The Last Frontier (21 page)

Ten minutes later, gasping in the sudden, stifling heat of the cellar after the zero cold of the yard outside, Reynolds looked at the ticking clock, then at Jansci.
'He doesn't miss out even the smallest refinement of torture, does he?'
'He would be horrified, genuinely horrified, if he heard you mention the word "torture,"' Jansci said thoughtfully. 'To himself the commandant is just a scientist carrying out an experiment, and all he wants is to achieve the maximum efficiency from the point of view of results. He is, of course, quite mad, with the blind insanity of all zealots. He would be shocked to hear you say that, too.'
'Mad?' Reynolds swore. 'He's an inhuman fiend. Tell me, Jansci, is that the sort of man you call your brother? You still believe in the oneness of humanity?'
'An inhuman fiend?' Jansci murmured. 'Very well, let us admit it. But at the same time let us not forget that inhumanity knows no frontiers, no frontiers in either time or space. It's hardly the exclusive perquisite of the Russians, you know. God only knows how many thousands of Hungarians have been executed or tortured till death came as a welcome release -- by their fellow Hungarians. The Czech SSB -- their secret police -- were on a par with the NKVD, and the Polish UB -- composed almost entirely of Poles -- were responsible for worse atrocities than the Russians had ever dreamed of.'
'Worse even than Vinnitsa?'
Jansci looked at him in long, slow speculation, then raised the back of his hand to his forehead: he could have been wiping the sweat away.
'Vinnitsa?' He lowered his hand and stared sightlessly into the gloom of a far corner. 'Why do you ask about Vinnitsa, my boy?.
'I don't know. Julia mentioned it -- perhaps I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry, Jansci, forget it.'
'No need to be sorry -- I can never forget it.' He broke off for a long moment, then went on slowly. 'I can never forget it. I was with the Germans in 1943 when we dug up a high-fenced orchard near the NKVD headquarters. We found 10,000 dead in a mass grave in that orchard. We found my mother, my sister, my daughter -- Julia's elder sister -- and my only son. My daughter and my son had been buried alive: it is not difficult to tell these things.'
In the minutes that followed, that dark, furnace-hot dungeon deep under the frozen earth of Sarhaza did not exist for Reynolds. He forgot their ghastly predicament, he forgot the haunting thought of the international scandal his trial would bring about, he forgot the man who was bent on destroying them, he could not even hear the ticking of the clock. He could think only of the man who sat quietly opposite him, of the dreadfully stark simplicity of his story, of the shattering traumatic shock that must have followed his discovery, of the miracle that he should not only have kept his sanity but grown into the kind and wise and gentle man he was, with hatred in his heart towards none that lived. To have lost so many that he loved, to have lost the most of What he lived for, and then to call their murderers his brothers.... Reynolds looked at him and knew that he did not even begin to know this man, and knew that he would never know him....
'It is not difficult to read your thoughts,' Jansci said gently. 'I lost so many I loved and, for a time, almost my reason. The Count -- I will tell you his story some day, has lost even more -- I, at least have still Julia and, I believe in my heart, my wife also. He has lost everything in the world. But we both know this. We know that it was bloodshed and violence that took our loved ones away from us, but we also know that all the blood spilt between here and eternity will never bring them back again. Revenge is for the madmen of the world and for the creatures of the field. Revenge will never create a world in which bloodshed and violence can never take our loved ones away from us. There may be a better kind of world worth living for, worth striving for and devoting our lives to, but I am a simple man and I just cannot conceive of it.' He paused, then smiled. 'Well, we are talking of inhumanity in general. Let us not forget this specific instance.'
'No, no!' Reynolds shook his head violently. 'Let us forget it, let's forget all about it.'
'And that is what the world says -- let us forget. Let us not think of it -- the contemplation is too awful to bear. Let us not burden our hearts and our minds and our consciences, for then the good that is in us, the good that is in every man, might drive us to do something about it. And we can't do anything about it, the world will say, because we do not even know where to begin or how to begin. But, with all humility, I can suggest where we can begin -- by not thinking that inhumanity is endemic to any particular part of this suffering world.
