Mrs Pollifax Unveiled Part 12

"But we're all scared -a little," Joe told her kindly. "It's more companionable to know that, I think."

Farrell changed the subject quickly. "Have we eaten enough? I can't wait to see the d.u.c.h.ess in that burqa."

"d.u.c.h.ess?" faltered Amanda. "A real d.u.c.h.ess?"

"I call her that," explained Farrell gravely. "We have a long acquaintance."

Abandoning the food to change clothes Farrell and Joe donned the older and shabbier brown aboyas while Mrs. Pollifax was shrouded in black from head to foot, with only her eyes to be seen. Unfortunately, in abandoning her previous robe, she left Amanda wearing the only one with inner pockets. Alarmed by this, Mrs. Pollifax removed her black abaya, shrugged into her brown one with pockets, and then -hoping for cool weather- pulled the black one over it. "Because I'm the bank, I carry the money," she explained to Amanda.

"Do I have pockets?" asked Amanda.

"Yes, she sewed them inside yours, too, bless her," said Farrell.

"She can keep the travel guide and map for us," added Joe, and handed them over to her, and as he said this the rug concealing the mysterious inner room was pulled aside and Omar hurried in.

"Ready?" he said breathlessly.

"Yes, but what has been arranged?" asked Farrell. "You look -"

"Tired," Omar told him. "In two days I was to s.h.i.+p an order of kilims to As Sweida. My driver is just back from a delivery to Aleppo and he is tired, very tired. With a little baksheesh he has been persuaded to drive there today. Now .., to As Sweida, which in miles is twenty-eight from Bosra." He looked them over sternly. "You may have to walk those miles to Bosra; I do not know."

"Does he know who we are?" asked Farrell.

"No. Therefore you cannot bribe him to go farther, if you even see him. You are a poor family without money, friends of friends, who must see a dying relative in the south, I did not say where, and one of you is ill." To Amanda and Mrs. Pollifax he said, "And do not forget to pray, as women here do." To Joe he said, "You already know the call to prayer?"

Joe nodded. "All five: the Maghrib, 'Asha, Subh, Duhr and Asr . . . Allahu akbar three times, ashadu an a ilaha illa-Uullah, ashhadu anna Muhammedanar-rasulullah twice, hayya 'alas'sala twice. Facing east, to Mecca ."

Omar nodded. "Taib. I hear a small accent, thus do not speak it loud. In Bosra you must wait near the Citadel, understood?"

Inspecting them all he nodded. "Come," he said, and lifting the carpet to the room behind them he led them into it. There were huge piles of rugs everywhere, shelves lightly covered with gauze curtains, cupboards, a computer, a telephone. Amanda, walking beside Mrs. Pollifax, looked around her with awe, and when she stopped it was to stroke a soft and velvety roll of plush, and then, curious, she brushed aside a few inches of a curtain over one of the shelves and peeked inside. "Amanda, we must hurry" Mrs. Pollifax reminded her. She walked on, but when she glanced back she thought she saw Amanda slip something into the pocket of her abaya but there was no time to chide her for taking something that pleased her from the shelf, because Omar was pulling aside one of the rugs on the floor, a shabby but exquisite Persian, to reveal a trapdoor and below it a ladder that disappeared into darkness.

He said grimly, "The souk is thousands of years old and many have had to flee thus for their lives but you must never never mention this. I learned of it only from studying ancient doc.u.ments and maps." With a flashlight he directed them down the ladder and then pulled the trapdoor over their heads and took the lead.

There were no lights in the tunnel except for Omar's flashlight dancing ahead of them; they stumbled over uneven ground, the walls of ancient stone damp and lined with lichen. The pa.s.sage turned only once, quite sharply, and after a few more minutes they reached another ladder leaning against the wall. Omar established it firmly, mounted it, lifted another trapdoor and helped the four of them up and into what appeared to be a storeroom full of oil cans and cartons.

For Mrs. Pollifax it was a relief to see daylight again.

"You are no longer in the souk," he told them. "The truck is outside -come!"

He opened the door to a large truck that had backed so closely to the entrance that it was impossible to see either the driver or the street behind it, only its open rear crowded with upright carpets, tightly rolled and roped together.

A small pa.s.sage had been left for them to crawl inside. "There is s.p.a.ce in the middle," Omar told them. "When you are inside I will restore and secure rugs to hide you," and to Mrs. Pollifax he added, "Allah grant it be well for you."

