- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
- All the Possibilities
- Next
- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
Tanner's Twelve SwingersPage 8
Milan Butec came fully awake about the same time he finished his third cup of breakfast coffee. He had dressed himself in the peasant clothing Janos had provided, and it fit him surprisingly well. Janos’s wife drew in an acceptable pair of eyebrows, and I observed the process with interest; it was a task I would have to perform every time Butec washed his face. The eyebrows made an immediate difference, transforming him at once from Martian to human. The wig helped too, but there was no getting away from the fact that it looked very much like a wig. Janos had not been able to get hold of any spirit gum, so we had to make hinges of adhesive tape and use them to affix the wig to Butec’s scalp. Butec looked at the result in the mirror and paled at what he saw. “In the West,” I said, “you will be able to grow the beard again.” “Of course.” “And dispense with the wig and let your eyebrows grow in naturally.” “Of course. But in the meantime the less often I have to look at a mirror…” Janos revealed an unexpected talent for barbering, using a pair of paper shears to give the wig a quick trim that made it conform somewhat better to the shape of Butec’s head. It still looked like a wig to me, but at least it looked like a well-chosen wig. With a cap covering most of it, the effect was greatly improved. Now, at least, he looked like a peasant. But he didn’t walk like one and he didn’t talk like one, and all of this took coaching. The three of us worked out a blitz course in Instant Rustic Clod, with me as the teacher, Butec as the earnest pupil, and Janos as the critical observer. He had to exchange his military bearing and crisp stride and erect stance for the slouching, rolling gait of the peasant who knows how to cover many miles in a day. He had to train himself to mutter and mumble with the air of one who has learned throughout his life that no one is very interested in anything he might have to say. It was no simple role for him to pick up in so short a time. I thought of that English king – one of the Henrys, I think the Second – who was supposed to have donned rustic garb and passed incognito among his subjects from time to time. I doubt that he really fooled many of them. But Butec, though hardly a natural actor, had the sort of practical mind that enabled him to know what he could manage and what was beyond his grasp. He would talk as little as possible, he assured me, and he would use the simplest possible words, and he would do his best to be a man whom no one would favor with a second glance. By the time a wheezing, belching automobile came around to carry us to the border, he was ready. The border between Yugoslavia and Hungary is an easy one. Whenever there is an extensive land frontier separating two countries, it is virtually impossible to patrol the border effectively. When a river forms the boundary, one may establish customs stations at the bridges. But Yugoslavia and Hungary have a long common border, and except for the central stretch where the Drava River divides the two countries, the border is not a geographical entity at all but merely a line on a map. The few roads that cross from one country to the other have customs posts. Between the roads there is nothing more imposing than a pair of wire fences thirty yards apart. Our driver took us in nervous silence to within a dozen miles of the border, dropping us on the road that led from Velika Kikinda to the Hungarian town of Szeged. We walked northwest along the little-used road, and Butec showed that he had learned his lessons rather well. His legs relaxed into the easy gait of the Yugoslav peasant, and his eyes watched the ground ahead of him. A few miles from the border we abandoned the road and cut east through a vineyard. Mme. Papilov had given us each a paper sack containing rolls and cheese and sausages, and I had tucked a flask of brandy into a hip pocket. We walked out of sight of the road and squatted among the grapevines to eat lunch. The grapes were not entirely ripe, but their tart taste was not unpleasant. We incorporated a few handfuls of them in our lunch. When the food was gone, we nipped at the brandy and sat enjoying the feel of the hot noonday sun on our hands and faces. Butec the peasant looked years younger than Butec the politician. He sighed, smothered a belch, yawned, then stretched out flat on his back with his hands beneath his head. I thought for a bad moment that he was ready for another six hours of sleep. Then he began to talk. “This is good for me,” he said. “This fresh air, this good, plain food, this exercise. Is it not a beautiful day?” “It is.” “And beautiful countryside?” “Yes.” “The countryside where I was born is still more beautiful. You have been to Tzerna Gora?” Tzerna Gora is Serbo-Croat for Montenegro. I told him that I had passed through the province several times. “Do you know, perhaps, a town called Savnik?” “I know of it, but I have never been there.” “I was born in Savnik. Not in Savnik itself but in a cottage a few miles from Savnik. So one might say that I am a human being, or a European, or a Yugoslav, or a Montenegrin, or simply a man of Savnik. Every man has many such identities, depending upon the breadth of one’s view.” |
- The Loners
- The Saints
- Switched
- Fangtastic!
- Re-Vamped!
- Vampalicious!
- Tome of the Undergates
- Black Halo
- The Skybound Sea
- If You Stay
- If You Leave
- Until We Burn
- Before We Fall
- Every Last Kiss
- Fated
- Suspiciously Obedient
- Random Acts of Crazy
- Random Acts of Trust
- Her First Billionaire
- Her Second Billionaire
- Her Two Billionaires
- Her Two Billionaires and a Baby
- His Majesty's Dragon
- Throne of Jade
- Black Powder War
- Victory of Eagles
- Tongues of Serpents
- Empire of Ivory
- Crucible of Gold
- Delirium