'I have mentioned the Hungarians, the Poles and the Czechs. I might also mention Bulgaria and Rumania where nameless atrocities have taken place of which the world has never yet heard -- and may never hear. I could mention the 7,000,000 homeless refugees in Korea. And to all of that you might say: it is all one, it is all communism. And you would be right, my boy.
'But what would you say if I reminded you of the cruelties of Falangist Spain, of Buchenwald and Belsen, of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, of the Japanese prison camps, the death railways of not so long ago? Again you would have the ready answer. All these things flourish under a totalitarian regime. But I said also that inhumanity has no frontiers in time. Go back a century or two. Go back to the days when the two great upholders of democracy were not quite as mature as they are today. Go back to the days when the British were building up their Empire, to some of the most ruthless colonisation the world has ever seen, go back to the days when they were shipping slaves, packed like sardines in a tin, across to America -- and the Americans themselves were driving the Indian off the face of their continent. And what then, my boy?'
'You gave the answer yourself: we were young then.'
'And so are the Russians young today. But even today, even in this twentieth century, things happen which any respecting people in the world should be ashamed of. You remember Yalta, Michael, you remember the agreements between Stalin and Roosevelt, you remember the great repatriation of the people of the east who had fled to the west?'
'I remember.'
'You remember. But what you do not remember is what you have never seen, but what both the Count and I have seen and will never forget: thousand upon countless thousands of Russians and Estonians and Latvians and Lithuanians being forcibly repatriated to their own homelands where they knew that one thing and one thing only awaited them -- death. You have not seen as we have seen, thousands mad with fear, hanging themselves from every projection that offered, falling on their pocket knives, flinging themselves under the moving wheels of a railway wagon and cutting their throats with rusty razor blades, anything in the world, any form of painful, screaming, self-ending, rather than go back to the concentration camps and torture and death. But we have seen, and we have seen how the thousands unlucky enough not to commit suicide were embarked: they were driven aboard their transports and their cattle cars -- they were driven like cattle themselves -- and they were driven by British and American bayonets.... Never forget that, Michael: by British and American bayonets.... Let him who is without sin...'
Jansci shook his head to remove the beads of sweat which spilled out in the climbing humidity: both of them were beginning to gasp with the heat, to have to fight consciously for each breath they took, but Jansci was not yet finished.
'I could go on indefinitely, my boy, about your own country and the country that now regards itself as the true custodian of democracy -- America. If your people and the Americans are not the world's greatest champions of democracy, you are certainly the loudest. I could speak of the intolerance and cruelties that accompany integration in America, of the springing up of Ku Klux Klan in England which once firmly, but erroneously, regarded itself as being vastly superior to America in the matters of racial tolerance. But it is pointless and your countries are big enough and secure enough to take care of their own intolerant minorities, and free enough to publicise them to the world. The point I make is simply that cruelty and hate and intolerance are the monopoly of no particular race or creed or time. They have been with us since the world began and are still with us, in every country in the world. There are as many evil and wicked and sadistic men in London or New York as there are in Moscow, but the democracies of the west guard their liberties as an eagle does its young and the scum of society can never rise to the top; but here, with a political system that, in the last analysis, can exist only by repression, it is essential to have a police force absolute in its power, legally constituted but innately lawless, arbitrary and utterly despotic. Such a force is a lode-stone for the dregs of our society, which first join it and then dominate it, and then dominate the country. The police force is not intended to be a monster, but inevitably, by virtue of the elements attracted to it, it becomes a monster, and the Frankenstein that built it becomes its slave.' , 'One cannot destroy the monster?'
"It is hydra-headed and self-propagating. One cannot destroy it. Nor can one destroy the Frankenstein that created it in the first place. It is the system, the creed by which the Frankenstein lives that we must destroy, and the surest way to its destruction is to remove the necessity for its existence. It cannot exist in a vacuum. And I have already told you why it exists.' Jansci smiled ruefully. 'Was it three nights or three years ago?'
'I'm afraid my remembering and my thinking are not at their best at the present moment,' Reynolds apologised. He stared at the sweat dripping continuously from his forehead and splashing into the water that covered the floor. 'Do you think our friend intends to melt us?'
'It would seem like it. As to what I was saying, I fear I talk too much and at the wrong time. You don't feel even a little more kindly disposed towards our worthy commandant?'
