The Children's War (3 page)

Kasia pounded on the doorframe a third time, then pulled the heavy curtain aside and walked in. The front room was completely different from what she remembered, but she did not hesitate long enough to wonder why; instead she marched through to the back room, since she thought she heard someone in there. Hiding from me! she thought angrily as she stormed in.

She stopped and blushed a shade of bright red. On the thin mattress on the floor was a couple having sex. Not just sex, but the most contorted version of the sport that she had ever seen! The man was bent over the woman, his head somewhere down near her thighs. He was older, his brown hair streaked with gray; his fleshy body was red and sweaty from his efforts, and in his panting determination to achieve his goal, he did not even notice her intrusion. His partner did. She looked up at Kasia and giggled in execrable German, “If you could see your face right now!”

Kasia blushed even redder.

The woman’s thin, wan face was framed quite nicely by the thick, hairy, sweaty thighs of her companion. With the casual disdain of a prostitute who had done enough for her money, she thrust her arms between the man’s legs as if swimming through a cave and somehow managed to pull herself up even as her client reached in confused lust for the disappearing parts of her body.

She stood and pulled on a robe as the man hugged himself and moaned, “Oh, oh, oh, don’t leave me now. Not now!”

The woman threw him a look of practiced pity, then asked Kasia,“May I help you,
gnädige Frau?”

“I speak Polish,” Kasia shot back angrily, forgetting for the moment her own embarrassment.

The woman turned to a rough wooden table on which sat a bottle of vodka and a couple of dirty glasses. She poured herself some vodka and then, turning to Kasia, asked, “You want some?”

Kasia stared at the filthy glasses and shook her head.

Rolling on the mattress as if in pain, the customer continued to moan drunkenly, “Oh, oh, oh, I love you. Come back to bed,
Schatzi.
Don’t leave me like this!”

“He won’t get it up tonight, that’s for sure,” the woman commented, casting a glance at the man. She drank her vodka down in several gulps, then said, “So, you’re not from the Morality Ministry. What do you want?”

“My family lived here, I thought they still did. I’m sorry for intruding,” Kasia answered apologetically, regaining some of her civility. She knew it was pointless asking for information and so she turned to leave.

As she reached the threshold, the woman called out, “Are you Frau Traugutt?”

Shocked by the question, Kasia turned back. “What makes you ask that?”

The woman went over to a shelf in a dark corner of the room and extracted a small bundle of letters. She thrust them at Kasia, saying, “They didn’t get these. I don’t know where they’ve gone. No forwarding address,” she added, using the typical euphemism for “vanished without a trace.”

Kasia grasped the small bundle of letters, each addressed in her own careful handwriting. Fearing that she would burst into tears, she fled the hovel without saying a word.

3

I
T WASN’T TEARS THAT
streamed down his face, it was his eyes melting in the blazing inferno into which he had been thrown. That’s why he could see nothing, that’s why it was so dark. He writhed in agony as the flames consumed him, but he could not move. He was stiff and lifeless. Immobile. Dead.

He suddenly realized that the roaring of the flames was the thundering of his heart in his ears, that his blindness was the darkness of the box, that his immobility was the ropes that held him bound. He was drenched in sweat, his hands frozen into place with his fingers clawing uselessly at the knots. His breath came back at him hot and fetid, his sobs of despair echoed noisily in the impenetrable blackness. He tried to lick his lips but his mouth was dry. He was gasping but still his lungs ached for want of air. God, he was going to die!

A huge door slammed into place, and the faintest whiff of fresh air reached
him. He heard workmen clambering around, heard boxes being moved. He heard them approach and he struggled to find his voice. Like in some terrible nightmare, he found he could hardly make a noise. Eventually, he rasped for help.

“Shut up!” a rough voice called out as the crate was lifted up. “Shut up, or we’ll put you down on your head.”

The threat sounded real enough. The crate was carried some distance and then dropped unceremoniously. He heard them retreating and then heard the sound of a much smaller door being shut. Darkness and silence closed in on him again, and in self-defense he retreated into himself, moaning softly like a lost child, allowing the hallucinations of slow suffocation to claim him again.

