Albin had wanted to go through and intervene but, despite her curiosity, Sylwia had restrained him. However, after the voices had stopped she got up and very quietly went to the bathroom. When she came out she edged along the landing towards their door and listened. She could hear his voice, very faint. She could hear no words but it had a strange tone to it. A sort of pleading tone. It went on for ten minutes and then there was silence.
The next morning Tatania came down first and helped her prepare breakfast. She appeared serene and relaxed in a way that a patient is relaxed after breaking a fever.
During that breakfast it was obvious that whatever had occurred the night before had affected him deeply. He was withdrawn and quiet, but his attitude towards Tatania was strangely protective. His eyes were constantly drawn to her.
It had been that way ever since. On the journey; at the museum in Brno; and now here at the restaurant. He had been attentive towards her, helping her out of the car, helping her off with her coat, holding her chair when she sat down. It was as though he was trying to make up for a lovers’ quarrel.
Albin noticed that he kept the small duffle bag with him at all times. Even now it was slung over the back of his chair.
Mirek leaned forward, picked up the bottle and poured more wine into Ania’s glass.
She tried to protest but he smiled and said, ‘You’ve only had one glass, Ania. Have a little more.’
Both the older couple noticed the slip but said nothing. Ania said pointedly, ‘Thank you, Tadeusz.’
He nodded as if acknowledging his mistake but was not at all put out.
Albin glanced at his watch and signalled for the bill, saying, ‘It’s thirty kilometres to Cieszyn and your train leaves in just over an hour.’
Albin and Sylwia were in front as they walked out of the restaurant. Albin stopped so suddenly that Mirek bumped into him. Then over his shoulder he saw the reason why the old man had frozen.
Their grey Skoda was forty metres away. A police car was parked broadside in front of it, with both front doors open. One policeman was standing by the windscreen of the Skoda peering at the licence disc. Another was standing by the driver’s door of the police car talking urgently into a microphone. They all saw each other at the same time and for a second were a frozen tableau. Then both policemen reached for their holstered guns and the one by the Skoda shouted, ‘Halt! Stay where you are!’
All four of them ran back through the restaurant, dodging among the tables and startled customers. Albin’s hip slammed into one of the tables and sent it over with a crashing of glasses and crockery and yells of shock.
They raced out on to the wooden platform. Near the table where they had been sitting was a flight of steps leading down to a gravel path that paralleled the river. A teenage boy and girl were coming up. Mirek crashed into them, slamming them back and down amid terrified screams. He was holding the duffle bag with his left hand. His right hand was inside it searching frantically. He leapt over the prostrate girl and sprinted down the path. He heard a shout and turned to look. Ania was close behind him. The older couple were trailing. One of the policemen was on the wooden platform raising his gun. He shouted again and then fired. Albin cried out and tumbled on to the path, his hands clutching at his left thigh.
At last Mirek’s fingers felt the steel butt of the Makarov and pulled it out in one motion, turning and dropping into a crouch. Ania passed him as he lined up the sights. In his mind he was back in the camp in the desert on the firing range. He squeezed the trigger and heard the wet thwack as the bullet hit the centre of the policeman’s chest. He didn’t wait to watch him fall. Sylwia had run back to Albin screaming, ‘Josef! Josef!’ which must have been his real name. Mirek somehow knew that she would not leave him now. He turned and raced after Ania who was about forty metres ahead, approaching some trees and a bend in the path. On the river twenty metres to her left were two old men in a rowing boat watching the scenario with stunned faces. Mirek heard another shout behind him, then the sound of a shot and simultaneously the crack of the bullet over his head. He did not turn. Ania was already passing out of sight around the bend. He dodged to his right, leaping over low bushes, towards the trees. Another shot, again high. Irrationally he heard again the saturnine Portuguese instructor’s voice. ‘The tendency with pistols is to shoot high.’ He hurtled into the little copse as a bullet whacked into a tree next to him. The policeman behind had corrected the tendency, but this time had pulled to the right. He caught up with Ania on the other side of the copse. She had slowed, her head twisted, looking back anxiously. He saw the relief on her face as he sprinted across.
