While Still We Live (25 page)

The alarm clock rang. Sheila after cleaning the rooms had made a determined attempt to clean her dress and her shoes. She had discarded the shreds of silk which had once been stockings. She had wiped her face and combed her hair and even thought of powder and lipstick. She felt much better. Now she stopped admiring her handiwork and rushed through to the living-room to silence the alarm.

Stevens and Schlott hadn’t moved. Four hours. Did Stevens really mean four hours? Yet Mr. Olszak’s meeting was at three, and the time was almost one o’clock now.

Sheila shook Steve’s shoulder. “Breakfast is ready,” she said. It took some time and perseverance, but at last he opened his eyes and sat up stiffly on the floor.

“Breakfast?” he said. “That’s no way to wake a man when he knows there isn’t any.” His temper was as bad as the taste in his mouth. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. The pack was crumpled and empty. He threw it angrily at the opposite wall.

Sheila picked up the clock and pointed to the hour. “The meeting is at three,” she said. The second time, he understood.

“All right, all right,” he said irritably.

“Why don’t you wash and shave? You’ll feel better with that beard off.”

He looked at the neat table in surprise. “What’s happened to the bottles?”

Sheila pointed to their orderly row on top of the bookcase. “Drinking water,” she explained. “And I found some clean towels and soap in Madame Knast’s room. I think you’d better
wash in here: something has gone wrong with the bathroom—it’s a frightful mess.”

He still looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything. He began morosely to shave and wash.

“Who the hell is this?” he asked suddenly and stared at the doorway. Sheila, folding the blanket into a neat bulk, looked up to see the boy standing hesitatingly in the hall. The dog ran into the room, and jumped up and down excitedly with short sharp barks.

“Oh shut up!” Stevens said. Schlott sat up on the couch and frowned heavily.

The boy carried the pot into the kitchen, and then, watching Steve’s lathered face uncertainly, backed slowly towards the front door.

He thinks we don’t want him, he thinks I don’t need him any longer, Sheila guessed. She ran through the hall and caught the boy by his sleeve and pulled him back into the room. He came slowly, willingly, and yet unwillingly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Stevens asked. In Polish, he said, “Come in, come in. What’s your name?”

“Casimir.”

“Well, come in, Casimir.”

“He’s been our friend,” Sheila said in Polish. Her arm kept a tight grip on the boy. “He got us this water, and food, and made a fire, and cooked the food. Please come in, Casimir. I am Sheila. That man is Steve. That man is Gustav, and our friend Bill is sleeping next door. Will you help me to put the soup in the bowls and we shall all eat together?” The boy followed her silently into the kitchen. The dog begged for food, standing erect in its eagerness. From the living-room came Schlott’s voice
chanting “Food! Food! Food!”

“This is Steve’s house,” Sheila explained carefully to the silent boy. “He has given us shelter. We had no place to go.”

“You are refugees, too?” the boy asked with unexpected interest. Sheila felt suddenly happy as she watched the round face with its short nose and anxious blue eyes: she had said the right thing, thank God. She smothered a question about his home and people and said, simply, “Yes.”

The boy’s confidence returned. He was no longer an intruder. He was one of them.

“Here’s some soup for the dog. You give it to him, and then he will be your dog.”

“Whose dog is he?”

“He is a refugee, too, like all of us.”

The meal wasn’t large, but it was enough for them after the little they had eaten in the last few days. Everything was finished, down to the last shred of stringy and now colourless meat, to the last strand of tasteless cabbage. The dog came round to them, each in turn, to wag its tail and jab a cold nose against their ankles.

“He’s saying thank you,” the boy said delightedly. And then the delight faded, and he rose clumsily to his feet. “Thank you, too.” He bowed jerkily, bent down to pat the dog’s head, and started towards the door.

“Quick, Steve, ask him to stay here. Quick,” Sheila said in English.

“What about his own home?” said Schlott. “If he has people, they will be worried.”

“If he has people,” Sheila said quietly.

“But we may have to leave here,” Steve said. “What then?”

