Ivan Klima - Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

He wets his hands in the water and carefully runs them over his face. 'Remember, you haven't seen me!'

He sticks his head under the tap. The sharp sting brings tears to his eyes. He reaches for the towel, then decides against it and merely takes another drink.

Meanwhile, the boy has found a large pastry. If he asked him, he could probably dig up some cash as well, but he probably shouldn't waste any more time here. He can always get money. He limps across the yard to the gate.

He should clear out of this village as quickly as possible and perhaps try and find a car, though they must have blocked all the main roads by now.

He hobbles along the fence with his head down. Not a

soul anywhere. People are either hard at work somewhere or swilling beer in the bar on the square. Parked in front of it — this really is his lucky day — is a lorry. The village square seems deserted, and he reaches the back of the lorry without being observed. He lifts the canvas flap. There are cases full of bottles inside. He bangs his wounded leg as he swings himself over the tailgate, but he grits his teeth and doesn't utter a sound, lands on his haunches and pulls the canvas shut behind him.

The bottles are empty, another piece of luck, because it means they won't unload them until they get to the brewery. The cases are not heavy, and he rearranges them so that he's surrounded. Now if they'd just get out of here. The police could arrive any time — if they've managed to figure out that he's escaped.

Then he hears voices. Someone lifts the canvas and slides a few more cases of empties inside, then the doors slam, the motor starts and the vehicle drives off.

If only he could see where they were going. But at least he's getting further away. Every minute, the circle they will have to look for him in is widening. Unless they're taking the bottles right back to the town where they put him in the car that morning. The lorry rattles over the rutted road, and the bottles clatter. They've probably begun the search by now. The police will have been alerted. Maybe they're even sending in helicopters. It won't be easy. Once he gets out of this lorry, he'll have to find a hostage. A woman. At least one. He won't be as naïve as Míla was and let her go. He won't even negotiate.

At that moment the lorry begins to slow down. Robert sits absolutely still and listens to the voices coming to him through the canvas.

Your papers, driver.

Where are you coming from? What are you carrying? Have you seen a man in a dark suit, probably badly wounded, wearing handcuffs?

A voice mutters some reply.

He hopes they don't have those trained dogs with them, but even if they did, he doubts they could pick up his scent over the strong smell of beer.

A shaft of light penetrates his hiding-place. They must have lifted the canvas.

The motor is still running, which is a good thing because it will drown out his breathing. Someone thumps the side of the truck. They move one of the cases. Then silence. They probably don't feel like shifting all of them. He knows them well enough to know what lazy bastards they are. They wouldn't bother, unless they had a whole platoon of prisoners to do it for them.

The lorry starts up again. He's beginning to believe he'll make it out of here, out of this mess, out of this shitty country. He only has to be tough. No mercy, no negotiating.

Now they're moving fast. The driver is obviously in a hurry. Then the lorry slows down, begins bumping over a cobblestone surface and finally comes to a complete halt. He hears the creaking of a gate opening, voices, the lorry inches forward, the motor coughs, then dies. The doors slam, and someone jumps to the ground.

He has to stay on his toes. If they start unloading the bottles, he'll have to come up with a way to get out of here without being seen. But what if he can't? He gets up, still hidden by the barricade of cases, tries to flex his arms and legs, then pulls an empty bottle from the top row of cases, gets a good grip on it and waits.

But no one comes. He can hear a woman's voice somewhere nearby. Someone is dragging something metallic over the cobblestones and whistling. Then silence again. He's probably wasting precious time in here now. He puts the bottle down as quietly as he can and starts shifting the crates to one side. He crawls out of his hiding-place and carefully lifts the edge of the canvas.

The lorry is backed up against a loading ramp with wooden doors. In front of the doors there's a tall pile of the same kind of cases that sheltered him in the truck. He climbs cautiously on to the loading ramp and looks out from behind the truck. He is in a cobbled courtyard with a set of rails for a yard engine running across the middle of it. High brick buildings dominate the courtyard on two sides. The third side is formed by a stone wail with a gatehouse. The fourth side appears to be the best place to

hide, since there are only a few one-storey buildings, apparently warehouses. He can't see anyone; the working day must be over. He creeps cautiously along the loading ramp towards the low buildings. When he passes the last of these, he comes to an open area that serves as a scrapyard. It is filled with rusting machines, old pipes, bundles of wire, piles of empty tin cans, used barrels and even a few ancient, rotting beer wagons. Behind that, there is an overgrown wall low enough to crawl over. Beyond the wall are three apartment blocks, the only vantage point from which he might be seen.

On a pile of refuse he finds several pieces of wire and nails, then he squeezes under one of the old wagons. It will be hard for anyone who doesn't know where to look, or who doesn't have a dog, to find him here. He can remove the handcuffs at his leisure.

He begins to probe the lock on the handcuffs. He's managed to open other locks before. Even back when he was in the children's home, he was determined not to become a uranium miner or a mason. They'd threatened and cajoled, but they backed off in the end and let him train as a locksmith. He'd learned by then that you have to know what you want and let no one stand in your way.

The spring clicks, and he shakes the hideous mark of imprisonment off his wrists, squeezes out from under the wagon, walks over to the pile of scrap metal and throws the handcuffs into an old barrel.

He's not afraid of work. If he lived in a decent country and could open his own workshop he would happily work twelve-hour shifts every day; he would be his own boss, not someone else's lackey. Occasionally, he would close the business for, say, a month, pick up some cute little thing and take off with her to somewhere where they would all call him 'Sir'.

He goes back under the wagon and pulls a flattened and somewhat stale piece of pastry out of his pocket. It's getting dark. Where are they now? There isn't a sign of them. He's given them the slip. If he had some food, he might be able hold out here for a few days. Meanwhile the police would get tired. They'd realize they'd lost him. His

leg would have begun to heal, his whiskers would grow and by the time he got himself some new clothes those smart-arse bastards wouldn't recognize him, not even if he flagged them down and hitched a lift.

But the only thing to eat here is nails washed down with stale beer. And tomorrow morning, people would start turning up for work, so by then he'd have to be somewhere else. His best chance would be in some ordinary house where he could wait for a day or two by himself or, even better, with a hostage. But he has some time now, and he can afford to take a rest.

He stretches out on his back and stares up at the underside of the wagon. A clump of old dried clay is hanging from the mud-covered boards. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore the pain in his leg. It seems to him that the wagon is beginning to float above him slightly, that its floorboards are becoming transparent and penetrable. He passes through them and gently rises above the earth, floating higher and higher, like a kite. When he's so high that not even the sharpest eye can discern him, he catches the wind and floats west until he can feel beneath him that cursed line, defined by barbed wire, so impossible to cross on the ground.