Kane & Abel (1979) (66 page)

‘All right, all right,’ said a querulous voice in Polish, and a few moments later the door inched open, revealing an old woman, bent and thin, dressed entirely in black. Wisps of untidy snow-white hair escaped from her headscarf, and her tired grey eyes looked vacantly at the visitors.

‘It’s not possible,’ Abel said softly in English.

‘What do you want?’ asked the old woman suspiciously. She had no teeth, and the line of her nose, mouth and chin formed a perfect concave arc.

Abel answered in Polish, ‘May we come in and talk to you?’

Her eyes looked fearfully from one to the other. ‘Old Helena hasn’t done anything wrong,’ she said in a whine.

‘I know,’ said Abel gently. ‘I have brought good news for you.’

With some reluctance she pulled open the door and allowed them to enter the bare, cold room, but she didn’t offer them a seat. The room hadn’t changed - two chairs, one table and a reminder that until he had left the cottage Abel hadn’t known what a carpet was. Florentyna shivered.

‘I can’t get the fire going,’ wheezed the old woman, prodding the faintly glowing log in the grate with her stick. She scrabbled ineffectually in her pocket. ‘I need paper.’ She looked at Abel, showing a spark of interest for the first time. ‘Do you have any paper?’

Abel looked at her steadily. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know you.’

‘You do, Helena. My name is - Wladek.’

‘You knew my little Wladek?’

‘I am Wladek.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said with sad and distant finality. ‘He was too good for me - the mark of God was upon him. The Baron took him away to be an angel. Yes, he took away Matka’s littlest one …’

Her old voice cracked and died away. She sat down, but the ancient, lined hands were fidgeting in her lap.

‘I have returned,’ said Abel, kneeling in front of her. The old woman paid him no attention, simply muttering on as though she were quite alone in the room.

‘They killed my husband, my Jasio, and all my lovely children were taken to the camps except little Sophia. I hid her and they went away.’ Her voice was even and resigned.

‘What happened to little Sophia?’ asked Abel.

‘The Russians stole her in the next war,’ she said dully. Abel shuddered. The old woman roused herself from her memories. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’

‘I wanted you to meet my daughter, Florentyna.’

‘I had a daughter called Florentyna once, but now there’s only me.’

‘But I …’ began Abel, starting to unbutton his shirt.

Florentyna stopped him. ‘We know,’ she said, smiling at the old woman.

‘How can you possibly know? It was all long before you were even born.’

‘They told us in the village,’ said Florentyna.

‘Have you any paper with you?’ the old woman asked. ‘I need paper for the fire.’

Abel looked at his foster mother helplessly. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t bring any with us.’

‘Then what do you want?’ repeated the old woman, once again hostile.

‘Nothing,’ said Abel, now resigned to the impossibility that she would remember him. ‘We just wanted to say hello.’ He took out his wallet, removed all the zloty notes he had obtained at the border and handed them to her.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said as she took each note, her old eyes watering with pleasure.

Abel bent over to kiss her, but she backed away.

Florentyna took her father’s arm, and led him out of the cottage and back down the forest track in the direction of their car.

The old woman watched from the window until she was sure they were out of sight. Then she took the banknotes, crumpled each one into a little ball and laid them carefully in the grate. They kindled immediately. She placed twigs and small logs on top of the blazing zlotys and sat down by her fire, the best in weeks, rubbing her hands together, enjoying the warmth.

Abel did not speak again until the iron gates came into sight. Then he promised Florentyna, trying his best to forget the little cottage and the women who had made it possible for him to live, ‘You are about to see the most beautiful castle in the world.’

‘You must stop exaggerating, Daddy.’

‘In the world,’ he repeated quietly.

Florentyna laughed. ‘I’ll let you know how it compares with Versailles.’

They climbed back into the car and Abel drove through the gates, remembering the first vehicle he’d ever ridden in when he was being escorted the other way. As they bumped slowly up the winding, potholed drive, more memories came flooding back: happy days as a child with the Baron and Leon, unhappy days in the dungeon under the Germans, and the worst day of his life when he was taken away from his beloved castle by the Russians, thinking he would never see his home again. But now he, Wladek Koskiewicz, was returning - returning to claim what was rightfully his.

When they rounded the final bend, Florentyna saw her father’s birthright for the first time. Abel brought the car to a halt and gazed at his castle. Neither of them spoke. What was there to say? They stared in shock and disbelief at the remains of the bombed-out shell of his dream.

They climbed slowly out of the car. Still neither spoke. Florentyna held her father’s hand very, very tightly as the tears rolled down his cheeks. Only one wall remained precariously standing in a semblance of its former glory; the rest was nothing more than a pile of rubble. He could not bear to tell her of the great halls, the sprawling wings, the vast kitchens and the luxurious bedrooms.

Abel walked across to three mounds, now smooth with thick green moss, that marked the graves of the Baron, his friend Leon and his other beloved Florentyna. He paused at each one, thinking that Leon and Florentyna should still be alive today. He knelt by their side, the dreadful visions of their final moments vividly returning to him. His daughter stood beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder, saying nothing.

A long time passed before Abel rose to his feet. They tramped over the ruins together, hand in hand, broken slabs of stone marking the places where once magnificent staterooms had been filled with laughter. Abel still said nothing. When they clambered down into the dungeons Abel sat on the floor of the damp little room under the grille, or the half of the grille that was still left. He twisted the silver band around and around his wrist.

