toxidomaskjr
Magistrate
Part 2 – episode 16
I pulled the zipper of my handbag, but I got the wrong one! It was just an empty, shallow pocket. It must have been at the other side! I found out that the shoulder strap was twisted! Then I found right the zipper, but it wouldn't open! New handbags! Always the same! I pulled with both hands to open it! It seemed to last an eternity! It costs two months of income of an average Illyrian worker, but the damn zipper is stuck! Finally I got it open. I put my hand inside and I grabbed for the grip of the gun. But I found the barrel. That gun was apparently backwards and upside down, and it was moreover stuck, somewhere, inside that bag, by a strap only God knows for what was meant for. First I pulled on the barrel, but something told me that pulling an upward pointing loaded gun by the barrel, could be a very bad idea. So, I tried to release it from below! I fumbled around, trying to get the gun free. Finally, I got the grip. I looked around again. All the attention still went into the incident with the horses. In the car they were all still distracted by it. All, except,..
The wife of the Archduke! She had noticed me! And I saw in her eyes that she knew what I was up to! And both for her and me it was clear that everybody else was not paying attention to me! There was no time anymore for her to warn one of the four men in the car for the imminent danger. While she kept watching me, I saw her look change from concern to determination. She righted herself a little bit, she put her left hand on the back of the seat in front of her and she bent forward while she continued to look straight at me. In a flash I realized what she had in mind!
She had made my field of firing very small, unless I would…
Suddenly I hesitated. I realized that I could not do it! I released the grip of the gun and pulled out my hand. Step by step I tried to get my feet out of the bars of the fallen barrier, trying not to stumble. Then, the horse that had been on the run, returned, and stopped at its original position, between me and the Archduke’s car. As quickly as possible, I tried to vanish into the crowd. Empire-Illyria three-zero!
"Aurore! What was the matter with you? You stood there right in front of him! Why didn’t you shoot!? "
"That damn handbag did not open!"
"You know the zipper of a new handbag must always be treated with candle wax first! Otherwise you get misery! "
"I know! Furthermore, ..! "
"What?"
"That wife of the Archduke had seen me! And she had figured out what I was up to! "
"So what? The only thing that you had to do was to shoot!? No one else was watching you! "
"Lisa! Do you know what she did? She offered herself as a living shield to her husband! I would first have her shot! To eliminate her as an obstacle! I would have had no more chance to hit him. "
"Had at least tried, then!"
"Are you completely mad, Lisa!? She has four children! Do you people really think everyone can be murdered, just for the cause? Yes, you do, I know! But I keep thinking at ‘Téméraire’? "
She said nothing more, except:
"Go to the car and prepare it for driving away. It is all failed. I'm going to collect the others and I'll be right there!"
She did not have to ask me twice. I quickly left that square and I went to the car, as fast I could. As soon my new shoes permitted it, by the way, because they ran not so easy. If I had really shot, then I would not have gone far, at least if I would have had time to get out of the bars of the barriers. If I had drawn that gun, I had been dead by now!
I reached the car and got in without any problems. I just had to wait for Lisa and the others. Sitting behind the wheel, I could finally scrub off some stress. What a situation I was in! I almost had shot as well. What took me? And I had to think constantly to the Archduke’s wife, how she had offered herself as a living shield for her husband! Suppose! Suppose I ever would have been Queen of France, would I have done that for Robert, would I have committed the same sacrifice for him, would the same circumstances have occurred?
“Aurore! Aufwachen!”
I woke up! Someone was ticking at the side window of the car. Still sleepy, I tried to pull my mind together. It became clear to me that I was still sitting in the getaway car in the Beethovenstrasse. I was here on request by Lisa, who had said she would come soon. I had got into the car and I had waited. But no one came, and I must have fallen asleep. Meanwhile, it was dark – and cold. Next to the car stood a van. Josip, in his wheelchair, sat in the passenger compartment.
“Aurore, komm, Schnell! Marko will follow with the car!”
Marko, the man who had waken me up, took over the getaway car, while I got into the van with Josip.
“What happened, Josip? Where is Lisa?”
