So, all he needed to do was appoint a few volunteers to board the barge, use the turbine for cover, and attack from both ends. Serebin knew it would come to that and, soon enough, the sound of the patrol boat engine came toward him, as it maneuvered to position itself next to the barge. Now he had to do the one thing he most didn’t want to do.
He turned, saw that the barge had been roped to a cleat, but, when he pushed against the edge of the dock, there was perhaps a foot of clearance. He lay prone on the gunwale, hesitated, finally slid one leg into the water. Bit his lip, then lowered himself the rest of the way. It was like being packed in ice, the cold gripped him so hard he could barely breathe. And then, the patrol boat’s motion in the canal sent a gentle current toward the barge, which pressed against him, and began to squeeze his chest between the hull and the rough slab of timber that framed the dock. He fought it with both hands but it didn’t give, so he had seconds to pull himself up on the gunwale. And into the light, into the view of the patrol boat. Still, better to die that way than to be crushed to death. As he started to climb, the barge moved. Only an inch, but enough. Using his hands, he slid himself along the timber to the edge of the hull, took a breath, went under.
Not more than a few feet to the tug, but cold and black as death. Finally a groping hand found the side of the boat and he hauled himself over the low freeboard and onto the deck. He was exhausted, finished. He lay still for a time, then began to work his hands, which had gone numb and stiff in the freezing water.
When he opened his eyes he saw that the patrol boat had maneuvered itself next to the barge, and, for a bare instant, there was a flicker of motion in the shadow of the turbine. Somebody on the boat began calling out to him- you can surrender, we won’t hurt you, there’s custard for dessert. It was all in Roumanian and he understood not a word of it but he got the general idea. In fact, it was whatever might keep him from hearing the armed sailors as they crawled around on the barge.
Not long until they figured out he wasn’t there, so he slid forward as quickly as he could until he reached the foot of the steps that led up to the pilot cabin. Then he heard pistol shots, and he froze. Next came a shouted conversation between barge and patrol boat, and suddenly the searchlight swept over the water, the other barges, and finally the tugboat. Serebin lay completely still, pinned in the white beam, and waited for the machine gun.
It didn’t come. The searchlight played on the cabin, then moved, slowly now, across the hill above the burning pilot station. Serebin scuttled up the steps and knelt at the foot of the helm. He made a fist and, imitating what Erma had done, hit the board skirting below the wheel. Nothing happened. He tried reaching behind the panel, but it was blocked by a board across the bottom. Again, he pounded. Nothing. Christ, there’s a trick to it. Then he stood, turned his arm parallel to the skirting, and hit it with the side of his fist. And, by means of some fiendish carpenter’s alchemy he could not imagine, it popped open.
The Mannlicher was nice and heavy, he knelt back down and curled around it, shivering, and, with thick, frozen fingers, managed to release the magazine. Loaded. He pushed it back in place with the heel of his hand, heard it lock in place with an emphatic click-the Austrians made good weapons-and worked the slide. The same fool’s demon that had tried to trick him into blowing himself up now suggested it would be a perfectly fine idea to fire from the cabin. But, once again, he stopped just in time. Crawled back to the stern, got as low as he could, lined the barrel sight up with the center of the searchlight, and squeezed the trigger.
But the Austrians’ good weapons didn’t always send the bullets where the sight said they were going-low or high, left or right, he didn’t know. However, all was not lost; the light remained undamaged but, as one of the sailors howled and swore like a man who’s hit his thumb with a hammer, the beam shot straight up into the sky and stayed there. On the patrol boat, all hell broke loose-running shapes, shouted orders. Serebin waited, held his right wrist with his left hand and fought to keep the Mannlicher steady. When, a moment later, the light went back to work, it swung toward the stern of the tugboat. Had they seen the muzzle flare? He fired, shifted the gunsight, tried again, and once more. Then, with one brilliant, white, dazzling, final flash, the light exploded.
Serebin wasted no time. Blood pounding, head down, he sprinted for the bow, leapt onto the dock, and ran up the hill into the night.
It was damp and still in the forest, all wet leaves and bare trees. He climbed quickly, avoiding the path, and made it halfway up the slope when he realized he either had to sit down or fall down. He lowered himself to the ground, braced his back against a tree, wrapped his arms around himself and tried, by force of will, to stop shivering.
