The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax Page 3

  No one was allowed to leave the plane in Sofia until General Ignatov and his two officers had disembarked. Mrs. Pollifax spent these minutes in anchoring her hat more securely and in trying to forget that she carried contraband. She remembered saying to Carstairs in her apartment, "I suppose in a country like Bulgaria these passports are the equivalent of gold."

  "Not gold," he'd said. "Tell me first what the equivalent of a human life is, and perhaps then we can measure their value. Perhaps."

  Once passengers were allowed to leave, Mrs. Pollifax descended from the plane and followed the others into the terminal. As she approached Customs she reminded herself that she was only a tourist, and fairly experienced at dissembling. She was also-thanks to retired police chief Lorvale Brown-moderately adept at karate, but still she could not remember when she had felt so nervous. She watched her suitcase opened and a pair of hands methodically sift its contents. The Customs man then looked at her, his eyes narrowing as they came to rest on the bird atop her hat. Mrs. Pollifax braced herself. A look of astonishment crossed his face, he smiled, nudged his companion and pointed to the bird. Two pairs of eyes regarded her hat in surprise, and then the first officer gave her an admiring grin and signaled her to move on. Happily she obeyed. She had passed Customs. There was only Balkantourist left to confront, and presumably in time her knees would stop trembling.

  Carstairs had described Bulgarians as the realists among the Balkan people. "Also the most trustworthy," he had said crisply. "They'll never knife you in the back."

  "That's reassuring," Mrs. Pollifax had said.

  He had added gravely, "They'll wait instead for you to turn around first."

  She was reminded of this by the Balkantourist representative who awaited her beyond Customs. The square, compact young woman greeted her with a hearty manner, but her eyes were surprisingly indifferent, almost contemptuous. Her face was high cheekboned and boyish and devoid of makeup; she wore a wrinkled khaki dress with insignia at each lapel. "I am Nevena," she said in a husky voice, heavily accented, and turning her back on Mrs. Pollifax she continued joking vivaciously with several of the Customs men. This left Mrs. Pollifax to cope with her luggage. She locked her suitcase, put away her passport and, luggage in hand, and waited. Apparently Nevena was well known. Obviously she was in no hurry.

  It was tiresome standing first on one foot and then the other. Mrs. Pollifax's glance strayed from Nevena and toward the dwindling line at Customs. Her eyes fell upon the group of young travelers from the Belgrade air terminal and she saw that again they appeared to be having problems, this time with Customs. Philip was propped against the counter smothering a yawn. Debby looked discouraged. Nikki however, was still gesturing, his face livid as he argued with the man behind the counter. All of this Mrs. Pollifax noted in the flash of a second, just as a new official arrived to resolve the quarrel. He directed the group out of line and herded them to a far corner of the hall.

  She interrupted Nevena firmly. "I'm going back through Customs," she announced. "I see that some friends of mine are having trouble over there, they may need help."

  Nevena's frown was not encouraging. "Help?" she said gruffly.

  Mrs. Pollifax pointed. "In the corner, see?"

  Nevena's gaze followed her hand and then swerved back to give Mrs. Pollifax a quick, hard scrutiny. "Those peoples are known to you?"

  "Yes."

  Nevena shook her head. Her eyes rested again on Mrs. Pollifax, curious and a little startled. "The man speaking with them is not a Customs man. We go now."

  "But I really think—"

  "We go," Nevena said sharply, and tugged at Mrs. Pollifax's elbow, propelling her toward the door.

  "I don't understand," said Mrs. Pollifax, resisting.

  Nevena stopped just outside the building. "If they are in trouble you cannot help them."

  "Why should they be in trouble?"

  "That is a man from security questioning them. You wish to be in trouble, too?"

  "Security?" echoed Mrs. Pollifax.

  "The car is here," Nevena said sternly, pointing and opening the door. "Come-inside."

  Mrs. Pollifax hesitated and then remembered that trouble was a luxury she couldn't afford and that security was a synonym for the secret police. With a sigh she climbed into the car. "What kind of trouble?" she persisted as Nevena joined her.

  Nevena shrugged. "Maybe the visas are in disorder?"

