While Still We Live (23 page)

Stevens, watching him, felt an upsurge of pity. The gentler you had been in your own life, the harder it was to bear all this violence.

Korytowski suddenly rose from the table. “I must find Teresa. I must tell her,” he said thickly.

“Wait,” advised Olszak, “wait until I can come through the streets with you. I shall go with you to Teresa.”

“Then you would tell her?”

“Yes. Teresa never avoided bad news in all her life. She would prefer to know.”

“Let us go now, then.”

“Shortly, Edward.” Olszak turned to Stevens. “Well, it will soon be over now. Listen to that new barrage since dawn broke... What are you going to do, Stevens?”

“Can’t seem to think about that.”

“Surely you have plans?”

“Thought I had. But now that it’s near the end, I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you go back to America at once? Your Warsaw story will still be news for another week or two. You could tell the people outside how we fought in here. How Warsaw Fell. Exclusive.”

“Shut up, Olszak.” Stevens had risen to his feet and was standing over the Pole. “Shut up. I’m not so much under control these days. Perhaps I don’t want to be under control. So shut up.”

Mr. Olszak seemed far from offended by the American’s savage tone. The sarcasm was gone from his voice when he said: “But perhaps you
could
tell them of our mistakes. For we have faced a new kind of warfare, and we didn’t know how to meet it. No country does, unless it has been studying war and war only for the last seven years. Whatever our faults as a nation, we have at least been a willing guinea pig in the cause of humanity. They could be warned in time through us.”

“You mean I should go and give them advice? Me? I’d never stop talking if it would do any good. But you don’t talk a democracy into anything. Each member wants to do his own
thinking, his own talking. The people make up their own minds. If you try to rush them, they start yelling holy propaganda. It was the same with the British. They had to argue about Czechoslovakia before they decided Germany was dangerous. And it’s the same with all forms of democratic government in Europe. They are still discussing the war, and voting on it at elections. How can you expect America to be any wiser than countries on Germany’s doorstep?”

Korytowski said suddenly, bitterly, “Then the sacrifice is all in vain. Other countries may be attacked without warning and suffer cruel defeats, because they would not see what happened to us.”

“Not in vain,” Olszak said. “In the end, we’ll win. Even if there are few Poles left, even if all Poland is entirely devastated, there will be other lands where there still are railways and factories and modern housing. By taking the first blow from the German fist when it was strongest, we may have helped to preserve buildings and lives, in other countries. So in the end, we’ll win, for Poland will live in the hearts of men. Or, do you think,” he added with his peculiar smile, looking so innocently at Stevens, “that men will forget us as quickly as they forgot us after we saved Europe from Mohammedanism?”

Stevens didn’t answer.

“You know, I like you. Just as I like that girl next door,” Olszak said unexpectedly. “You both have that same angry, helpless look when you contemplate future injustices which you hope won’t, but which you fear may happen. But let me ask another question. Why should you worry whether your return to your own country would be valuable? Why don’t you just return, take up any new assignment, and go on building
your life like millions of other fortunate young men?”

“Hell, no. What do you think I’m made of? Do you think any of the foreigners here, who have been through this, with you, are going to go away to their different countries and turn off these last few weeks like a water faucet? I guess we were all committed permanently when we first decided to stay. We didn’t know it then, but we chose sides, all right.”

“You are decided then? You are going to fight on?”

“We all are. There’s another American here. We’ve talked of getting to England and learning to fly a bomber. There’s a Swede I know. He’s staying in Warsaw, at his job with the American Bank. But he thinks he has enough contacts to be able to smuggle people out of Poland. There’s a Frenchman and an Englishman; they are going to reach their countries by Rumania and then enlist in their air forces. We all want to be on the giving end of a bomber, just for a change. But there isn’t one of us who is going to start tending roses in his own back yard.”

“What is your Swedish friend’s name?”

“Schlott. Gustav Schlott.”

“His idea has certain possibilities. But it needs silence. Tell him to keep absolutely quiet. Has he any Polish friends he can work with in his future enterprise?”

“I guess so.”

“Find out their names. Bring them to me tomorrow. That will be the twenty-seventh of September. Come to Korytowski’s flat at three o’clock in the afternoon. Now where can I get in touch with Schlott if I want to see him? Not at the bank. Preferably some place more private.”

