The Miernik Dossier (14 page)

“Back to the guitar lesson. Zofia is playing. I am correcting her mistakes. We are laughing, I am singing the notes for her to follow. Then—a horrendous banging at the door downstairs. Germans shouting.
Where is the Jew?
Zofia’s father and I had made a hiding place between the partitions of the wall. No other Jew in Poland could have fitted into this tiny space, but for Sasha Kirnov it was all right. ‘Keep playing. Don’t be afraid of the Germans. Don’t look at the hiding place,’ I told Zofia. I got into the space between the walls. Under my feet was a carpet of rat droppings. A strong smell of rats. I had a pistol, just a small one—not for the Germans but for myself. I held it against my temple, standing between the walls, ready to shoot myself if I was discovered. I heard Zofia playing her guitar. Then the boots of the Germans on the stairs. They burst into the attic and found a little girl playing the guitar, but no Jew. Naturally we hid all traces of my presence during the day—blankets into the trunk, cups and saucers downstairs, and so on. For an hour they searched, pounding on the walls, trying to find a secret hiding place. They failed, as you can see. They had never heard of a man hiding
between
the walls. After they went away, I came out. I was shaking. I can tell you. Little Zofia took the gun out of my hand. I remember just what she said: ‘Sasha, look at you! You have dirt all over your face, even right on top.’ I always told her that a bald man was lucky because his face never stopped like other people’s—it went right over the top of his head.”

Kirnov, chuckling, relit his cigar. Zofia’s face was wreathed in a smile. “Sasha,” she said. “I had never seen you dirty before.”

They were as cheerful over this memory of fifteen-year-old danger as they seemed to be concerning the hazards of crossing the frontier a few hours hence. They were proud of each other, a sly old fellow and a beautiful young girl who between them could outwit the world. They had done it in Warsaw and they could do it again. These two knew each other better than anyone else could know either of them. Whatever Sasha may be—KGB agent or part of a plot to do murder in the Sudan—he is a very good godfather to Zofia Miernik. He has raised her to live by her wits, and in her kind of life that is a more valuable training than religion.

No one who was in that cottage with them could have doubted that the current of love and trust that passed between them was real. I looked at Kirnov, who once again had his feet tucked under him like a tailor, and made a decision that I knew was not rational. I decided to trust him absolutely for the rest of the time I was in Czechoslovakia.

At a few minutes before ten, Kirnov began to tidy up the cottage. He removed all traces of our presence, wiping every surface we might have touched with a damp cloth; he even took the plates Zofia had washed out of the cupboard and polished them. “Now,” he said, “hands in pockets until we go. It’s always wise to leave the nest clean.” Zofia returned from the bedroom, wearing slacks and heavy shoes and a kerchief knotted under her chin. She carried a small red rucksack.

Inside the car, Kirnov turned to me. “Paul, I don’t for a moment think you are such a romantic as to carry a gun, much less use it. But I like to anticipate everything I can.”

“I won’t be doing any shooting,” I said. Absolute trust does not extend to telling an opposition agent whether you’re armed— especially when you’re not. Kirnov nodded in a satisfied way and started the Citroën. The ride was sedate, compared to our trip out from Bratislava. Kirnov seemed to be keeping to a close schedule; he looked at his watch often, and twice stopped the car to wait. Once, after checking the time and the landmarks, he pulled into a side road and turned off the lights and the motor. Through the open window I heard a couple of bicycles whir by on the highway. “Patrol,” Kirnov explained. We drove from there with the lights off and once nearly ran over an old woman in black who leaped out of the way with a yelp of fright.

We were driving north. On our left were the white fingers of the frontier searchlights along the Morava River. At Kúty we left the main highway and turned northwest over a series of dirt roads. Kirnov, still running without lights, put his head out the window. We crossed two rivers on wooden bridges; these must have been the Morava and the Dyje. Turning south, we passed under a railroad embankment, and Kirnov asked me to get out and walk ahead of the car. “You’ll see a grass path on your left in a few minutes,” Kinov said. “Guide me into it, please.”

