Decision at Delphi

by Helen Macinnes

  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.

  “He is still there,” Cecilia said, and hoped that would keep Xenia at the door.

  “Sh!”

  “Oh, don’t be silly! The dog knows we are here.” The growl started again.

  “You fool!” Xenia said, in anger and alarm.

  A man came into sight, now, walking with a strange loping gait around the hut.

  Cecilia said loudly, “Dogs have to get accustomed to people.” The man stopped, just behind the dog. He was. short and broad-shouldered, bundled bulkily in a ragged sheepskin vest. His wild head of hair turned slowly from side to side, his eyes searching the trees. His heavy boots were almost standing on the notebook, but he had not looked down. “If he hears our voices,” Cecilia said clearly, “he may calm down.” The man stared at the hut. He held a large stone ready in his raised right hand, the other gripped a long, thick stick. Then he relaxed. He still glowered at the hut, but his throwing arm fell slowly to his side. He rested his weight on the long stick, as the expected enemy was not found. He even looked down at the notebook. Quickly, he picked it up, studied it for a moment with a frown.

  “How else,” said Cecilia, “can he know that I have only the friendliest feelings towards him?” She raised her voice. “Hallo, out there! Hallo, boy!”

  “You fool!” cried Xenia and rushed over to silence her. The man moved away, quickly, in his strange silent lope. The dog waited for a last long moment, and bounded after him.

  “Fool!” repeated Xenia again, and struck hard with the butt of the revolver. Cecilia saw the upraised arm, and tried to dodge the blow. She succeeded, mostly. The blow glanced on to her shoulder; but she let herself fall, and she did not try to rise. This, she thought, as she clenched her hands to keep from crying out with the pain, this is where I now start some passive resistance. I’ll lie here until I damned well please to get up. I’ll walk no more. I’ll just lie here and wait. She kept her eyes closed and lay quite still. What misery this is, what complete misery, she thought. Why didn’t the shepherd come into the hut? Why don’t I know the phrase for “Help me!” in Greek? But at least the book was no longer lying but there. And the shepherd? Perhaps he had already lost his curiosity and had cast the notebook aside as he climbed back through the wood. Or he might light his fire with it. Sheltering in his hut, up on some high meadow, he might sometime remember the strange voices he had heard. Yes, she thought bitterly, and talk to his sheep about them.

  She wondered if all the other things she had scattered around would be picked up by people as slow-thinking and cautious as the shepherd. If so, they would all be useless. Useless. She had had a nice little game to keep her mind occupied; that was all. Oh, Ken! she thought. Ken...

  The moment of despair was gone. No, she thought now; even if it is useless, it isn’t a game. It is a battle, a small battle. And by scattering the keys and the notebook and the compact and the lipstick in the cigarette package, I won five small victories. Important to no one, perhaps, except to myself. But isn’t that still something? Isn’t that—in this misery—isn’t that everything?

  * * *

  She was too cold, too hungry, to fall asleep. She watched the bars of shadow across the floor broaden and swallow up the stripes of moonlight. The night sky was dimming. Once it is daylight, she thought, I can see where this hut is, where the trees begin, where the precipice lies. There is no use in escaping blindly. People die just as easily on a cliff face as by a bullet from a gun. The dog will have work to do, once the dawn comes, guarding the sheep from straying over the ravines on this hillside. The shepherd must have two dogs, of course: he would never leave the sheep penned within their stone walls for the night, up on the higher meadow, without some guard. Let’s hope there’s enough work to keep two dogs busy, high up on the mountainside, a good two miles or so from here; and I’ll keep that distance between them and me. If I could just get into the shelter, of those trees, and circle back toward the road. Yes, it’s the road I must reach... It’s a first-class road; good roads aren’t built to lie idle; there must be some cars, or mail buses, or trucks or carts with supplies.

  And now the hut was plunged into deep black-grey shadow. The dark hour of dawn had come. If the woman were asleep, or almost asleep, Cecilia thought, perhaps I could slip out into the trees. She tried to stretch her numb legs. But even as she tensed her muscles, the woman moved from the bed of twigs over to the door. Cecilia heard it being unbarred. She tried to rise, but before she could pull herself up from the earth floor, the woman had stepped outside and closed the door. So Xenia had not liked being locked up in a small dark hut where she could no longer see her prisoner. That was a quick retreat, Cecilia thought. I suppose I should be flattered.

