The Lights of Skaro (15 page)

His effort was
a
full-dress production number. He brought Radovič out of wraps to make a speech in the flesh.

Ordinarily Radovič’s public appearances were not occasions for speech-making. They did better with him on a recording machine, because when he faltered in the delivery of the words they wrote for him to read, the tape could be cut and pasted together to preserve the continuity of his fine voice after they had taken whatever steps were necessary to cure the faltering. On this occasion the damage Djakovo had done to the Party program was so great that they had to wheel out their strongest weapons for a counter-attack. A live speech by President Radovič in the presence of representatives of the foreign press was one of the weapons.

He was, or had been, a handsome, well-built man with a head like a lion. Photographs taken of him during the revolution, when he was leading his poorly-armed band of peasants and villagers against the best his own government and invading armies of foreign troops could throw against him, showed a stern-faced, strong-jawed Caesar. The craggy profile and the strong jaw remained, and the leonine head, although grey, was still impressive. The spirit that had driven him to fight, suffer, and bleed tor the liberty of his country was no longer there. A spark had died somewhere inside him. When we came into Yoreska’s office, where he waited for his cue to perform, he didn’t even look up. He simply sat, his hands on his knees and his head bowed, flanked by the two ham-handed gorillas who were his aides or secretaries or personal attendants or whatever other title substituted for the true one. They were never more than a few feet from him at any time.

Bulič was on hand for the act, his tight, ugly mouth tighter and uglier than usual. Danitza, wearing a pair of the new nylons Cora had given her and lipstick of a brighter pink than usual, sat on a corner of Yoreska’s desk swinging her long, smooth legs with their silly spike-heeled shoes. At the other end of the desk there was a table microphone, with a long cord that trailed through an open door to the control panel in an adjoining room.

Yoreska made a speech first. I think it shows something of the Party psychology that in front of unfriendly, or at best neutral, witnesses, two contradictory speeches were made over the same microphone from the same official source, without anyone involved in the ridiculous business appearing to think it at all unusual. Yoreska’s speech went out over the national loudspeakers, for domestic consumption.Radovič, following Yoreska, was not heard on the loudspeakers, but in a radio broadcast to the Western world. For different audiences, different truths.

When we were all seated, Yoreska nodded to the operator at the control panel. We listened to a few bars of ‘Politika’ boom from the speakers in the square below the windows of the Ministry. With another nod, Yoreska flicked a switch, leaned towards the microphone and began to read.

We had all been given typewritten copies of the speech. Why, I don’t know. None of it would pass the censors. It went:

“... in spite of all provocations, regardless of the unceasing efforts of antagonistic foreign powers to subvert and destroy the shining democratic world which the People’s Free Federal Republic strives to build on the shattered ruins of the corrupt and decadent old world, we shall continue to extend to all nations the open hand of friendship, brotherhood, and unity. This does not mean that our eyes are shut to treachery. We give stern and solemn warning to those powers who, in hatred and jealousy towards the accomplishments of our truly free and progressive society, seek to undermine the national solidarity of purpose which has carried us so bravely and so far. To this scum, to these dregs of humanity, we say ...”

Brotherhood, unity, and a ring of tigers standing round the Republic with slavering jaws. That was Yoreska’s message. The Party called for peaceful co-existence of nations, not faith in a community of man. They could do business with the tigers, but no one was to lose sight of the tiger’s teeth, or forget their thirst for blood. Any indications leaking into the Republic of the antipathy and horror with which its government was looked upon by the free world had to be recognized for what they were: evidence of hatred, jealousy, and prejudice.