“He’s living here now. If you wait long enough, you’ll see
him.”

“God forbid.” There was such an expression of alarm on Olszak’s face that Stevens grinned.

“Some checking-up in order, first?” the American asked innocently.

“You talk too much. What is worse, you think about things which are dangerous. We need friends. But we don’t want friends who are merely interested. If that is the most they can feel for us, then they are a danger to us the moment the Germans take over the city.”

“What are you getting at? If you think I’d give information to a lousy Hun, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” asked Olszak mildly.

“Skip it. Stop ribbing me. My temper is not what it was.”

“Neither is mine,” Olszak said with a touch of steel in his voice.

“What are you getting at?” Stevens said slowly. Incredulously he added, “Don’t you trust me?”

“I can trust no one until he has proven himself. Do you trust me, for that matter?”

“No.”

The two men looked at each other, and then Olszak laughed.

Korytowski, watching the American’s face, said quickly, “Michal, I rarely interfere, but I feel that all our nerves are frayed to breaking point. We know Stevens. He’s a good friend. He’s been fighting with us. What more proof do you want?”

“Only a very little more. But first let me ask, what does Mr. Stevens intend to do with any information he has recently gathered? Not telling it to the Germans is only a negative plan. The Germans don’t always wait for people to tell, or not to tell.
Suppose you were in London or New York. Suppose you were at a party and there met a charming woman or a sympathetic old man who deplored Poland’s situation. In your friendship for us, might you not rise to our defence? Might you not say that you knew there
were
certain men in Poland who were going to fight every attempt at domination? Later in the evening you would find yourself being asked about life in Warsaw before the war, about the people you had known there. Then months later you might learn that Korytowski, or I, or one of the men you used to meet at the flat, had been arrested. For the Germans are logical. If you knew about it, it was only through the people you had known in Warsaw. That’s how it can happen. I know. I’ve seen how they have approached exiled Czechs here, in the last years. Always very innocently, always very sympathetically, and
never
as Nazi Germans. Even the cleverest man can be duped by these agents. For there are moments when it is hard to keep silent, to keep from denying a lie or from justifying your friends. Yet the only way with these Nazis is to be able to seem callously silent. Can you do it, Stevens?”

The American shook his head slowly. “I’ll never be able to converse again. Damn you, you know I like a good argument.” He laughed ruefully. “I may as well admit now that I said I didn’t trust you because I was mad at you for not trusting me.”

“That’s better,” Korytowski said in relief, and relaxed again. He began pouring drinks into the measuring glass and a shaving mug.

“Here, what’s happened to my best crystal?” Stevens said in surprise, and looked round the room as if he were really seeing it for the first time. He cursed softly and steadily.

“Someone has been drinking a toast,” Olszak said and
pointed to the corner of the room where broken wine glasses were scattered. He handed the shaving mug to Stevens. “Do you feel like a toast?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I have a job for you to do. It will put you on the Nazi black list. It makes you one of us, not just a sympathiser but an active member. If things go wrong for you, I must warn you that the American consular representative could do nothing for you. I am giving an invitation to danger.”

Stevens raised the shaving mug. “Goodbye to the bomber,” he said. “I’ll fight your way. On the receiving end.” He began to drink.

“You know what you are giving up?” Olszak asked slowly, raising his drink to his lips.

Stevens looked towards the bedroom. “If she can do it, what’s going to stop me? When did a Limey ever do what a Yank couldn’t?”

The kitchen measuring glass and the shaving mug smashed against the wall and added their large coarse fragments to the delicate ruin of crystal on the floor.

The bedroom door opened, and a startled Sheila stood there.

“Come in,” Olszak said almost genially, “come in, Sheila. We didn’t need to shoot him.”

Sheila relaxed. She smiled at Olszak. Until now it had always been a very careful “Miss Matthews.” She knew that somehow he was pleased with her.

“What’s that? Shoot who?” Stevens asked with more vehemence than grammar.

Men’s voices and heavy footsteps sounded on the staircase. The tension in the room reappeared. Olszak was already at the
door. Korytowski paused to kiss Sheila, and to shake Stevens’ hand.

“Tomorrow afternoon. Three o’clock. Bring Sheila. Your jobs, begin then,” Olszak said softly and left the room.