Searchlights were visible again, only a few hundred yards to the south. I found the path Kirnov wanted, and he drove in and parked the car. We walked on for another half mile, through a grove of straight young trees. We were directly between two towers. I caught Kirnov’s sleeve and asked him where we were. “Twelve kilometers east of Drasenhofen,” Kirnov whispered. I snorted: Kirnov’s greedy officer of frontier guards was also
our
greedy officer of frontier guards. Sasha had led me to the crossing point I had been going to use in case I missed the river steamer.

It seemed unlikely that any amount of greed would persuade this officer to permit two crossings at the same point in one night. The escape Kirnov had arranged was scheduled to take place fifty minutes before the one Vienna had arranged for me. I fervently wished I had been told how much
we
had paid: any figure over five thousand dollars would have given me confidence that the officer planned to open fire at 11:30 P.M. instead of midnight. But I didn’t know.

Zofia was busy, pinning a white handkerchief to the back of Kirnov’s coat. “No more talking from here,” Kirnov whispered. “I’ll lead on.” He moved off, feeling his way among the slender trees. It was a shallow woods, and as we approached the edge of it there was some light from the backwash of the sweeping searchlights. These now lay only a few hundred feet ahead of us. Kirnov stopped, then straightened up with a large green bottle in his hand. “All is well,” he whispered. “Lie down. Ten minutes.” Zofia handed me the rake; I hadn’t noticed that she was carrying it, and in fact had forgotten all about it. Zofia and Sasha forget nothing. She unpinned the handkerchief from his coat and stuffed it into his pocket. Her teeth shone as she lay looking into Kirnov’s face; she was sprawled on her side, her head propped on her elbow. She kissed the little man.

The nearest watchtower was clearly visible above the trees to our right. Its searchlight swept the ground to either side in a W pattern, meeting the light from the adjoining towers at the points of the W. Anything moving across the plowed ground while both lights were working would certainly be seen at once. There were no dark spots. It was perfectly quiet; not even a cricket sang.

I found myself smiling broadly at the back of Kirnov’s nude scalp. If he had set up a trap to have me killed or arrested, I would just have to walk into it with his garden rake in my hand. The time Vienna had arranged for my crossing was fifty minutes too late. If I refused to go across at 11:10, Kirnov’s time, he had only to whistle up the guards. I could hardly dodge around in the woods for an hour, get back to the jumping-off point, and sprint across the border alone. Even if I wasn’t shot on the spot, I was carrying enough forged papers to spend the rest of my life in Pankrac.
*
The idea of overpowering Kirnov did not seem realistic. I could not have done it quickly enough to prevent Zofia from giving the alarm. Breaking Zofia’s neck was not an appealing prospect. I have never been sure that all that deadly stuff we had in training would work in real life. I could imagine Kirnov slipping out of my judo grip like an eel instead of dying with a twitch and a sigh. The truth of the matter is that Kirnov’s story about the Warsaw attic kept me from getting too bloodthirsty: who could strangle a Jew who had come that close to being killed by the SS?

Kirnov reached over and took my hand. He tapped my watch with his forefinger and then gave my hand a squeeze. It was 11:09. All three of us rose to our knees. We were in a pocket of silence (one does hear one’s own heart at such moments), and then we heard the sound of a man talking loudly in Czech.

The searchlight wavered, then stopped sweeping, its beam pointed away from us at an acute angle. The light on the left kept tracking its own perfect W. There was a corridor of darkness about 50 yards wide directly ahead of us. “Go,” Kirnov said. Zofia stood up and strode out of the woods and into the plowed ground. Before I turned around to begin raking away our footprints, I looked up and saw the light in the window of the farmhouse in Austria. Zofia reached behind her and grabbed the tail of my coat.

It was a very slow trip. I had difficulty seeing our footprints, and the dirt was slick with dew. It stuck to the teeth of the rake. I had to tell Zofia to go slower. She immediately obeyed. Behind us I could hear the officer berating his men. The watchtower was a distinct outline, a skeleton of planks with the light mounted on a pedestal behind the front railing. To the right of the tower, about a hundred yards away, I saw a group of soldiers with slung rifles. They had their backs to us, and they were staring upward at the tower. Zofia walked on, exerting a steady pull on my coattails. “Twenty meters more, fifteen meters more, ten meters more,’ she said in a low, steady voice as we went. Finally she said, “The meadow.”

