“I hope Mr. Sova can find me something to walk in, even if it’s only an old pair of gym-shoes.”
When he rejoined them, she asked him what he could do, and he found for her from among his wife’s things a pair of open-topped leather boots, typical of those worn by Czech countrywomen. As they proved too large, he gave her a pair of socks, and with these over her stockings the boots fitted fairly comfortably.
The coffee was the usual ersatz stuff, but with a shot of Slivowitz added it did not taste too bad. They had only just finished it when there came a hail from above and the barge began to slow down. Sova ran up the ladder and they followed him. Crossing the short after-deck, he took the wheel from an elderly man, who wished them ‘good morning’, although the first light of dawn had not yet come. The placid river was faintly lit by starlight; there were no other boats in the vicinity, but about a hundred yards ahead they could make out a deserted jetty.
As they came nearer to it they saw that it was little more than a ramshackle landing stage with a solitary lean-to on its landward side. Sova stopped the motor; the barge drifted on, gradually losing way. A man holding a rope in the bows jumped on to the wooden staging; a moment later the elderly man near them followed suit, and the barge was made fast. Fedora, Nicholas and Sova stepped ashore. The two former shook hands with the crew and thanked them for the part they had played in the rescue. Both men wished them good luck, and cursed the Communists. Then Sova told his men that he did not expect to be gone for more than twenty minutes, and led the way to a cart-track on the far side of the lean-to.
The track ran inland for some two hundred yards, then entered a tree-fringed road. As they turned north along it the sharp roof lines of buildings among the trees ahead stood out against the night sky. They passed two cottages standing a little way back from the road, then a long, high barn that ran alongside it. At the end of the barn there was a gate to a farmyard. Halting at it, Sova said:
“It would be best if you wait here until I have made certain that my cousin Otokar is still in possession of his farm. He was a fortnight ago; but one can hardly be certain of owning the clothes one stands up in from day to day under our Communist rulers.”
As the barge-master set off across the yard to the house, Nicholas asked Fedora, “Are things really as bad as he suggests?”
She nodded. “The Coms can take anything they want on the excuse of Sovietising the country. You must know the first principle of Socialism, ‘From each according to his means and to each according to his needs’. That can be made to cover any outrage. I have seen a Com tart take the fur coat off an old lady’s back while the tart’s policeman pals stood by and laughed. But, of course, the State is the all-time high-robber; and Mr. Sova was referring to the enforcement of the Collective Farm system that has been going on for some time. His cousin’s farm may have been taken over without warning or compensation.”
“What will have come of him if it has?”
“Oh, he will still be here. That is, unless he resisted and endeavoured to prevent the seizure of his property. In that case he would be shot. Otherwise he would be kept on as a labourer, under some slave-driving brute who has failed at farming himself but knows just enough about it to have got a Government job by joining the Party. They are the boys who collect all the pigs in a district at one farm, where there are no pig-sties, and all the chickens at another, where there are no hen-coops. Most of them get bumped off for incompetence in due course, but that doesn’t do the wretched farmer who has been dispossessed any good; and there are always young thugs being educated up in the Party ‘Youth’ organisations to carry on the slave-driving.”
Twelve hours before, Nicholas would not have believed her; but he did now, and said with a sigh, “It all sounds quite frightful. Still, as far as we are concerned, if he is still here, even if he has had the bad luck to be taken over, he will be able to give us a shake-down until morning.”
“I doubt it. All the odds are that his house would have been given to someone who bears him a grudge, so that they can keep an eye on him—some lazy swine whom he has sacked, or one of his workmen with known Com sympathies—and that he will be sleeping in the attic or the cellar. Anyhow, if a Com is in possession it would be much too dangerous for us to stay here.”
Fedora had hardly finished speaking when they were relieved of their fears that the pessimistic picture she painted as yet applied to the Sova farm. Two figures emerged from the darkness; the stalwart barge-master, and with him a tall, thin man whom he introduced as his cousin Otokar Sova.
Otokar proved to be a not unkindly but gloomy man. He said that he would willingly have taken the fugitives in but was unable to do so, because the authorities now compelled him to house all his work people who could not find other accommodation. In consequence, owing to the general housing shortage there was not a room at the farm that had not someone sleeping in it. However, if they cared to doss down in the barn, there was plenty of hay there and he could let them have a couple of blankets.
They were glad enough to accept his offer, and while he went off to get the blankets they said good-bye to Karel Sova; repeating more than once, in spite of his protests, that they would never forget what a good friend he had been to them.
The barge-master had not long disappeared in the darkness when Otokar Sova reappeared carrying a lantern as well as the blankets. As he led them into the big barn the oasis of light made by the lantern was just enough for them to realise that it was a fine old building with great oak cross-beams and a vaulted roof. The greater part of it was empty, except for a few piles of sacks; but at its far end, about one third of its length was divided horizontally by an open loft some ten feet from the ground, and it was upon this that the hay was stored.
Having set up a ladder against the open end of this upper floor, the lugubrious Otokar told them that his wife would bring them something to eat in the morning, then held up his lantern for them to mount to their resting place. As soon as they had reached it he wished them ‘good sleep’ and, evidently in no mind to risk a fire, went off, talking the lantern with him.