Radovič’s speech, intended for a more perceptive audience, was more subtle. The copies we were handed had been typed on the same machine and the same paper as Yoreska’s speech, but the tenor of the message was rational. Djakovo was mentioned by name, his flight acknowledged, his leadership of an anti-government opposition recognized. The speech contained no references to scums and dregs of humanity, only a well-phrased appeal to the West not to listen to the exaggerations of a deranged fanatic, but to hear instead the promise of a statesman and soldier, a man who had shed blood in the cause of freedom and earned the respect of freedom-loving people everywhere, that the Republic was struggling in its own way for goals common to all men: peace, prosperity, and progress. It was cleverly done. The speech did not make the mistake of dismissing everything Djakovo had said as a flat lie, only as an exaggeration. It was conceded that all was not a bed of roses in the Republic. The bed of roses would grow, in time, with the aid of foreign sympathy, a recognition of the Republic’s peculiar problems, understanding, tolerance, and friendship in a peaceful and mutually profitable co-existence of dissimilar but not antagonistic political systems. It was a fine job, whoever wrote it. It sounded even finer in Radovič’s magnificent voice.

Bulič had his sharp eye on the old man every moment he was at the microphone, and the two bodyguards hovered over him like guardian angels. But everything went off without a hitch until I threw a wrench into the machinery.

I was not, as Danitza’s expression showed she thought I was, thick-headed when I asked if the press would be permitted to interview President Radovič. I had no illusions that he would be permitted to speak freely, or even answer leading questions. But I wanted to talk to him, look into his eyes, try to see what was left of this man who had fought, bled, suffered imprisonment and exile for most of a long life to free his country, and now mouthed canned speeches to keep it a prison. I wanted to see what they had done to him, what marks the treatment might have left. I was junior reporter in that group and had not yet been denied an interview. I made my question sound as innocent as possible.

Radovič, sitting again with bowed head between his guards, either did not hear or did not care. Yoreska almost said ‘no’ without thinking. But he was in a tricky spot of his career, and he badly needed to sell Radovič’s speech. Watching him hesitate, I could guess how his quick mind was working;
here is something I can use – Radovič in good health, freely available to reporters
–
see what a bald lie it is about his forced seclusion! A photograph, the President smiling at some joke of the reporters
–
no guards within range of the camera…

He said, “I don’t see why an interview can’t be arranged.”

Somebody’s chair creaked. Somebody else sighed.

“Do you, Comrade Colonel Bulič?”

Yoreska never missed a trick. Bulič was Security, Security was responsible for Radovič. If the interview went off right, Yoreska scored. If anything went wrong, Bulič had made another mistake.

Bulič saw the trick. He answered flatly, “Comrade President Radovič’s health is not good, Comrade Minister. The strain of the broadcast has exhausted him.”

“Perhaps an interview can be arranged tomorrow.”

“He is leaving tomorrow morning for a long rest at Czernin Spa.”

They were good fencers. As quickly as Bulič parried, Yoreska thrust again.

“For how long?”

“I am not informed, Comrade Minister. Until he recovers his health.”

“That may be some time, of course.” Yoreska tapped his stainless steel teeth with a fingernail, frowning. “How is he going?”

“By plane.”

“We can’t send the whole press colony with him, then. We could send one.” He looked up, smiling his artificial metallic smile. “That’s it. Don’t you call it a pool arrangement? One of you will interview President Radovič for all.”

Heinz said quickly, ‘As a senior reporter here I—”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Léon jumped to his feet. “We were all accredited together, except Jess. Nobody is senior—”

Graham cut in: ‘That’s right, you know. We’ll have to draw lots.”

“No, no,” Yoreska wagged his head. “A drawing won’t be necessary. Ladies come first, even in our society of equal opportunity. You will make the necessary arrangements with Miss Lambert, Comrade Colonel.”

Bulič’s jaw muscles bunched. He said stiffly, ‘At your orders, Comrade Minister.”

Cora took off with Radovič for Czernin Spa early the next morning. The old man was clearly not prepared for the trip. If he had heard the talk of it in Yoreska’s office he had paid no attention. He came to the airfield unshaven, with a single bag. One of the two
rokos
who were his watchdogs carried it for him, maintaining the front that they were the presidential staff.

