Illyrian Summer, page 7
“That’s exactly how I felt it in Dubrovnik, but it was so slight there that I thought I’d imagined it,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry about Mirjana! She’s such a beautiful girl.”
She felt rather than saw Adam’s quick turn of his head toward her.
“Mmm, yes,” he murmured. “But apart from a scratch or two, her face will not be disfigured.” After a pause he added, “She saved my life, too, as well as her own.” It was Sarah’s turn now to glance sharply up at his face.
“Mirjana lost a bead necklace and we went back to the open-air restaurant where we had dined. We spent quite a time looking for it under the chairs and tables, and all the way as far as the bridge. But for that delay, you see, I should have been back in my hotel. When I did return there, after I’d found Mirjana—and I spent some time helping others out of the wreckage—the hotel where I’d been living for two years had vanished. Nothing but a heap of ruins.”
“Oh, Adam!” Her face twisted with sympathy. “And the people there?”
He shook her head. “The innkeeper’s wife was rescued, but none of the others.”
For a time they walked in silence. Sarah’s thoughts whirled in conflicting confusion. Whatever bond of friendship had existed between Adam and Mirjana beyond that of boss and secretary must surely be strengthened now that virtually they had saved each other’s lives.
To Sarah, the irony was that she must now force herself to think of Mirjana with gratitude for saving Adam. She was sharply aware that he had visited the girl at least twice today.
On what trivialities did life depend! A lost necklace could alter the entire pattern of two people’s lives.
Yet she found a grain of comfort in the fact that Adam was by her side at this moment, as though her company were not too distasteful to him, in spite of this morning’s scolding.
She did not realize how soon that, too, would be snatched away, for as they neared the car park, Adam said, “I’ve been told that an American convoy of water trucks is somewhere up here. Do you know?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Almost alongside us.”
“Good. I’ll be glad of any they have to spare. My men need drinking water. On this side they’re near enough to the river for washing and building purposes.”
Sarah felt leaden. So his main object in accompanying her had been to obtain water, urgent though that need was, when tap water was forbidden in case of pollution.
She was appalled at her own stupidity, and as soon as she came near enough to Edmund she called out to him.
“I’m back, Edmund, and I’ve brought Adam with me.”
She wrenched open the door of the minibus, stepped inside and began to tidy her hair and face. A glance in the mirror showed how dusty and smudged she looked, a pale, wan thing, no doubt, beside the glowing vision of Mirjana.
She brushed her fair hair until the dinginess gave place to gleaming softness, cleaned her face and renewed her makeup. Outside she could hear the two men talking and soon Edmund conducted Adam to the water convoy.
It was a relief when Edmund returned alone.
When Edmund had finished dictating, he asked her, “Will you type in here or outside? The table is probably firmer in here as the ground outside is bumpy, but I don’t want you to be stifled.”
“I’ll work inside,” she decided. “I can have the door open.”
“By the way, did you give Adam his message from Melanie? Her love and all that?” Edmund queried.
Sarah gasped, then turned her head away. “No, I forgot about it.”
“I thought you would,” Edmund muttered as he walked away. Sarah watched him as he talked to Ricardo and two of the other men in the unit. Her face went hot at the thought of how obviously she had shown her concern about Adam.
It was late when Daniel returned, and Sarah had strolled toward the edge of the gardens, away from the parked vehicles. Family groups were scattered all over the grass or in the shelter of bushes and trees and she walked carefully, trying not to disturb sleeping children. Soon she found herself on a tree-lined bank that sloped sharply toward the river, and here Daniel found her as she leaned against the trunk of a silver birch patchily whitened in the moonlight.
“Hallo, there, Sarah!” Daniel called softly. “Edmund said you might be up here.”
“I’ve been typing all the evening and I came up here for a breath of air,” she explained.
“Gosh! I’m tired!” he yawned, and flung himself down on a grassy patch.
“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked, for he had not returned to supper.
