apple and a loaf of bread. Then decided not to test his luck any further and found himself a hideout in a willow grove, where he ate the apple and the bread, drank from a brook-the water so cold it made his teeth ache-and settled in to wait for dusk.
He woke suddenly, an hour later, had no idea where he was, returned to consciousness, and still didn’t know where he was. He spent the rest of the day in the willow grove, sometimes dozing, sometimes watching the river, and was back on the road after sunset, now glad of the darkness and the gathering fog. The next village he came to was bigger than the others. It had a street-paved with quarried stone a long, long time ago, and a church-a cross mounted on the dome of an old Turkish mosque.
A small cafe was packed with men in dark suits, Serebin waited for one of them to leave, then tried to ask him the name of the village. It took some effort by both of them, but eventually the man saw the light and cried out, “Ah, Berzasca. Berzasca!” Serebin kept walking. A few minutes later, he found the river, and an arched bridge built of stone block. Not the bridge he was looking for but, at least, the right river.
There was no path to the logging road-Serebin was supposed to have been on the Empress, having unloaded his cargo at the Stenka ridge-so he had to walk beside the river, forcing his way through the high reeds of a flooded marsh, with water above his knees. This took a long time, but he kept at it, and eventually saw a rickety bridge, moss-covered boards nailed across two logs. At the end of the bridge he found a pair of ruts that wound through the trees-probably the logging road and not the worst one he’d ever seen. But no sign of a car, and no sign of Marrano.
Serebin sat on the edge of the bridge and thought about what to do next. Fishing boat down to Constanta? Oxcart, or car, up to Hungary? Try to cross the river? Well, that was a problem. Because one thing they didn’t have in this part of the world was bridges. Not where the river formed a border between nations, they didn’t, and that was the Danube’s fate once it left the plains of Hungary. Not that they hadn’t built bridges, they had, at optimistic moments over the centuries, but then somebody always burned them, so why bother. And, in fact, for pretty much all the recorded history in this part of the world, most of the bridges had been built by conquerors-Romans after Dacian gold, Ottoman Turks, Austrian engineers-and had thereby earned themselves a bad reputation.
So then? He didn’t know. He was tired, and sore, and cold, and that, just then, was all he knew. God, send me a packet of dry Sobranies and a box of matches. Something made him look up and there, at the other end of the bridge, a figure stood in the shadows at the edge of the forest. A sylvan deity, perhaps, but not the common sort-its hands hung casually at its sides, one of them holding a revolver, the other a briefcase. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” Marrano said.
They had to follow the river back to Berzasca-the only other choice was to walk a long way east, where the logging road met the main road. Serebin told his story, Marrano listened thoughtfully, and now and then asked questions, most of which couldn’t be answered. “Certainly,” Serebin said, “they knew we were coming.”
Marrano sighed. “Well, at least we did something. Any idea what happened to the people on the tugboat?”
“They ran, with everyone else, when the first mine went off. They could’ve gone north, into Hungary, or maybe they stole a boat, somewhere downriver. With any luck at all, they got away.”
Pushing the tall reeds aside, they plodded on through the marsh until they reached the village street. “Where’s the car?” Serebin said.
“In an alley. I waited overnight, but when you didn’t show up, I thought I’d better hide it.”
“So,” Serebin said, “that’s that. Now it’s up to the Serbs.”
Marrano stopped for a moment, unbuckled his briefcase, and took out a newspaper. A Roumanian newspaper, from a nearby town, but the headline was easy enough to read, even in the darkness, because the print was quite large. COUP D’ETAT IN YUGOSLAVIA, it said.
“Who?”
“Us.”
“Will it last?”
“Not for long, the Fuehrer’s chewing his carpet.”
“Too bad. What happened?”
“British agents kidnapped Stoyadinovich, Hitler’s man in Belgrade. But then, forty-eight hours later, the government caved in anyhow and signed with the Axis. So, yesterday morning, the coup.”
“Back and forth.”
“Yes.”
“Was it the army?”
“Led by air force officers. Nominally, the country is now run by a seventeen-year-old king.”
They turned down a long alley. In a courtyard at the end, two boys were sitting on the hood of an Aprilia sedan, sharing a cigarette. Marrano spoke to them in Roumanian and gave them some money, clearly more than they expected. One of them asked a question, Marrano smiled and answered briefly.
“What was that about?” Serebin asked, sliding into the passenger seat.
“Could they drive it.”
Marrano started the car, eased back out of the alley, and drove through the village, back toward the Szechenyi road. “We’ll have to avoid the border post,” he said. “By now, they’ve got themselves organized and they’re certainly looking for you.”
The idea of cars, in 1805, did not occur to Count Szechenyi. On the dirt road, the speedometer needle quivered at thirty kilometers an hour but, once they reached the hewed rock, it stayed well below that. And they were soon enough in mountain weather; rising mist, like smoke, and a fine drizzle-the stone cliffs at the edge of the road shining wet and gray in the glow of the headlights. The road was, at least, empty. They worked their way past a single Gypsy wagon, and after that there was nobody.
“How far is it?” Serebin asked.
“To the border? About sixty kilometers.”
Serebin watched the speedometer. “Five hours, maybe.”
“Could be.” Marrano glanced at his watch. “It’s after nine. We’ll want to get rid of the car and take to the fields before dawn.”
They crept along at walking speed, water gathering on the windshield until it began to run in droplets and Marrano turned on the single wiper, producing a blurred semicircle above the dashboard and a rhythmic squeak.
Marrano peered into the darkness, then braked carefully and the car rolled to a stop.
“What is it?”
“A hole.”
Serebin got out of the car and inspected it. “Not bad,” he called out. “But sharp.” He motioned Marrano forward, used hand signals so that the wheels ran on either side of the hole, then took a step back, and another, to make room for the car. Glancing behind him, he saw that the cliff fell away down to the river, black water flecked with white foam.
The Aprilia drove past the hole, Serebin got back in, and they managed a few kilometers without incident, until a doe and her fawn appeared from the brush and the car slid a little as Marrano braked. The deer galloped away from them, then bounded off down the hillside.
1:20. A light in the distance, a suffused glow from somewhere below the road. Marrano turned out the headlights, drove slowly for a few hundred feet, than shut off the ignition and let the car roll to a silent stop. Even before they opened the doors, they could hear the sound of working engines as it rose from the river. They walked up the road and looked over the edge of the hill.
The Moldova Veche pilot station was floodlit by a giant river tug, with crane barges working at either end of the canal, and patrol boats anchored offshore. A few wisps of smoke still rose from the ruined structure, and two German officers stood on the dock, pointing as they talked. The last barge in line was nowhere to be seen, and the Empress had apparently been taken away.
“Turbines in the canal?” Marrano whispered.
Serebin nodded.
“Not so bad-they’re working day and night.”
He was being decent about it, Serebin thought. “Probably won’t stop anybody from going anywhere.”
“No? Well, they’ve got the Germans in here, must mean something.”
