A Different World (24 page)

The new Communist government of Poland had formed an internal security corps, the KBW, an equivalent of the Soviet NKVD. It was mobile and heavily armed and a law unto itself. It was this body that had arrested Rulka and thrown her into Pawiak prison. She had been here six months, enduring daily brutal interrogation aimed at forcing a confession out of her, until she had begun to wonder how she was going to hold out. Her cell was a cold stone room with a straw palliasse to sleep on and food that was just enough to keep her alive, no more. Her clothes were in rags and certainly inadequate in winter and what sleep she managed was frequently interrupted by being hauled out for more interrogation from which she returned battered and bruised.

But the years of privation in occupied Warsaw and her years with the resistance had made her tough. There was no room in her life for sentimentality, for mercy, for weakness of any kind. She had learnt to kill without compunction when the necessity arose. It was almost as if she were devoid of feeling. And yet she could still remember what her life had been like before the war, when she had been happy making a home with her husband. She had loved him and looked to him for protection. Her faith had been misplaced because he had left her. The Home Army had become her family, people like Lech, Arkady, Boris and Colin, the Bulldog, who had died saving her. Jan had become a distant memory, part of another world, that could never come again. She had been foolish to hold onto it and even more foolish to want or expect him to come back.

‘Inside!’ the guard shouted and the line of women dutifully turned and made their way back to their cells to be locked in again. Rulka supposed they were all awaiting trial as she was but as she had had no contact with them, she had no idea what they were
being accused of. The list of crimes against the state was endless.

She had hardly sat down on the end of the bench that served as a bed, when the door was unlocked again and she was ordered out. Without a word she rose and followed the guard to the office of the prison governor for more interrogation. She knew the drill. She would be kept standing and a strong light shone into her face. There would be a guard on either side of her armed with truncheons and pistols, while her interrogator would either be sitting at a desk on the other side of the light or pacing back and forth, throwing out questions, always the same questions. When had she joined the Home Army? Which unit had she served in? Who had been her commanding officer? When had the unit been in contact with the German forces? How had they communicated with London? Who had been her co-conspirators plotting against the Soviet Union? Why did she not answer their questions and save everyone a lot of trouble? If she confessed, she would be dealt with leniently.

She was perfectly aware that they already knew the answers and all they were after was confirmation and a confession. Confessions saved them the trouble and expense of a proper trial. But she would not give them the satisfaction. The result was always a beating with the truncheons until she lost consciousness and was dragged back to her cell to await the next time.

But today was a little different. For a start, the two guards were not standing quite so close to her and her interrogator was smiling. ‘I have good news for you, Krystyna Nowak,’ he said. ‘Your trial has been fixed for tomorrow.’

If he had hoped for a reaction from her, he was disappointed, her expression remained wooden.

‘Are you going to confess, throw yourself on the mercy of the court and save us all a lot of time and trouble?’

‘I am not interested in saving time and trouble. I want a proper trial.’

‘Then you shall have one. You will be assigned a defence lawyer.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Take her back and make sure she is prettied up, get her a better dress and some decent shoes and stockings. And have her hair washed. We can’t have the press thinking we do not treat our prisoners well.’ He waved a hand to dismiss them and she was wheeled about to return to her cell. From this she deduced she was going to be the subject of a show trial meant to tell the world that there was justice to be had in the new Poland.

A nurse arrived the next day and treated her sores, sponged her bruises and set about ridding her of the vermin who had made their home in every crevice of her emaciated body. Later she was taken for a shower. It was only lukewarm but it left her feeling a little more alive. After she had dried herself she was handed a pile of clothes. They were far from the latest fashion and second-hand but much better than the rags she had discarded. There was underwear, a cotton dress, a knitted cardigan and shoes and socks; stockings were impossible to come by. The next arrival was a hairdresser who trimmed her hair and combed out the lice.

‘It won’t make a jot of difference,’ she said, looking at the rough blanket and the straw mattress on the bench. ‘They’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘Won’t matter, will it?’ the woman said. She was a huge Polish woman. Rulka could not be sure where her sympathies lay and did not risk trying to find out. ‘It will all be over by then.’

