Free Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman Page B

right, Duchess—I hope to God it’s not—I should now turn to you and say, ‘Welcome to Albania.’ ”
    “Albania!” gasped Mrs. Pollifax, and peering incredulously into his face she repeated blankly,
“Albania?”
    “Albania.”
    “But I don’t
want
to be in Albania,” Mrs. Pollifax told him despairingly. “I don’t know anything
about
Albania, I’ve scarcely even heard of the place, the idea’s preposterous!”
    “Nevertheless,” said Farrell, “I think it’s where we are.”
    A long car, once black but nearly white with dust now, drew into the periphery of the flashlights and they were ushered to its door and prodded into the rear. “A Rolls,” Farrell said out of the corner of his mouth, and Mrs. Pollifax nodded politely. The two men with Grecian profiles climbed in and sat down on a drop seat facing them, guns in hand, and the car began to move at reckless speed over incredibly bumpy ground. Mrs. Pollifax clung to its sides and longed for an aspirin. The headlights of the car illuminated the road onto which they turned but the road held as many ruts as the airfield. They appeared to be entering a town, and presently they were threading narrow streets where garbage flowed sluggishly in gutters. They passed cobbled alleys and shuttered cafes and what appeared to be a bazaar. They met no other cars and saw no people. Eventhe homes that showed briefly in the glare of the headlights looked inhospitable, their rooftops barely seen over the tops of high walls that surrounded them. The walls were guarded by huge gateways with iron-studded doors—clearly not a trusting neighborhood, thought Mrs. Pollifax—and then they had left the town behind. Looking out of the window at her side Mrs. Pollifax saw the mountains again silhouetted against the night-blue sky; not comfortable-looking mountains at all, but harsh craggy ones with jutting peaks and cliffs and towering, rocky summits. The mountains, decided Mrs. Pollifax, looked even less hospitable than the homes. It was toward these mountains that they appeared to be heading.
    Their guards stared at them impassively and without curiosity. Mrs. Pollifax turned to Farrell and said, “But why Albania? Surely you’re wrong!”
    “Well, this isn’t Cuba.”
    “No,” responded Mrs. Pollifax sadly, “it isn’t Cuba.”
    “I thought at first these mountains might be the Himalayas, but this isn’t China. The mountains aren’t high enough, there aren’t enough of them and the whole topography is wrong.”
    “I shouldn’t care at all for China,” Mrs. Pollifax agreed.
    “One has to think of the few parts of the world where the Red Chinese are welcome. There aren’t many, you know. That town we passed through was definitely not Chinese, it was Balkan in flavor. These mountains must belong to the Albanian Alps, and certainly these men are Europeans.”
    Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “I thought they looked Greek.”
    “If this is Albania then Greece is only a few hundred miles away,” he pointed out. “You saw how primitive the airport was, and you see how primitive the country is. If we’re in Europe there’s no other country but Albania where the Red Chinese can come and go at will.”
    “I didn’t know they could come and go
anywhere
in Europe,” said Mrs. Pollifax indignantly.
    “It happened about 1960,” he mused, his brow furrowed. “Until then Russia was Albania’s big brother and pretty much in control of the country. Then Stalin was denounced—that was a surprise to the world, you must remember that. It rocked Albania, too—they’re Stalinist here, you see. I don’t recall the details, it happened at one of their Big Party Congresses, but there was rather ugly name-calling, with China and Albania siding against Khrushchev. Russia punished Albania by withdrawing all its aid, all its technicians, all its military, and Chinavery happily moved in to help. The chance of a lifetime, giving Red China a toehold in Europe.”
    “I didn’t