Looking through the woods below him, he watched the scene on the river. The roof of the pilot station had now collapsed into the burning walls, the second barge was gone and had taken the third barge down with it. The last barge in line was heeled over on its side, its turbine halfway into the canal. Sinking, he hoped. Why hadn’t he thought to punch a few holes in the things? The patrol boat had tied up to the dock, but its searchlight was still dark, and the officer hadn’t, as far as he could see, sent crewmen up into the forest to look for him.
As the Empress was escorted toward the Moldova Veche station, he’d calculated the distance to the bridge on the Berzasca river as close to twenty-seven kilometers. It would take him all night-maybe well into the morning, to walk that far. Would Marrano still be there? Serebin wasn’t sure. He would stay as long as he could, but the neighborhood wasn’t going to get any friendlier as the night wore on and the Roumanians began to look for him. Still, there was no other choice, it was a long way back to Belgrade. And if Marrano, for whatever reason, was forced to abandon the meeting place, the only alternative left for Serebin was crossing the river into Yugoslavia.
He forced himself to his feet, found a tree-branch walking stick in a tangle of underbrush, and started climbing.
Count Szechenyi’s theory of road building was simple enough: cut a right angle into a mountainside. This made for a winding ledge above steep canyons, shadowed by Carpathian peaks that soared up into the night sky. Was the road in Transylvania? South of there, but not far. Maybe it didn’t have bats, or coachmen driving black- plumed horses-yet, but it had everything else. Fog, that thickened by the hour, the steady wash of the river on the cliffs below, rocky outcrops that hung overhead, at least one owl-and something else he could only imagine, sometimes a deserted valley, and a wind that sighed in the trees, froze him to the bone, and now and then stirred the fog to reveal a crescent slice of pale and waning moon.
Enormous silence. And not a human soul to be seen.
For that much, he was grateful. At one point he stopped to rest, realized that the Mannlicher was getting heavier with every step, opened the magazine to find a single bullet, and threw the gun into the forest below. It did occur to him that an hour of sleep might actually speed him on his way, but he knew better than to do that. Speed you on your way to heaven. So he rose and trudged on, singing quietly to himself as he marched.
All through the hours of the night, he walked. Then, as light touched the eastern sky, he heard a creaking wheel, and the thud of hooves on stone, coming up behind him. He stepped off the road, half-ran, half-slid a little way down the hill, and hid behind a tree until he could see what it was. An oxcart, with high wheels built of thick planks, a man and a woman in the black clothing of Roumanian peasants sitting together on the driver’s seat. Serebin decided to take a chance, and returned to the road.
When the man saw him he pulled on the reins, tipped his battered black hat, the woman beside him moved to make room, and Serebin climbed up next to them. In the cart, a small shape carefully sewn into a sheet. Serebin, in French, offered his sympathies, which, without understanding a word of it, the couple perfectly understood, and the woman thanked him in Roumanian.
This was better than walking, though not all that much faster. The ox plodded steadily along as the gray dawn-farm roosters at it in the distance-turned into a gray morning. The road grew wider as stone turned to dirt, and they passed through a series of mountain villages, sixteenth-century villages-mud, straw, and cow manure. In a narrow valley, a column of mounted soldiers approached from the other direction. Were they searching for fugitives? Serebin didn’t let them get a look at his face, but when the officer at the head of the column saw what was in the cart he removed his hat, and inclined his head toward the couple.
Serebin rode on the oxcart until mid-morning, then they stopped by a path that wound through the fields-to a church, he thought, and a graveyard. Serebin thanked them, and continued on foot.
But not for long. When he saw, in the distance, a pair of bicycle riders, he rushed into the woods, tripped on a root and went sprawling. Then cursed himself for fleeing from phantoms-at the potential cost of a sprained ankle- until he saw that the young men on the bicycles wore the uniform of the national gendarmerie and had rifles slung on their backs. He waited until they passed, returned to the road, but was forced to hide three times in the next hour; first by a big sedan, then by a truck, and last by a band of singing German hikers. That did it. He found a cattle path and followed it to a village where he managed, by greeting an old woman over a stake fence, to buy an
