ENEMY OF THE STATE

Originally published in Collier’s, Nov. 20, 1937, as by “Will F. Jenkins.”

For the first time in many long months, Gregor was not alert to danger, nor prepared instantly to sell his life for the highest possible price; he being scheduled to be shot. He did not even see the furtive figure of the girl who watched him from the hillside above the trail. There were reasons for his obliviousness, though. Starvation was one, and exhaustion was another, and despair may have been a third. He was snow-blind. He crawled on all fours through the snow.

But he knew that he was among high mountains, though he could not see them. He knew that the sun was shining brightly, though he could feel no trace of warmth from its rays. He knew that he would never get beyond the pass, above him somewhere; would never see the warm green valleys on the other side; would never again see any of those who had been his friends and had been wiser than he. They had gotten away when the party began to exterminate its enemies. But nothing actual seemed to matter to Gregor, now. He had endured too much, too long. He was light-headed. He was absorbed in visions.

They were startlingly vivid, those visions, and since he had been snow-blind, they gained in brilliancy. His home, with the fig trees he’d played under, and his brothers and sisters were clearly before him. Home was long since burned down, of course, because it had harbored traitors to the doctrines which were now the official ideology. But he saw it plainly, just as it had been when he was a child. And Peter had been killed when he was arrested by shock troopers, and Alex—an attractive little boy in that sailor suit—had died of typhus in a concentration camp, and Gregor did not like to think about his sister Mariana. But he saw them all very clearly and very long ago. Like snapshots, except that there were colors and they moved. Mariana was playing tag with Peter and Alex. Her slim legs twinkled beneath her little-girl skirts. She tagged Peter triumphantly and laughed.…

Gregor’s left elbow buckled. He went face downward in the snow. Automatically, he raised himself and crawled on. He was not really paying attention. His body did not bother him any more. He knew that it was moving, because every so often it fell down.

The girl on the snowy hillside watched furtively. She saw that Gregor stayed in the beaten trail simply because he was too feeble to move in the softer snow. Twice, as she watched, Gregor blundered into it, and twice he blundered back to the trail.

He crawled toward the pass. Toward the guards in the pass. He would not live to reach them, though. Assuredly not in the storm which visibly moved up from the far-distant lowlands. But the girl remained in hiding. Life was cheap on the road over the pass. Life was cheap everywhere, these days, if one was not a follower of the party in power. The pass was closed by guards put there to keep the enemies of the party from running away. Presently, as winter closed in, they would be replaced by winter’s own sentries, who would keep the pass more tightly closed than human guards could do.

The girl looked furtively down the beaten way. Nothing moved anywhere. Nothing. The storm from the lowlands had already blotted out the lower mountain peaks. A gray, furry mist swirled below it. Snow. Presently it would sweep on up here.

The girl came closer and looked again at Gregor. He was patently blind, and as patently helpless. Obviously incapable of defense.

The girl moved furtively toward him. But before she drew too close, she again looked fearfully down the trail to be quite sure that no living thing moved or saw.

* * * *

Gregor’s mind rose slowly from unconsciousness as a swimmer comes leisurely upward from deep blue depths. First, he knew vaguely that he was warm. He lay quite still and presently—faintly at first but then more strongly—he heard wind blowing somewhere. The sound became the sustained shrieking of the snow-laden mountain gale, in which no living thing can stir. But Gregor was in shelter.

He smelled food. Cabbage soup—peasant fare. The aroma grew tantalizing. He did not smell those other odors which should also inhabit a peasant’s hut. They were absent. This place was clean. He heard someone stir. He moved his head. And suddenly he became aware of bandages over his eyes.

All things reeked of danger to Gregor. He tried to slip his bandage secretly aside so that he could see whether he was to live or die. He was officially scheduled to be shot. But footsteps moved toward him immediately.

“You are awake? How do you feel?”

A woman’s voice. A girl’s voice. At the sound of it, Gregor nerved himself to be alert and cautious.

“Eh?” said Gregor confusedly. “Yes, I am awake, but I do not remember—”

The girl’s voice said soothingly: “I saw you crawling in the snow. I brought you here, and you have slept twenty-four hours. Now can you eat a little?”

