The Miernik Dossier (27 page)

Kalash had been back for some time before I was given the news. I expect he had to talk the situation over with his father before telling Nigel and Paul. I was the last to know, and it was Paul who told me. He could easily have deceived me—made the situation seem less serious than it was. I would have been ready to believe that Tadeusz had just wandered away and lost his bearings. That would have been serious enough, but after all there seemed to be hundreds of people about the palace, so a search party would have been easy to organize. Almost anyone else would have thought it merciful to lie to me. But Paul told me the truth, and told it at once. We met in a small courtyard; it was a hanging garden, really, with vines and shrubs growing up the walls and over the top. There was a fountain—a fountain in that desert! It had some sort of an American device that circulated the same few liters of water forever. The American ambassador had given several of these pumps to the Amir, who quite adored them. It was a cool place. I went there every day, to read and exercise. We never saw the boys, you realize. It was a strict Muslim household where the sexes came together only for breeding purposes.

So I was a little surprised to see Paul, but very glad. I felt close to him. He is a sympathetic type, you know, and strictly speaking he saved my life at least twice in the space of a couple of weeks. As you seem to be interested in such things I may as well tell you that I was madly signaling to him that he was welcome to climb in the window whenever he wanted. I realize that I am not coming to the point very quickly. You must forgive me. I have a tendency to cry when I tell this story. I want to give you the facts as coldly as possible.

Very well. Paul comes into the garden. It must have been very early afternoon. The sun was overhead and strong. The floor of the courtyard was dappled with shadow. Shafts of sunlight, perpendicular columns of white sunlight. Paul walked through these, out of the shadow, into the light. It was a very theatrical effect. He sits down beside me. With no preliminaries—not even speaking my name in a tone of voice that might have warned me—Paul told me. Tadeusz was missing in the desert. Kalash thought he might have been abducted. No trace had yet been found of him. There had been talk about organizing a search party. The Amir had forbidden it. If Tadeusz had been kidnapped, we would hear from the bandits when they demanded a ransom. To approach the kidnappers now, with the threat of force, would create the risk that Tadeusz might be killed.

I just stared at him. What was he telling me? Paul’s face was serious but not worried. He was watching my reaction very closely. I thought, Ah ha! He expects me to get hysterical. I said, “What do you think of his chances?” Paul said, “I don’t know. Kalash says there’s no possibility that your brother is merely lost. He’s sure someone grabbed him. If he was taken by friends of the people we shot a few days ago, obviously his chances are almost nonexistent. But maybe not. I would think that men wanting revenge would simply have killed him where they found him. The other possibility is kidnap and ransom. Kalash tells me the local kidnappers are pretty honorable—if you pay, they give back the victim unharmed. It’s a matter of business ethics. So we can wait and pay if the second possibility is the one we believe in.

I asked him how much the ransom was likely to be. Looking back, it seems insane, this conversation between Paul and me. For all we knew my brother lay dead out there somewhere—perhaps having been tortured—and we sat in a garden by a splashing fountain and discussed price. The fountain smelled of chlorine, by the way. The chemical smell of it made me angry: these damned Arabs with their American fountains, their Cadillacs, their pet lions, their harem filled with children. You know what it was. Subconsciously I was blaming Kalash for everything that happened. He was so supremely indifferent to other people, to life itself. Now he had done this to Tadeusz. To Paul I said, “How much do you think they’ll want?”

“The Amir says that they usually demand only a modest sum. What he considers a modest sum I don’t really know. Kalash guesses it would be a thousand pounds.”

I had a good deal more than that in the rucksack. Sasha had given it to me, as you know. Bundles and bundles of dollars, worth millions of zloty. At the time I’d thought he was crazy—what did I need with all that money? Now I was glad I had it. I blessed Sasha, who . . . One of Sasha’s sayings was “You cannot think of everything, but if you have enough money it’s not necessary to think of everything.” Even Sasha could not have thought of this— Tadeusz in the hands of bandits. Good God, who
could
this day and age?

