Assignment - Mara Tirana Read Online Free

miles from the Danube. The nearest village is called Viajec.”
    “Did you pull me out?”
    “Yes. There was a terrible storm. Are you able to eat?” “I don’t feel anything,” Adam said.
    “Can you sit up?”
    “Sure,” Adam said.
    But when he tried, nothing happened, except the pain that came, and he fainted.
    When he awoke the second time, he had a fever, like a slow-burning fire inside him. There was sunlight in the hut now, and he could see the old man clearly. The old woman was not in sight.
    He stared at the political poster on the wall. Giurgiu Zarije, a former foreign minister. The poster was several years old. The man. portrayed in it looked strong, young and handsome. Adam wished he could remember the details of the man’s execution.
    “You know who that is?” the old man said.
    “I’ve read about him in the newspapers,” Adam said. “He was my son. He is dead.” The old man had a large round head, with grizzled gray hair and a shaggy moustache stained yellow with tobacco. His hands were gnarled like twisted knots of oak, and they shook slightly as he adjusted the ragged blanket with a strange gentleness around Adam’s body. “You wonder where I learned to speak American?”
    “Where was. that?” Adam asked. He felt as if he were drifting away somewhere. He could hear chickens clucking outside, but he could not see more than a dim clearing and a distant mountainside clothed in autumn foliage, beyond the open doorway of the hut. “You speak English well.”
    “I lived in America, didn’t I tell you? I worked in the steel mills. I took my wife and two sons there. Giurgiu was young then. He always wanted to come back. After the war, he did so, and went into politics. He was always radical. He thought he could build a new life for all of us here.” The old man sighed. “So they shot him.”
    “He brought you back when he was successful, before they accused him?”
    “Yes. All of us. He was very proud of himself then.” “You say you had two sons.”
    “Gija is the younger—a pilot on the Danube barges. He is not here.” The old man spoke shortly. “I sent him to get help for you, from the West. But have no alarm. No one knows about you on Zara Dagh.”
    “How long is it—?”
    “Two days, Major. You are safe here.”
    “But the radio in the capsule—”
    “It was destroyed. They could not trace it. No one has eome. They would have been here by now. If they know you came down in the mountains, they still do not know where, in this wilderness. No, you are safe enough, for now.” “The cameras and instruments—it’s important to get them back home. Otherwise. . . Adam paused and thought of his life and his terrors. . . otherwise, it was all for nothing.”
    “I understand,” the old man said gently.
    “And a doctor? I need a doctor.”
    “There are none who are safe.”
    “What's wrong with my leg?”
    “It is infected. It will heal or not, as God wills. Gija will come back in a few days. He will bring someone from your country, one of your people. It is the only way I could think of. If your friends come to take you out, all may still be well for you.”
    Adam looked around the stone hut.
    “They may not come for me,” he said quietly.
    “You are important to them, are you not?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything.”

    He slept again, and was awakened to eat hot soup, and threw it up. His fever was worse. It brought him nightmares and strange memories. He woke up crying someone’s name. He shivered under the thin blankets. It was night again, and the old woman, Jelenka, came to the bedside and crooned to him, but he could not understand her words now. She had dark brown eyes that filled with tragedy and tenderness when she looked down at him, and somehow this frightened him.
    “Poor boy,” she said. “Poor boy.”
    “I was dreaming of Deirdre,” he said.
    “A girl?”
    “Yes. My girl.”
    “You will see her again. My daughter, Lissa,