‘The others?’ she gasped.
‘Had it. Come on!’
He grabbed her arm and urged her on. The river twisted back and forth and the path followed. He wondered whether the policeman was coming after them or had gone back to his car to radio a report. He hoped he was following.
He had to slow down to avoid getting ahead of Ania.
‘Go on!’ she panted. ‘Leave me.’ He grabbed her arm again, urging her on.
They turned a bend. In front of them the gravel path expanded into an oval parking place. A track from it led away from the river to the right and to the main road. A youth and a girl were just climbing off a motorbike. They wore matching blue crash helmets. They turned as Mirek and Ania ran up. The youth had half raised his helmet. His eyes were startled as they looked at the gun in Mirek’s hand. Mirek pointed it at him.
‘I’m taking your bike. Where are the keys?’
Fear paralysed the youth. Mirek glanced at the motorbike. The keys were still in the ignition. He thrust the duffle bag at Ania and she grasped it to her chest, panting.
Keeping the gun pointed at the youth, Mirek straddled the motorbike and switched on the ignition. It was a Russian Nerval 650CC. Again he had an irrelevant thought. This kid was obviously the son of someone important. He noted that both he and the terrified girl were wearing faded, genuine Levi jeans and skiing jackets. While these thoughts had been going through his head he had been turning the bike so that his right hand was facing the direction they had come. He listened and heard the thudding crunch of someone running. He raised the gun, his arm ramrod straight, and drew a breath.
The policeman came round the bend at full tilt. As he saw Mirek and the gun he started to slow and tried to jink to his left. His foot slipped on the gravel. Mirek waited for him to complete the fall then fired twice. The first bullet stopped his forward motion. The second punched him back to the edge of the river bank. Slowly his body rolled over and into the river.
The girl was screaming hysterically. Mirek kicked the starter and the Nerval shuddered into life. Ania was watching him. He tucked the pistol into his waistband.
‘Quick. We have to get to Gottwaldov.’ She started to move. ‘Hurry, damn it.’
Quickly she climbed on, wedging the duffle bag between them.
‘Hold tight.’ He felt her hands grip his waist and gunned the motor. Gravel spurted from the back wheel and then they were heading up the track, the girl’s screams fading behind them.
The Nerval was well silenced according to the law and as they neared the main road Mirek heard the sound of distant sirens. He pulled off the track into a clump of bushes and waited.
On the road ahead four police cars screamed by in quick succession. He waited as he heard the sirens whimpering into silence at the restaurant and then moved out of the bushes back on to the track. As they slowed at the main road Ania said in his ear, ‘You told them we were going to Gottwaldov.’
He turned his head. ‘Yes. We’re going in the opposite direction. It might give us extra minutes.’
He turned left and opened the throttle and watched the speedometer needle edge up to the statutory speed limit of 100 kph. The traffic was moderate. Again he heard sirens. He was rapidly pulling up to a big container truck. He applied the brakes and slowed and moved close behind it, keeping well to the right. A few seconds later the police car
passed in a blur to his left. He pulled out and accelerated past the truck, his mind working like a calculator. Soon the youth and the girl would be at the restaurant. Road blocks would be going up. He could risk staying on this road for no more than two or three minutes. He turned his wrist and looked at his watch. It was almost three o’clock. He superimposed on his mind the map of the area that he had memorised; that Father Heisl had made him memorise.
They had travelled twelve kilometres. There were two fallback safe houses on this part of their route, this side of the Polish border. One was located deliberately near the border itself. A farmhouse on the outskirts of the market town of Opava. The same river alongside which they had lunched, ran past the town and close to the farmhouse which was located on the near side of the town. Opava was about thirty kilometres from the restaurant. In daylight they would never get to the farmhouse unseen. By now the police manning the road blocks would know that they were on a motorbike. He opened up the throttle, deciding to ignore the speed limit. He felt Ania’s hands gripping him tighter. The needle climbed until it touched 150 kph. In three minutes they travelled seven kilometres flashing past half a dozen cars and trucks. Far ahead he saw a side road going off to the left, towards the river. His heel came down on the brake pedal. They were still travelling fast as the road approached. He was calculating whether to overshoot and come back when he heard another siren. He clutched at the hand brake and banked over.
