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.”