Lumen (32 page)

Schenck’s inane words were a sobering shower to him. Bora cursed as he welcomed them, those political notions of “sexual health” that undid all lovely images like the
turning of a kaleidoscope. Half-heartedly he sat for close to an hour, trying to rearrange them even as they ran into a blur of glitter, and it was no use.
No use, Bora
. In a cold anger, he started the car, jerked it into reverse and drove through the narrow streets towards his house under the Wawel.

The young Pole extended his hand towards the intact cigarette pack that Bora had laid on the table. There were fresh bruises on his face, and his front teeth were missing. Bora observed him insert the cigarette in the bloody-rimmed gap and expectantly stretch his torso for the lighter’s flame.

“I hope they’re getting something out of you,” he said.

“They ain’t.”

“The way you’re going, you’ll get shot one of these days.”

“I know.”

“As long as you know.”

The prisoner sucked the smoke in avidly. “These are good cigarettes.”

Bora had carelessly removed his gloves but now put them back on. He’d caught himself anxiously fingering the gold band on his left hand lately, and had resolved to break the habit before anyone remarked on it. He said, “Perhaps you should talk. You’d save everyone much trouble.”

With visible difficulty, the prisoner attempted a laugh. Smoke came out of the gap between his teeth as he did. “It’s not like I’m trying to save you all any trouble.” Whether the offer of cigarettes emboldened him or he’d travelled further on the road to hopelessness, he was merrily impudent. “If it was me holding you, Captain, would you talk?”

“You wouldn’t hold me.” Bora reached for the pack and took it back. Under the Pole’s alarmed eyes he held it in the gloved hand as if wondering what to do with it, whether he’d crush it or not. “The other day you told me you saw the nun in the garden. Was she sitting, walking, was she standing still?”

“She was lying on the ground.”

“After she was shot, naturally—”

“No, no. She’d been lying there a good part of the morning.” On the edge of his chair, the prisoner kept watch on any threat to crush the cigarette pack. “I’m telling you, she was lying there spread-eagle.”

“How did you know she was alive, then?”

“I’d seen her do the trick on other days. I didn’t pay attention to it any more, except that later I saw the blood. I was just turning around after checking the street through the field glasses: I happened to see the blood and that’s that. I can’t say if she was lying down when she was shot, because I didn’t see it happen.”

Bora put a cigarette in his mouth and tossed the pack back on the table. Before leaving, he said, “We’re closing in on one of yours. It’s all over for the lot of you, so take my advice. Talk.”

 

Kasia crossed the Market Square with her eyes to the squat, long building of the ancient Clothiers’ Hall. German army cars parked alongside it behind the trees, and uniformed men could be seen under the archway. She headed for the theatre under an immense overcast sky, quickening her pace.

Ewa waited for her in a doorway at the corner of Święty Anny Street, where the cutting wind could not enter. She seemed about to ask something, but Kasia didn’t give her the time.

“He hasn’t left!” She took the initiative. “You said he’d be gone by morning, and your son hasn’t left.”

Ewa’s shoulders rose and sank in the old fur. “He will, be sure. He’s a prudent young man.”

“Sure. It’s been a week! If he’s so prudent, how come he’s got to hide from the Germans, and how come he isn’t staying with you?”

“We’ve been through all this already, Kasia dear. He’d be noticed at my house, and you know how cramped Helenka’s quarters are. If he said he’d leave, he’ll leave. It’s only nine o’clock.”

“Well, you owe me big on this one. After he goes his way, I want you to pay me. You pay me and introduce me to Richard’s room-mate. Promise.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Promise.” Kasia’s freckled face, livid with cold, had an unfriendly, peevish pout. “Your son is still at my house, and there are German cars all over the Rynek Glowny. You owe me. You owe me big. If he’s gone by the time I go back, I expect you to call Richard’s friend tonight and introduce me to him. Why? Because I just want you to, that’s why.”

Ewa rolled her eyes. “Very well. Are there any messages for me?”

