The Last Girl (26 page)

Fisk laughed when I shushed him. Excitedly he waved his hands at the street. ‘Look,' he said, pointing to the Soviet tanks and the soldiers leaning up against them, guns slung over their shoulders. ‘Why should I be quiet? The revolution is here.' I managed to escape him at Cathedral Square. I joined one of the long snaking queues that had formed outside a food store. Jerzy had gone to the market by the station to see if he could get bread and other basics. Rumours had been spreading that shops were running short of supplies and every shop in the city was besieged by panicked citizens trying to build up a supply to last the crisis.

‘The shops are empty, but you know why?' a wizened babushka observed in front of me. ‘They've got the stuff in the back. They're holding on to it, pretending it's all gone, then they'll bring out a few loaves at a time and a bit of flour and charge the earth for it.'

The old man with whom she was standing nodded knowingly. ‘
Tag, tag
. That's right, the bastards. That's if the Russians haven't confiscated it all for their soldiers.'

‘No, you listen to me, somebody's making a tidy packet here. Believe me. Oi! The bastards. Let us poor old people starve, they'll be sitting pretty.'

‘They caught some Jew hoarding a warehouse full of flour and legs of pork,' another crone chipped into the conversation. ‘He was holding on to it, waiting till prices rose.'

The shop was bare when finally I managed to fight my way in through the doorway, battling with a seventy-year­ old baba. A large, red-faced man was shouting at the staff behind the counter. An evil-looking scar split his face in two, intimidating the usually indomitable women. One stood in tears while another railed at him.

‘One only. No more.'

‘What's the use of one loaf ? I've got to feed a family of ten.'

‘The rules are the rules. You can get only one. I don't give a fuck how many you have to feed. What will everybody else eat when your belly is full? Eh? Tell me that? Look.' She swooped her hand angrily, indicating the rest of us. ‘What are they going to eat, tell me?'

‘It's a shame,' the man argued, his face growing redder. ‘It's a shame, I say.'

The manager of the store, a nervous dark Pole, sidled through the doorway in his neat white apron. He glanced at the crowd and the angry man, trying to assess the general mood. Various shoppers offered their opinions in rough tones.

‘Just take your loaf and let us get ours.'

‘What do they care about us? They're making a profit, aren't they? I bet they've got the back of the shop packed with goods.'

‘
Tag
! Bring out the stuff and let us have it, you mean bastard! You think you'll enjoy your riches knowing how you got them?'

‘May God in heaven look down on you and see what you are doing!' an old woman shouted, her small white face quivering beneath a heavy black scarf.

‘Please, please,' the dark nervous shopkeeper pleaded. ‘It is not our fault. We have not got enough. The government has said one each. We have to make it fair. No speculation.'

This Soviet phrase incensed the crowd. The shop burst into an uproar of vitriol at the communist invaders and their slogans.

‘What have you got?' Jerzy asked chirpily when I arrived home tired. He laid his goods out on the table. He had managed to get a loaf of bread, milk, potatoes, sugar and a small bag of fresh curd. I laid down all I had been able to get, the smoked sausage and the small loaf.

‘You leave it to me, my boy,' he said heartily, clapping me on the shoulder. ‘You leave this to Uncle Jerzy.'

‘What's the swindle?' I asked.

His face took on an expression of child-like innocence. ‘Swindle?' Then he grinned like a satisfied cat. I did not ask any more. I assumed he had found another generous lady benefactor. And I was right. I found out a few days later he had set about seducing a string of shop girls all of whom he milked for goods in return for his attentions.

Jerzy looked little healthier than he had during the previous winter. His pale skin was almost translucent and his hair wildly long. Despite the warm weather he had a hacking cough that he could not shake off. His energy, though, seemed to be undiminished. He had given up his studies and spent his time working on intense little poems, which he refused to let me see. Late into the night he paced back and forth mumbling to himself. ‘The words,' he said. ‘Each word must be the exact word. Nothing superfluous. Not one letter should detract from the lyricism of the poem.'

