Read Assignment - Ankara for Free Online Page A

strength to turn and see what it was. A darkness blotted out the sky. There was a wedge of a face, pale anonymous. Something smashed across her mouth. She was being struck cruelly, again and again. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. A crushing weight slammed down on her chest. She tried to draw up her legs to kick, but it was impossible. Through the roaring in her ears she heard a low grunting, as blow after blow struck her. She was being beaten to death in endless, demoniacal fury. She tried to flail back with her arms, her fingers twisted into claws, but the effort was feeble. The blows seemed remote now. She was beyond pain. Through the dimness she saw fanatic eyes, a savage mouth. . . .
    Then, miraculously, there seemed to be a light somewhere, and a voice called. The blows stopped. She thought: He ought to kill me. It’s a mistake if he stops now.
    As if she had requested death, her thoughts were crushed by one last blow that dropped her into a dark chaos. . . .

    Susan Stuyvers stood in the doorway of her hut with the lamplight streaming out around her. She could see nothing in the little cul-de-sac that held the two huts. Her face was quite and impassive, her hands folded primly before her. With her hair brushed stiffly back from her severe forehead, she looked puritanical and patient.
    “John?” she called into the darkness.
    He appeared like a ghost beside her at the doorway to her hut. He was breathing hard, as if a restless demon had seized him. His narrow face was grim and furrowed with trouble, and his pale eyes regarded her angrily.
    “Was that you, Susan?”
    “No,” she said. “I thought I heard a strange noise.”
    He did not look at her. “So did I. I was sitting back there, behind the hut—” He waved toward the towering cliff that blocked all exit in that direction. “Someone is out there. But it doesn’t matter. Come inside.”
    She followed him dutifully into the hut, closing the door. John had not bothered to light the stove, and the air was chilly as the night deepened. As usual, Susan reflected, she had to do everything, attending to all the details, but she did not resent it. She owed John too much. She watched him sit on the big peasant bed and stare at her, and she noted irrelevantly that his clerical collar was dirty and awry.
    “What do you think, Susan?”
    “There is nothing to think about.”
    “Were we brought back to this abomination by accident? Or plan?”
    “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But the books are safe.” He made a sound of dismay, chopping the air before her face with a hard, narrow hand. “Who knows when we can get home now? With all the refugees, I thought it would be easy. How can you be so calm about it?”
    “We have to wait. We have no choice, have we?” Her level voice was barren. “You were foolish to panic and try to use the rifle on men like them, back on the road.”
    “What else could I do? How could I know who they were?” “You could have waited. You could have spoken to them first.”
    “All I saw was that jeep we needed.” He breathed hard. “I am dreadfully worried, Susan.”
    “I know. The books mean so much to you,” she said patiently. “But you always said that American officials would pay no attention to them.”
    “I’m worried about Durell.”
    “Not the girl?” she asked.
    “I think they are together,” John said.
    “I think not.”
    She did not give her reason for her assessment of the situation. She knew that when he was like this, no amount of logic could calm him. He was obsessed by the religious relics in the saddle-leather bag, and she felt sorry for him, but at the same time coldly determined to get away from this place for reasons of her own.
    He was a strange man, she thought. He had a tall, muscular frame, a wire-tight virility, a maniacal devotion to his ends. But she was not interested in his missionary efforts, and indeed, she had seen little of his work in that direction.
    She was not his