One by one they crawled in among the carpets to the s.p.a.ce left for them in the center, and seeing Omar close up their means of entry and exit Mrs. Pollifax hoped none of them suffered from claustrophobia. On the other hand, it was a humanely shaped area so that Amanda and Joe, seated facing each other, left enough room for both Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell to stretch their legs without touching the younger pair. With a sigh of relief Mrs. Pollifax slipped the burqa from her face and said, "I can breathe again!"

"Yes, it's good to see you," Farrell told her with a grin.

The driver s.h.i.+fted gears and they took off for As S we ida with each b.u.mp jarring the spine. "No shock absorbers," Farrell said with a sigh.

"At least we're on our way," Mrs. Pollifax pointed out. "Somewhere. At last. And the driver can't possibly hear us talk with all these rugs around us, nothing insulates like a rug. Are you tired?"

"Of course not," snapped Farrell, and promptly fell asleep.

This left Mrs. Pollifax with only her unruly thoughts and worries until she heard Joe say to Amanda very politely, "Was this your first trip abroad?"

Amanda looked alarmed at being spoken to but replied with equal politeness, "Yes." And then, as if considering what travel abroad usually meant, she suddenly smiled.

Nothing had prepared Mrs. Pollifax for a smile: she had seen Amanda grim, serious, angry, and frightened but her smile had the radiance of a sun's rising. "But I didn't get very far, did I."

Joe laughed. "No."

Regarding him curiously she said, "How did you seem to guess I didn't care -about living, I mean."

"Bring out the travel guide I gave you to carry in your pocket," he told her. "I'll show you how."

From one of her inside pockets she brought out the small book and handed it to him, and he extracted two loose folded sheets of paper. "Because of this," he said. "You kept a journal. Your kidnappers made a fire at some distance from the camp to burn your pa.s.sport and everything else belonging to you. They a.s.sumed that everything would burn up, but there was a tiny piece of your pa.s.sport left -Mrs. Pollifax found that- and these charred sc.r.a.ps. I put them together and they . . , well, they made a picture of what your life had been. Or so I a.s.sumed."

"Oh," she said, startled, and then, "Oh dear, oh no."

He handed her the two sheets of paper. "I'm sorry. I know journals are very private and it was intrusive of me to read your thoughts but we had to find out if you were inside that fenced compound. Which we didn't know until we found that corner of your pa.s.sport."

Looking at the put-together sentences she said, "But from such sc.r.a.ps and snippets . . , it's embarra.s.sing."

He nodded. "You're blus.h.i.+ng and I'm sorry. Usually my work is studying the Umayyads, who occupied Syria from A.D. 661 to 750. It was sort of like archaeology; I was interested in someone my own age leaving behind a script -I mean words. Except," he added humorously, "you weren't an Umayyad. And once I heard about the hijacking I was also curious as to why you just walked up to the nearest hijacker and asked for his gun. I wanted to know what you were like, and who you were."

There was a touch of anger in her voice when she said, "So now you know."

"Exactly," and he added bluntly, "I deduced that your parents were a pair of b.l.o.o.d.y misers, and didn't allow you to do anything you wanted, in fact they were abusive."

She looked horrified. "Abusive? Oh no, they never hit or beat me, never."

He said gently, "There's such a thing as emotional abuse, Amanda."

"Emotional abuse?" she said wonderingly.

"Yes . . , indifference, neglect, lack of warmth and loving."

He had shocked Amanda, and she glanced quickly away from him, but although she didn't speak she looked thoughtful, and Joe -wise Joe, thought Mrs. Pollifax-said no more, closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. But Mrs. Pollifax noticed that Amanda's eyes kept straying, puzzled, to the sheet of paper in her lap with its strung-together half sentences that described a life she'd lived in Roseville , Pennsylvania . But it was worth remembering, thought Mrs. Pollifax, that she'd planned a trip to Egypt , and it had taken courage even to apply for a pa.s.sport and board a plane.

A few minutes later Joe opened his eyes, and aware of the travel guidebook still on his lap said, "Well, let's see what it says about As Sweida before it goes back into Amanda's pocket." He opened it, consulted the index, turned a page and immediately winced. "The word 'charmless' is the first word I see."

Farrell said dryly, "Well, we're scarcely tourists visiting it as sightseers."

"Its history? During Byzantine rule, Arabs poured over the area," he read, "destroying and killing, and in the next century streams of molten lava from hill craters flowed over it, turning it into a country of black basalt stones. It is sometimes called 'Black soiud a' . . . Sounds gloomy," he added. "And just as Omar said, no transportation between it and Bosra."