Later the sound of the door opening brought him back to his senses. There was the familiar buzz of fluorescent lights, and the faintest glimmer penetrated the cracks of the box. Several people approached, and one inserted a crowbar into a crevice between the crate’s lid and side. Light and fresh air streamed in through the tiny opening. Light! Air! He felt a huge surge of joy and relief.

As the side of the crate was pried off, a million suns exploded into view. He squeezed his eyes shut against the flood of light and drank in deep gulps of air. Somebody reached in and grabbed his shoulder and jerked him out of the crate. He landed heavily on his side on the floor. The rough concrete curved gently to a drain in the center: the floor of a prison cell.

“Phew! Put the hose on him!”

“Look, he’s lost his blindfold, and the gag!”

“Those damn morons can’t do anything right.”

A heavy jet of water pummeled his body. It felt glorious and he slurped at the water running down his face as he lay trussed on the floor. He coughed and sputtered and tried to turn away when the hose was aimed at his face, but still it felt wonderful to be alive and free of his coffin.

“Okay, that’s enough. Let’s start the interrogation.”

He was enjoying the sensations of life too much to be as terrified by that sentence as he should have been. A knife was used to saw off his bonds, then he was dragged to his feet. He could not stand on his own though, and someone had to hold him up. They fired questions at him rapidly, hoping to get information from him while he was still groggy and disoriented. He did not answer then; he could not, even if he had wanted to.

They kept at him over the next several hours, or perhaps it was days, incessantly questioning him and beating him to elicit the truth. They knew plenty already. They knew the name he had been using, they knew that he had been arrested with inadequate documentation. They knew he had been sentenced to twenty years and had served four. They knew he had escaped from his work camp to Switzerland, but they did not know how.

Over time he answered their questions, concocting a story about his escape that was essentially the truth. He gave it to them piecemeal, so they would be further
convinced of its veracity. He left out only a few essential bits of information to protect his friends: there was no blackmail of the
Kommandant,
no damning pieces of paper held in reserve by them. Rather, to explain the
Kommandant
’s cooperation in his escape, he claimed they were lovers and the
Kommandant
had engineered his escape in order to join him later in Switzerland. The details of the escape were essentially the same after that: the uniform, the papers, the driver, being dumped on the other side of the formidable border, returning everything but a set of civilian clothes to the driver. Standing alone, free for the first time in years, surrounded by a profusion of promiscuous autumn flowers.

He told them of his first days of freedom. He left out the kindly old couple who had taken him in and fed him, he left out that they had kept him for three days to build up his strength. Instead of mentioning how they had borrowed a car to drive him into town, he told his interrogators that he had wandered into the town hall on his own. He recounted the great, noisy hall with its clattering typewriters and ringing phones. He told them about the prim young woman who had given him numerous forms to fill out in his bid for asylum. He explained how he had been diverted from one overfull waiting room to another, on the top floor. “But you know about that, don’t you?” he asked. “That part was all yours, wasn’t it?”

They didn’t answer him, they just pressed for more details and he went on, because there was no harm in telling them what they already knew. “The door locked behind me, I was alone in this so-called waiting room. It looked like a storage room. By the time I had decided not to try and scale the roof, your henchmen came in. They had clubs, I was unarmed. I don’t really remember the rest.”

Once he told them his story, he kept his silence, but they continued to question him, demanding details that did not exist, wanting names of accomplices and scapegoats. He refused to implicate his friends, had no names he would give them, so they kept at him, day after day until he lost all track of what they were even asking, until they lost track of why they were asking it, until it became nothing more than part of the routine.

His stoic courage, his brave determination to remain human in the face of such inhumane treatment, rapidly gave way to an obliviousness born of overwhelming pain, fear, and boredom. He lost track of his name, forgot his legend. He stood when pulled to his feet, sat when pushed into a chair. He swallowed blood as it filled his mouth. He stared mindlessly at his tormentors as they carried out their mindless rituals. Their act centered around him, yet he was no longer a part of it; he remained an object in their hands, sometimes questioned, sometimes beaten, sometimes ignored.