  Mrs. Pollifax relaxed. If that was the case then the group would be flown back to Yugoslavia and their squabbles over visiting Bulgaria would be ended. Nevertheless she had been reminded that it was not healthy to be singled out by the police here. She really must be cautious.

  "Now," said Nevena as she started the car, "I speak to you of Sofia, which is some five thousand years old and is capital of Bulgaria. It is fourth Bulgarian capital after Pliska, Preslav and Tarnovo. The Thracians called it Serdika, the Slavs called it Sredets, the Byzantines, Triaditsa. Although destroyed and burned by Goths, Magyars, Huns, Patsinaks and Crusaders, Sofia is today a beautiful modern city. With its original historical and cultural monuments and numerous mineral springs our capital is a great attraction for tourists. . . ."

  Oh dear, thought Mrs. Pollifax, suppressing a yawn, and in revolt she began her own assessment of Sofia, whose low silhouette lay stretched out ahead of her in the clear sparkling air. It was a sprawling city that encircled the foothill of a long high mountain range. The air was bracing and everything looked clean and fresh. Along the road grew clumps of Queen Anne's lace, oddly endearing to her after the brief chill that had visited her. She decided that she really must halt that droning, mechanical voice at her side. It was time to assert.

  "There's a gentleman I would like to call on tomorrow," she told Nevena. "If you'll advise me how to find him."

  Nevena's face tightened. "You know someone in my country?"

  Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. Speaking each word slowly and clearly she explained, "I don't knew this man. He's not even Bulgarian. His name was suggested to me by a friend, in case I wanted to learn more about your country. His name is Carleton Bemish."

  "Oh-Mistair Beemish!" laughed Nevena, and her face sprang to life, gamine and suddenly pretty. "The funny one! Everyone knows Bemish." She said firmly, "He would be the good man for you if he is not busy. Maybe he have time. For myself I have not enough time, but you could join a group I begin tomorrow. At 1 p.m. sharp they tour Sofia in Balkantourist bus. Very nice bus."

  "I'm renting a car while I'm here," pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Oh-" Nevena slapped a hand to her forehead. "You are accurate! Eleven tomorrow." She slowed the car. "Mr. Bemish live there," she said, pointing to a narrow, modern cement building punctuated by very symmetrical balconies. "Only five squares from your hotel. I write the address for you in Bulgarian when you wish."

  Mrs. Pollifax turned, affixing the look of the building in her mind. "Thank you," she said, and began to make a mental note of the corners they passed.

  Within minutes they entered a plaza lined with modern shops and dominated by a towering granite and glass building. "Your hotel," pointed out Nevena proudly.

  And despite the lettering across the front that in no way resembled Rila, it proved to be the Hotel Rila. Nevena parked at a side entrance with stairs leading into a small side lobby. "It is now 3 p.m.," she said with a stern glance at her wristwatch. "I register you at hotel and then there is time for me personally to show you Sofia. Maybe one and a half hours, very quick but-"

  Very politely Mrs. Pollifax said, "Another day that would be pleasant, but I'd really prefer to rest now."

  Nevena gave her a sharp glance. "You are old?"

  "Very," said Mrs. Pollifax.

  Nevena nodded. "You give me passport, I register you." At the desk she spoke severely in Bulgarian to the clerk and then turned to Mrs. Pollifax. "Okay, I go now. At 11 a.m. tomorrow sharp I meet you beside this desk when car arrives. The man who brings car speaks no English."

  "Tha
t's very kind of you."

  "This man who takes suitcase up for you, give him only a few stotynki, you understand? This is not a capitalist country."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded and watched her march out of the lobby. She wondered what someone like Nevena-so stolid, so efficient-would do with the two free hours she'd just been given. Certainly not rest, she thought, but then Mrs. Pollifax had no intention of resting either. Having just won herself a few hours of unexpected privacy, she thought it an excellent time to begin her sub rosa work. She would visit Durov's tailor shop.

  6

  Nothing in this hotel district of Sofia was shabby. Everything was clean, bare, new, the boulevards almost empty of traffic. Map in hand, Mrs. Pollifax crossed Vasil Levski street to number nine and studied the word printed across the glass window: it said IUHB&4 This was not particularly helpful. She peered through the glass. Seeing the bolts of fabrics hanging along the walls, she walked inside to find two men and a woman bent over the hems and seams of fabric in their laps. The stolid-faced woman with gray hair left her sewing machine and walked to the counter. "Do you speak English?" asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  The older man in the rear looked up suddenly. Without a word the woman returned to her machine and the man came forward. "Pliss?" he said cautiously. "I speak the English."

