Mrs. Pollifax Innocent Tourist Read online

Hearing a knock on her door she slipped the sheet of paper back in the box on top of the plaque and opened the door to Farrell. "Greetings," she said, smiling. "What time is dinner?"

  "At seven-thirty, Joseph tells me, and I've asked him to join us, we meet in the lobby. It's buffet, so you can pick and choose between American and Middle Eastern."

  "Good," she said. "You had coffee with Joseph and made all the arrangements, I take it, but how on earth did you explain our spending all morning at Karak castle tomorrow, and possibly still another morning there?"

  "Damned awkward, yes," admitted Farrell cheerfully. "I hope like hell Ibrahim shows up tomorrow, but I did prepare Joseph for the worst, he didn't question it—he's young and obviously wants to please."

  "And just how did you prepare him?" she inquired suspiciously.

  He grinned. "I think I was quite creative, we now have an archaeologist friend finishing up his work in Syria—they do a lot of digging there—and we're not sure which day he'll get here—and I had no idea what hotel I'd find in Amman—and since our friend is terribly interested in seeing Karak castle—and our being crazy Americans—it was left that we'd meet at the castle.

  "I am also," he added with a wicked grin, "paying Joseph a reckless amount of money for his showing us around his country, he dreams of acquiring a real tour bus, you see."

  "Farrell! You're bribing him?"

  He nodded. "Ruthless, that's me." He glanced at his watch. "Let's check out that shop in the lobby, I think I saw maps for sale there."

  This idea Mrs. Pollifax embraced. "Because," she pointed out, "you gave me no time to learn exactly where we are, and I'd like to learn just how far Ibrahim must come to reach Jordan."

  They descended in the elevator, and Farrell led her to the shop, where he found a map of Jordan, and Mrs. Pollifax, browsing, bought a map of Amman and a stamp for the letter to Cyrus she hoped to complete soon. In the lobby they pulled together two chairs and spread out the maps.

  Again she was surprised at how small Jordan—the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan—looked next to the huge country of Saudi Arabia that lined both its western and southern borders. "And there's Iraq," she said, pointing. "Oh dear, such a small, squeezed-in border there. Many guards, do you think?"

  Farrell was frowning. "Carstairs thought Ibrahim might have to come by way of the desert—a killing route—since no visas are issued in Iraq and the borders are tight. Our friend might have to drop down into Saudi Arabia to find a relatively safe place to cross."

  "How about Jordan's borders?"

  Farrell hesitated. "There's a Desert Patrol. ... I don't think the borders are fenced because I seem to remember there were treaties allowing the Bedouin in Jordan to still roam back and forth with their herds of sheep and camels. For the sake of pasturage." He added doubtfully, "But now that the government has persuaded many of the Bedouin to leave the desert for the villages, they drive pickup trucks instead of camels, and that leaves only the sheep." He shook his head. "I don't know."

  "Joseph might."

  Farrell laughed. "Try fitting that question into a casual conversation, anyway, here's the Governate of Karak, see? And the town of Karak—" He glanced up. "And here comes Joseph."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "Looking very handsome and professional in a blazer with a Jidoor Tours insignia on its pocket."

  Joseph gave them each his warm smile; to Mrs. Pollifax he said, "And did the man asking for you find you okay?"

  Mrs. Pollifax stiffened, she was aware of Farrell, beside her, turning to give her an astonished glance. "A man?" she faltered. "Asking for me?

  "He did not find you? The room clerk is a friend of mine and said—"

  Farrell interrupted to say sharply, "You're sure he wasn't asking for me?"

  "No, no, for Mrs. Pollifax." He was beaming now, apparently pleased that she had a friend in his country. "If you had told me—"

  Calmer now, Mrs. Pollifax said, "I can't think who it would be, Joseph. Perhaps you could ask your friend the room clerk if he is very certain it was a Mrs. Pollifax he asked for, because he must have mistaken the name. You'll do that?"

  "Of course," said Joseph. "He is not on duty now, but when I see him again, yes."

  "Because," pointed out Mrs. Pollifax, "I don't know anyone in Jordan."

  Joseph gave her a startled glance but said nothing.