“Yes. Someone had fixed up a kebab stall in the square and there was plenty to eat. An Austrian Red Cross van was close by, and believe it or not, they were dishing out apple strudel on the grand scale.” He stretched out his hand and caught Sarah’s. “Come and sit down now that I’ve toiled all the way up here to see you.”
She allowed herself to be pulled down beside him. Long ago she had learned that it was better to give in casually to Daniel than to make a show of resistance.
“Edmund says one more day’s shooting tomorrow and we can be off back to Dubrovnik.”
The pain of his words stabbed her with the reality of loss. To leave this place where so much needed to be done? To return to the smiling enchantment of Dubrovnik to idle in the sunshine and sparkling sea? To leave Adam, perhaps never see him again?
When she and Daniel returned from the high river bank and he had tucked herself into her sleeping bag, she looked squarely into this foolish infatuation for Adam. In her mind she repeated the word over and over again. Infatuation. That was all it was. No more than a schoolgirl’s crush on a man who was hardly aware of her. How could she be so crazy as to believe that this was love, real, enduring love? After all, she did not believe that Daniel was really in love with her. With him, too, she could not be convinced that his feeling was anything more than infatuation, a romantic attachment nurtured in idyllic surroundings.
She knew so little about Adam. Between the past, when he had apparently loved the young Melanie Roche before she rose to stardom, and the tragic, disastrous present that included Mirjana, how many other girls had he known, even flirted with? Yet he did not seem the type for easy flirtations. Sarah immediately realized that this was not a comforting thought, for if he was now drawn toward Mirjana, the association might become permanent.
She fell into a fitful sleep and was glad when her watch indicated five o’clock and time to get-up.
CHAPTER FOUR
Edmund was eager for an early start. “We’ll do as much as we can before the noonday sun overpowers us,” he told Sarah. “I shall want you most of the time for notes and scripting.” He added with a malicious chuckle, “And now that you’re so expert in the native language, I may need your assistance as interpreter.”
“So sarcastic early in the morning,” answered Sarah. “You may be sorry if I interpret wrongly, and wish you’d asked me to keep silent.”
All the members of the unit had to help carry the equipment down through the wrecked town and across the river into the older part of Krasnograd where Edmund had decided to work this morning.
Here the devastation was not quite so vast and extended; some of the narrow streets appeared to be almost intact, although empty of people.
“These old buildings could probably collapse without warning,” Edmund muttered as he had the cameras set up. “The authorities are wise to clear out the people.”
“Supposing they collapse on us while we’re filming?” Sarah queried with a smile.
“Then we shall be sacrificed in the cause of duty. I shan’t take risks, though.”
“I should hope not,” put in Daniel. “I don’t want Sarah knocked about.”
“If there’s an ominous crack, I’ll see that I have the cameras turning, Dan, so that you can rush in and do your rescue act,” Edmund promised.
“Handsome of you!” muttered Daniel, and turned away. Sarah giggled as she caught Edmund’s eye. “That was a mischievous remark, wasn’t it? Are you out to wound him whenever you can?”
Edmund smiled but did not answer.
In the large cobbled square where normally at this time, in the morning people would have been crowding around market stalls, the space was occupied by trucks and vans. Deserted stalls had been commandeered and women were queuing for baby food and soap distributed by young men working for British voluntary organizations.
Edmund’s cameras moved from one point to another, capturing the scenes, the close-ups of anxious-faced men and women and laughing children who did not understand the present tragedy but were glad of breaks in their routine.
Sarah acted as clapper boy when the others were busy, and each time she appeared briefly before the cameras with her board chalked with the scene number, then withdrew, the watching children burst into delighted laughter. To please them Edmund allowed several of them to be photographed in turn with the board, which they apparently thought was some kind of prize.
“You’ll have to sort out these scene numbers, Sarah,” Edmund warned her, “otherwise we shall be in a muddle.”