He just made the turn, but overshot the tarmac and skidded on the dirt verge. He felt the bike going from under him and pushed backwards and sideways. Ania clung on to him as they hurtled into low bushes and then broke away with a scream as they impacted the first time. He landed hard, bounced twice and then rolled on the icy ground, finally coming to rest about thirty metres from the road. He lay still for a moment, feeling the pain in his side where his gun had dug into his waist. The siren screamed past no more than fifty metres away on the main road.
He shouted, ‘Ania!’
Her voice came shakily from a few yards away. ‘Here, Mirek.’
‘Stay down.’
He realised how lucky they had been. They were lying in low shrub. If they hadn’t fallen they would have been easily spotted from the police car.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I think so. Bruised and scratched and I’ve hurt my ankle. What about you?’
He moved his limbs. The only pain came from his waist. He pulled out the gun. The ridge of the foresight had gouged his belly on impact, leaving a shallow, bleeding gash. He rolled on to his knees and crawled over to her. She was lying on her side, her knees drawn up, one hand holding her right ankle. Her left arm was scratched and bleeding, but there was no fear or shock in her eyes. He ducked down as a truck passed by, and grinned at her.
‘Believe it or not, we were lucky. Without that crash we’d have been spotted. How’s the ankle?’
In a matter-of-fact way she said, ‘It’s not broken but I twisted it badly. It’s swelling up.’
‘Do you think you can walk on it?’
She sat up, put her heel on the ground and winced. ‘Yes, but slowly.’
He made some more calculations. Then he said, ‘Ania, we’re going for the safe house this side of Opava. It’s about twelve kilometres from here. We’ll have to hide the bike, and then ourselves, until dark. There’ll be helicopters around soon. Then we’ll have to go on foot down river.’
He crawled over to the motorbike and quickly inspected it. The front mudguard was twisted and jammed against the tyre, and the handbrake lever had snapped off. Otherwise it looked all right. He pulled the mudguard clear of the tyre and retrieved the duffle bag which was lying a few metres away. Then he called, ‘Ania, raise your head until you can see the road. Tell me when there’s no traffic.’
Slowly she lifted her head.
‘Wait, Mirek.’
He heard a car pass, then a truck going the other way, then she called, ‘All clear.’
Quickly he righted the motorbike, climbed on and kicked the starter. After three kicks the engine roared to life. He bent down and scooped up the bag as she hobbled over. Seconds later they had bumped back on to the road and were heading down towards the river, wondering if their luck could hold.
They reached the river unseen. It lay in the bottom of a narrow wooded valley. Mirek managed to get two kilometres along its bank before the trees started to thin out. Twice they had stopped and hidden in thickets while helicopters passed overhead. Mirek decided it was time to hide both the bike and themselves. The river was slow moving and very deep at this point. They climbed off the bike and he inspected the bank. The river curving inwards had eroded the ground beneath it forming a lip. They investigated the motorbike’s saddle bags and discovered a plastic container holding cold meats, cheese and bread. There was also a bottle of red wine. After unloading this, Mirek consigned the bike to the riverbed giving it a hefty shove. It landed with a satisfying splash and sank out of sight, leaving a trail of bubbles. He checked his watch. It was just after three thirty. The wood behind them was an obvious hiding place. They would certainly have the army searching it by morning; maybe even within an hour or two. There was still about an hour of daylight left. He could see, about a kilometre downstream, a small copse. That would be less obvious. There were clumps of trees between it and them which would provide cover.