When the hairdresser had left, Rulka sat on, waiting. Her head was full of what might be about to happen and the answers she might give to the questions asked of her. Her reverie was interrupted by the arrival of her defence lawyer, a small wiry man
with dark hair and a pale face, who introduced himself as Tomasz Gorski. It soon became evident he was one of the establishment and as far as she could see there was little to distinguish him from the prosecution, except for telling her to plead guilty and beg for mercy. She’d be damned if she would do that. She hadn’t fought for all those years to buckle under now.

He sighed at her intransigence, as if her refusal had personally hurt his feelings. Calling to the guards who stood outside the door, he gathered up the papers he had spread over the bed and which he said contained damning evidence against her. ‘Then let us go and get this over with,’ he said.

She followed him from the cell to a waiting room, where she was told to sit, while he paced the floor. Five minutes later, Father Karlowicz arrived. He had evidently come in great haste because his frock was dust-laden and his shoes scuffed.

The lawyer looked at him with contempt. ‘You will not be needed until after the verdict,’ he said.

‘On the contrary,’ the priest answered calmly. ‘
Pani
Nowak needs the support of the church for the ordeal ahead of her. I come to offer that support.’

‘Oh, very well, you may have a few words with her, but make haste, the van will be here soon to convey her to the court.’

Rulka was puzzled, but decided to go along with this little charade; there must be a reason for it. She stepped forward and knelt before the priest. He laid a hand upon her head and murmured a prayer and then took her hand to help her up. She felt something being pressed into her palm and closed her fingers over it. Father Karlowicz turned to the lawyer. ‘I shall see you in court, my friend, for there are others who need me.’ And with that he took his leave, just as the prison van came to convey her to the courtroom.

Not until she was sitting in the waiting room and the lawyer had gone off to speak to colleagues, dare she look at the piece of paper in her hand. It was only a scrap and the handwriting was tiny, but its message was clear. ‘Your husband is in Warsaw and working towards your release.’ Could it be true? Was Jan really here? Her state of lethargy, the feeling that nothing mattered any more, was suddenly transformed into hope. She put the paper into her mouth and swallowed it and then resettled her expression into one of lethargy and hopelessness. But inside she was seething. It made her change her mind about her intransigence.

‘I want you to plead mitigating circumstances,’ she told Gorski when he came back. ‘I was, and am, a nurse, committed to saving lives, no matter who they are. I was coerced into helping during the Rising, but only as a nurse. It was made very plain to me what would happen if I refused. I was never a fighter. I have nothing against the present regime. All I want is get on with the job I am trained to do. Nurses are needed.’ The last statement was true, even if the previous ones were not. The hospitals were working flat out in appalling conditions. She knew typhoid, tuberculosis and rheumatoid arthritis were rife.

‘You have left it late to say this,’ he said.

‘I’m saying it now.’

‘Have you any witnesses to attest that you were forced to help?’

‘Most of them are dead.’

‘What about Father Karlowicz?’

‘Ask him. He said he would be in court.’

He went off again and she sat there for several minutes, which seemed like an eternity. Would the good Father swallow his scruples to help her? There was no necessity to swear on the bible, so he might. Perhaps she ought to have suggested Lech. He was a doctor and had either not been suspected or had used the same
argument as she had to keep his freedom. But was it fair to draw attention to him?

She watched other people come and go, some stoical, some in tears, a very few jubilant. Her turn came and she was conducted into the courtroom. It was an austere room and there were few people there. The general public were not admitted, but she noticed several members of the press, invited no doubt to witness her humiliation and report on the wonderful justice of the new Polish government. Father Karlowicz was there and so was Dr Andersz.

Her crimes were read out to her. She was accused of being a member of the
Armia Krajowa
who allegedly used it as a front to prepare terrorist activities and espionage against the Soviet Union. The organisation had cooperated with the Germans and given them supplies that had been dropped by the British and Americans. It was so palpably false it was almost laughable. But Rulka did not laugh.

