Nocturne Read online

  ‘I remember you used to live in Zoliborz,’ he said, recalling the elegant villa in one of Warsaw’s garden suburbs.

  ‘Ah yes, that was then.’ Dr Wieniawski was clattering around with the cups.

  He obviously didn’t entertain very often because he forgot the saucers and spoons, and the biscuits he placed on the cracked plate were stale and broken. Adam sipped the tea, declined the biscuits, and they continued to engage in awkward small-talk.

  After an awkward half-hour, Adam started shifting impatiently in his chair.

  ‘I’m sorry to be blunt, Dr Wieniawski, but I have no idea why you bothered with that fake cigarette butt or why you wanted me to come. Anyway, thanks for the tea.’

  As he rose to leave, his host chuckled. ‘Sit down, young man, sit down. I’d forgotten what a hothead you are. Do you always expect a declaration of love on the first date?’

  Adam bristled. ‘No, but I did think there might be some point in us getting together.’

  Placing his finger on his lips, Dr Wieniawski switched on the wireless and turned up the volume. ‘One can’t be too careful.’

  Unable to control his anger, Adam burst out, ‘How long are we going to continue living like this? What’s going to become of us if we keep knuckling under, while those bastards grind us into the dirt? I wanted to fight for my country, not sit back and watch it being crushed. I can’t find out whether my father is alive, dead, or rotting in some Nazi jail. I just can’t live like this any more.’

  Dr Wieniawski was holding a cup and seemed to be weighing it in his hand. He looked at Adam intently then said in a quiet voice, ‘You know, not all of us feel as powerless as you do.’

  Adam looked up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Some of us have become quite active. There’s no freedom when you live in fear.’

  Adam’s heart was racing. Although he didn’t fully understand what the doctor was saying, he sensed something that offered hope.

  ‘What kind of action? Are you talking about an organised group? Can anyone join?’

  ‘Not so fast, Adam. I’m talking about resistance. To be more exact, I’m talking about an Underground army that’s under strict military discipline.’

  Trying to steady his voice, Adam said, ‘How do I join?’

  ‘You should think it over very carefully before you decide. It’s dangerous.’

  Adam shrugged. ‘Living in Poland is dangerous. Just tell me what to do.’

  Several days later, he was standing in front of a typical Warsaw apartment block, three storeys high with a grey cement façade and small balconies that were ornamental rather than functional. Adam climbed the dusty staircase to the top floor, and gave three rapid knocks followed by two slow ones on the door marked Import Enterprises, as he’d been instructed. A few moments later, a tall thin woman with grey hair pulled back into a wispy bun opened the door and looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘Pan Direktor is out at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?’

  ‘I’ve come about Dutch clogs,’ Adam replied, feeling foolish as he recited the code he’d been given.

  She nodded and ushered him into a small bare office where a middle-aged man with a luxuriant moustache sat typing at a table. Adam cleared his throat several times but the man continued his work without acknowledging Adam’s presence.

  He walked towards the small window and looked down on the trams clanging below, drummed his fingers on the sill and turned to the man at the desk.

  ‘If you’re too busy to see me, perhaps I should come back some other time.’

  Without looking up from his typewriter, the man said, ‘I see patience isn’t one of your virtues.’

  ‘And courtesy isn’t one of yours,’ Adam retorted.

  The man stopped typing and looked up. ‘Have you brought something for me?’

  Adam handed him the scrap of newspaper that Dr Wieniawski had torn from the first page of Nowy Kurier Warszawski. The man opened a drawer and took out the corresponding piece. When he was satisfied that the two pieces dovetailed, he motioned for Adam to sit down.

  ‘Our mutual friend warned me that you were impetuous,’ he said. ‘This work requires a calm, detached mind. Impatience and arrogance can lead to serious trouble and cause disaster for us and our work. You must control yourself.’

  Adam felt like a schoolboy being rebuked in the headmaster’s office. He was about to say that he’d made a mistake and was obviously the wrong person for the job when the man stood up and pumped his hand.