  The door would be barred from the outside. But she rose, and moved stiffly over to test it. Barred it was. She tried to see through the wicker wall. Xenia was standing a few feet away from the door. She was looking up toward the wood. It was too dark to see the expression on her face. But she was angry. She was saying something under her breath. Her clenched fist struck her thigh twice.

  So, something had gone wrong. This is not according to plan, Cecilia thought. It can’t be: we are far too near the road; daylight is coming. But how stupid I am, not to realise that things can go wrong for them just as much as they go wrong for us! Someone had once said that the whole art of winning was by outlasting the enemy, even by one minute.

  She began rubbing her numbed arms and legs. Walking was impossible inside this small dark room, so she bent and stretched her body, and rubbed, and stretched, until it felt less like a slab of marble. As her eyes became more accustomed to the half-darkness, she lifted her handbag from the floor and began searching inside it. She took a cigarette, but before she struck the match, she hesitated. She looked at the wicker walls, the thatched ceiling, the bed of dried thin branches. She put the cigarette and match folder into her pocket; it was much wiser not to remind Xenia that she possessed any matches. She could hear the woman stamping her feet, blowing on her hands to keep warm, outside. She might come back into the shelter, such as it was, of the hut, once the light was strong enough to let her watch her prisoner in safety. What was more, they wouldn’t be staying here, once dawn came; the road was too close.

  Cecilia began to tear out the sheets of the Cavafy poems, quietly, carefully, crumpling them slightly. She pulled some of the branches away from each other, trying to make a deep nest. She pushed the crumpled paper, lightly, between the twigs she had torn apart, working as quickly as she could. It was a difficult job. She was not quite finished when she heard the far-off sound of a light engine. It was coming nearer, nearer. It stopped. She laid a branch lightly over the top of the fire nest, hoped it would disguise the paper, thrust, the few remaining sheets into her bag, and crossed over to the wall from which she could see the road. Anastas was walking obliquely across the meadow, pushing a motorcycle.

  Xenia ran to meet him. They stood talking, in low intense voices, almost at the spot where the shepherd had quietened his dog. Xenia was scolding and complaining. Anastas was worried, angry. He gestured at the hut, at the road, at the lightening sky, as if he were saying, “Well, we have to move. And don’t blame me!” Then he silenced Xenia by taking a flat round loaf from the inside of his coat and thrusting it into her hand. He left, still angry, walking over to some bushes at the edge of the wood. He searched. He must have found a hiding place for the motorcycle,
for he walked back to fetch it. He wheeled it over to the chosen spot and pushed it out of sight. He walked around the clump of bushes, studying it from every angle. He was satisfied. He turned back to the waiting Xenia. And now it was he who was scolding, pointing up to the mountains, making a sign for her to hurry.

  Cecilia didn’t wait any longer. She crossed to the bed of twigs, struck two matches and dropped them down among the papers. She struck two more, dropped them, picked up her bag and ran to the door as she heard Xenia pulling its outside bar loose. As the door opened, she stepped outside, almost on to one of Xenia’s feet. “I must wash,” she said, and started past Xenia toward the stream. Xenia caught her wrist. “I must wash,” Cecilia insisted, and pulled the woman toward the path.

  “Not here!” Xenia told her angrily. “Later, later!” But she didn’t enter the hut. She walked beside Cecilia, still holding her wrist with one hand, the loaf of bread with the other. The man was waiting for them by a large plane tree at the edge of the wood, his revolver ready. He gestured up toward the mountainside, impatiently.

  Cecilia glanced back at the meadow. The road was empty. There wasn’t a house or a farm in sight, anywhere, on these bare sloping hills. The little thatched hut leaned against its grey wall, innocent and peaceful in the still light of dawn.

  Xenia jerked her arm, and she began climbing the little path that led up through the wood. The man followed them. There was no talk, now. I’ll walk, Cecilia decided, until we are far enough away from the hut so that the trees blot it completely from sight. And then I won’t walk. I won’t walk one yard. She wondered if the paper had caught at all, or had the matches only flared and died away? Even as she worried, she felt sorry for the little hut. There it had been, lying at the edge of a peaceful meadow, offering refuge, wishing no harm on anyone; and for its kindness, it was sent up in flames. Someone had built it carefully and well. Some shepherd would remember the shelter it had given him when he had been driven off the hills by bad weather.