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The key was in the ignition. I started the jeep and drove it to the side of the fence where our stakes formed a ladder. By standing on the hood of the vehicle, it was a simple matter to climb the rest of the way over the fence and drop safely into Hungary. No acrobatic roll this time, though; I landed on my feet, lost my balance, and landed flat on my behind.
“Are you all right, Evan?”
“I think so,” I said. I took his hand, and he helped me up. His wig had loosened up again, and his cap was tilted at a rakish angle, but he did not look foolish at all. He was still holding the silly wooden stake. He followed my eyes to it and smiled shyly. “An old Partisan technique,” he said. “The Nazis had all the guns, you see, but we of the Resistance had all the intelligence. And brains will get you guns, but guns will never get you brains. I could not leave you, Evan. How would I ever find Budapest myself? And what was that nonsense you were spouting in Slovenian? Something about Ireland?”
“The Proclamation of the Irish Republic.”
“One does not often hear it rendered into that tongue.” The two of us began removing the remaining stakes from the fence. “Was it necessary to kill them, Evan?”
“No. They are alive. They’ll wake up within the hour.”
“Is it safe to leave them alive?”
“I think it’s safer than killing them. Their memories should be rather hazy when they come to. And they won’t have to explain what happened to them. Easier for them all around if they simply forget to report the incident. But if we put a couple of bullets into them, someone else will discover them, and then the alarm will go out.”
“I would prefer not to kill them,” he said thoughtfully. “One gets tired of killing. You left them the rifle?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you ought to leave the pistol as well. So the young man will not have to report the loss of his weapon.”
“It might be handy to have.”
“Perhaps.”
I thought it over. All in all, I decided, a pistol could do more harm than good. It was easier to avoid trouble than to shoot one’s way out of it. And the simpler we left things for the two border guards, the easier it would be for them to forget the incident. Since 1956 the Hungarians have grown quite accustomed to the periodic escape of part of the citizenry. Two more men crossing the border would be easily ignored if we did everything possible to facilitate it.
I engaged the safety catch and tossed the pistol over the fence. It landed just a few feet from the form of its unconscious owner.
“Good,” Milan Butec said. “Weapons make me nervous.”
“Wooden stakes are safer, eh?”
“Undoubtedly. And, of course, should one encounter a vampire, they are more effective than guns, are they not?”
“They are.”
“Simple peasants that we are, we must of course believe in vampires.”
“And werewolves, too.”
“To be sure.”
And like simple peasants, we trudged on through the vineyard north into Hungary.
Chapter 8
In the late afternoon, clouds covered the sun, and the air turned cold. We had walked a few miles cross-country after entering Hungary, then switched to the roads. We were never on the road for more than a quarter of an hour before someone would stop and give us a ride, but the rides were invariably in farmers’ wagons and rarely carried us more than three or four miles at a clip. It was slow going, and I could see that it was getting to Butec. He didn’t complain – indeed, most of the time he said nothing at all – but I knew he was tiring.
I hoped he could hold out until we reached Debrecen, the chief city of Hajdu Province in the northeast. There was a man named Sandor Kodaly in Debrecen who knew of me and whom I could trust. I was fairly sure he could provide shelter for the night and either he or friends of his could ease our way across the border into Czechoslovakia. Fence-climbing left one with a sense of accomplishment, but it was also damned dangerous, and I didn’t want to push our luck any more than I had to.
But by nightfall we were no further than Komadi, a good forty miles short of Debrecen. Had I been by myself, I might have pushed on, but Milan Butec was an old man who, after the day’s efforts, had every right in the world to be a tired old man. He was walking more slowly now and with visible effort. And yet he had not offered a word of complaint.
“We will not go any further,” I told him. We had taken to speaking Hungarian to one another to get ourselves in the habit. His Hungarian was rather heavily accented but otherwise sound. He had told me that he could speak passable Czech as well, which might or might not be helpful; we would be crossing through Slovakia, where they speak a very different tongue from the language spoken in the western sectors of Bohemia and Moravia. Once we entered Poland, he had added, I would have to do the talking for both of us. He spoke no Polish, no Lithuanian, and no Lettish. He could read and write Russian but was unable to converse in it.
“We will stop here for the night,” I explained. “Here in Komadi. Tomorrow we can continue to Debrecen and find friends who will help us across the border.”
“We could push on tonight if you wish.”
“Tomorrow is time enough.”
“I know that I am slowing you down, Evan.”
“There is no hurry,” I said. And, I thought, that was true enough. The faster we moved, the sooner we would get to Latvia. And the sooner we got to Latvia, the sooner we would find ourselves unable to rescue Sofija, and would thus have to turn around and head for home. I was in no hurry to get back to New York. There was a pudgy little man who had a habit of turning up there with undesired assignments, and I was in no rush to see him for some time.
“I am begi
“So am I.”
“Is there a hotel in Komadi?”
“Hotels are dangerous,” I said. “They want to see one’s papers and we haven’t any. Guest houses are as bad. I think we’d do better to cross through the town and put up at a farmhouse to the north.”
“Do the farmers take in guests?”
“We shall see.”
The first farmer we approached was gracious enough but explained he had no room for us. But he had a cousin just a quarter mile down the road who, he assured us, would make us welcome. Just a few pengo and we would be given comfortable beds, a hearty di
The cousin, it turned out, was a young widow with black eyes and hair and milk-white skin. She had been in the country eleven years, having moved there just before the birth of her one child, a daughter with the same plain good looks as the mother.
“We were in Budapest,” she told us after di
Di
The daughter went to sleep shortly thereafter. Eva – I never learned her last name – sat with me in the living room before the fireplace. When the fire burned down, I went outside for more wood. I returned with the wood, and she appeared from the kitchen with a bottle of Tokay. We drank a few glasses. She talked of art and literature and the cinema. There were few persons with whom one could discuss such subjects in the country, she told me. She missed Budapest, with its busy coffee houses and its bubbling culture. But she did not miss the political hubbub of the city or the memories of 1956.