By groping about in the darkness they soon had enough loose hay to make a soft couch and, having spread the blankets out on it, lay down side by side.
After a moment’s silence, Fedora said: “I love the smell of hay.”
“Were you brought up in the country, then?” Nicholas asked.
“No; in Prague. My father was a Czech businessman, and we weren’t well-off enough to have even a cottage in the country. I love the smell of hay because it reminds me of New England, where my husband’s home was. His parents had a farm there, and we used to go and stay with them sometimes on our leave. I liked it so much better than living in Washington.”
“I hadn’t realised that you married an American.”
“Yes. He was an Intelligence Officer, and came here with the American mission in 1945, before the Iron Curtain closed down. I was only nineteen then; but we fell in love, and he married me and took me back to the United States.”
During nearly the whole of the time that Fedora and Nicholas had been together they had spoken to one another in Czech, but he now recalled the slight American accent that he had noticed when they had first met and she was talking in English, as he asked:
“For how long were you in America?”
“Three years. It was during that time I taught my husband to speak Czech. How I wish to God now that I hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“It was that which led to our being sent back here. In those years between the defeat of Japan and the opening of the Korean War the prospects for a young regular Army Officer weren’t up to much, and we had very little money. When they found out that he spoke Czech fluently, as well as having a Czech wife, they asked him if he would agree to be transferred for a tour of duty with a civilian outfit. They promised that it should make no difference to his seniority; and, of course, the pay for undercover work was about four times what he had been getting. We fel
l for it and came back as stooges on the staff of a trade delegation. Our idea was that living being so cheap in Europe to dollar earners, we’d be able to put by a fine fat wad, then buy ourselves a nice little home for keeps when we got back to the States. But it just didn’t work out that way.”
All that Nicholas could think of to say was “That was rotten luck. You’ve had a hard deal, Fedora.” But he stretched out a hand in the darkness, found one of hers, and pressed it.
“Thanks, Nicky,” she murmured. “But I’m not complaining. I’ve had a lot of fun, and I’ve been lucky enough to help save a few people from a very gruesome finish. I’ve a feeling now, though, that I’m pretty well finished myself. I can’t explain it; because if I were going to die I ought to have died tonight at the bottom of that canal. Perhaps it is that I have nothing left that I want to live for.”
“Oh, come!” he protested. “You mustn’t talk like that. You’re a very lovely woman, and still quite young. From what you’ve just said you can’t be much more than twenty-seven. It’s certain that you’ll fall in love again. Next time that may mean a home, security, jolly children, and all the sorts of steady-going happiness that you seem to have missed so far.”
The hay rustled, as she shook her head. “No, Nicky. I’m not that sort of a girl. For a little time I thought I was; but I’m not. I’ve lived too hard and too dangerously these past few years. And somehow this last business of Bilto’s having let me down makes me feel all burnt out. I wouldn’t mind if I died tomorrow.”
“I wish to God I’d never told you about that woman that Bilto was going to meet in Prague.”
“You didn’t know that I cared about him, then. But as he has been separated from her for years, it’s quite understandable that he should have consoled himself with me in England. That’s life. Men and women may carry an ideal love for another person in their hearts all their lives long, but that doesn’t alter the fact that they can love another person with their senses from time to time; and I’m sure that Bilto loved me that way.”
Again she was silent for a moment, then she gave a little laugh. “I wonder what would have happened if it had been you I had met in the first place, instead of him. You are awfully like him physically, but nearer my age, and at rock bottom a much finer person.”
“No, I’m not. He’s kind and generous, and a much stronger character than I am.”
“That’s not altogether true. He can be very weak at times, and he is not open, like you are. He has plenty of good points; but, loving him as I do, I know him well enough to recognise his bad ones.”
“Ah, that’s just it. You may know his, but you don’t know me well enough to know mine.”
She sighed. “And I don’t suppose I ever shall. As things are that makes you all the more attractive. At this moment, for me, you are all the best of Bilto without the worst. Did you mean it just now when you said you thought me a very lovely woman, or were you just being nice?”
“No. I meant it. When I saw you first I thought you striking, yet hardly even pretty. But you grow on one; and the extraordinary thing is that you don’t need any trappings. That pale face of yours was still lovely when you were covered with muck, after they pulled us out of the canal.”
Once more there fell a short silence, then she asked, “Tell me, Nicky. What would you do if this was your last night on earth?”
The pressure of events in the past thirty-six hours had forced the circumstances in which he had left Birmingham so far out of his mind that it now ignored them; but as he consciously drew in the sweet smell of the hay it brought him a vivid memory of the unforgettable afternoon that he had spent years before with a girl in a haystack. Spontaneously he replied: “I should make love to you.”
She slid an arm round his neck. “Then let’s pretend it is. I want you to. Please, Nicky; love me to sleep.”
For a good two hours they slept soundly; but as the full light of day percolated into the big barn Fedora became restless. She began to talk in her sleep and turn about uneasily. Nicholas roused up, and when he touched her cheek he found that it was hot and dry. He knew then that sleeping in her damp underclothes had given her a chill and that she had a touch of fever. He did not waken her, but dozed beside her for another hour or more, until she woke herself, to complain that her head was aching and her throat parched.