'No!'
'Ah, well,' Jansci sighed philosophically. 'Understanding the reasons for an avalanche does not, I suppose, make one any the more grateful for being pinned beneath it.' He broke off, and twisted to face the door. 'I fear,' he murmured, 'that our privacy is about to be invaded yet again.'
The guards entered, released them, pulled them to their feet and hustled them out of the door, upstairs and across the yard in their usual efficient and uncommunicative fashion. The leader knocked on the commandant's door, waited for the command, then pushed the door wide, pushing the two men in in front of him. The commandant had company and Reynolds recognised him at once -- Colonel Joseph Hidas, the deputy chief of the AVO. Hidas rose to his feet as they entered and walked over to where Reynolds stood trying to stop his teeth chattering and his whole body from shaking: even without the drugs, the instantaneous one hundred degrees alternations in temperature were beginning to have a strangely weakening and debilitating effect. Hidas smiled at him. • 'Well, Captain Reynolds, so we meet again, to coin a phrase. The circumstances, I fear, are even more unfortunate this time than the last. Which reminds me: you will be pleased to hear that your friend Coco has recovered and returned to duty, although still limping somewhat badly.'
'I'm distressed to hear it,' Reynolds said briefly. 1 didn't hit him hard enough.'
Hidas raised an eyebrow and turned his head to have a look at the commandant. 'They have had full treatment, this morning?'
'They have, Colonel. A singularly high degree of resistance -- but a clinical challenge after my own heart. They will talk before midnight.'
'Quite. I'm sure they will.' Hidas turned back to Reynolds. 'Your trials will take place on Thursday, in the People's Court. The announcement will be made tomorrow, and we are offering immediate visas and superb hotel accommodation to every western journalist who cares to attend.'
"There will be no room for anyone else,' Reynolds murmured.
'Which will suit us admirably.... However, that is of little interest to me compared to another, and somewhat less public trial that will take place even earlier in the week.' Hidas walked across the room and stood before Jansci. 'At this moment I achieve what I must frankly admit has become the consuming desire, the over-riding ambition of my life -- to meet, under the proper circumstances, the man who has caused me more trouble, more positive distress and more sleepless nights than the combined efforts of all other -- ah -- enemies of the state I have ever known. Yes, I admit it. For seven years now you have crossed my path almost continually, shielded and spirited away hundreds of traitors and foes of communism, and interfered with and broken the laws of justice. In the past eighteen months your activities, aided by those of the luckless but brilliant Major Howarth, have become quite intolerable. But the end of the road has come, as it must come for everyone. I can hardly wait to hear you talk.... Your name, my friend?'
'Jansci. That is the only name I have.'
'Of course! I would have expected nothing -- ' Hidas broke off in mid-sentence, his eyes widened and colour ebbed from his face. He took a step backwards, then another.
'What did you say your name was?' His voice, this time, was only a husky whisper. Reynolds looked at him in astonishment.
'Jansci. Just Jansci.'
Perhaps ten seconds passed in utter silence while everyone stared at the AVO colonel. Then Hidas licked his lips and said hoarsely: 'Turn round!'
Jansci turned and Hidas stared down at the manacled hands. They heard the quick indrawing of his breath, then Jansci turned round of his own accord.
'You're dead!' Hidas' voice was still the same hoarse whisper, his face lined with shock. 'You died two years ago. When we took your wife away -- '
'I didn't die, my dear Hidas,' Jansci interrupted. 'Another man did -- there were scores of suicides when your brown lorries were so busy that week. We-just took one the nearest to me in appearance and build. We took him to our flat, disguised him, and painted his hands well enough to pass any but medical examination. Major Howarth, as you are probably aware by this time, is a genius with disguise.' Jansci shrugged. 'It was an unpleasant thing to do, but the man was already dead. My wife was alive -- and we thought she might remain alive if I were thought to be dead.'
'I see, I see indeed.' Colonel Hidas had had time to recover his balance, and he could not keep the excitement out of his voice. 'No wonder you defied us for so long! No wonder we could never break your organisation. Had I known, had I but known! I am privileged indeed to have had you for adversary.'