  ‘He also told me you were bright, enthusiastic and patriotic. I’m delighted that you’re joining us. I know you’ll be a great asset. I’ll be known to you as Zenon.’

  Speaking so rapidly that Adam had trouble keeping up, Zenon explained that all the members used code names so that if they were captured and tortured real names wouldn’t be betrayed. One of their rules was ‘no contact upwards’, which meant that he would only know his immediate superior but would be unable to contact him unless summoned. He’d be issued with false identity documents and a capsule of potassium cyanide, in case he was caught.

  ‘How do you want to be known?’ Zenon asked.

  Without hesitating, Adam said, ‘Eagle.’

  Secret signals, passwords, torn bits of paper, code names, fake documents, poison capsules. He couldn’t suppress the thought that he was being inducted into a game instead of a dangerous Underground body vital to the survival of the nation.

  As though he had read Adam’s mind, Zenon said, ‘Make no mistake about it, Armia Krajowa, as we call the home army, is a military organisation. It’s strong, disciplined and well organised.’

  He explained that the AK was answerable to the exiled Polish government, which was now based in France. ‘You need to understand that the AK is more than an organ of resistance and reaction against oppression. We want to ensure the continuity of the Polish state in secret until our nation is independent again. We will fight the occupier any way we can — by sabotage, subversion or propaganda, and ultimately by armed insurrection. We don’t recognise the occupation and don’t collaborate with the occupiers in any way. Collaborators and traitors will be shot.’

  Adam was pensive. ‘Do you really think it’s possible to create a secret state under the very noses of the Germans?’

  ‘We have to believe we can,’ Zenon replied. ‘As our mutual friend says, we can never know what is possible until we try it.’

  ‘Poland seems to be like Sisyphus, doomed to fight for its existence over and over again,’ Adam remarked.

  Zenon nodded ‘That’s been our curse, but it’s also been our blessing.’

  Adam frowned. ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘This eternal struggle for sovereignty has given us our strong national identity and the determination to survive invasions, partitions and occupations.’ Looking at Adam’s downcast face, he chuckled. ‘If you want a quiet life, go and live on the moon. Anywhere other than in Poland!’

  A hush fell over the room as Zenon took the crucifix from the wall and handed it to Adam who cleared his throat and raised his other hand before taking the oath of all those inducted into the Underground. ‘I swear before God to serve my country for honour and freedom, and for that honour and freedom I am ready to sacrifice everything I have.’

  Adam felt elated and at the same time filled with solemn reverence. This was how he used to feel whenever he stepped away from the altar after taking holy communion, head bowed, the wafer dissolving on his tongue like a blessing from God. But this time, what he had received was not absolution for past sins but the promise of a future with honour.

  Later, as he walked along the street, his step was faster and lighter than before. He noticed that a high wall had been erected on Okopowa and Pawia Streets but he was too preoccupied with his thoughts to pay it much attention. For the first time since the air force had been disbanded, he had a purpose in life. He’d found another way of fighting for his country.

  Six

 
On the pavements of Marszalkowska Street, peasant women wrapped in dark shawls and headscarves held out bunches of lilac and lily-of-the-valley to passersby, a reminder that May had come. This year, however, the sun shone with a pallid light and the sky was watery. The German occupation had already lasted for seven months and the heroic promises and defiant pronouncements the Allies had made to protect Poland at the beginning of the war had evaporated into the heavy air, leaving a trail of dejected footprints that led to food queues and funeral corteges.

  Now that their maid Tereska had returned to her village, Elzunia joined the silent queue that stretched for several blocks each morning to buy bread. Behind her, two women were whispering in distressed voices and she caught the word ‘Holland’. So her father had been right. The Nazis had marched into Holland. Elzunia shivered. Who would stop them?

  A car door slammed and everyone fell silent as two SS men jumped out of the black Opel, the wheels of which reflected off their shiny boots. They strolled along the queue, examining faces and documents. ‘Schnell! Schnell!’ they screamed in voices that made her stomach churn.