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The boy had halted at the door. His movements were very slow. “Go back,” he was saying to the dog which had followed him. “Go back.” There was a sudden lost look on the boy’s face.

“Why are you leaving us? We would like you to stay here,” Steve said. “Would you like to stay here?”

The boy nodded and came slowly back into room. He watched them anxiously.

Schlott rose and thumped him on the back. “You’re our food-scout, Casimir. We need you.”

“And look how happy the dog is,” Sheila said quietly. The boy nodded, and sat cross-legged on the floor. He began to play with the dog.

Steve looked at his watch and then at Sheila. She rose obediently.

“Where are you two going?” Bill asked rashly.

“Out,” Stevens said. Schlott and the dark-haired American exchanged amused glances.

“We’ll make a tour of inspection of the bridge,” Bill said to Schlott. He paused as if thinking of the two men who had crossed it yesterday. He went on with mock lightheartedness which deceived no one. “It will be good to walk along the streets without having to dodge into a doorway every two minutes.”

“What about the boy and the dog?” Schlott asked. “A family is a serious matter. You have got to think about them.”

Sheila said to the boy, “We must go out now. Would you look after the dog? I’ll give you a small piece of soap and a comb. Wash him in the river, or in a shell hole. And if you can find some more food, we will have soup again tonight. Tell the
children in the courtyard to keep that fire burning. Will you do that?”

“Your Polish is improving,” Steve said, “but let the poor kid rest. He needs it.”

“Yes, but not alone, by himself. He can rest tonight when we are all together. Now he has got to do things, to feel that he
is
needed here.”

The men looked at her strangely, and then nodded their agreement.

In the street, Stevens took Sheila’s arm. They walked northwards to the centre of the city. They walked in silence. The ruin and destruction around them were too eloquent. Past them moved white faces, sad, sorrowful, sick. Warsaw was not only written but carved upon their hearts.

THE MEETING

The porter’s house was empty. It looked as if it had been unoccupied since the night that Elzbieta and Sheila had been taken from it. The garden was in ruins. The remains of the anti-aircraft emplacement looked like a half-finished grave. Across from the porter’s gate, there was now another entrance to the courtyard. A gaping hole had been driven in the middle of that side of the apartment house, leaving a moraine of stones and smashed household belongings spreading towards the garden. Through the neatly sliced gap, with its remnants of flowered wallpapers and tilted picture-frames still clinging to its exposed walls, could be seen the black, burned walls of a church. Fire had seared the top floor of Korytowski’s side of the house, but his apartment was still there. Like the others which still gave shelter to their owners, its windows were neatly covered with bright-coloured cardboard. Their brightness was like the smile on a dead man’s face.

Sheila and Stevens climbed the stairs carefully. There was a tilt towards the well of the staircase, and the railings shook loosely when touched. The door’s framework had a lopsided look. The door itself had separated from its hinges and was propped shut. As their footsteps stumbled over the fallen plaster, the door was lifted open. Two men looked at them, two men in stained and ragged uniforms with guns at their belts.

“Get the old man,” said one of the guards. The other left him holding up the door and watching the newcomers carefully. Sheila stared back. Even Stevens looked as if he hadn’t quite expected this. Mr. Olszak’s invitation had scarcely prepared them for such a welcome. From the living-room came the murmur of many voices. Sheila quickened with excitement. The deathlike acceptance, of the ruined buildings had gone. Here was challenge and defiance. Here was hope.

Korytowski, with a red scar taking the place of the bandage across his brow, led them through the hall into the living-room. He was excited, too, for he only smiled and didn’t speak when he saw them. The large room was a warm mass of dark shapes. The only light came from a candlestick on Korytowski’s desk, so that those who leaned against the walls of the bookcases stood in the shadows. Afterwards, Sheila wondered if the concealing darkness was intentional rather than economical. There were some women in the room. They sat on the few chairs. The men sat on the floor or stood beside the bookcases. All looked towards the desk, each with his own attitude of attention, as Olszak rose to speak. Above the candle’s broad flame, the lines on his face were etched more deeply, the eyes were more sunken.

