box. The man was in regulation English holiday kit: slacks, sports jacket, Paisley neck scarf; he sat behind the wheel, deposited a fresh supply of Gauloises in the glove box and cleared a space next to the tin box.

  The woman came into the car backwards carrying a cardboard tumbler in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other. She carefully lowered herself into the seat, produced a bright-blue plastic spoon and, filling it with coffee, laid it on the shelf beside the box. With a penknife the man scraped at the surface of the chocolate, making a small pile of flakes next to the spoon.

  Hyacinthe followed Dilke out of the box.

  Steaming black coffee lay in the huge bowl of the spoon; Dilke put an exploratory finger into the liquid. It was scalding hot so they turned to the chocolate; the smaller shavings could be picked up and eaten without trouble, and there were fragments of nut amongst the flakes of bitter dark chocolate.

  The agents sat and shared the remainder of the bar. They crouched together, their noses almost touching the edge of the shelf, their gaze fixed on the ant-like creatures.

  Hyacinthe watched them with big eyes; she was unused to seeing normal beings at such close range. A forest of hair sprouted in the man’s nostrils, his eyes slid in the green depths of his sunglasses. A thick red grease of lipstick shone on the woman’s lips and the pores of her skin were filled with chalk-like face powder. Their jaws broke up the chocolate like rock crushers.

  Hyacinthe was alarmed at their unwinking stares and she glanced at Dilke for reassurance. He sat cross-legged, a slab of chocolate between his hands, chewing stolidly, returning the stares of the gross giants.

  The coffee was cold enough to drink and they drank it from their cupped hands, then they returned to the box carrying lumps of chocolate with them.

  Dilke rearranged the valve tubes so that the one in which they slept was supported on the others. It insulated them even more from the cold tin floor and the jolting of the car; it was warm but claustrophobic.

  It took two days and a night of hard driving to get to Ostend. While waiting in line for the evening ferry to Dover the relief driver thought of the “better thing to put them in”. She produced from her handbag a circular compact, removed the powder container and put a soft new powder puff into it. She placed it beside their tin bedchamber and the man, who seemed to have been elected spokesman invited them into their new home.

  The powder compact was a huge golden oyster, the floor a soft, pink, circular bed, the interior of the halfopen lid an enormous round mirror. The puff was as soft as a thousand blades of wool; they waded to its centre and fell back with arms spread. Dilke repressed a desire to bounce up and down like a small boy on a feather bed. Hyacinthe sat up and examined herself in the mirror; she took back her long, unruly hair and knotted it behind her head. Dilke closed his eyes.

  The smell of face-powder hung in the air.

  “Smells like a bloody ladies’ boudoir!” He heard Bill Olsen’s sardonic voice in his imagination. Memories of the hunting expeditions in the sunlit garden and the evenings by the fire on the threshold of the Kremlin chamber floated through his mind.

  They crossed the Channe
l and at midnight they came into Dover. Dilke listened to the man and the woman talking; they were tired and they agreed that as the office would not be open till nine thirty there was no reason to drive straight to London. They rode through Dover and pulled into the first lay-by on the A.2.

  Dilke lay and watched the agents reflected in the mirror over his head; the woman curled up in the back and the man dozed in the front.

  Dilke closed his eyes again.

  The sun had gone out of his memories; they were now sombre; he reviewed once more the worn movie of the night on Volsk’s head. The car rocked in the turbulent air waves left by passing container trucks… a patrol car wailed past, the revolving bowl on its roof throwing a flashing corpse-blue light on the side of the sleeping agent’s face… a rainstorm drifted in from the Channel, whispering across the countryside, drumming on the roof of the car, trickling in jerking blobs down the car windows…

  Dilke slept and had a dream.

  He dreamt that he was at the Kremlin. In place of the sliding brass door covering the entrance to the lock were two glass slides. He was imprisoned between them; far below on the foot of the shed he could see a tiny figure; he watched it, his heart thudding with apprehension. It began to grow in size as if exploding from within; it grew into a monstrous naked figure, superbly muscled; on the column of its neck was a wolf’s head. The head revolved on the neck; a light behind the blue eyes flashed on and off as the head spun slowly round; from its jaws came a fluctuating howl. The monster’s fingers pressed a doll-like figure to its chest; Dilke’s eyes widened. It was Hyacinthe. She faced Dilke; her legs and feet together, her arms raised stiffly sideways, her palms towards him. His eyes were fixed on her trancelike face; the eyes were shut, and slowly, a tear of blood welled up beneath each lowered lid. The drops grew in size then rolled over the curve of her cheeks and splashed down on to the fingers of the huge hands.