It took them an hour to cover that single kilometre; because twice more they had to hide while helicopters scouted overhead and because Ania’s sprained ankle was worse than she had suspected. She had to hop with her arm around Mirek’s shoulder. When they finally got there her face was pale from the pain and she sank on to the grass with a sigh of relief. Mirek immediately rummaged in the bag and found her toilet bag and gave her four aspirins. He picked up the wine bottle, pulled off the foil, pushed the cork down inside and handed it to her. She washed down the aspirins and wordlessly handed it back. He took a couple of gulps and then wedged the bottle against a stone outcrop, saying, ‘We’ll have the rest with our meal later. It’s lucky those kids had planned a late lunch. I’ll just check the area.’ He tossed the bag to her feet. ‘Make yourself as comfortable as possible.’ He moved away through the trees.
She pulled the bag towards her and felt inside for another sweater. She knew that it was still about ten kilometres to the safe house and she knew that she could never make it. She also knew that he realised it. He would leave her. He had told her that bluntly back in Florence. ‘If you can’t keep up I’ll leave you.’
A sudden thought struck her and as the implications sank in she lowered her head into her hands and she prayed.
He found her like that when he returned and asked, puzzled, ‘Ania, what’s the matter?’
She lifted her head. Her cheeks were wet. Her eyes blank. She said tonelessly, ‘You had better do it now.’
‘Do what?’
‘Kill me.’
For a moment he was stunned, then he understood her reasoning. He hurried forward and knelt beside her and took her hands in his. She looked at him and he saw the trepidation in her eyes.
Very softly he said, ‘Ania, I’m not going to kill you. I know I can’t leave you here alive. You know where the safe house is . . . where they all are. They would find you and make you talk. If not by torture then with drugs. I know you can’t walk that far . . . I’ll carry you, Ania.’
The fear left her eyes for a moment and then returned. She said, ‘It’s ten kilometres . . . over rough country. You could never carry me that far . . . not before daylight.’
He smiled at her. A smile that washed away all her fear. A smile that opened a tiny window to his core.
‘Ania, you don’t know my strength. I will carry you to the safe house.’
It took seven hours. If they lived a hundred years it was a journey they would never forget. After seven hours she knew his strength. They set out after twilight had faded. There was only a sliver of a moon. He walked with the bag slung around his neck and bouncing agains
t his chest. He carried her on his back. He often stumbled in the darkness and several times fell. He always fell twisting so that his body cushioned hers. He stopped every hour to rest for just a few minutes. She marvelled at his strength. Early in the morning he stopped and lowered her down. They had passed a wide sweep of the river. Ahead of them it curved back the other way. He pointed across the river. ‘It should be up the hill there about half a kilometre. I’m going to leave you here and check it out.’ He was panting but there was a note of pride in his voice.
Her arms and legs were stiff and aching from clutching on to him and from the cold. She sank to the ground saying, ‘Be careful, Mirek.’
He untied the bag and put it beside her, then he took the gun from his waistband, cocked it and moved cautiously down the bank. The river was wider here and shallower. Carefully he waded across holding the gun high. In the middle the water came up to his chest. It was icy cold. She could just make out his dark form as he climbed the opposite bank and disappeared into the trees.
After ten minutes he picked out the loom of a building. Slowly he edged forward, the gun held ready. It was a single storied building, not a light showing. There were two windows. He realised he was at the back of it. He stopped and stood still, listening. The only sound was an owl hooting far away. He felt his skin prickle. There were always dogs on a farm. Why weren’t they barking a warning? He moved forward slowly to the corner of the house. He could see the mass of a larger building in front - probably a barn. A twig cracked under his foot. A moment later a voice said from his right, ‘Where’s the woman?’
He swung around, the gun pointing. He was looking at a clump of low trees. A shadow detached itself and moved forward. There was a smaller shadow on each side of it. As it came closer it solidified into the shape of a man. The smaller shadows materialised into dogs. One of them began growling deep in its throat. The man murmured something to it and it stopped. He said, ‘You’re supposed to say something to me.’
In The Name of The Father Page 21