“No. He’s slept most of the time, and twice I had to shake him because he snored.” Kasia turned away from the door when a German car drove slowly past, tires squelching the mushy snow. “Knowing you, it’s better if I don’t know what your son’s real trouble is, or I’d piss in my pants from the worry.”

 

Bora understood from
Pana
Klara that Father Malecki was at the Curia, and thought better than going to wait for him there.

“
Arkusz papieru, prosze
,” he asked. After the landlady rummaged around to find a blank sheet of paper, he wrote on it.

“
Something today alerted me to a possibility we hadn’t yet considered in regard to the abbess’s death. Bear with me if I don’t discuss it here. I must absolutely meet you tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning.
” Bora signed his name, then jotted down a postscript
.
“
I believe Mother Kazimierza was right, when she said that the light in us can be darkness.
”

 

The matinee was half an hour away, but Kasia was good for nothing. “I’m too nervous,” she whispered to her understudy. “I think it’s my period. I just don’t feel well. I don’t feel well, I have to go home. You can stand in for me, can’t you? Just for today. I’ve got to go home. Don’t tell Ewa I went unless she asks.”

It was sleeting outside when she left the theatre and went south to avoid the Market Square. She was still angry at Ewa, and so upset that she couldn’t distinguish between her fear and a premonition of danger. What good would it do to go home if something had gone wrong, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that this morning the theatre made her sick, and she had to go home.

She prolonged her way home so that her shoes were soaked by the time she came in sight of her house. There were no people and no parked cars in the street. Her doorway stood ajar as always.

Kasia crossed quickly, entered the dark space at the bottom of the stairwell and looked straight ahead into the inner court. Through the low archway, it looked empty and forlorn.

Up the worn cement tiles forming the steps she went, one hand on the shaky iron railing. Everything was quiet. The usual silence, the usual smells. Opening the door she
was relieved to notice the key turned twice, as she had locked it. The dank little kitchen was in order, and what bread and milk she had put out for Ewa’s son had not been touched.

A twinge of disappointment reminded her that he’d still be in the other room, sleeping. Careful not to step on a squeaky tile, she peered into the parlour, where the sofa had been turned into a bed. The sofa was empty, and the quilt folded neatly at one end of it. Kasia breathed out in relief.

Gone. He was gone. Thank God, and without fuss!

She switched the light on, and kicked the wet shoes off her feet. In slippers she went to place the milk out on the window sill to keep it cold.

Back in the parlour, she turned the radio on, leaving it on even though the broadcast was in German, only to hear the noise.

Well, Ewa’s son was gone. Thank God for that. She’d figure out later a better excuse for leaving the performance today. There was no hurry. Suddenly, all she had to worry about was what she’d wear tonight to meet Richard’s room-mate. She smiled. The key to his apartment jingled in her pocket. Ewa had resisted giving it to her, but in the end she’d handed it over. Whether she’d use it or not, it was a victory over Ewa. How easily one could move from anguish to delight.

Kasia filled a pot of water and placed it on the gas stove to warm it up before washing her hair. A familiar song came on the radio, and humming to the tune of it she went to the bedroom to pick out a dress.
“I know - one day - something so wonderful..”

The bedroom was dark.
“You and I will meet aga..”
Kasia halted on the threshold with the song in her throat. She didn’t remember leaving the shutters folded so tightly.
Spiteful rage grabbed her at the idea that Ewa’s son wasn’t gone, but had simply moved into her bed for comfort.

“Well, of all the nerve!” She strode across the room to throw the shutters open. “You’ll have to get out right now, see? Right this minute!” She turned around, and the words froze in her throat.

Two armed German soldiers were standing at the sides of the bed.

12

In the convent’s waiting room, Father Malecki gasped. He rested his back against the wall behind the bench, trying to look less surprised than he was.

“Is that what you think happened?”

“That’s what I think happened,” Bora said. “I was ready to give up, and to show you just how ready, I’d have been satisfied to say that it was an act of God. Even that, given the amount of gunfire that was still occasionally fired in October, some stray bullet shot in the air had found its way down to the cloister, and killed the abbess as she lay down in her trance. But now I know better. It could be nothing else, and I have been knocking about the whole thing long enough. But unless I get permission from my commander to follow through with a quick trip to Germany, it all remains in the realm of speculation.”