“Keine Ahnung? I have absolutely no idea! Do you know?”
“No, she had said she would be here soon…!”
“She had signaled that the operation had failed. Afterwards, I haven’t heard from her neither!”
“Is she arrested?”
“Not that I know! She has simply vanished!”
“Where are we going?”
“Nach Hause, Aurore!”
It all looked bad. Josip said nothing more underway. Then, after about an hour's drive on dark roads we arrived at a familiar place: the castle I had spent months in the past. We got out. Josip was still taciturn.
"Geh schlafen, Aurore!"
I went to sleep as Josip had ordered. The next morning, he was up early. He was clearly annoyed. It was still not clear what had happened to Lisa and the others. But there was clearly something going on.
“It was all betrayed! Those damned Serbs did it! They provided us with all wrong information. I am sure they wanted to shoot Friedrich Wilhelm themselves and they were even prepared to betray their own comrades! Their own Illyrian people! You were right, Aurore! Maybe Illyria is a myth! It will not work yet! We still have to go a long way before all the people of Illyria shall be able to live together!”
“I was very close! But I could not do it, Josip! The Archduke’s wife was prepared to protect her husband with her own life!”
“I heard what happened from Lisa’s latest message! You were right not to shoot! The world would not have forgiven us if we had killed her! You have nothing to blame yourself!”
“And now!?”
“I am afraid, you have to go now, Aurore!”
“To go, but;..?”
“We better get you out of all this, for your own safety!”
“To go!? Where?”
“It is all over! Soon, I will retreat to Hungary again! I have papers and some money for you! Here is a car key. You will drive to Macedonia!”
“To Macedonia?”
“To Thessaloniki. Here is an address. Go there! Someone there will help you further!”
“But, Josip…?”
“Go, Aurore, go now, and don’t look back. It is all over! Go, as long as it is still possible!”
He sounded authoritative. Too authoritative to ignore! Clearly, he would not accept a refusal.
“Auf wiedersehen, Josip!”
“Farewell, Aurore! Geh jetzt, und leb wohl, du kühnes, herliches Kind!”
“What did you say, Josip!?”
“Nothing, Aurore! Go now! It is for your own good!”
Confused I got into the car. It was a small model, but obviously enough to drive away. The gas tank was full. There was a road map inside. I also had some food, enough for two days. I started the engine and drove away.
It was a more than five hundred miles ride to the Macedonian border. Over Zagreb, Belgrade, Pristina and Skopje. It was already dark when I arrived at the border with Macedonia. During the night the border crossing was closed, so I slept in my car. The next morning I crossed the border without problems. Shortly after noon I arrived in Thessaloniki, and I went to the address Josip had given me. It was a carpet shop somewhere in a narrow street. I showed the man the card that Josip had given me. He looked at me and nodded. With my imperfect Slovenian I understood that I could park the car and I could spend the night in it. The following day he would help me further.
And indeed, the next day he brought me to the port, where I got a ticket for a ferry, ready to sail. It was the ferry to the island of Chaos. He gave me an address, and some good advice: stay on that island. Don't go away! You will be nowhere else safe in Europe! It was a good advice from Josip himself.
After a passage of nearly a day, the ferry arrived at the port of Chaos City. It was evening, a delicious warm summer evening, as I stood on the quays. Around me there was the busy hustle and bustle of a port: fishermen, boaters, hikers, sailors. Further, along the port, tourists enjoyed eating and drinking on the terraces. I would never forget the day of my arrival. It was the first of July of the year 1998. Almost a month earlier I got thirty-two. Here I stood, on the run for both the King of France and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Practically without a penny, dirty and wrecked after a long trip in the car and two nights sleeping in that car. Without any prospect, my sole possession being the clothes and shoes I wore, those I had bought in Laibach to commit a murder, some money Josip had given me, and a few more things in the suitcase I had taken to Laibach for the stay in the hotel. According to my passport, I was Luisa Schneider, born in Saverne in France, and according to my photo on the passport, I was most probably Lisa. But right, we seemed to resemble each other, after all. I looked around and I was wondering where I had to go. And what would be the future here? Who knows, would someone also suggest me here to become a Queen? Queen in a prison without bars? Queen of Chaos this time? I was used to it!