Q.  Did you confide in Christopher about the money?

A.  No, and I don’t really know why not. I just nodded and said we’d pay. I said something like, “I have a little money.” Paul didn’t question me. He never questioned anybody, you know. Everyone confessed to him all the time, but he never invited it. My brother told him
everything,
and I assure you that was not like Tadeusz. There was something about Paul. One simply trusted him.

Q.  Did you trust what he was telling you about what may have happened to your brother?

A.  I trusted him. I had the feeling he was withholding his own opinion. At least I think that’s what I felt. Be honest. Who knows after the fact what you knew and didn’t know? Anyway, Paul told me that he didn’t think we should just sit down and wait. He agreed that an expedition to rescue Tadeusz was a dangerous idea. I knew he would have to go out alone, if he went. Kalash would never help him.

Q.  Why not?

A.  Kalash did not like my brother. He thought he was a fool. By Kalash’s standards he
was
a fool. Tadeusz lacked nonchalance-totally lacked it. That embarrassed Kalash, made him contemptuous. Nigel was nonchalant. Paul was nonchalant. Ilona was nonchalant. Even I, a little bit. That was the quality Kalash prized above all others. After the shooting that night, Kalash and Paul and Nigel were no different than they had been before. No emotion, no anger. They kept up appearances. Making no mention of the fact that Ilona and I were naked, never even referring to that fact is an example of what I mean. Drinking tea and chatting beside the dead bodies, all that was part of their style. Tadeusz ran behind the tents and threw up. For days afterward he was withdrawn, silent. His hands trembled. The other three rode through the desert eating oranges and making witticisms.

Q. How did Chistopher happen to take you with him?

A. I insisted on going. It’s true he didn’t oppose me, but I thought this was just another example of his sensitivity. He realized I would be happier taking part. He was my brother’s only real friend in that crowd. I’ve told you he didn’t interfere with others, didn’t judge. When I said I wanted to go, he thought for a few moments. Then he said yes. So we went.

Q. What was Christopher’s motivation, in your opinion?

A. His what? His motivation? Why did he do what he did? He wanted to find Tadeusz. He wanted to help. Simple friendship. Perhaps a certain regard for me as well as for Tadeusz. Paul and I
liked
one another.

Q. You didn’t think he had any ulterior motive he wasn’t telling you about?

A. Oh, for Christ’s sake. Of course not. What could it possibly be? He was likely to get himself killed. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had some experience with these madmen already, you know. He knew what those people who had Tadeusz were capable of.

Q. All right, Miss Miernik. Let’s go on. We’d like you to describe what happened after you and Paul started out together. Just begin at the beginning.

A. The beginning I’ve already told you. In the garden we agreed that we’d go out together. We hadn’t much hope that we’d actually find Tadeusz. We didn’t know the country. If we had known more about it I think we wouldn’t have tried at all. It’s a hopeless place to search for anyone. Mountain after mountain, little valleys, forests of dwarf trees, caves. It’s a labyrinth up there. I had the feeling that we were not on our own planet any longer.

However, we didn’t foresee any of that. I went back to my room, with my girl trotting along with me—annoying, that, always having a servant with you—and changed into trousers and boots. I put some things into the rucksack on top of the money. I still thought the money would be useful, that we could buy Tadeusz back. Then I went back to the garden and waited for Paul. Pretty soon he came along and took me to the Land Rover. He had packed some of the camping gear and filled up the jerry cans with water and gasoline. Also, he had that portable radio set they had taken from the bandits, the walkie-talkie. And the Sten gun, lying on the front seat. Kalash was there with the big black fellow who let us in the night we arrived. He was a special chum of Kalash’s—went everywhere with him. Kalash said nothing to me, absolutely nothing. At least for the time being he left off giving me looks of sexual invitation. That’s beside the point. Kalash and Paul were looking at a map. Kalash drew a line on it, to show where he had last seen Tadeusz. They were as cool as could be; one would have thought they were discussing the best route between Geneva and Lausanne. The famous nonchalance again. Kalash folded up the map, handed it to Paul, and said, “Cheerio.”