He returned the guidebook to Amanda, who stuffed it back in her pocket.

"So we walk?" asked Mrs. Pollifax, wincing.

Joe frowned. "You? Absolutely not -there is such a thing as gallantry. Let me nose around the place first. Give me some of your h.o.a.rd of bills and let me see what I can find."

Farrell said warningly, "Joe, you've got to be careful. My G.o.d, if you're careless -they're looking for us."

Joe nodded. "But not for me, I don't think I'll head for the oldest, poorest section of town. It's unfortunate, but the less affluent people in any town are the very last to hear about people the police want. Trust me."

"No choice," growled Farrell.

"What we must do is find you a wall to sit on not far from this highway and where I can find you. Sit and eat some leftover dates and don't look at anyone."

Amanda suddenly giggled, and they looked at her in surprise. She said apologetically, "I'm sorry; it must be nerves. I mean it's . . , it's ..."

Mrs. Pollifax patted her hand. "It's not Roseville ."

There was no more conversation. The truck b.u.mped and rattled, the sun poured down on them, and there seemed an inordinate amount of dust raised by the truck. It felt a long journey, although Omar had said it was eighty kilometers. They stopped once, for the noon call to prayer, and an hour later the truck stopped again. This time the driver walked around to the rear, cut ropes and moved rugs to let them out, and without interest spoke only two words in Arabic. Hastily Mrs. Pollifax slipped the burqa over her head again.

"He means get out," whispered Joe, "and not too politely, either."

"Shukren," he murmured as they dismounted to find themselves at the edge of the town, but what startled Mrs. Pollifax was to see that the earth lining the highway was bloodred and the stones really were as black as lava. The truck at once drove off in a cloud of dust to some remote part of As Sweida, and they quickly crossed the highway to enter the town. After a short walk they found a low wall of black stones near a gas station, from which hung a picture of Haffiz al-a.s.sad, and a sign stating that the garage sold diesel gas, kerosene and NGK spark plugs.

Here they established themselves, just inside the wall, while Joe left them to scout for some means of transportation. An ancient Suzuki car pa.s.sed, an old De Soto , three motorbikes, an old Austin car, a truck with a missing hood. A teenage boy with curly brown hair, brown skin, a pair of blue jeans, and sandals peddled past them. "Nice," murmured Mrs. Pollifax, and ate another date.

It grew boring. "We've been here almost an hour, d.a.m.n it," said Farrell with a glance at his watch. "It's nearly two o'clock ."

Amanda said anxiously, "Would he have been arrested?"

Neither of them answered that.

It was ten minutes later when they noticed a native riding a donkey at some distance toward them, and it was another few minutes before Mrs. Pollifax said, "Farrell, can that possibly be ... ?"

It was. Joe had purchased a mangy, swaybacked donkey for them. "Cost a small fortune, too," he said. "Only one I could buy. But I learned there's a secondary road not far down the highway on the right -through two small villages-that leads to Bosra. It'll get us off the highway."

Farrell said, "Okay, climb on, d.u.c.h.ess."

Mrs. Pollifax regarded the donkey doubtfully: a previous experience riding one in Albania had not proved a happy adventure, but before it was necessary for her to approach the animal Joe said sharply, "No! Farrell rides until we're off the highway. In this country women walk. Later we take turns."

In this manner they left As Sweida, the apparent father of this apparent family riding the donkey, Joe leading it, while Mrs. Pollifax and Amanda trailed behind in the dust.

"But will we get to Bosra before sunset?" asked Amanda anxiously.

Mrs. Pollifax could only hope so, for it was already nearly three o'clock , and they had added a very stubborn and temperamental donkey to their m enage. It was true that a donkey added a decorative touch to their disguises as Bedu, but she could not help feeling that it would have been faster if they had walked to Bosra without him.

"Will we be there in time?" she replied, "lnsha llah."

15.

Once they left the highway for the secondary road their walk was across a treeless plain, the fields on either side of the road cut to stubble from the summer's harvest. "Watermelons, probably," said Joe. "Long since harvested."

They pa.s.sed an abandoned truck on the roadside, reduced now to a skeleton, and they gave it a wistful glance -oh, to have a truck!-for the donkey was definitely proving to be a frustration, and even Joe had begun to rue the brilliance of his purchase. "He doesn't like us," he said, giving the donkey a reproachful glance. "He balks. He's stubborn."

Farrell said grimly, "He doesn't realize we have a life-and-death appointment in Bosra at six o'clock ."