“Can I help you?”
Behind me stood a small, friendly smiling red haired lady that addressed me. In English. I had to search for words. I hardly knew English. That language was nowhere taught on the schools. English was regarded throughout Europe as a simple Island language, full of barbaric sounds. A language without the inflections and cases, in which all nouns were simply neuter. But I had to face the fact. I was now myself on an island and I would better put aside my bias and accept the helping hand that was offered, regardless in what language it was.
The woman was called Judith, as it turned out. She helped me to the address that the man in Thessaloniki had given me. But she also gave her own contacts, because she knew people who could help me here. Because she had quickly understood that I had come to Chaos for a reason other than a touristic journey, and that I would not leave soon.
My contact on the island lived in an apartment in a small street just outside the St. George’s Gate. He could give me accommodation for a few days, and meanwhile he looked for a summer job for me, as a dishwasher in a restaurant. In the tourist season, there was always plenty of demand for such helping hands. He presented it as a starting job, a temporary solution that would earn money immediately. In the meantime I could look forward to private accommodation and a better job. Like the man in Thessaloniki, he asked no questions. Referring to 'Josip ' was apparently enough to get help.
I also decided to use the help Judith had offered me. She helped me to a find a place to stay. The one we found was not large. It was located in one of the many narrow streets near the Saint-Nicolas’ Gate. It was on the second floor of an old, small building, above a souvenir shop, but outside of the busiest tourist destinations. It was a called a ‘studio', although it was basically just one room of about twenty feet by eight feet. On one side there was a ‘bathroom’ of approximately six feet, behind a curtain. So, at least there was water, and electricity. In the main part was a bed, a large wardrobe, a table and two chairs. There was one window, five feet long and two feet high, with a view on a side wall of an adjacent house, about nine feet away, and on the blue sky. In the afternoon, during about one and a half hour, sunshine fell through the window.
At first I was rather reluctant to take it, because I preferred the area just outside the Saint George’s Gate, with its white apartment blocks and its wide streets with trees on the sidewalk. At a first glance, it felt more pleasant to live there. But Judith insisted to take the studio, for several reasons. First, she said, I had to take into consideration that appearances are deceiving. My contact was living in one of the better streets of the Saint-George’s Gate Quarter, but that supposedly neat and fresh quarter hid a lot of poverty. In some streets and in some apartment buildings, there was crime, even true anarchy. As a single woman it would even be harder to live there, because the poverty went hand in hand with a very conservative moral. A woman was supposed to have a man, otherwise she was regarded as a whore. Furthermore, despite my qualifications, which she knew already, I would never manage to find a job at any level, because the inhabitants of the St. George’s Gate Quarter have the stigma of being low-skilled, lazy and unreliable. Living In the St. Marcus or in the St. Nicolas quarter would mean a social upgrade despite the housing being much smaller. So she urged me to take the little studio she had proposed. After all, it would be a temporary solution. So, I followed Judith's advice. Shortly afterwards she arranged for me a part-time and temporary employment in the English fleet base. Not at the quays, actually. It had to do something with the administration of the officer's mess, which was located in the Diplomat’s Quarter. The mess was regularly visited by invited civilians too, and the contacts I made there and the help of Judith, allowed me to get part-time jobs elsewhere. After about a year I had gathered enough part-time office jobs, so I could give up doing dishes. I earned enough money to afford the expensive life on Chaos (because many goods had to be imported). Only local fruits and wine were cheap.
About then, Maryszkà arrived too, and she also got helped by Judith. Olga would appear some three years after my arrival, Smyrna only eight years after me. All were helped by Judith and by us, to get settled on the island. That way we forged a band, like Judith called it, that shared joy and sorrow and that made the Saint-Nicolas Quarter ‘unsafe’. We, the Queens of Chaos.
End of Part 2 (to be continued)
This story is a roller coaster but it's amazing!!
Excellent job Loxuru!
