Shadow of a Hero Read Online Free Page A

Restaur Vax, though he was not merely our national hero but one of the great European poets. I mean that, my darling. This is not mere patriotism. He is fit to rank with Goethe and Byron and Victor Hugo, except that he wrote in a language known by only three hundred thousand people . . .’
    ‘And anyway they speak Field most of the time.’
    ‘That too. Still, even the ignorant can respond to the notion of a hero-poet. Now his great-grandson, bearing the same name, once a fighter against Hitler, elected leader of his people, thirty years a prisoner of the Communists, et cetera, et cetera . . . My case was an easier cause to publicize than many just as deserving. I was in the end released as part of a trade-deal, the British government of the time wishing to be able to reply to critics who rightly said that they should not be having commercial dealings with the unspeakable Bulgarian regime. I was a bit of icing on the cake of commerce, allowing them to claim that they had insisted on an increase in human rights being part of the deal. About a dozen political prisoners were released. Several thousand remained in prison. But because of my name I was one of those dozen. So, as with everything else in my life, it was my name that sent me to prison, having saved me from being massacred by the roadside, and my name that, thirty years later, released me again.’
    ‘And they want you to take it back to Varina now? Hey! You could change it by deed poll. Angel’s dad changed his name because he wanted to be double-barrelled.’
    Grandad smiled and shook his head.
    ‘It is my name. I have grown to the shape of it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it has not yet come to that. Part of the deal under which I was released was that the British government guaranteed the Bulgarians that I would not take part in political activities.’
    ‘Is that what the policemen keep coming to see you about?’
    ‘Approximately.’
    ‘And they’ve changed their minds? Is this a different lot? You said there was an American the other day.’
    ‘There are always people interested in fishing in troubled waters. But what is mainly happening at the moment is that the people I call the policemen have realized that none of the three regimes which control Varina can last, and that many Varinians will believe that the time has come to try once more for independence. Inevitably, because of my name, and whatever the British government may have promised, they will come to me, so the policemen have decided that they will have more control of events if I am acting under their protection. I am seen as a moderating influence – a ridiculous concept in Varinian terms. We are not a moderate people. So they have allowed the main organization of Varinians in exile to provide me with a telephone – which the policemen will no doubt tap – and a part-time secretary.’
    ‘Wow! A beautiful spy!’
    ‘May I be so fortunate. I was talking all this over with your momma last night.’
    ‘What did she say?’
    ‘She didn’t like it, of course. Long ago she had quite reasonably decided that her future was to forget her own roots and transplant herself here and grow fresh roots and become an Englishwoman. Still, in the end she said what Varinian women have had to say to their men for the past twelve centuries – “If you must go, you must go.”’
    ‘Well, don’t forget you’ve got to get my permission too.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And I’m not going to give it.’
    ‘You forbid me to take part in any political activities?’
    ‘Oh, no. That’s all right. I’m talking about going. I’m not one of those stupid women who say “If you must go, you must go.”’
    ‘Go where?’
    ‘Varina, of course. You can’t go back and start politicking in Varina unless I can come too. All right?’
    ‘I hear and obey.’
    Letta stuck out her chin and glared at him like all the tyrants who have ever sat on thrones.
    ‘Good!’ she said.

LEGEND
    The Woman at the Avar