Sometimes they would even take a tea break in the middle of an interrogation. Others would wander into the room and he would listen through the pain fog as they talked about what their children were doing, about sports teams or office politics. Sometimes one of them would offer him some tea, unfastening
his hands so he could hold the cup, wiping away a bit of blood from his mouth so the taste would not be spoiled. Once in a while someone would even give him a cigarette, and he would sit there trembling and smoking, unable to answer their jovial questions about who he thought would win the league title that year.

They laughed at him, teased him for being slow to answer or confused by their questions. Once, when his head had fallen to the table, someone pulled it up by his hair and pushed a doughnut at him so that he could have a bite and join in their tea-break conversation. They all laughed at the cream and sugar smeared over his mouth. The blood that dripped onto the pastry looked like raspberry jam, someone remarked. Don’t waste good food like that, someone else chided. Then the break ended, the extra bodies filtered out, and they began their work on him again.

Finally a week passed when nobody came to get him. A local purge had occurred and the prison had suddenly filled with suspects, all of whom had to be interrogated so that they could implicate their comrades and coworkers. Compared to such ripe targets full of names and ideology, he was rather boring. In due course, he was presented with a neatly typed confession and asked to sign it. He did so without even bothering to read the document. The single sheet of paper was added to his file indicating that his questioning had been completed and he was to be bound over for trial.

4

“O
W!”
Z
OSIA YELPED.
She lay on a high pile of hay under the dark beams of an ancient barn, young and beautiful, naked and covered with a light sheen of sweat in the chill autumnal air. She had untamably curly, golden blond hair, blue eyes, and an athletically muscled, exquisitely curvaceous body.

Adam licked his lips in anticipation just looking at her. He was also naked and even more sweaty. His hair was blond as well, but it was paler than Zosia’s, straight and strangely streaked with dark brown, as if it were changing color. The two of them had exuberantly abandoned their cross-country run and taken refuge in the barn to have a private last-minute encounter. He leaned over the slight bulge of Zosia’s belly and gently kissed the exposed skin.

“What’s the matter?” Adam asked. “The little one kicking you?”

“No, it’s this damned hay,” Zosia grumbled. “Who in God’s name suggested we make love in a haystack?”

“You did, my dear,” Adam murmured as he continued to plant little kisses in a line along her stomach. A faint, dark stripe, caused by her pregnancy, extended from her navel down between her legs, and he intended to follow its guidance.

“Well, I want to be on top,” Zosia interrupted him, sitting up abruptly. “I keep getting poked by this damned straw!”

Adam leaned back, stretched, and yawned. “Fine with me, you can do the work!”

“Do you call it work?” Zosia asked, easily miffed.

Adam observed her wryly. “With you, sometimes.” The look of disappointment turning to anger on Zosia’s face warned him that she was in no mood for jokes, but he was tired of her moods, so he crawled off her and over to his clothes. He rooted around until he found a cigarette and lit himself one.

“Are you nuts?” Zosia screeched. “This is a haystack! You could burn the whole barn down!”

Adam shrugged. “Ah, the peasants will rebuild it. They have nothing better to do now that the harvest is in.”

“That is exactly the sort of attitude that causes them to resent us,” Zosia warned, shivering in the October chill. Without Adam’s body heat, it was quite cold in the hay.

“It was a joke, my dear. Besides, the little ingrates have no idea how good they have it. They should be kissing our feet in gratitude for defending their freedom.”

“If you’re into feet-kissing . . .” Zosia pointed suggestively at her toes.

Adam smiled at her. “Not now, pumpkin.” He reached into the pocket of his trousers and extracted his watch. “It’s nearly time, we should go.”

“Just like that,” Zosia grumbled. “First you get me all excited, then you decide we’re running late.”

“As talented as I am, I can’t change the heavens, love.” He held up the watch. “Look, we’re supposed to be getting married in two hours. Our friends will be waiting for us.”

“Ah, let them wait, we can do it some other time,” Zosia suggested, stretching languorously in the straw.