  "So you see what a mystery it is," she told him, smiling. "Shall we go in for dinner now? I'm ravenous."

  To Farrell she said, in a low voice, "Stop looking stunned, I can give you an endless list of names like mine."

  "I don't believe it."

  She said lightly, "Then I'll recite some of them for you, even if I've only met most of them in telephone directories: Polidore, Pollander, Pollard, Pollett, Polifroni, even Polystar...."

  She was relieved to see his face relax into an amused smile. On the other hand, having cheered Farrell, she felt a sudden and oppressive sense of unease that she couldn't explain, but which seemed to be lurking in her subconscious, not quite reachable.

  They met again at breakfast, where Mrs. Pollifax discovered Middle Eastern yogurt, thick and textured and tart. "Now this is real yogurt," she told Farrell, ladling it over her cornflakes until it lay there like a blanket.

  Farrell made a face. "Thanks, I prefer bacon and eggs."

  "No sense of adventure," she told him with a twinkle.

  "Ha," snorted Farrell, and with a critical glance at her, "Why on earth are you hunched forward like that in your chair?"

  "Knapsack," she said.

  "Knapsack? Why don't you take it off, for Pete's sake?"

  "Because," she said bitterly, "I'll never get it on again, I've absolutely no logic about the straps. Cyrus gave it to me for my birthday, he has his own for bird-watching. It took me ten minutes in my room to figure out how to put it on backward."

  "You mean on your back," he said, amused. "What are you carrying in it, if I may ask?"

  "A sweater, an extra pair of shoes, writing paper to finish a letter to Cyrus while we wait at the castle, and a head scarf. It frees the hands," she pointed out, and changed the subject by asking, "If Ibrahim doesn't show up this morning, how many mornings do you propose visiting the castle?"

  He shrugged. "Antun urged three mornings and left it up to me what I do after that, but he reminded me that I'd have to confront the fact that Ibrahim could be caught somewhere along the way, sent to prison, shot, or dead in the desert."

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed. "I can understand why the manuscript couldn't be mailed, but surely somewhere, somehow in Iraq—?"

  "We no longer have an embassy or consulate there, Duchess, not since the Gulf War, the Polish Embassy handles our complaints, and even the most innocent people who wander across the Iraq border are clapped into prison, suspected of being spies."

  Mrs. Pollifax shivered. "Such madness! I wonder . . , can one man's book make a difference? Is it worth Ibrahim's risking his life?"

  Farrell smiled. "When I visited Antun Mahmoud the night before I telephoned you, I asked him the same question, he quoted to me an Arabic saying— and ‘ sure hope I get it right." He closed his eyes, remembering, and said softly, " 'The words of eloquent men are like a mighty army, and their writings like glittering swords.' "

  " 'Like glittering swords,' " she repeated. "Yes, I like that."

  Further conversation was interrupted by Joseph's arrival, and he was filled with enthusiasm. "You are ready to leave? I want you to know everything about Karak castle," he said, handing them each several sheets of mimeographed paper. "My car is parked on the street," he added. "Shall we go?"

  They followed him out of the hotel, threading their way past a dozen tour buses lined up and waiting. "You must understand," he said, as they walked toward his car, "this castle is very old, fourteenth century. It rises so high, and is built of such massive blocks of stone, that building it was an amazing feat in those times. But of course," he added, "whoever controlled the castle controlled the land. It was fought
over many times, and brutally."

  "Who wanted it?" asked Farrell, as they climbed into the car.

  Joseph laughed. "Everyone! For instance, it took Saladin—you have surely heard of Saladin—it took him eight months to capture it. It was of big importance to the caravan route that came through the mountains to Damascus."

  He received no response, and Mrs. Pollifax felt sorry for him, but it was scarcely eight o'clock and she had not realized that Amman was half a mile above sea level, and the combination of jet lag and change of altitude promoted a strange lassitude, she thought ruefully, I should have had that second cup of coffee, this may be the morning we meet Ibrahim. This brought a flare of excitement that banished her drowsiness; she sat up straight and turned her attention to the road.