He was wondering if he dare go out to the farm to get her something to drink when a plump middle-aged woman appeared, carrying a basket over her arm. Climbing up the ladder, she introduced herself as Božena Sova, Otokar’s wife, and took from the basket the bread, cold bacon, cheese and milk she had brought for their breakfast.
She said that she had not come earlier as she had wanted to give them as long as possible to sleep, and would have given them still longer, but for the fact that Sunday service was to be held in the barn in three-quarters of an hour’s time.
On Nicholas looking rather mystified, Fedora told him in a quick aside that the Coms had closed nearly all the churches as places liable to be used for reactionary gatherings, and forbidden the holding of religious ceremonies in private as anti-social activities; so they now had to be held in secret.
Mrs. Sova said she understood that they would be leaving that day, and asked if they would like a parcel of food to take with them, or if there was any other way in which she could be of help.
Nicholas thanked her and declined the food, but said that they wanted to be at the Ruzyně Airport by midday at the latest, and they were not certain either how far off it was or how to get there.
“That is simple,” she smiled. “The airport is only about six kilometres away, and the left-hand fork of the road south leads right past it. As for getting there, my good man can easily drive you over in the gig, after service.”
“We must not put him to that trouble,” said Fedora quickly, “and it is just possible that if he is seen with us he might be questioned afterwards. We can walk that distance in a little over an hour.”
The apple-cheeked farm-wife had already been regarding Fedora’s flushed face and feverish eyes with concern. “No,” she said firmly. “Perhaps it would be wise for him to drop you half a kilometre this side of the airport, but he shall certainly drive you that far. You are in no state to walk, my dear, or travel at all for that matter. I wish I could put you to bed in the house. As that can’t be managed, why not let me make you as comfortable as I can here for a day or two?”
Fedora shook her head. “It’s terribly kind of you, Paní Sova, but we have a date with friends who hope to get us away, and it is very important indeed that we should stick to our arrangements. I would be grateful, though, if you could let me have some aspirin.”
“I’ll bring you some when I come back for the breakfast things,” Mrs. Sova agreed, “and some lavender water to cool your poor forehead.”
When she had left them Nicholas made a good breakfast, but he could persuade Fedora only to swallow a few mouthfuls of bread and bacon with the milk. It was clear that she was running a high temperature, which was not to be wondered at in view of all she had been through the previous day; but, worried as he was about her, there was nothing he could do, except hope that the aspirin would bring it down before they had to make a move.
Soon after they had finished eating, Mrs. Sova returned with it and, having given Fedora a couple of tablets, insisted that she should take the rest of the bottle with her. Then she sponged the girl’s forehead, cheeks, neck and wrists with home-made lavender water, and told her to lie quiet until it was time for her to go.
But to that Fedora said, “If I may, Paní Sova, I would very much like to come down and attend the service. I’m sure that wouldn’t make me worse.”
The good woman smiled. “God forbid that I should restrain anyone from worshipping their Maker, child. You will be welcomed by both Him and us. But it would be better if you don’t join in the singing or exert yourself more than need be. It will be starting in about ten minutes’ time.”
As she desce
nded the ladder to the floor two men carried in a small harmonium and set it down at the far end of the barn. Soon other people began to collect, until a small congregation had assembled consisting of eight men and about a score of women. Nearly all of them were middle-aged or elderly and all were of the peasant class.
Fedora got up to go down and join them, but after a moment’s hesitation she turned to Nicholas and asked, “Wouldn’t you like to attend the service too?”
He smiled up at her a shade apologetically. “I’d rather not; if you’ll excuse me. I gave up all that sort of thing when I was a boy, so I’d only feel embarrassed. But perhaps I’ll say a private prayer up here.”
He watched her join the group of women round Mrs. Sova, then saw the pastor come in. At his entrance a hush fell on the congregation and they quietly took their places: the men all together at one side and the women at the other, in the old Lutheran manner. Seeing that the service was about to begin Nicholas felt that it was not proper for him to remain there sitting up aloft like a spectator at a barn-play; so he got up and clambered over some bales of hay to the back of the staging.
Behind the bales it was almost dark; so, noticing a wooden door in the side wall of the barn, he pulled it open a few inches and sat down beside it. The door looked out on to the road and was about nine feet above it, so that wagons could draw up immediately below and load or unload crops direct from or to the loft.
It was a lovely May morning with the peace of Sunday on the countryside. Soon, as he sat there, the murmur of prayers, the clear voice of the pastor, and the chanting of age-old litanies came to him. He rather wished now that he had accepted Fedora’s invitation to join in, for he had suddenly become strongly conscious that there was something fearless and fine and indestructible about these people’s simple faith.
Their voices were raised in a hymn when he saw a big furniture removal van come round the bend of the road. To his surprise it slowed down and pulled up immediately beneath the door behind which he sat half concealed. From the seat next to the driver, a young boy of about eleven jumped down. Waving his hand excitedly, he shouted something and pointed to the barn.
Curtain of Fear Page 28