We published a small book of our poems in late October called The Cataclysm. Jerzy managed to get it stocked prominently in the large bookstore on Gedimino and it sold well. He also befriended some Russian officers. From these he got hold of good vodka that had been impounded by the military police. The Russian soldiers, from poor villages, revelled in their wealthy position. The new Soviet puppet government pegged the Lithuanian currency at 0.9 roubles rather than the four or five it was really worth, making the poor Russians artificially rich. Jerzy introduced them to Polish girls with whom the young peasant soldiers swaggered around the town like fashionable aristocrats.

‘You should be careful,' I warned him one day when he returned merry, giggling over a gambling swindle that had just helped him relieve some drunken communists of a small fortune.

‘Ach, they had stolen it themselves,' he said. ‘Anyway, have you seen what your friend Fisk is up to?'

‘Fisk? No, I haven't seen him for days.'

‘He's working with the NKVD. He was talking about that Troiman you know.'

‘What about Troiman?'

‘Fisk informed on him and his father for exploitative behaviour and suspected collaboration with Western security forces.'

‘He accused Troimah of being a spy?' The blood drained from my face.

‘He was off to arrest him.'

‘Fisk?'

‘The NKVD. I assume Fisk was just tagging along for the thrill of it.'

I pulled on my jacket and dashed from the room. By the time I had run across the old town to Zawalna a large crowd had gathered outside Troiman's house. A cordon of rifle­ bearing Russian soldiers kept the curious crowd at bay. Fisk stood sharing a cigarette with one of the soldiers. He wore a pompous, self-important expression that looked ridiculous when you regarded the dirty, frayed collar and cuffs of his old shirt and the suit shiny with wear. I pushed through the crowd to get close to him. He grinned gleefully when he saw me.

‘Steponas, comrade,' he said, passing the cigarette to the large-boned peasant lad in the soldier's uniform.

‘What's going on, Fisk?'

Fisk waved his hand dismissively, as if it was of no importance. ‘Just doing what is necessary.'

‘Jerzy told me they're arresting Ira.'

Fisk grinned. ‘I told you the bastard would be dealt with, didn't I?'

At that moment the door of the house opened. Two officers emerged. Ira was between them. His healthy face was pasty and he looked unusually dishevelled. Seeing the large crowd gathered outside his door seemed to make him nervous. His startled eyes flicked around the pack of faces. It was strangely unnerving to see this self-possessed, confident man looking so frightened. The heavy wooden door closed behind them. There was no sign of Rachael.

As Ira passed by, he noticed me. His step faltered a second and a half smile rose to his lips. Then he saw Fisk by my side. His expression changed. He did not look angry, rather his fear seemed to increase. He stumbled on quickly after the soldiers, who forced a passage through the quiet crowd.

They bundled him into the back of a van and drove away. The crowd dispersed.

‘Coming?' Fisk asked. I shook my head.

When he had gone, I lingered on the pavement. Not by the house, where a soldier hung around outside the door for a while, smoking, his gun propped up against the door-jamb, beneath the mezuzah. After a while the door opened. A small group of men in civilian clothes and one uniformed officer appeared. The soldier stood to attention. They walked by him as if he was not there. The officer called for him to follow. The NKVD jumped into a black car and the two soldiers wandered away back into the city.

When I knocked at the door there was no answer. A frightened face appeared behind the net curtains in the house next door, but the Troimans' did not stir. I looked through the brass letterbox. The long hallway was dark and quiet. At the far end, in the light cast through an open doorway, there was a broken picture frame propped up against the wall. Slivers of glass shone in the faint sunlight on the floor. In the gloom I caught a sudden movement.

‘Rachael,' I whispered through the brass slot. The figure froze at the bottom of the staircase and for a moment did not move.

‘Rachael?'

‘Who's there?' a hoarse voice I could barely recognise called from the shadows.

‘Rachael? It's Steponas.'

My words were met with silence. The figure did not stir. I could barely make out if she was standing or sitting at the bottom of the stairs. A car grunted slowly past in the road and nervously I straightened up, glancing over my shoulder. It shuddered its way down the street and disappeared. A panicky sweat had broken out on my forehead. I bent down to the letterbox again and pushed it open.

‘Rachael, it's me. Open the door.'