  At eight in the morning the traffic was heavy until they left the center of Amman behind, heading south on a highway filled with roadside signs: arab

  EXPRESS, IRAQI-JORDAN TRANSPORT COMPANY, COCA-COLA, volvo, toyota, DATSUN. . . . This district was one of estates, lavish forty-million-dollar homes. Joseph said, "rich Palestinians," and then they left behind the outskirts of the city to drive through an endless plain of gravel, until the road headed upward toward the hills, past groves of pine trees—"green at last," said Mrs. Pollifax, "and greenhouses again—so many!" Here the surrounding countryside held folds and hollows in which herds of sheep grazed, and she counted fig trees and pomegranates in the gardens, and olive and apricot trees planted in serried rows.

  They passed a village with its square white houses and minarets washed in the gold of the morning sun, surrounded by terraced gardens and flat rock walls. Joseph slowed his car, and they looked down into a valley with a breathtaking view of tawny hills, one after the other, until they vanished into a misty horizon.

  "Jordan Valley," said Joseph. "At night, from here, you can see the lights of Jerusalem."

  Even Farrell was now wide awake.

  The road that followed gave the appearance of being carved out of the rocky mountainside, and Mrs. Pollifax noticed small caves carved out of the stone, and then they drew up to a checkpoint.

  A soldier in an olive green uniform walked out of his kiosk to approach them, he hailed Joseph by name, apparently knowing him; they exchanged words and Joseph drove on.

  Mrs. Pollifax said in surprise, "Your cars and trucks don't have horns! Just a sort of click-click, like a snapper or a tongue clucking."

  Joseph laughed. "We are polite, you see, and we are a small country, a friend of mine visited New York City and—what is your expression, wow? He was sure he would come home deaf."

  "I don't wonder," Farrell said.

  "Speaking of politeness," began Mrs. Pollifax, "would it be very rude of me, Farrell, to ask whether you and Kate Rosier are still seeing each other? When the two of you left Sicily together—"

  He interrupted to say flippantly, "We are—to use the vernacular—just friends now, another way of saying we exchange Christmas and birthday cards, no more."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "Are you angry about how it turned out?"

  He shrugged. "You know how it is—or was, she loves doing fieldwork, and apparently loves the danger of it. Very stimulating, she calls it! Me, I was active in the CIA for what feels now an eternity, and I had to bow out. Too much stimulation, living a double life. Call it burnout, we simply met at the wrong time."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded, she had respected Farrell's need for a change; he would always be available for a challenge—his working with freedom fighters in Africa had proved that—but from what she knew of his previous work for Carstairs, he was certainly lucky to be still alive, and for this she was glad.

  "I'm sorry," she told him. "Do you know where she is now?"

  He only shrugged. "Somewhere stimulating, no doubt, gathering information under a false name. Guatemala or Algeria or Russia or Bulgaria, you name it."

  Mrs. Pollifax said no more.

  It was nine o'clock when they reached the busy little town of Karak, passing a marketplace that left a kaleidoscopic impression of rubber tires for sale, children's bicycles, burlap sacks of grain, and sides of meat, then they were in the countryside again, the castle looming huge in the distance, rising tier by tier out of its bed of rock, an incredible, half-ruined bastion.

  "There is a museum here, but it is closed today," said Joseph, as they parked in the shade. "It's early, no tour buses yet. What time do you expect your friend, Mr. Farrell?"

  Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax exchanged glances, he said casually, "No specific time, Joseph, just at some point during the morning, as I mentioned before, it's uncertain which day, and we may have to come tomorrow, too."

  Joseph nodded, but his glance at Farrell was puzzled. "Yes, of course," he murmured. "I see."

  Mrs. Pollifax hoped that he did not see too much and, once out of the car, quickly changed the subject by asking, "What's that you're carrying, more information for us?"

  "This?" he said. "Oh—oh yes, I thought you might be interested. Pictures of how the men dressed. Photocopied," he added self-consciously, "from a book in the university library."

  He really is a conscientious guide, she thought, and held out her hand; he distributed pages to each of them, and they leaned against the car to look at them. "Good heavens," said Mrs. Pollifax, her glance sliding from pictures of men in armor to the words below. "This requires a new vocabulary! 'Man number two is in articulated steel plates over gambeson and habergeon, with steel-plated helmet called an armet'?"