Gregor tried to sit up, but he was too weak. The girl lifted his head. The steam of cabbage soup teased his nostrils.

“Now, eat!” she said encouragingly.

The soup was warm. It was delicious. She put the spoon into his mouth and fed him as she would feed a child. He ate as much as she would give him.

“No more,” she said at last, firmly. “Now sleep.”

He struggled a little, to protest. But he found himself tucked in. He subsided. And he wanted desperately to ask cunning questions, to prepare himself against the danger which hung over him now. But he was very weary, very weak, very tired of struggle. Slumber flowed over him. But before he quite lost consciousness, he had time to remember where he had heard a voice like the voice of the girl who nursed him. It was another girl on a symbol-marked platform, passionately denouncing all that had existed previous to the party, and mouthing fiercely all the homicidal nonsense now taught in the public schools. And then Gregor relaxed to sleep with a certain satisfaction. He had identified his danger. It was the girl who had rescued him.

Next day he was far stronger. One regains strength rapidly when nothing worse than hunger and exhaustion has sapped it. The girl put fresh poultices on his eyes, bandaging them firmly in place. And Gregor had tried to cast a swift, estimating look about this place when his eyes were uncovered, but the pain of light upon them made it impossible. Scalding tears blinded him. Even now his eyeballs hurt horribly.

“You have no papers,” said the girl. “Why?”

“I was robbed,” said Gregor. “For my papers, I suppose.”

A moment’s silence, which somehow seemed skeptical.

“I am assistant engineer for the Murflan district,” said Gregor glibly. “I went to see if the mines at Brada had been sabotaged, as was reported. I was waylaid and hit on the head. When I came to, my horse was gone and I was already weak. I tried to reach help, but lost my way in the night. I have been wandering for—I have lost count of the days. Always mountains, always bright sunlight upon snow. I went snow-blind. Then you found me.”

The girl said slowly: “That is not even clever.”

Gregor managed to grin.

“Why? Do you hunt spies, too? It is a popular pursuit.”

The girl seemed to hesitate. Then she said: “But I am no amateur. Why have you no papers?”

Gregor felt little cold trickles on his scalp.

“Did you ever hear,” he asked politely but cryptically, “of the numbers twenty-three, and six, and ten?”

Another pause. Suspicion seemed to crackle in the room like lightning. Then the girl said reluctantly:

“N-no. We must be in different divisions.”

“Perhaps,” said Gregor. He wondered privately if the numbers twenty-three and six and ten had any meaning of themselves. “You are in counterespionage, I suppose. But why you should be here—”

“I am here to trap a spy—a traitor,” said the girl, still suspiciously. “His description does not fit you, it’s true. But this hut has been used as a clearinghouse for seditious information. I volunteered to stay here and trap one who has used it.”

“I would bow,” said Gregor, “if I were not still lying down. I wish you luck. But where is here, anyhow? Truthfully, I have been snow-blind for three days. I was after—” He paused. “Too many enemies of the party have been slipping across the mountains, to lie about it abroad. Either we have traitors on the frontier, or there is a pass no one suspects. I was ordered to find out. But I was suspected. I was clubbed and left for dead. When I report what I did learn, though—”

The girl’s voice lost some of its suspicion.

“Then we are comrades,” she told him. “But you have no papers, and you do not talk like a—like a member of the party.”

“I had the misfortune,” said Gregor, “to be intelligently reared. But I may say that I have been vouched for by Hrodny. And he has committed enough murders for the party to be received in the very best society.”

He grinned once more. He was talking ultimately for his life, and he knew it. And therefore he talked flippantly. He had to convince this girl that, papers or no papers, he was approved of by the party. Else she would not dare give him food, though he starved, nor shelter him, though he froze to death.

Still blind and still weak, Gregor was at the mercy of the girl who tended him. And therefore he had to convince her of his devotion to the party if he wished to live.

It was his task for as long as the blizzard lasted.

* * * *

He woke suddenly because of a new noise. He was accustomed to the shrieking wind after three days and nights, but this was a strange sound. On the instant he was fully alert. He woke and by sheer instinct groped for the revolver he did not have.