An officer, his torn coat draped round his shoulders, placed
a chair beside Sheila. She looked up to thank him as she sat down. Even in the twilight of this room, she saw his face had grown gaunt and white. There was a loose lock of hair which fell over his brow. His mouth held no smile now, and the laughter had gone from his eyes. For a long moment they looked at each other. Then as silently as he could, he had left her, and once more was leaning against a bookcase. Adam Wisniewski. She remembered the warm evening sun as she had leaned out of a bedroom window, the black horse rearing in front of four white pillars, the cavalry captain who had looked up towards her and saluted as he dismounted. She remembered a dinner table, and mocking brown eyes which had watched her as she had pretended to talk to Andrew. Adam Wisniewski. She forced herself free from her thoughts. Like Steve standing so silently behind her chair, like Wisniewski leaning with his tired shoulders against the bookcase, like the group of three workmen sitting at her feet, like the two young students beside her, like the priest, the soldiers, the women who might have been schoolteachers or secretaries or housewives, the men who looked like substantial burghers, the men who looked like skilled craftsmen, she set herself to listen.

“...our last free day. Tomorrow the enemy may come. We have this day, by the grace of God. That is why I have called you together. Some of us have met before, some have only been recruited to our ranks in the last few weeks, some have been chosen to join us in the last few days to fill the gaps in our ranks caused by enemy action. Our purpose is one, whoever we are, whatever we have been. We fight on. Poland will not die, while we still live.

“We meet here together for the first and last time. We have
renounced our names. We have no families, no loyalties except one alone—our country. I have asked you to come to this meeting, innocently in ones and twos, carefully, secretly, not so much as heads of the departments of our organisation, but rather that you each may learn that you are not alone. That feeling will be important to you in the months ahead. However heartsick and despairing you may be, you will take comfort from the fact that we are all part of each other. And neither torture nor the threat of a painful death will allow us to betray what we know, for one word wrung out of our lips will mean not only the end of our own department but the end perhaps of all the other forms of our resistance. Each of us will remember we are dependent on each other. Without each other, organised resistance is lost.

“The time is shorter than even the most realistic of us had feared. Before the enemy installs his occupation forces, you must have your chief men and women in their places, ready to organise and function. For safety, I have urged you to choose two deputies unknown to each other, who in turn choose two deputies who do not know each other. And so on—until we have a small army of patriots with the arms and the grip of an octopus. First, organise. Second, gather your strength slowly. Third, test your strength before you use it fully. For there is no hurry: the more thoroughly organised, the stronger and surer we are, and the greater will be our ultimate success. The war will be long, unless our allies betray us by making a peace with the Nazis. And I have no fear of that. As long as we have one friend fighting outside, we can hope.

“In preparing for this new German tyranny, those of us who experienced the last...”

Korytowski was beside Stevens, saying something in a low voice. Stevens nodded. Korytowski bent down to repeat his words in Sheila’s ear. “Olszak wants you both to memorise all the details. That’s why you are here. Memorise the details, forget the voice and faces.” Sheila, wide-eyed, nodded in turn.

Olszak’s quiet, yet strangely moving, voice was saying “...planned this organisation to be able to attack the methods of occupation we knew then. For the Germans always repeat themselves. We must also expect additional miseries due to the Nazi refinements on Prussianism. I have studied their methods in Czechoslovakia and I have planned accordingly. But the organisation is not static. We may have to add further departments to take care of any Nazi inventions which we have failed to visualise, remembering that when you are under the Nazis life is always worse than the worst you had imagined. Your monthly reports go either to our chief in Warsaw who is Number One, or to Number Three in Cracow, Number Five in Lodz, Number Seven in Lublin. That depends in which district you work from. Reports from your deputies are sent directly to you; their deputies furnish them with reports. By this system of steps and stairs we shall safeguard our work.

“Now, we shall review our departments. Some of us may work closely together, such as radio and press. But remember that all information which you yourselves cannot use must be forwarded either to me, or to Number Three, Five or Seven. We shall send it to the departments that can use it. We are together. However different our departments, we are one. That I cannot emphasise too strongly.”