  Pedestrians scattered and melted into side streets while the measured tread of the SS men’s boots resounded beside the queue. Their hands, encased in fine leather gloves, held riding crops, and their eyes, harder than the paving stones, scanned identity papers for any irregularity that could put those whips to use. Elzunia tried to shrink inside her coat to make herself invisible. She started counting. It was a game she had played ever since she was a child, a bargain with God or a challenge to fate. If she got to ten, it meant they’d walk past her. Their steps were louder now; they were coming closer. Eight, nine, ten. She held her breath, letting it out only when she saw the back of the black uniforms. A moment later the footsteps stopped beside a boy in front of her. They pointed to his trousers. ‘Drop them! Now we’ll see if you’re a Jew or not!’ He shook his head too vehemently and the look in his eyes gave him away. They pointed to his trousers. Silence fell over the crowd as his fingers fumbled with the buttons.

  Elzunia had read the notices stuck on walls and lamp-posts all over town that ordered Jews to move into an area that had been labelled Seuchensperrgebiet and cordoned off from the rest of the city. That didn’t make any sense because why would they force anyone to live in an area that they said was contaminated with typhus, when they were so terrified of disease? But so many things didn’t make sense these days that she didn’t bother questioning it.

  ‘Verfluchte Jude!’ the younger SS officer swore at the boy. ‘I’ll teach you what happens when you don’t wear your armband!’ He raised his whip, the boy ducked and, holding the waistband of his unbuttoned trousers in both hands, made a run for it. A shot ripped through the air. He stood quite still, as though frozen mid-flight. Elzunia’s heart bounced against her throat as he tottered and fell, his eyes wide open.

  Elzunia screamed, a long, piercing scream. The older SS officer swivelled around, hands on his solid hips, his face so close to hers that she could smell the eau de cologne he’d dabbed on his smooth cheeks.

  ‘You should be grateful that we are ridding you of these subhuman Untermenschen.’

  She glanced at the small body sprawled on the road and felt too sad to cry. Only a minute earlier he had felt the sun on his face, but now he felt nothing and never would again. Because of an accident of birth, he had been cheated of the rest of his life. She had always thought of her life as stretching ahead like an endless golden thread rolling towards infinity, and perhaps he’d thought the same. The dead boy would never see his parents again. Thank God she had hers. Mingled with pity, she felt a shameful sense of relief. It was terrible to be a Pole in Warsaw these days but it was even worse to be a Jew.

  She struggled with herself to stay in the queue instead of running home to her father to be folded in his arms and comforted. She couldn’t go home empty-handed.

  She was still trembling when she reached the head of the queue and her teeth were chattering so much that she could hardly speak.

  ‘Hurry up! People are waiting!’ the baker snapped, wiping his big hands on his floury apron.

  In her haste, she dropped the ration card and groped for it under the counter, red-faced. The baker’s gruff manner softened and, putting a warning forefinger over his lips, he placed an extra loaf in her basket.

  As she hurried home, the thrill of surprising her parents with the miracle of the two loaves pushed thoughts of the dead boy from her mind. She burst into the lounge room, holding up the bread, and then sensed the heavy stillness in the room. Her mother’s face was white and strained and her father didn’t jump up to hug her. They were both staring at two men in grey coats, whose dark fedoras tilted over their hard faces.

  One of the men pointed to Elzunia. Addressing Lusia in a disrespectfully familiar way, as if she were a child, he said, ‘Das ist deine Tochter, nicht wahr?’

  Elzunia glanced at her father, who looked as though someone had tied all the muscles of his face together and yanked the rope tight.

  The Gestapo agent turned to him. ‘You, come with us.’

  ‘But what is this about?’ Her mother’s face had a yellowish hue. ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘No mistake,’ the Gestapo agent snapped. ‘You will come by yourself or we will take you.’ He put his hand into his pocket and Elzunia froze as he pulled out a pistol.

  Edward turned to his agitated wife. ‘Don’t worry, Lusia. It’s just routine. I’ll be home soon.’