Cheerio.
We drove away. It took us a couple of hours to reach the place where Tadeusz had vanished. There was no proper road. We bumped along, dodging rocks, reversing, finding the way as best we could. It was by this time late afternoon. We picked up the tracks of the other Land Rover and drove in them. Paul was remarkably skillful. Before we reached the crest of a hill he would stop the car, get out, walk to the top, lie down, and search the way ahead with binoculars. He had me keeping a lookout behind us and all around us as we drove. He knew just what he was doing.

We kept on until the last light. Paul returned from one of his scouting trips to the top of a hill and said he had seen water ahead. We drove on until we came to this place with a sort of spring and trees. It was not my idea of an oasis, but I guess that’s what it was. He pulled the Land Rover into the trees and unloaded the tent and so forth. Then he covered the car with branches to camouflage it. We ate cold food out of tins. Paul didn’t want to show a light, so we sat there in the dark. He was just an outline to me. There was no moon, only the stars. They seemed to be the same stars one sees in Poland, and this surprised me. Before there had been so much moonlight one couldn’t see the stars properly. I expected strange stars, the Southern Cross. We hardly spoke. The whole trip was silent.

Paul got out the radio and tuned it in. Pretty soon, very faintly, I heard Kalash’s voice. I don’t know why this should have surprised me, but I was startled. My heart pounded. What I hoped, of course, was that Kalash would say that Tadeusz had come back. It was nothing like that. Paul just gave him our location. He and Kalash had marked the map— Point A, Point B, and so on. “Twenty miles northeast of Point B,” Paul said. “No luck.” He repeated this formula. I heard Kalash say, “No luck here, either.” Paul turned off the radio and hung it up on a branch.

Q. So nothing happened that first day and night?

A. Ah, here is the part you have been waiting for. Something happened.

Q. Something happened?

A. Yes. I seduced Paul Christopher. He had set up the tent and put my sleeping bag in it. His own sleeping bag he spread on the ground, in the open. He said to me, “Are you tired? We’d better try to sleep.” I said to him, “I’m not tired.” Then I crawled over to him in the dark and kissed him. He was not surprised; nothing surprised Paul. He kissed me back and we went on. Your files should show that he makes love gently and for a very long time. He has an honest body, just as he has an honest mind.

Q. I see. Well, this really isn’t necessary, Miss Miernik. As you’ve said, it’s a private matter.

A. There are no private matters in this world, my friend. Paul and I could not have found a place where we were less likely to be found making love than in that oasis. All the same, you were following us, weren’t you? You did not actually walk into our camp and shine a torch on our bodies. You just want to look into our minds. The picture is still there, and that’s better than the reality for you. Ordinary life, for you, is pornography. No, no, I’m not blaming you or any of the others who are like you from Russia to America. The South Pole as well, I suppose. It’s what you do; it’s a fact of existence. Please note that I am showing no anger. I am smiling. Some things cannot be taken down in writing.

83.  R
EPORT BY
C
HRISTOPHER
.

15 July.
If anyone but Kalash had come to me with the information that he had lost Miernik in the mountains on an archaeological expedition I would have reached for my revolver. In Kalash’s case, it was perfectly believable. “Miernik has been rooting in my father’s library ever since he arrived,” Kalash told me, “looking for a link between our family and the old sultans of west Sudan. He will not be convinced that we came from Arabia. One indulges these fantasies in scholars. I thought he’d like to see the ruins; there are some rather dim pictures on the old walls. As I was going right by on my way to see someone I offered to drop him off. I could not have been more astonished when he vanished.”

I immediately assumed that Miernik had taken advantage of Kalash’s expedition in order to make contact with the ALF. When Kalash told me that his meeting was with his half brother Qemal, I no longer had any doubt that Miernik had slipped away to take command of the guerrillas. In a way, it was amusing that Miernik had in the end outwitted me through such a simple device. While I slept the morning away, he got in a Land Rover and rode innocently away, making no attempt at concealment because he had equipped himself with one final perfect cover story. The ancient kings of Darfur. It was a pretty operation.

No doubt I could have accepted his disappearance as the proof we’ve wanted that he is the Soviets’ principal agent to the ALF. But a mixture of duty and pride (mostly pride) made me think that I had to follow him to make absolutely certain. I was curious to know what change would come over him once he was freed of his cover personality and acting as head terrorist.