‘This is where your father spent four years of his life.’

‘It can’t be possible,’ said Florentyna.

‘It’s better now than it was then. At least now there’s fresh air, birds singing, the sun shining and a feeling of freedom. Then there was only darkness, death, the stench of death, and worst of all, the hope of death.’

‘Come on, Daddy, let’s get out of here. Staying can only bring back more unhappy memories.’

Florentyna led her reluctant father back to the car, and drove slowly down the long drive. Abel didn’t once look back towards his ruined castle as he passed through its iron gates for the last time.

On the journey to Warsaw, Abel hardly spoke, and Florentyna abandoned any attempt to cheer him up.

When he finally said, ‘There is now only one thing left that I must achieve in this life,’ she wondered what he could possibly mean, but she did not press him to explain. She did, however, manage to coax him into spending another weekend in London on their return journey, which she hoped would help him forget his demented old foster mother and what was left of his inheritance.

They flew to London the next day. Once they had booked into Claridge’s, Florentyna went off to see old friends and make new ones. Abel went through the newspapers that had been accumulating at the hotel since they had last been there. He did not like knowing that things didn’t stop while he was away; it reminded him only too clearly that the world would keep turning without him. A report on an inside page of the previous day’s
Times
caught his attention. Something
had
happened while he was away. An Interstate Airways Vickers Viscount had crashed immediately after take-off from Mexico airport on its way to Panama City. The seventeen passengers and crew had all been killed. The Mexican authorities were placing the blame firmly on Interstate’s bad servicing of its aircraft, while Interstate blamed the Mexican mechanics. Abel picked up the phone and asked the switchboard operator for an overseas line.

Saturday. He’s probably in Chicago, thought Abel. He thumbed through his little address book to check the home number.

‘There’ll be a delay of about thirty minutes,’ said a precise English voice.

‘Thank you,’ said Abel, and lay down on the bed to wait impatiently. The phone rang twenty minutes later.

‘Your overseas call is on the line, sir,’ said the same precise voice.

Abel, is that you? Where are you?’

‘Sure is, Henry. I’m in London.’

‘Are you through?’ said the girl, who was back on the line.

‘I haven’t even started,’ said Abel.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I mean are you speaking to America?’

‘Oh yes, sure. Thank you. Jesus, Henry, they speak a different language over here.’

Osborne laughed.

‘Now listen. Did you hear about that Interstate plane that crashed at Mexico City?’

‘Yes, I did. But there’s nothing for you to worry about. The plane was properly insured, so the company’s incurred no loss, and the stock has only dropped a few cents.’

‘The insurance is the last thing I’m interested in,’ said Abel. ‘This could be an ideal opportunity to find out just how strong Mr Kane’s constitution is.’

‘I don’t understand, Abel. What are you getting at?’

‘Listen carefully, and I’ll explain exactly what I want you to do when the Stock Exchange opens on Monday morning. I’ll be back in New York by Tuesday to conduct the final movement myself.’

Osborne listened attentively to Abel’s instructions. Twenty minutes later, Abel replaced the phone on its hook.

He was through.

W
ILLIAM REALIZED
that he could expect more trouble from Abel Rosnovski when Curtis Fenton phoned to let him know that the Chicago Baron was closing all the group’s bank accounts with Continental Trust, and accusing Fenton of disloyalty and unethical conduct.

‘I thought I did the correct thing in writing to you about Mr Rosnovski’s acquisitions in Lester’s,’ said the banker unhappily, ‘and it’s ended with my losing one of my most important customers. I don’t know how my board of directors will react.’

William calmed Fenton down a little by promising him he would speak to his superiors at Continental Trust. He was, however, more concerned about what Rosnovski’s next move would be.

It was another month before he found out. William was checking over the morning mail when a call came through from his broker, who told him that someone had placed a million dollars’ worth of Interstate Airways stock on the market. William told him that his trust would pick up the shares, and the broker issued an immediate buy order. At two o’clock that afternoon another million dollars’ worth was put on the market. Before William had a chance to pick them up, the price started to fall. By the time the New York Stock Exchange closed at three o’clock, the share price of Interstate Airways had fallen by a third.

At ten minutes past ten the next morning, William received a call from his now agitated broker. Another million dollars’ worth of Interstate stock had been placed on the market at the opening bell. The broker reported that the latest dumping had caused an avalanche of sellers. Brokers with Interstate sell orders were rushing onto the floor from every quarter, and the stock was now trading at only a few cents a share. Only twenty-four hours previously, Interstate had been quoted at four and a half dollars.

William instructed Alfred Rodgers, the company secretary, to call a board meeting for the following Monday. Before then he needed to confirm who was responsible for dumping the stock. Not that he was in much doubt. By Wednesday afternoon he had to abandon any attempt at shoring up Interstate by buying all the shares as they came on the market. At the close of business that day, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it would be conducting an inquiry into all Interstate transactions. William knew that the Lester’s board would now have to decide whether to support the airline for the three to six months it would take the SEC to complete its investigation, or whether to let the company go under. Either alternative looked extremely damaging, both to William’s pocket and to the bank’s reputation.