She stirred then, seemingly reluctantly. Her body emerged from the darkness and shuffled across the polished wooden floorboards, kicking splinters of glass. She was hunched over. I allowed the brass flap to drop and stood up. The door opened slowly, just a fraction, not revealing her. I pushed into the darkness, checking the road to see that I had not been watched. She stepped back against the wall behind the door. With the door closed it was still hard to see much more than her vague shape in the darkness. She did not look up at me.

‘I saw you with Fisk,' she said finally. Her voice was husky as if she had been screaming. ‘Through the window. I saw the two of you standing there laughing.'

‘No. Rachael, no. You misunderstood,' I protested. I moved towards her but she started back, whether with disgust or fear I could not tell.

I followed as she padded softly down the hallway. There was a patch of startlingly red blood, I noticed, on a large glass shard that had fallen from the picture. It puzzled me because, despite his pasty look, I had not noticed that Ira had been cut. When we entered the drawing room the sunlight streaming through the high windows exposed Rachael. A large gash marred her cheek, beneath the left eye. I gasped and, seeing me look at it, she fingered the wound delicately.

‘You're hurt.'

Her eyes turned on me reproachfully. ‘Not here,' she said, her finger on the gash. ‘This does not hurt.'

‘I had nothing to do with this, Rachael. I just met Fisk at the door. It was he that informed on Ira.'

She did not seem to believe me. Or perhaps she did not care. She turned away from me and wandered to the large windows. She pushed back the net curtain and looked out. I stood behind her not knowing what to say. I could not bear the fact that she seemed to suspect me of collaborating with the communists but could think of nothing to say that might convince her of my innocence. Her shoulders twitched. It was a small movement, as if she was shrugging. At first I thought it was simply that. But they shrugged again and a moan escaped her lips involuntarily. She buried her face in her hands and the emotion seemed to wash violently over her like a powerful breaker. She collapsed to her knees.

I rushed over, taking her in my arms. She was stiff. Each breath seemed to rip her body open painfully. I held her tight, stroking her hair. Her scent cut delicately into my nostrils. It was, I realised, the first time I had held her. I caressed her. I whispered in her ear, my lips close to her olive flesh. Her body relaxed a little. Her breaths, though ragged, came a little easier. Tears rolled from her eyes. She clenched her eyelids tightly shut as if to stop the flow. I kissed her hair.

‘Ira,' she groaned. ‘Ira, my Ira.' She repeated his name time after time; her eyes clenched tight, her hand gripping mine.

The light in the window turned violet and slowly died. We did not move. Rachael's tears receded. For many minutes we sat in silence watching the day steal away. She leaned against me and I felt her sweet weight press me to the wall. How many nights had I fallen asleep in my dark village room dreaming of such a moment as this? I closed my eyes and felt her. Smelt her. Sensed her.

‘Tell me what happened,' I said later, in the darkness. I traced my finger delicately down the cut on her cheek.

‘There was a knock on the door. Ira knew there would be trouble. His father had warned him that the communists had their names. We were going to go away for a while, until things had quietened down. I told him not to answer the door. He wouldn't listen. He said they would break it down anyway. It was better to talk to them now, rather than making them angry. Talk!' She laughed bitterly. ‘They burst through the door. Maybe five of them. The soldiers shoved him down the corridor, pushing their rifles into his face, shouting at him.' She paused and closed her eyes again as if to shut out the memory. I took her hand in my own.

‘They pushed him to the floor. One of them grabbed his hair and pulled up his head.' She mimed, her eyes shut firm. ‘Another took out a pistol and placed it at his temple. “Capitalist pig,” they shouted at him, over and again. “Fucking Jewish exploiter”.' The words sounded strange on her lips. ‘I could not bear it. I ran forwards to beg them. One turned and struck me. He knocked me back against the wall and my head smashed the picture.'

She paused. Her eyes opened and she looked off into the pitch-black recesses of the room. From somewhere, far down the road, came the sound of a drunk singing. The comic song sounded frail and sad in the darkness of the evening.

‘After a while they took the gun away from his head. They brought us through into here. The NKVD took over. Who did we know? Which government was paying us? Why had Ira been seen talking to that official from the British embassy? What had he been doing on his last trip to Paris? And on and on. Endless questions. What was the point in Ira answering? They were not interested in his replies. Then they said he must go for further questioning. Ira said I should go to his cousins, but I haven't the energy to move.'