He heard the noise again. Someone was fumbling at the door. He desperately ripped off the bandage still about his eyes. The hut was blessedly dark. His eyes hurt very little. The gale still blew, though more faintly than before. It was only wind now, which came in gusts, and between the gusts there was relative peace.

Someone fumbled at the door. It heaved open. A dark figure stumbled in, breathing quickly.

Gregor spoke. The girl caught her breath.

“What is it?” he asked breathlessly.

“The gale is nearly blown out. I went outside to see.”

He heard her brushing snow from her garments. Her breath came rapidly. Gregor’s ears caught the tempo. It was uneven; syncopated. One who is out of breath from exertion breathes fast but evenly. This was the breathing of agitation.

“Strange,” said Gregor, speaking into the darkness while a gust of the wind made a wailing sound and died away again. “Very strange that it should take so long to observe the weather.”

Her breathing became faster still, and still more agitated.

“Gregor,” she said unsteadily, “tell me truly. I—I saved your life. You know it. Gregor—you have not lied to me? You told the truth about your work? Will you swear to it? Will you swear by God and all the saints?”

“What would my oath be worth,” asked Gregor caustically, “if I could serve the party by perjury? But what is the matter?”

She seemed to swallow a lump in her throat.

“But, Gregor, if I lied to you instead—if I am not here to trap anybody—if I am here hoping to escape over the pass after the guards come down for the winter—Gregor, would you betray me?” Silence. Gregor was all suspicion, all watchfulness, all caution. This was a pretty trap indeed. But he had known men to be led off to concentration camps or execution because of such traps. His friends, his cousins, his brothers.… Why, his sister Mariana had been betrayed to the secret police by a spy who pretended such utter adoration that Mariana dared ask him to help old General Janos on his hopeless, asthmatic attempt to reach safety. And this girl had saved Gregor’s life, but that did not mean she would not destroy it again at an incautious word from him.

“My dear,” said Gregor cynically, “if you are not yet convinced that I am a party member, denounce me to the police. I am tired of these traps.”

“Gregor—” said the girl as if despairingly, and then was silent.

“I have back my eyesight and some of my strength,” said Gregor sardonically. “If you want help to capture the damned traitor you say you’re after, say so. If not, I’m going back to sleep.”

He settled back. Silence fell in the hut, save for the occasional wailing of the dying storm. Gregor silently congratulated himself on his quickness of wit. This girl had been very convincing indeed. But on his first coming to the cabin, she had boasted that she had been praised by Mannivitch, and Mannivitch did not praise people for squeamishness, but for service to the party. This was a last trap. She had wanted to be absolutely sure of him before he gained strength enough to escape—if he were opposed to the party. Now she would believe. He had gained time in which to gather strength so that the attempt to cross the pass in midwinter would be a shade less than suicide.

He congratulated himself on evading her trap. But she tried yet again. Later on in the night he waked and heard her sobbing. Very convincingly. But he pretended not to hear. And he resented the persistency of her efforts to make him betray himself. He wanted to be grateful, and the need to be always suspicious prevented it.

* * * *

There was sunlight outside the hut, but Gregor could bear even sunlight, now. He sat on the bunk space that had been given up to him, cunningly concealing the full measure of his strength. Concealment and secrecy were second nature now to Gregor.

The girl cooked. And now Gregor saw that she had fed him from a scanty supply of food. He saw, too, that she was a pretty girl even in the makeshift, shapeless garments that made her appear a refugee from party persecution. She cooked cabbage soup again today, adding frost-blackened potatoes that he might be strengthened by it. Gregor wished that he could let himself like her. But he did not dare. No one dared feel any normal emotion nowadays.

“The storm is over,” he observed, “and I have my sight back.”

She did not answer. She went on with her cooking.

“Is it nearer to the guard at the pass,” asked Gregor, “or to the nearest town where I will find members of the party?”

“The guard will probably come down today,” said the girl shortly. “You can wait for it in the trail. It is not far.”

“How many in the pass guard?” asked Gregor idly.

She did not answer. She shrugged.

“You have been most kind,” said Gregor and grinned.

She looked sharply at him, then back to her cooking.

“In other days,” said Gregor, “I would have voiced the hope that God would reward you. But instead, I observe that you deserve the gratitude of the nation for saving a party member’s life.”