“Forgive me, but it’s a chilling prospect.”

“Yes, and without certain proof, unless I can lay my hands on the gun. You understand that my interpreter’s words is what started me thinking about it, so it wasn’t a case of particularly clever thinking on my part. Whether I like it or not, the guns found on the convent roof - however they managed to get there - have in fact nothing to do with it.” Here Bora looked straight at Malecki. “We arrested the missing worker, Father.”

Malecki sustained the stare, coolly enough. “I see. Did he?…”

“All I will tell you is that we know who he is and what he did, which does not concern you. True, he did join the crew. And, true, he did absent himself at four fifteen to retrieve the guns from the roof. But he did not shoot the abbess. Had he done so, the report would have been heard from the chapel, or the church, or the kitchen, especially when fired in an acoustically resonant place like the cloister. The killing happened ten or fifteen minutes later, when the sisters were singing in church, the repairmen back at work, and the tanks made a racket just outside the walls. And if
nothing else but her name
killed the abbess, just as in Sister Barbara’s dream, we now know she meant her file name, since, as you just heard,
Lumen
does in a roundabout way connect with this.”

Looking elsewhere, Malecki noticed out of the corner of his eye Bora’s uncharacteristic slump. “And if you’re right?” he asked.

“If I’m right, the truth will be exposed.”

It was late in the evening, and Bora sounded tired. Malecki perceived motives for that weariness quite removed from the matter at hand. Personal motives, he suspected, more intimate than Bora cared to share with others, or even justify to himself.

“If it were true, Captain, I doubt the scandal could be kept within the circle of the sisters or the Curia’s staff.”

“That’s not for me to worry about, especially tonight. Remember, no proof for the time being, and I won’t be able to see you for a few days. Let’s hope to make sense out of the possibility when we meet again.” Bora lifted the collar of his coat, readying himself to leave. “May I give you a lift home?”

“I won’t say no.”

Outside the wind had fallen, and the cold was more bearable.

Bora let the priest in and started the car. Waiting for the motor to warm up, he said, “Your comment about my blind spot, Father Malecki-I can’t deny it’s been there. I used to think it was because I didn’t like my room-mate, but perhaps there are other reasons. More uncomfortable, less honest reasons. I realize I must remove it.”

Malecki half-smiled in the dark. “You are hard on yourself, Captain.”

“Am I? Maybe. I’d have made a good priest had I not chosen to be a good soldier.” The car began to move slowly down the icy street. “Naturally, being a soldier allows for a certain frailty of the flesh, which might account for my choice.”

“We’re all frail. The breaking point varies, that’s all.”

 

While Bora drove the priest to Karmelicka Street, from Kasia’s house Ewa reached the theatre in a frenzy. There was hardly anyone there. Helenka and her seamstress heard her call from the corridor and joined her.

“What happened?”

“They took Kasia - the Germans took Kasia!”

Helenka understood at once what the implications were. “When?”

“Some time after she left this morning. They’ve seen soldiers carrying her off.”

Helenka dispatched the seamstress to find a glass of water, and pulled her mother into the dressing room. She closed the door. “What about
him
?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. No word about him, I’m sure the Germans took him as well.” Ewa was catching her breath, with both hands pushing her disarranged hair back from her face. “Right now we have to think about ourselves, Helenka.”

Helenka gave her an amazed look. “You can’t be serious! Your son’s just been arrested, and—”

“There’s nothing we can do for him. Or Kasia.”

“No? Well, how like you it is! You never cared for him, and you don’t even care for him now!”

Ewa was regaining her control in the measure Helenka had let go of hers. “And what about yourself? You wouldn’t hide him in your house any more than I would. Let’s be frank, your brother hasn’t been in touch in three years, we didn’t even hear from him until he got in trouble and came looking for help. I did the best I could, I found him a hiding place.”