  But his expression didn’t match his words. Even Elzunia knew that there was no such thing as routine questioning at Szuch Avenue.

  As Elzunia moved towards her father, the Gestapo agent shouted, ‘Komm mit! Los!’

  She clung to her father but he pushed her away gently. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes and said, ‘Never forget who you are. Smile at adversity, laugh at death and always keep a straight back.’

  Without saying another word, he embraced his wife, placed his hat firmly on his head and walked out of the apartment.

  Elzunia ran to the window and looked down at his retreating figure. Instead of her powerful father, she saw an ordinary, middle-aged man. That frightened her more than anything that Hitler had done. She watched as the Gestapo pushed him into the back seat of the waiting car. A moment later they sped away.

  Elzunia turned away from the window. Her mother was sitting at the table, her head in her hands. She spoke in a low, hoarse voice. ‘What are they going to do with him?’ She looked wildly around the room. ‘Where is Stefan when we need him? He should be here with us. I only hope he’s safe. What in heaven’s name are we going to do?’

  Elzunia was shaken. Her mother was supposed to know the answers. The light faded and darkness filled the room but Lusia continued to sit without moving or drawing the curtains. Finally, with a deep sigh, she rose and walked slowly to the telephone. ‘We know a lot of people. Surely someone can help.’

  Elzunia could see her mother’s fingers were shaking so much she could hardly dial the numbers. She tried one friend after another but although they spoke consoling words, their tone belied their optimistic phrases. In some cases she detected a hesitation that shocked her and she realised they were unwilling to make inquiries on behalf of anyone arrested by the Gestapo. Lusia slumped in the chair while Elzunia chewed her nails. Surely someone would help. But what if they didn’t and her father never came home again?

  As she turned towards the window, her eyes fell on a small flat object lying on the table beside her father’s armchair and caught her breath. Father’s silver cigarette case. Knowing that he had left it behind made her aware of the gravity of the situation and she felt she had fallen into a deep, dark well. As a child she had always loved tracing the acanthus leaves around the initials embossed on the case with her fingertips, proud that the initials, EO, were the same as hers. Comforted by the smooth patina of the cigarette case, she turned it over and over in her hands, then put it in her pocket.
/>   ‘Why did they take him away?’ Elzunia asked. ‘He hasn’t done anything.’

  Lusia shrugged. ‘Maybe because he was an officer in the Polish army.’

  ‘But that was over twenty years ago!’

  Lusia looked thoughtful. ‘He’s been going out a lot lately and he’s been very secretive about it. Maybe it’s to do with that.’ She didn’t tell Elzunia that it had crossed her mind that he might be seeing another woman. She had often noticed women giving him coquettish glances, and he seemed to enjoy their attention. But when she accused him of encouraging them, he denied it, insisting that she was the only one for him.

  They sat in silence for a while and to Elzunia it seemed that the room was closing in on them. She looked at the piano. Music always soothed her mother’s nerves. ‘Play something, Mama.’

  Lusia shook her head but a few minutes later she placed a sheet of music on the carved stand between the candlesticks.

  As the haunting notes of a Chopin nocturne rippled from her long slim fingers, they filled the room with all the sadness, suffering and beauty in the world, and tears sprang to Elzunia’s eyes. Lusia closed the lid but continued to sit at the piano, her head bent over the keys.

  It was past midnight and they were in bed when they heard footsteps thumping up the stairs. Lusia and Elzunia both sat up with a start. Someone was banging on their door, shouting ‘Open up!’ Lusia pulled on her silk dressing-gown and tried to fasten it with shaking fingers.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked in a tremulous voice.

  ‘Open up or we’ll break the door down!’

  Standing behind her mother in her flannelette pyjamas, Elzunia clutched Lusia’s arm as she slid back the bolt. Two SS men, pistols in hand, pushed them out of the way and barged inside.

  ‘You’re too late; they’ve already taken him away,’ Lusia said angrily.

  The younger man had a long face and a sour expression. Scanning the sheet of paper in his hand, he barked, ‘Lusia Orlowska? And is this your daughter?’