She turned suddenly to him. “Listen to me, Gregor,” she said evenly. “I have saved your life. I would like you to keep it. I will swear not to betray you, no matter what you say. Now—did you tell me the truth? Are you a party member? Or are you—are you—” Gregor knew bitterness. Always trying to trap him for the firing squads that had killed so many.

“My dear,” he said amusedly, “I say it again. I am a party member. Of its shock battalions. If I am without papers at the moment, a mere telegram will secure me against suspicion.”

She looked at him steadily, searchingly. Then she turned back to her cooking pot. There was silence, save for the aromatic bubbling of the pot itself, and small, crackling noises in the stove. Outside, the wind was still. The wooden spoon stirred and stirred. It seemed that a very long time passed.

Then the spoon clattered suddenly against the side of the pot. Gregor heard a metallic clanking sound—and then a thunderous knock on the door. Not a knock. A terrific blow. The door burst open and there were three men inside. They wore the bulky, winter uniform of shock troopers of the party. Not much smartness about them, no. But two rifles held ready and a revolver in the hand of the third man was proof of efficiency, at any rate.

The girl faced them composedly.

“You saw my signal?” she asked. “I am Sara Vajnik, and last night I put a note beneath a flag in the trail for someone to come and arrest a suspicious person in my house. This is the man. He was moving toward the pass just before the storm struck. He took shelter here. He appears to be a spy.”

Gregor knew, then, that he would never reach the pass or see the green pastures beyond it. He had a moment’s wry mortified disgust that he had failed to convince the girl, after all, and a moment’s wonder wherein he had failed. But there were more urgent matters afoot. To sell his life for the highest possible price, he needed that revolver in the third man’s hand. His own was gone. So he grinned very convincingly.

“Sara Vajnik has anticipated me—perhaps. I am a party member and a shock trooper. Look at her papers first. The forgery is a very interesting one.” He needed only an instant’s distraction of the third man’s attention. Only an instant. He tightened his muscles, smiling, waiting for the turn of the third man’s head—

Then a sudden cry. A scuffle. A struggle. A man’s oath.

“She-devil! She tried to bolt—”

The girl struggled desperately to reach the door, sobbing in rage and despair.

And Gregor leaped. It was absurdly easy. A wrench—and he was astounded at his own strength—and he had the revolver. He raised it savagely, and felt it kick back in his hand. White smoke blotted out half the room. It kicked and kicked and kicked, while acrid smoke billowed all about and explosions ripped the hut. Then the revolver clicked empty, and Gregor knew he had exacted the highest price he could get for his life. He waited savagely to be killed.

But he was not killed. Instead there was a deep silence. He heard an odd chattering sound. The girl stood staring at him, wide-eyed, while the smoke rose slowly to form a layer of fog next to the ceiling. Her teeth chattered.

“Wh-why did you do it?” she stammered. “I—I—”

“We have lied to each other. Every instant. I’m no party member,” Gregor said. “I’m scheduled to be shot. You—”

“M-me too,” said the girl in a small voice. “Gregor—”

He licked his lips and bent to the floor. He gave her a rifle. He fumbled for other arms.

“They are—they are the last of the pass guard,” she told him shakenly. “I saw the tracks of the others last night, when I left the note. I wasn’t sure there’d be any more today, but these are—are the last.”

“They’d have horses,” said Gregor. “We take them. We start for the pass now. They think it’s closed tighter than they could close it, but we’ll get through! There’ll be nothing to fight but snow and cold. Come on!”

* * * *

They made their way to the trail. They mounted the dead guards’ horses and rode toward the pass now garrisoned only by cold and wind and hunger and despair. But twice, as they rode, the girl turned in her saddle to look fearfully behind her, Gregor saw.

“When we see green valleys,” he told her hungrily, “we will never look behind us. We will never lie to each other. We will never suspect anything. Ah, we will be happy when we reach the valleys beyond the pass!”

The girl looked at him uncertainly.

“Together,” added Gregor.

She flushed. Then she smiled at him.

They rode on toward the pass that had been made impassable by snow. The guard had abandoned it, because nobody could cross the mountains now. But they rode upward to try, because there were green valleys ahead, where a man could lie down and rest.