The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [107]
Q. How did you interpret Ilona Bentley’s reaction to your brother’s death?
A. She was distressed. Ilona came to my room almost as soon as I returned to the palace. She kissed me, which I didn’t particularly like. She said nothing for a long time. Actually she just stood there trembling from head to foot. She had to sit down in order to get hold of herself. Ilona told me she had loved Tadeusz. “I realize you won’t believe me,” she said, “but I did rather love your brother. You and I are different sorts of women, Zofia. I am able to love a great many people all at the same time. Tadeusz was loved by me.” I expect she was telling the truth. What she said was a comfort to me in a queer way. She had been generous with Tadeusz, sleeping with him, whatever her intentions and whatever the results. All that was over. I found myself sympathizing with Ilona for the first time.
Later on, after we had taken Tadeusz to Khartoum, Ilona came along to the funeral. They all did. They were all absolute atheists, except for Kalash, and he was hardly a good Catholic. But they sat through the mass with me, all very correct. I don’t mean that to sound contemptuous—probably their thoughts of my brother did him as much good as the priest’s ritual and my prayers. We had to have him cremated, of course. This was done after the requiem mass. Theoretically the Catholic dead are not cremated. But I didn’t want to bury him in that damned desert. I wanted to take him back to Europe with me. Nigel and Ilona arranged all that. I’m sure it was very difficult, but they took care of everything.
Ilona turned up at the plane, when we left with Tadeusz’s ashes, with a bouquet of flowers. I don’t know where she got them in that climate—they were roses. She asked if I minded her having the box containing the urn opened, so she could put the flowers inside. I agreed, and she knelt on the tarmac in the beating sun by the open crate, arranging the roses around the ashes. She was weeping. It was kind of her, I thought. There was no question at all that she was tremendously sorry about Tadeusz. No doubt she always had been.
86. FROM THE FILES OF CHIEF INSPECTOR ALY QASIM.
Of the sixty-three terrorists who were engaged by troops of the Parachute Regiment in the main camp of the so-called Anointed Liberation Front on the Wadi Magrur at 0640 hours on 17th July, only four survived. Of these, two were seriously wounded, and despite conscientious treatment by army medical staff, both died before I was able to complete my interviews with them. Of the two remaining prisoners, one was a low-ranking illiterate who was unable to supply any useful information. The other, Fadl Baballah, had been second-incommand of the ALF under a certain Qemal, who unfortunately was killed in the morning’s action.
Baballah stated that he had joined the ALF in the belief that it intended to serve Islam. He was recruited by the late Ahmed, who was a boyhood friend. Ahmed told him that the USSR was a country governed by devout Muslims who wished to restore the purity of the faith. When Ahmed was executed on orders from the Russians, Baballah was disillusioned. He no longer believed that the Russians were friends of Islam, and he desired revenge for the death of his friend. He decided to kill Qemal, and on 12th or 13th July threatened him with a pistol.
What follows is a stenographic