“No, no, no. You’re not getting out of it that easily, you little minx. I’ve got your word, now you’re coming to the ceremony and we’re making it official. I’ve done my part, you’re knocked up, now it’s time you do yours!”

“Ah, you’re no fun! Already acting like an old married man!”

“Come on, we should get back to the bunker and get dressed up.”

“I still haven’t decided what to wear,” Zosia protested.

Adam took one last puff from his cigarette then carefully stubbed out the end on the heel of his foot. “I think you should wear that sleazy prostitute’s dress. All the makeup, too. The priest will love that!”

Zosia picked up a handful of straw and threw it at him.

“Is that any way to treat your husband-to-be? You should show some respect!” Adam teased.

Zosia picked up a bigger handful, crawled over to Adam, and ceremoniously dumped it on his lap. “Here’s your respect, O lord of the manor.” She reached
down into the neat little pile and Adam smiled with anticipation, but Zosia fooled him. Instead of fondling him as he expected, she picked out a long, sturdy piece of straw and poked him with it. “Time to get going!” she ordered.“Move it! Up and at ’em!”

It was not the sexiest gesture on earth, but it had its effect, and Adam lunged at her and together they tumbled back into the straw.

Zosia’s preparations for the marriage ceremony were rushed at best. She hurriedly showered and combed the last of the straw from her hair, then she grabbed the white dress that Adam’s mother, Marysia, had offered her and threw it over her head. From the cupboard, she took out a large lace curtain that had hung on a balcony window of her grandmother’s town house before the place had been confiscated; she wrapped that around the dress and draped the end of it over her head like a veil. She used a belt to cinch the whole ensemble securely into place, grabbed a bunch of flowers out of a vase, and squeezed her feet into a pair of nice shoes that her sister owned.

Zosia’s mother, Anna, shook her head in dismay as her daughter rushed around knocking over things and spreading mayhem throughout their tiny, underground, concrete flat. “I’m sure Adam has been preparing all morning,” her mother chided.

Zosia smiled at the image of Adam on his knees, straddling her in the straw, his muscular body glinting with sweat, his red-blond pubic hair reflecting the light that had come in shafts through the gaps in the barn wall. “Naturally,” she replied. “In fact, I’m sure he’s been to confession. Probably been on his knees all morning, but that’s only because he knows how lucky he is to finally get me!”

“Speaking of being gotten, or begetting, are you going to announce your pregnancy after the wedding?”

“Naw, I’ll just let them all count on their fingers when I give birth. It will give the gossips something to do.”

Anna was momentarily silent, and Zosia knew it was out of an old-fashioned sense of embarrassment. Finally Anna managed to overcome her hesitation and said, “Zosiu, there are certain things . . .”

Zosia stopped her frenzied activity and gave her mother her full attention. Not because she was interested in hearing what her mother had to say, rather because she was intrigued by her mother’s attempt to say anything at all.

“I mean,” Anna continued unsteadily, “I know you must have already . . . Well, it’s obvious you don’t need my advice about . . . It’s just that . . .”

“Yes, Mamusiu?” Zosia asked with sickening sweetness.

“Marriage is serious,” Anna plunged in. “So is parenthood. Why didn’t you wait until after the wedding to get pregnant?”

“Wait? Hell, this is the reason I’m getting married! Do you think I’d tie myself down for any other reason?”

“It’s an accident? You don’t want the child?”

“No, it’s not an accident and of course I want the child! It’s a husband I’m not keen on, but Adam refused to make a baby unless I promised to marry him. I guess he thinks it will settle me down,” Zosia said laughingly.

“I thought you loved Adam.”

“I do. Really and truly. I’m just not ready to be married to him, or anyone else for that matter. But time marches on and I want to have babies, and this seems the best way. Anyway, kids need fathers. Especially my kids, especially with my schedule.”

“But why before the wedding?” Anna moaned.

“I had to be sure Adam was up to the job of making babies before I tied myself down with him. That’s all.”

“That’s hardly romantic,” Anna commented sourly.