"But he has given us a chance to sit," pointed out Mrs. Pollifax, who guessed that blisters were already forming on her feet. "Do you think we can make it to Bosra by six?"

"Prod him harder," Farrell told Joe. "What time is it?"

Wearing two aboyas, one over the over, had proven very hot, but Mrs. Pollifax had been happy to sacrifice comfort for the sake of the pockets in the one, and she brought out her wrist.w.a.tch. "Oh dear, it's after three o'clock already."

"Leaving us a scarce three more hours, and I'd guess we've covered nine miles -at most ten miles-which leaves eighteen more." He shook his head. "If we could only hitchhike! Sorry, Joe, we've simply got to abandon the donkey; he's slowing us down. We need to walk, and walk fast. And pray."

"We can do both," said Amanda abruptly, "but I notice Mrs. Pollifax's sandals are too small and mine are so big they flap. I think we could walk faster if we trade them."

It was her first contribution, and they welcomed it with surprise. The two pairs of sandals were exchanged, the donkey tied to a rock in hope that someone would soon rescue him - "They cost fanners real money," said Joe, "he should make someone happy"-and once Mrs. Pollifax had torn off shreds of her abaya to pad the blisters on her feet she found that she could indeed walk faster. But obviously they were not going to reach Bosra by six o'clock , and she had no idea of what they could do since they didn't even know the name of the man who was to guide them to the border. They must all realize this, she thought, but it was no time to consider it. At least they could talk to each other in English, and she inquired of Amanda, "Are you still frightened?"

Amanda hesitated and then, "Not with you," she said shyly, and suddenly she began to talk, tonelessly at first, as if she was unaccustomed to forming her thoughts into words and speaking them. "I was never allowed to be alone," she blurted out. "Ghadan was always with me, and Ghadan hated me, really hated me, because she still thought I'd killed her lover on the plane, except I didn't. ... And over and over we were drilled . . , pistols, small guns, and rifles, and we had to learn how to hide and camouflage ourselves, and practice noticing everything -people who might be camouflaged, too, or in hiding and waiting-and Zaki kept score every day of how many things we'd seen that had been hidden from us." She added sadly, "I could have tried to escape-the fences weren't electric-but I didn't know anything at all about deserts, or where I was, or where to go .., and sometimes there were pills; they made me take them, to quiet me. Make me sleep. I didn't like that.. . ." And then, as if suddenly moving from Then to Now, she looked startled. "If you hadn't come for me . . ." she said, and s.h.i.+vered.

Joe said gently, "But Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell did come for you, and later me, too. Are you still scared?"

She said in a small, astonished voice, "There are still miracles, aren't there?" and with a smile, "I guess what I feel now is more like suspense. And just a little hope. But for what I don't know."

"If we get through this," Joe said sternly, "I hope you're not going to try something crazy again to get yourself killed."

"It seems so long ago," she said, frowning. "No," she added at last, "I begin to feel .. , begin to feel . .." She drew a long breath. "Not dead inside any longer, or well, trapped."

"You mean like the sniper's camp," Farrell said.

Amanda shook her head, not ready yet, thought Mrs. Pollifax, to speak of a life in Roseville that had led her to -one had to call a spade a spade-an attempt to end her life. Impulsively Mrs. Pollifax reached over and gave her a hug and was startled by her reaction: Amanda was not accustomed to affectionate hugs.

"How about reading to us, Joe?" she said, continuing her attempt to keep them occupied. "Amanda, hand over the guidebook in your pocket and -"

"Yes," said Farrell. "So we can find out where the h.e.l.l the Citadel is in Bosra. It'll make us walk faster."

She obligingly reached into her pocket and handed the book to Farrell, who glanced at the index, turned pages and skimmed through the report on the town. "It's a 'backwash' now," he read, "but once a very busy place when there were caravans. Still a number of ruins .., ah, a tiny map, good! The main streets are laid out north to south and east to west in straight lines, and - Hey, it has the best-preserved Roman theater in existence-and this is weird, the Citadel was built around the theater."

"Yes, but where's the Citadel?"

"If we enter by the north gate -if it's still standing- we can walk in a straight line down the main street past a mosque and through a marketplace to the Citadel at the end of the street."

"I like straight lines," said Joe, glancing over his shoulder. "Deliver us from alleys and mazes."

"What's more -" began Joe.

"Car coming," warned Mrs. Pollifax, and Joe quickly returned the book to Amanda to conceal in her abaya.