  "I would like to take home a man's sheepskin jacket or vest," she told him;

  "Ah-we have fine skins," he said, nodding.

  "Good." She met his eye before adding, "I want a brown vest for a friend in America."

  "A brown one!" he said with pleasure. "Not black?"

  She shook her head. "Brown. Here are the measurements." She offered them on a slip of paper.

  The expression on his face remained totally unchanged. He copied the measurements arduously, chewing on his underlip as he labored. He lifted his head. "You stay at a hotel?"

  "The Rila," she replied, and aware that the sign on her hotel bore no resemblance to the word, she brought out the hotel's leaflet and showed him its picture.

  "Yes. Your name?"

  "Mrs. Pollifax."

  "Pollifax." She noticed that he made no move to write down either her name or the name of her hotel. "Excuse, pliss?" he said formally, and abruptly disappeared into the back room. Over the whirring of the sewing machines she could hear him speaking, perhaps on the telephone for she heard no answering voice. A few minutes later he returned. "The vest will cost"-he pursed his lips thoughtfully-"maybe twelve leva, maybe eighteen."

  "Wonderful," exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax, quite carried away by the thought of paying only six or nine dollars for a sheepskin vest until she remembered it was an imaginary vest they discussed.

  "We let you know. Maybe tomorrow, okay?" For the first time he gave her a glance that she could read as meaningful, and she nodded.

  "Thank you," she said, and left.

  Mrs. Pollifax walked slowly back to her hotel, pausing to look into a number of stores to prove that her interest was not limited to tailoring shops, should anyone be following her. When she reached the hotel and her room on the sixth floor, she discovered that she felt a great deal lighter: a grave responsibility had been lifted from her, she had found the shop and notified the Underground of her arrival. The rest would be up to the man named Tsanko now, and in the meantime she could relax and begin to enjoy Sofia.

  After unpacking the top inch of her suitcase, she took a quick shower and then dressed. She felt quite stimulated by the brief exchange of words at number nine Vasil Levski. The man had reminded her of Mr. Omelianuk, the owner of the little delicatessen around the corner from her apartment in New Brunswick, and she reflected how alike people were, no matter where they lived. The problems changed, but people were the same. She wondered how she would be contacted, and when. Apparently not this evening; the man had implied tomorrow. That was disappointing, especially when she glanced at her watch and saw that it was only six o'clock. It seemed much too early for dinner, and in any case she wasn't hungry.

  I'm feeling too efficient to be hungry, she thought, and it suddenly occurred to her that she might complete all of tomorrow's work today by calling upon Mr. Carleton Bemish. Perhaps she could persuade him to join her for dinner. Failing that, she could at least engage him for a sightseeing tour of Sofia tomorrow in her rented car.

  Splendid idea, she decided, and putting on her hat she descended in the elevator to the small side lobby and walked outside to begin her search for Mr. Bemish's street and apartment house. One left turn, she remembered, and then four blocks to the Rila, which meant—turning it backward—that she walked four blocks away from the plaza and turned to the right. And there it was, giving her cause to congratulate herself on accomplishing so much during her first hours in Bulgaria.

  But what a bleak-looking place the building was on closer scrutiny. It looked new, and very clean, but it had been constructed in the stark, concrete-modern style of the twenties that aimed at simplicity but succeeded only in looking utilitarian. Mrs. Pollifax entered a lobby that resembled a laundry room, with a drain placed squarely in the center of the floor; there were two couches, of tubular steel and hard plastic, at right angles along the wall. A directory of occupants gave Bemish's name, apartment 301, in both Bulgarian and English. A windowless staircase, also cement, led up to an unseen landing from which drifted the smell of cabbage. There was no elevator.

  Mrs. Pollifax began to climb, and as she climbed the smell of cabbage grew stronger and the ill-placed ceiling lights grew more garish. At the door of apartment 301 she knocked and waited. The building was quiet, but from inside 301 came the sound of someone singing. It was a man's voice, overcharged, belligerent and rendered in a spirit that Mrs. Pollifax guessed did not come from any internal source of well-being. Mr. Bemish's cocktail hour had begun some hours ago.