Her cross-examination went on and on, the same questions she had been asked in her interrogation, the same answers, except that she now admitted to being coerced into the Home Army. At the end of it, Tomasz Gorski was allowed to speak on her behalf. He repeated what she had told him in the waiting room and then called Father Karlowicz, who attested to her good character and her skill as a nurse. He was followed by Lech Andersz, who said much the same thing. ‘I have known Krystyna Nowak since 1942 when she came to Warsaw to nurse,’ he said. ‘She has always been conscientious and honest. She nursed wounded Russian soldiers with the same devotion to duty as she did her Polish brethren. There are many who owe their life to her skill.’

The outcome was a mild sentence of six months which she had already served and a fine of a thousand zloty. It was better
than she had hoped. She thanked the judge and was taken back to prison. Until her fine was paid, there she would remain. She had no money, so who would pay it for her? Jan?

Jan had joined the people clearing rubble from the church, separating what could be used again from mere hard core. It was hot, back-breaking work and at the end of each day, his face, nose and mouth were caked in grey dust. He was glad to get back to the cellar of Jasna Street and clean himself up and make himself something to eat. Stanisław Roman had provided him with identity papers in his own name, but there was a fictitious reason for his eight-year absence. It was borrowed from his brother, so that if enquiries were made they could at least find a Grabowski in their records. ‘You were taken prisoner by the Russians early on in the war and sent to a gulag,’ Roman had said. ‘You were released during the general amnesty when the Soviets became an ally of Britain and America, and joined General Anders’ army. On release you came back to your homeland. You have recently come to Warsaw to help with the rebuilding. Have you got that?’

‘Yes. Am I Jan or Jozef?’

‘It doesn’t matter, they both have the same initial letter, easily confused. But make sure you do not fall foul of the authorities.’

He was back in his home city, under his own name, but it was not the homecoming he had dreamt of. The wife he had come back to find was in prison. His home had been requisitioned, there were still bodies being unearthed as the rubble was cleared, and unexploded bombs and shells were still killing people. Sappers were still going from house to house, district to district, clearing them, after which they posted a notice: ‘Checked, no mines.’

He straightened his aching back as the undertaker’s hearse drew up alongside him and a gaunt figure, in a dress too big for
her, emerged from it. He stood and stared. ‘Rulka?’ he queried.

‘Jan.’ She smiled, revealing a broken tooth. ‘Don’t you know me? Have I changed that much?’

‘Myszka. Oh, Myszka.’ He held out his arms and she went into them. She seemed tinier than he remembered and the feel of her in his arms was nothing but skin and bone. She was laughing as the tears rained down her face. She brushed them impatiently away. ‘I haven’t cried in years.’

‘They said you were in prison.’

‘So I was, but they let me go with a fine. Good nurses are hard to find.’

‘Who paid the fine?’

‘The organisation.’

‘What organisation?’

‘Never mind. Can you leave? Where are you living?’

‘In the Jasna Street cellar.’

‘How did you find out about that?’

‘Stanisław Roman suggested it. It was filthy, blackened by fire, but I cleaned it up.’

She turned back to the undertaker who had remained sitting in the driving seat. ‘Thank you, Stan,’ she said. ‘Thank you for everything.’

‘My privilege,’ he said. ‘You two must have a lot to talk about, so I’ll leave you. Good luck.’

Hand in hand, they found Father Karlowicz, who congratulated Rulka on her release, and sent them both home with his blessing. ‘Be good to each other,’ he said. ‘The missing years will be hard to fill. You are neither of you the same people you were when you parted, so be tolerant of each other.’

Jasna Street had been cleared of most of the rubble and a start made on rebuilding, but there was a chronic shortage of labour
and building materials and progress was slow. What new buildings were being constructed were concrete blocks of tiny flats with shared kitchens and bathrooms and there was a long waiting list for one of those. The cellar it would have to be. It reminded Rulka of her years with the Home Army and Colin and their life together. She found it difficult to relax and respond to Jan’s lovemaking, even though he was gentle and tender. She was only too aware of her emaciated body, which he must surely find repulsive. It was not only her body, but the broken tooth which had happened during one of the interrogations in the prison, and the hollowness of her cheeks. In the end, he gave up. ‘There’s plenty of time,’ he said. ‘The rest of our lives.’