  Farrell grinned. "I'm looking at 'metal leg and arm defences over habergeon,' " he contributed, " 'with shorted jupon and plate gauntlets and rowel spurs.' "

  Suddenly mischievous, Joseph confided that his favorite was the fifteenth-century sallet and bevor. "I will show you them in the museum in Amman this afternoon, but I thought—thought you might like to imagine them here."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "One can imagine that, yes."

  He led them toward the castle. "We enter here, through this narrow opening, and first you see the stables for the warhorses, we go down—watch your step!"

  It was dark, like walking into a silent tomb, with a smell of dust and age and chill. "Let's keep it short," Farrell said firmly. "I doubt my friend—if he comes— will look for me in the stables."

  They walked over uneven ground down a line of low-ceilinged stalls, and then Joseph led them up worn stone stairs, where they had to grasp each others' hands to keep from stumbling in the darkness, they peered into small earth-floored rooms with only tiny slits of light to illuminate them; they climbed up and down steps, and then into a large earth-floored hall.

  "With a hole in the center through which," pointed out Joseph, "well—it is a toilet hole," he explained with a frank smile.

  At last he brought them out into daylight, on a perilous shelf of stone lacking any walls. "Here," he said, "is where prisoners were thrown over the side and down into the moat to their deaths."

  Mrs. Pollifax winced; drawing as near to the edge as she dared, she looked down, and it was a long way down. "How horrible!"

  Farrell, looking a little sick, said, "Surely there's a pleasanter place to view the landscape and watch for my friend."

  Joseph smiled. "Of course, and I take you there."

  "Much better," said Mrs. Pollifax, as they reached an outside gallery with the security of low walls, and saw far below a panorama of brown hills threaded with roads and small patches of green. From here they could look down on the parking area and the entrance below; the sun was bright, and a refreshing breeze ruffled her hair. "A good place to spend the morning," she acknowledged, looking from earth to sky, and then she turned and looked back and up at the walls above, with their tiny slits for windows, she found it difficult to imagine people cooking, sleeping, and living in such a cheerless, dark, and tomblike castle. But they would be safe, she thought, there would be that, at least, with an army of men—in their gambesons and habergeons, she added humorously—ready to mount their warhorses and ride out
to fight their battles.

  "Are we the only ones here?" she asked, daring to lean over the low wall and look down on Joseph's car.

  "Early," Farrell pointed out, and removed a sketchbook and pen from his pocket.

  Mrs. Pollifax shrugged off her knapsack and from it removed her sweater; Joseph rushed to help her put it on, and she realized what a dull morning this was going to be for him. Unless, of course, Ibrahim arrived very soon, she thought of the writing paper she'd brought so that she could at last write her letter to Cyrus, but she was not only moved by Joseph's predicament, she'd also decided that learning about Jordan was of more interest to her just now.

  "Where did you go to university?" she asked him, seating herself on the sun-warmed stone floor of the gallery.

  'The Jordan University in Amman," he said, seating himself beside her with a smile. "When my family left the desert—"

  "Left what?"

  He nodded. "The desert, we are bedu." Seeing her look blank, he added gently, "Bedouin . . . My grandfather, for instance, still lives in a tent. Not for him the city!" He shrugged. "He visits it but can't sleep in a house, so we visit him in the desert. It's good for us."

  "I suppose it is," she said, alert now. "Your father— he left?"

  "My father is a rug merchant, he sells Bedouin rugs in the souk, there is no polite education in the desert, you see—"

  "Polite?" she echoed, smiling.

  He laughed. "Did ‘ use the wrong word? There is a great deal to learn from the desert—-my sister Hanan is proof of that!—but my father wanted his children to be educated. In polite—no, proper schools." He added proudly, "I have one brother in the army, one brother in the police, a sister who teaches, there is myself— and then there is Hanan," he added with a grin.

  "Hanan?"

  "My little sister." His grin deepened. "She wishes to know if you have visited the Wild West and seen something called a road-o."

  "Rodeo?"

  "Yes." He laughed. "Hanan dreams of having a horse, she is eleven years old—she came so late!—and she is pure bedu, a wild one. You Americans have a word for it—tomcat?"

  'Tomboy," said Mrs. Pollifax, with a smile.