I felt grass under my feet and turned around. The woods lay before us. Zofia began to run and I loped along behind her, carrying my rake at port arms. We entered the trees and kept going until we were well inside them. When we turned around, the searchlight on the tower had resumed sweeping. It was 11:14. The silence had descended again, and I heard a small noise from Zofia. She was pressing her fist against her cheek and biting her lip. I touched her face. It was wet with tears. She sniffed loudly and moved her head away from my hand.

We climbed up a bank onto the highway. Zofia removed her kerchief and shook out her hair. I was surprised to see that it fell to her shoulder blades. Tears were still shining on her cheeks when Miernik arrived seconds later to meet us.

He had come out from Vienna in a taxicab.

39.  R
EPORT BY
C
HRISTOPHER’S CASE OFFICER.

1. This officer proceeded to Point Zebra (on the Austrian-Czech frontier) at 2340 hours on 16 June to await the arrival of Christopher and Zofia Miernik. Position was assumed in a wooded area overlooking the border, and surveillance was maintained continuously by this officer and one other officer from the Vienna station until 0005 hours on 17 June.

2. At 2400 hours, the time at which Christopher was supposed to cross the frontier, searchlights on the two watchtowers adjoining the crossing point were extinguished.

3. At 2402 hours, both searchlights were lighted again, and a detachment of troops came into the cleared strip on the Czech side of the frontier. Approximately twenty men were involved. They carried out a thorough search of the area, including a wooded strip on the Czech side of the frontier.

4. It was assumed at the time that this search was directed toward the capture of Christopher and Zofia Miernik. No effective action to prevent this outcome was possible in the circumstances, and none was attempted by this officer.

5. This officer strongly recommends that the Vienna station undertake a reexamination of its relationship with the Czech officer commanding this sector of the frontier.

40.  D
ISPATCH FROM THE
A
MERICAN STATION IN
V
IENNA.

1. The Czech officer commanding the frontier sector that includes Point Zebra has explained that he was aware that Christopher and Zofia Miernik had crossed the frontier earlier than the time arranged between him and the Vienna station.

2. His action in ordering a search of the area around Point Zebra therefore presented no danger to Christopher. The U.S. officers who had planned to meet Christopher on the Austrian side of the frontier had no knowledge of this at the time of the incident, and it is natural that they feared for Christopher’s safety.

3. In our opinion, there is reason for a continuation of the normal operational caution that this station has always exercised in its dealing with subject Czech officer. But we have no grounds for disillusion. His action had the effect of protecting his reputation with his superiors and also obliterated any traces of Christopher’s crossing over the plowed ground along the frontier. On balance we regard the futile search action ordered by the Czech as an intelligent
ad hoc
operation that protected his interests as well as our own.

41.  F
ROM
M
IERNIK’S DIARY.

Reunion! There by the roadside were Zofia and Paul when I arrived in my taxi. The picture of them, and especially of Zofia with tears on her sweet face, rises out of the green ink with which I am covering this page. Until the moment I saw them I did not believe in my heart that they would be there. Even now, while Zofia sleeps in a room just down the corridor, I am not quite convinced that everything is as I know it to be—my sister safe at last and my friend out of danger. Of course I should have realized that Sasha would arrange everything perfectly. How many persons have had the gift of such a friend? He sent me no messages by Zofia. She
was
the message.

After the perfection of Sasha’s plan, my arrival on the dark road in a Viennese taxi seemed humorous to Zofia and Paul. The more I explained that I could not drive with my arm in a sling (and with no Austrian driver’s permit), the more they giggled. The taxi driver was befuddled by my instructions, but very glad to have the enormous fare. I gave him a very large tip in addition, so he went away as happy in his way as we were in ours. No doubt he put two and two together, but what does that matter? We will be out of Austria tomorrow, and we need never return.