“Romance? What did that get you, Ma? Six children, the love of a thoughtless man, your goals and aspirations on permanent hold?” Zosia snorted. “You’ve worked like a slave for him all his life and now he’s shooting up the political ladder and you have to struggle to find time to keep a seat on the Council! Romance! Ha!”

“Your father is not thoughtless,” Anna protested weakly.

“I can’t wear these shoes!” Zosia wailed suddenly. “They hurt my feet, I can hardly walk in them!”

“Why don’t you borrow a pair from Julia? She has a lot of nice things and her feet are your size, aren’t they?”

“My size!” Zosia squeaked. “Impossible!” Julia was Adam’s elder sister. Unlike her brother she was dark-haired and dark-eyed, but like Adam, Julia was tall and accordingly well-proportioned, and next to her Amazonian sister-in-law-to-be, Zosia felt rather small and delicate.

Zosia took another step in the painfully tight shoes and relented. “Oh, all right, if they don’t fit, I can stuff something inside them.” She slipped off her sister’s shoes and went to Julia’s flat.

Julia and her son lived in a tiny two-room apartment on the same wing as Anna and her family, so Zosia did not have far to tread down the dimly lit underground corridors. As she padded barefoot along the concrete floors, she did not smell the damp or hear the quiet hiss of the ventilation fans, nor did she think about the overwhelming weight of earth that shielded them all in their tunnels, for she, like Adam and Julia and many others, had been raised from birth in this strange military complex that existed as an outlaw outpost of the Home Army in the deep forests of the Carpathian Mountains and in the expanded bunkers and tunnels left over from the active warfare of decades ago.

They were the elite, the ad hoc Underground government of the entire southern region of their now invisible country and the military staff of a headquarters for scattered partisan encampments that defended their small piece of free land in the middle of the Thousand Year Reich. They regularly moved from one society to another using faked documents, faked histories, entire faked lives, to support
their activities among the German occupiers. They continued a resistance movement dedicated more to cultural survival than active warfare, and as the decades had gone by they had turned more and more from guns and bombs and sabotage to education and economics and politics. Still, they were at war, and as they struggled to maintain contact with their thousand-year-old history and to keep the local population from sinking completely into the mire of ignorance and semistarved slavery, they did not lose sight of their need to remain a military outpost, defending their borders and preparing for the inevitably violent uprising that would overthrow their brutal oppressors and resurrect their ancient, beloved homeland.

Though it was not completely shut, Zosia knocked at the door of Julia’s flat. Olek greeted her with a broad smile. Eighteen years ago, when she was only eighteen, Julia had been assigned to infiltrate a government office in Berlin. She worked in the Security Ministry as a secretary, moving up from the typing pool to a trusted position handling an entire department’s files. She carefully maneuvered herself into advantageous personal relationships, including having a torrid affair with a young and handsome Party official, and after two years of patiently feeding information back to her people, she had an opportunity to complete her mission and plant a deterrent bomb in a suitable location. She returned not only having successfully completed her assignment but with a bulging belly. Though she refused to name the father, she decided to keep the baby, and the gangly, brown-haired, sixteen-year-old youth who greeted Zosia was the happy result.

“Colonel Król!” Olek snapped to attention and saluted Zosia with comic seriousness.

“Cut the crap,” Zosia snapped, fed up by all the teasing her new commission had earned her.

“Just showing proper respect for our youngest female colonel, and, of course, the soon-to-be wife of a powerful Council member!” Olek remarked with military precision.“Not even thirty yet.” Olek whistled his admiration.

“I’ve been on active duty for sixteen years,” Zosia retorted, “and it’s well past time I get proper recognition. I should be on that Council!”

Olek winked to try to ease Zosia’s irritation. “I just figured that if they tolerate you and Uncle Adam, then they’ll tolerate anybody and there’s hope for me!”

Sometimes her reputation as spoiled-brat-cum-golden-girl, the brave, talented, impetuous, and adored youngest daughter of powerful parents, annoyed Zosia. At other times, she used her position to exquisite effect. Right now, she simply ignored Olek’s gibes. “Where’s your mother?”