And Colonel Ilya Simonov shot him neatly and accurately in the head. The silenced gun made no more sound than a pop.
Blagonravov, his dying eyes registering unbelieving shock, fell back into his heavy swivel chair.
Simonov worked quickly. He gathered up his reports, checked quickly to see they were all there. Struck a match, lit one of the reports and dropped it into the large ash tray on the desk. One by one he lit them all and, when all were consumed, stirred the ashes until they were completely pulverized.
He poured himself another vodka, downed it, stiff wristed, then without turning to look at the dead man again, made his way to the door.
He slipped out and said to the lieutenant, “The Minister says that he is under no circumstances to be disturbed for the next hour.”
The lieutenant frowned at him. “But he has an appointment.”
Colonel Ilya Simonov shrugged. “Those were his instructions. Not to be bothered under any circumstances.”
“But it was an appointment with Number One!”
That was bad. And unforeseen. Ilya Simonov said, “It’s probably been canceled. All I’m saying is that Minister Blagonravov instructs you not to bother him under any circumstances for the next hour.”
He left the other and strode down the corridor, keeping himself from too obvious a quickened pace.
At the entrance to the Ministry, he shot his glance up and down the street. He was in the clutch now, and knew it. He had few illusions.
Not a cab in sight. He began to cross the road toward the park. In a matter of moments there, he’d be lost in the trees and shrubbery. He had rather vague plans. Actually, he was playing things as they came. There was a close friend in whose apartment he could hide, a man who owed him his life. He could disguise himself. Possibly buy or borrow a car. If he could get back to Prague, he was safe. Perhaps he and Catherina could defect to the West.
Somebody was screaming something from a window in the Ministry.
Ilya Simonov quickened his pace. He was nearly across the street now. He thought, foolishly, Whoever that is shouting is so excited he sounds more like a woman than a man.
Another voice took up the shout. It was the plainclothes-man. Feet began pounding.
There were two more shouts. The guards. But he was across now. The shrubs were only a foot away.
The shattering blackness hit him in the back of the head. It was over immediately.
Afterward, the plainclothesman and the two guards stood over him. Men began pouring from the Ministry in their direction.
Colonel Ilya Simonov was a meaningless, bloody heap on the edge of the park’s grass.
The guard who had shot said, “He killed the Minister. He must have been crazy to think he could get away with it. What did he want?”
“Well, we’ll never know now,” the plainclothesman grunted.
HIGH BARBARY
by Lawrence Durrell
But that’s not science fiction?
I have already elaborated on the several ways in which this question can irritate or annoy. Perversely, it was saddening that no one asked it of me about Mr. Reynolds’ story. It would seem we are so thoroughly alienated from the Russians that a simple political yarn, involving no space travel, wonderful invention, time machine, psi power, or oven far-future speculation, but just the simplest extrapolation from the present situation, should seem as imaginatively remote as an analogy set on Mars. (Which raises the question: Is it science fiction if the author has been to Mars? Whether the reader has or not?) This next selection, in any case, is certainly not science fiction — perhaps not even fiction. Mademoiselle called it a short story; I should incline more to “satirical essay.”)
Mr. Durrell is probably the leading exponent of the shifting viewpoint among contemporary mainstream writers. His famous Alexandria Quartet is essentially a view of love through four different persons’ eyes. But before he turned to his examination of love, the author had an unusual opportunity to study some of the less congenial emotions. Like Mr. Reynolds, he was a “traveling man,” but under rather different auspices: Press Officer for the British Foreign Service, and lecturer for the British Council, in Athens, Cairo, Rhodes, Belgrade, among other places.
What I very much enjoy on the second Saturday of the month (said Antrobus) is the little walk across to the Strand for a haircut and a spiritual revamping chez the good Fenner. Everything about the operation is reassuring, soothing. As you know, Fenner himself is clearly a mixture of Old Father Time and Dr. Freud. The whole Office has, at one time or another, passed through his purposeful scissors. You know how fanatically faithful to tradition the F.O. is; well, Fenner is a tradition. Why, last week when Toby Featherblow’s wife, Constance, popped number four and the thing was found to be positively covered in hair, it was to Fenner that they rushed to have the features disinterred for the purposes of licensing and registration. Otherwise the registrar might have refused to accept what was, to all intents and purposes, an ape. Yes, you can count on old Fenner. He never flinches before reality.
As for the Emporium — with its potted palms, painted mirrors, its pictures of Eights Week in the nineties, its dominating portrait of Gladstone staring out through (or perhaps round?) a Fenner hairdo — what is one to say? It radiates calm and the soothing smell of bay rum or Fenner’s Scalp Syrup and Follicle Food combined. Nor does one overhear any low conversation there — just a few choice anecdotes about the Dutch Royal Family, carefully phrased. Fenner is strict; once I remember that two military attaches were expelled from their stools for trying to exchange betting slips. Fenner’s scorn was so withering that one of them cried.
But all this one learns to value truly only when one has served abroad — for not the least of the hazards the poor dip has to face is that of foreign barbary. My dear chap, as you walk in, you can scan the row of seated clients and tell at a glance where some of them have been serving. The singular bottlebrush effect of a Siamese haircut, for example, will take ages to grow out and is quite unmistakable. Fenner will shake his head commiseratingly and say, “Bangkok, I take it, sir?” The poor chap will sit with trembling lip and nod sadly. “We will see what can be done to save you, sir,” says Fenner and releases a faintly flocculent blast from a pressurized syringe, which at once brings back the flush of health to the raped scalp. You have experienced it. You will know what I mean.
It varies, too, with every country, as do the habits of the various artists. In Italy your barber is apt to sing — a dangerous habit and excruciating for the tone-deaf; moreover he may add gestures to his little aria of a sudden and lop off an earlobe with a fine air of effortless self-distinction. Personally, I would rather have the stuff grow all the way down my back and into my chair than trust an Italian when overcome with emotion and garlic. I have seen it happen. A cousin of Polk-Mowbray still bears a cropped right ear; indeed, he is lucky to have as much of it left as he has — only a wild swerve prevented its total disappearance. Talk about living dangerously!
In places like Germany, for example, one is lucky to be able to get away without a severed carotid. As for the Balkans, they, too, have their fearsome methods, and I have known cases where people took to beards and shingles rather than face up to reality. Of course, the moment they get leave they fly back to Fenner, who cuts back all the undergrowth and serenely removes whatever may have been picked up by the static electricity. At least that was the excuse that Munnings-Mather gave for all the hairpins and Gramophone needles Fenner found in his beard.