Suddenly behind her she heard Adam’s voice, or was it only her imagination conjuring it from the air? She spun around quickly, and Adam was certainly there, talking to Edmund and Daniel. As she joined the group, Adam gave her a smiling greeting, but Edmund cut in quickly with, “Make a note of this particular spot, will you, Sarah? We may want to return to it later today, but now Adam is going to take us to the prefab place.”
This was news to Sarah, and she wondered why Edmund had not told her of his intended schedule for the day, for he must have made a prior arrangement with Adam. There was no time to argue now, for the equipment was being collected and taken toward a road that was in reasonable condition for traffic. Here two trucks were waiting to take the unit and its gear to the site now being prepared for prefabricated houses.
Adam apologized for the rough ride. “It would have been rougher still in my car, I think,” he said to Sarah.
“We’ve forgotten what smooth rides are like,” she answered.
“Many of the men come and go by boat, which is a good deal easier than stumbling over debris. As soon as we can repair the bridge we shall have a better link between the two sites.”
Sarah could see that the sloping ground made it difficult for firm concrete foundations on which to erect the steel prefabs, but earth movers were hard at work leveling and shoring up. Concrete mixers churned sand and cement into a gray batter ready for pouring.
Edmund took a variety of shots, including some of Adam supervising gangs of men, conferring with his assistants or being interviewed in English on tape.
“Lucky we brought spare batteries with us for the tape recorders,” Edmund remarked, “or we’d be sunk for sound.”
At midday the men knocked off for a meal.
Edmund had seen to it that his unit had brought more than enough food for themselves, so there were ample tidbits of meat, cheese and fruit to distribute.
As soon as the men had eaten, some sat smoking and talking, but most of them flung themselves down on any handy heap of sand or pile of cement bags and went to sleep in the relaxed, abandoned attitudes of children.
“They begin at first daylight,” Adam commented with a compassionate softness in his voice. “They deserve to snatch an hour off when the sun is too fierce for hard work.”
Sarah was sitting with Adam and Daniel in the shade cast by one of the trucks.
“How do your steelworks get on without you when you’re spending so much time here?” Daniel asked Adam in that lazily provocative tone that Sarah knew he intended to be insulting.
Adam looked away into the far distance before replying. “A question of priority.”
Daniel stretched out his hand and grasped Sarah’s wrist. “Hear that, Sarah? Consider yourself flattered at being top priority!”
She intercepted Adam’s steely glance and could not control the flush that suddenly dyed her cheeks. “Don’t be silly, Daniel,” she muttered, pulling her wrist away from him. “Adam has more important matters to attend to than...” She broke off as a roaring cloud of dust approached along the road.
Adam rose quickly to his feet as the first truck appeared. “Russians, I think.” He ran toward the convoy and shouted queries to the drivers as they passed. After the final truck had gone, to envelop itself into a moving crocodile of dust, Adam explained to Edmund and the others that the Russian army had brought a load of prefab huts and medical supplies.
He went off to talk to some of his men who had roused themselves from sleep to watch the trucks and wave greetings and thanks.
A car, white with dust, stopped on the road and someone alighted.
Edmund took off his sunglasses and blinked. “Am I dreaming?”
Daniel and Sarah went toward the car.
“Oh, this awful dust!” Melanie exclaimed.
“Of course!” Edmund agreed. “Sarah, bring a bottle of wine, will you?”
When Sarah returned with the wine, Melanie was explaining their journey.
“I was bored,” she told them. “Daniel had deserted us and there was no sense in trying to rehearse without him, so I suggested we might go off for a few days to Greece.”
“To Greece?” echoed Daniel. “This is a roundabout way to Greece, isn’t it?”