* * *

“Hello,” Bill said as he entered at the head of the tired group of straggling men. “Who were the two old geezers we passed on the stairs?”

“Looking for Madame Knast,” Stevens said briefly. Sheila’s eyes met his and smiled approvingly. “You’re back early.”

“There’s little to be done. It’s going to be a day of heavy shelling. Most people are making for the cellars. We’ll have to wait until this barrage slackens.”

The others were filing slowly into the room.

“You’ve additional guests,” Schlott said.

Stevens looked at them. “So I see. Well, we have still got a floor here,” he said. “How’s the world outside?”

“Pippa isn’t passing,” Jim said slowly. “God’s not in his heaven.” He opened his jacket and set down a small thin frightened dog on the floor. He fondled the shivering little animal, scratched the ears lying so flat against its head.

“Carried him all the way here,” Schlott said. “He’s crazy. Does he expect us to eat a dog that made friends with us?”

“I didn’t adopt him. He adopted me. What could I do? He wouldn’t be a bad-looking little tyke if he were clean and happy.”

The shivering dog, its tail tucked well between its legs, moved uneasily round the room. It came to Sheila and cowered at her feet.

“He’s filthy,” she said softly, sadly. We all are, she thought.
And we are all just as afraid. She rubbed the dog’s head gently as the men talked. She felt her eyes close in spite of her attempt to hold them open and be polite. The dog had stopped shivering. He looked up at her. As one human being to another, he seemed to be saying, just
what
is wrong with the world these days?

“How’s your hand?” Steve was standing beside her. She smiled for an answer; she was too tired to speak. He pushed her shoulders gently down onto the couch. The dog jumped up beside her, and none had the heart to put him down. Sheila listened to the men’s voices growing more blurred. The candles became a haze. The dog stared at her solemnly. She scratched his ear, and his watchfulness relaxed. He settled comfortably, and gave a small sigh.

CAPITULATION

The bombardment continued unceasingly. In Stevens’ rooms the men were restless. When the guns seemed about to level off, they would talk and argue. They would make brief sorties out into a grotesque world where volunteers were useless. The end was near. The men felt it, and each made his own plans, his own preparations for that moment. Only the Americans and the Swede would be free men once the Germans came, and even they had to plan how they could keep that freedom.

During the day, Bill’s remaining tins of food were scraped clean. The last bottle was emptied, and the final candle was inserted in its neck. The boards over the window had been loosened to let some light into the room, so that the candle could be saved for the night. A cold wind swept into the room and huddled them together in their coats. Once, either because the guns seemed to be directed more against the north of the city, or because sitting in this room had become unbearable
(“It’s madness to go out,” Jim said, “but it’s misery to sit here and just wonder”), the men rose and left together. Sheila seized the chance to tidy the room. Now that she was alone, she
had
to do something. She couldn’t sit still and let herself just think. Even the Polish grammar book was no longer a diversion. She moved the conglomeration of private possessions into neat piles. She tried to get rid of some of the thick dust which drifted in clouds through the open window. After she had swept the white powder into heaps three times in succession and found that the coating of dust still lay on everything, she was forced to close the window boards. Barbara, she thought as she looked round the room, Barbara would have made a neater job. Barbara... She lifted the pail and almost ran downstairs, and went searching for the nearest well.

It was farther away than she had thought, and it was an unpleasant journey. She almost wept with rage when a sudden blast, nearer than the others had been, made her duck so that almost half of the precious water was spilled onto the road. The little dog had followed her to the well, had waited patiently beside her in the long queue. He had kept very close to her, padding along beside her, looking up into her face now and again as much as to say, “See, I’ve got one of those humans, again. She’s got some quite good points, too. Might be intelligent. At least, she tries very hard. Perhaps I’ll get round to teaching her some tricks one of these days. She certainly learned very quickly how to walk on all fours this morning when she was retrieving the things on the floor.” His tail was carried proudly, his ears were erect. It hadn’t been the guns or the lack of food which had cowed him so much, last night. It had been the feeling of being lost, of being unwanted. He
now lapped up the pool of water spreading at Sheila’s feet, and cocked his head to one side as he looked up waiting for more. His cool assumption made her laugh, and her rage vanished. Strange, she was thinking, that things never seemed so bad if you had someone—even a dog—to share them with. The last stretch of the journey seemed the easier for having the dog trotting along so closely beside her.