  The door opened and a cheerful, rotund man beamed at her.

  "Mr. Bemish?" she said. "Mr. Carleton Bemish?"

  He winked. "In the flesh."

  And indeed her first impression was of flesh, rather a lot of it, and all of it arranged in circles: a plump round stomach, round face, round chins, small round eyes embedded in circles of flesh, and a small round mouth. He gave the impression of vast jovialness until Mrs. Pollifax looked directly into his eyes and found them curiously empty, like stones.

  "I'm Mrs. Pollifax," she said. "May I come in? I was told that . . ." She paused doubtfully. He stood blocking her entrance; she stopped and waited.

  "Something nice, I hope?" he asked with a second wink.

  "Told that I might talk with you," she said, and firmly walked past him into his living room. It was very bold of her, but she had already gained the impression that Mr. Bemish was not in full command of his faculties. "About a job," she said. "As my guide for several days."

  Off to the right a door closed, but not before she had caught a glimpse of a drab, mouse-like little woman fleeing the room; a cleaning woman, perhaps, although the apartment did not look as if it had been cleaned in years.

  "I couldn't be less interested," said Carleton Bemish, following her into the room. "I'm otherwise occupied. Busy. Very busy."

  And very prosperous, too, noticed Mrs. Pollifax as her glance fell on a heavily draped round table in the center of the room. On it stood a silver bucket with a bottle of champagne protruding from it. It was a startling sight in such a shabby room. She said mechanically, "I'm sorry, you're expecting someone?"

  "My dear woman, of course I'm expecting someone," he said pompously, rocking a little on his heels. "A man like myself has many important friends. Many."

  Her glance fell to the couch near the table and she saw long white cardboard boxes piled there. From one of them spilled the shimmering folds of a brocade dressing gown. His glance followed hers and he beamed. "Not bad, hmm?" he said, walking over to the couch. He pulled the robe from the box and held it up. "They're not underestimating Carleton Bemish any more! Look at it-pure silk!"

  "Ah, you've inherited money," suggested Mrs. Pollifax.


  He draped the robe across his shoulders and winked at her. "What I've inherited is a news story-the biggest -and I've made the news story myself. I feel surprisingly like God!" He came near to Mrs. Pollifax, the robe streaming behind him like a train, his breath suffocatingly alcoholic. With intense scorn, and breathing heavily at her, he said, "They're no longer saying 'Good old Bemish, nice old Bemish'. . . . They treat me with respect now, I can tell you." He tapped his right temple meaningfully. "Brains. Wit. That's what it takes to survive, Mrs.-what's your name?"

  "Pollifax."

  "The thing is," he said defiantly, "I'm not up for hire. Carleton Bemish is no longer a has-been. You understand?"

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed. "I understand. You're no longer a has-been."

  He peered suspiciously into her face. "That sounds damn impertinent."

  "You're standing on my right foot," said Mrs. Pollifax frankly.

  He jumped back. "Oh-sorry."

  She nodded. "I quite understand now that you're not available, and so I'll just run along. In the meantime I'll be looking forward to reading your news story."

  He beamed appreciatively. "With by-line. Already posted-to London, Paris, New York. But not," he added owlishly, "in Sofia. Not in this country. Pity about that"

  Thoroughly tired of this, Mrs. Pollifax moved to the door; he was suddenly there before her, his mood changed again. "Wait a minute," he said suspiciously. "Who did you say you are?"

  "Mrs. Pollifax," she sighed. "I came to see you about guiding-"

  He relaxed. "Oh yes, I remember."

  Someone else had arrived at Mr. Bemish's door and was knocking. "My guest!" said Carleton Bemish happily, and threw open the door, exclaiming in Bulgarian to the man who stood there illuminated by the overhead hall light. His face was clearly outlined and Mrs. Pollifax stared at him in surprise. She knew him. He in turn glanced at her with barely concealed impatience and addressed himself to Bemish, the two of them speaking in rapid Bulgarian.

  She knew him, but from where? He was young, very dark, square and broad-shouldered. "The Belgrade air terminal!" she said aloud.