Bulič’s excuse of Radovič’s poor health and need for a vacation had been hot air, thought up on the spur of the moment. Having gone out on the limb, it was not his nature to crawl back again, or to go out of his way to make things convenient for anyone else forced to join him there. Radovičwas snatched out of his home, bundled into a car and driven off to the airport at few minutes’ notice to make an eight o’clock plane.

It is important to remember that prior to four o’clock of the preceding afternoon no one could possibly have foreseen the chain of circumstances, starting with my own request for an interview, which would put him on that plane. Yet in the intervening time the same bold mind that had planned a way out for the Gorzas and Anton Djakovo plannedRadovič’s escape down to the last detail, smuggled him a pistol and a note, and injected into his broken spirit the necessary hope and determination to risk what was left of his life on a long shot for freedom. The more I came in contact with the workings of that mind, the more it fascinated me by its brilliance, its understanding of how other minds operated; in its evaluation of Gorza’s timidity, its measurement of Djakovo’s simple faith in a promise of freedom that might just as well have been a trap, its shrewd perception that there was in Radovič a not-quite extinguished spark of what the old man had once been that could be blown to life. For each of the three, the escape was tailor-made round an essential characteristic of the man escaping. In Radovič’s case the characteristic was his willingness to kill anyone who stood in the way of his attempt, and to die if the attempt failed.

The plane was a small semi-weekly passenger flight which shuttled between the capital and Gled, an industrial center near Czernin Spa in the northern part of the Republic. Four passengers were grounded to make room for Radovič, Cora, and the two watchdogs, and the seating arrangements of the others changed to leave the two rearmost double seats empty. The other half-dozen passengers were Party officials and Army officers, people important enough to rate air passage instead of a long grind by train, but not important enough to challenge Security arrangements. Radovič’s party boarded the plane at the last minute, when the pilot had started his motors and the other passengers were strapped in their seats. The
rokos
went first, scowling their nastiest scowls at anybody who looked around. Very few, if any, of the people on the plane knew that the president of their country was in one of the rear seats, with an American reporter sitting beside him and his personal jailers in the seat behind, their arms folded across their thick chests.

Radovič had a lot on his mind. Later, Cora realized why he was so uncommunicative, but she thought at first that he was afraid of her. They hadn’t been introduced. She turned on the charm, full voltage, and tried to get him going on harmless subjects as soon as they were in the air.

“My name is Cora Lambert, Your Excellency. I’m a reporter for the American press. The people who read what I write are interested in you as an individual: your history, your family, your health, anything you want to talk about. Are you going to stay long at Czernin Spa?”

“Where?”

“Czernin Spa. Where you are going for a rest.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a pretty place, isn’t it? I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen pictures of it. There’s an old castle on an island in the middle of the lake, I remember. Will you stay at the castle or in a hotel?”

“I haven’t been – I’m not sure.”

“You were born near there, weren’t you?”

“What?”

“I asked if you were born near Czernin Spa.”

“Yes.”

“Is either of your parents living?”

“No.”

“What about the rest of your family?”

“I have none.”

“You were married, weren’t you?”

“My wife is dead.”

“Children?”

“What?”

“I asked if you had any children.”

“No.”

It went like that. She couldn’t get him to open up. Very few people could resist the temptation to talk about themselves with Cora hanging attentively on every word they said, but he answered in monosyllables, when he heard her questions at all. She had to repeat them often. He was inattentive, and divided most of his time between looking out of the window and peering at his watch, an old-fashioned turnip he carried in the breast pocket of his coat. After half an hour of competing with the watch, she gave up.

They sat in silence for another fifteen minutes, the
rokos
breathing down their necks and everyone else in the plane staring stiffly ahead like a bunch of toys minding their own business. Then Radovič took a last look at his watch, sighed heavily, and patted her hand where it rested on the seat between them.

“You’ve been very patient with me, my dear,” he said. “I’m sorry I was such a poor travelling companion. I hope – for your sake – perhaps you will be able to interview me again soon. Another time, perhaps I will have more to say. If life is good to us both.”

She thought it was a peculiar way for him to talk, as if the trip were already over. They still had two hours of flying time ahead of them.