“Don’t interrupt!” Melanie commanded. “In Dubrovnik there were such a lot of rumors about the earthquake that I thought I’d like to see the ruins for myself. I found we had to fly to Belgrade, so I hired a car there.” Melanie shuddered. “A dreadful journey, and I hope we’ve done the worst part now.” Her face suddenly lighted with a ravishing smile. “Why, Adam! How splendid to see you! It’s really through you that we came this way. We were trying to find your steelworks and they said—” She linked her arm through Adam’s.
Sarah glared stonily at Melanie and wondered what Adam thought of the film star’s idea of visiting the ruins on her way to Greece.
“You won’t be able to take the car much farther,” Edmund pointed out. “The roads are gone.”
Melanie laughed. “Gone! They couldn’t be rougher than the one I’ve traveled on these past few miles.”
“No?” Edmund queried. “You have no idea! What about food? We have supplies of our own.”
“As a matter of fact, I had a sort of picnic lunch about an hour ago. Cold chicken and salad, that sort of thing. I take it we’ll be able to get dinner in some hotel here?”
Sarah shot an oblique glance at Adam, but his face was impassive.
Edmund gave an exclamation of derision. “Dinner in hotels? If I were you I’d drive straight back to Belgrade and take the plane from there to Greece. There’s no electricity or gas or tap water—and not much food for the people who are still left here. What they eat has been brought in from other parts of Yugoslavia—and from other countries.”
“How awful!” sighed Melanie. “No water—and I was so hoping I could have a bath somewhere and freshen up after all that dust. I’ll want to take some color pictures for sure.” She turned toward Adam. “Adam, you must come, too. You know the place.”
“Yes, I knew it—once,” he answered quietly, but to Sarah’s astonishment he followed Melanie into the car, while Edmund sat in front.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” muttered Daniel as he and Sarah watched the car move off slowly. Then he called out, “Here, wait a minute! Wait for us!”
“They won’t get far,” Sarah assured him.
“True,” he agreed. Then he laughed. “Adam came over all meek and mild, didn’t he? After the way he pitched into us as a couple of trippers! And here is Melanie boasting she’s a sightseer—and wondering which hotel will give her the best dinner! Oh, I suppose he’s never forgotten that ancient crush he had on Melanie, so he’s always willing to dance to her tune.”
Daniel and Sarah had followed the car at a discreet distance to avoid the dust it threw up, and when it stopped they soon caught up.
Sarah thought that Melanie would soon change her mind about sightseeing, but she was mistaken. The film star insisted on making a tour into the heart of the old town, then across the bridge and into what had been the new part.
Ricardo, the chief cameraman, sulky at first from being woken too soon from his accustomed siesta, was now very wide awake, posing Melanie ostensibly chatting to a small knot of homeless people, or delicately picking her way over debris.
Sarah noticed that Melanie had taken advantage of that short car ride to renew her usually faultless makeup and brush the dust from her clothes. In a pale apple-green dress and matching jacket she appeared exotic and conspicuous as a spray of orchids in a desert.
Tired young men, ashen with lack of sleep, waved and faintly cheered as she passed, and two young Englishmen recognized her and called out “Melanie Roche!” Soon Melanie was surrounded by an entourage of Krasnograd inhabitants and international contingents, glad of a welcome and unusual break in the hot afternoon’s routine.
Several press photographers and news film men joined the crowd, inspired Melanie to smile and kiss her hands and express her sympathy with appealing eyes and gestures, if not in the native tongue.
Edmund often directed operations and Adam interpreted to the bystanders.
Sarah, watching this pantomime, became furiously angry. “There’ll be nothing to stop a good soundtrack being dubbed in afterward,” she snapped in an angry undertone. “Nothing like an earthquake—and other people’s distress—to help sell the film.”
“Isn’t that all to the advantage of the film world?” Adam queried. She had not known that he was so close beside her.
“Perhaps it is. But Edmund has done all the hard work of making the’ documentary, and now Melanie Roche is cashing in with sheer publicity appearances and interviews.”
“You must try not to be so uncharitable about people who live in a different world from yours,” Adam’s glance was as hard as the tone of his voice.
