The Mazovia Legacy (16 page)

“Precisely. But that became a somewhat academic point, you see, because Maurice Duplessis stepped in a couple of years after that. He was angry that the RCMP had been investigating on Quebec soil and apparently going in to convents and questioning Mothers Superior and so on, you see, and he saw this as a way to assert himself against Ottawa and consolidate his position with the Quebec Catholics as a fighter of Communism. So he took the treasures himself.”

“He took them?”

“Not for himself, my dear,” Zbigniew said with a slight smile. “He took them from the Hôtel Dieu Convent in Quebec City where they were in a sort of cavern in the cellars and he locked them up in vaults in the basement of the provincial museum. And he made sure he embarrassed the federal government as much as he could in doing so. The RCMP were supposed to be standing guard outside of the Hôtel Dieu, but he sent the chief of the Quebec police and some other officers in plain clothes and they lifted the crates right from under the noses of the federal police. Using food delivery vans. And, my dear, Duplessis said he would never, ever release the treasures to the godless Communists. Can you imagine how that would have been received at the Polish Embassy in Ottawa? In 1948? Imagine that if you can.”

“And he never did release them, did he?” Natalia said.

“No. Not in his lifetime.”

Zbigniew handed her some more newspaper clippings. One was a news agency dispatch from March 1948:

“‘When it is a question of the Communist and atheist government of Poland, satellite of Stalin, the federal government communicates with this government through the intermediary of an ambassador and with all the protocol and respectful consideration which these proceedings involve,' Premier Duplessis told a press conference in Quebec City.

“‘When it is a question of one of our most noble religious communities, Mr. St. Laurent and the federal authorities communicate with them through the intermediary of the federal mounted police, whose mission it is to seek and arrest criminals in the domain of federal jurisdiction,' the premier said.”

Zbigniew re-read the clipping himself, chuckling quietly, before continuing.

“Kozlowski was allowed to visit the vaults at the museum in Quebec City every six months or so to see that the goods were all right and to air the tapestries and so on, but they were never to be removed or sent back until the Communists had been ousted from Poland,” he said. “Your uncle would be the one to drive Kozlowski to Quebec City sometimes for this. He and Kozlowski got to know Duplessis very well, and some of his senior police and officials, as of course they would. Because they were partners in a big joke on Canada and on the Communists. A deadly serious diplomatic joke.”

“It's a very long time to keep a joke going,” Natalia said.

“I agree. A very long time. And some people are not able to keep faith with comrades forever. Your uncle was one of the rare ones who could. But Kozlowski, I'm afraid, could not.”

“He gave up?” Natalia asked.

“Yes,” Zbigniew said. “He came under intense pressure over the years to give the treasures back. From Poland, from some factions in the government-in-exile — for there were factions, Natalia, many factions — and eventually from the Catholic Church as well. There was a loosening of things in Poland in the late 1950s, a sort of loosening. The worst of the Stalinists were removed and the Catholic Church there thought it politic to try to cooperate with the regime for a time.

“And of course Kozlowski was getting old. He was about seventy or so by then. Krukowska was dead;

Zdunek was dead. But Zdunek had said in his will that he thought the treasures should go back.

Kozlowski was working in his little delicatessen in Ottawa by then, a strange fate for an architect who had moved treasures from Wawel Castle. And he was, Stanislaw said, becoming worried about the condition of some of the things that had been hidden.

“Kozlowski said that if he got word from the government-in-exile, he would gladly sign the papers and allow the treasures in the Ottawa bank to go. But he said he had given an oath and he felt he should keep it until he received an official signal. The decision about the Quebec treasures, of course, was no longer his to make.”

“I know some of this story,” Natalia said. “My uncle told us once about how the Ottawa treasures went back.”

“Yes, they went back. Poland sent a new man to be joint custodian with Kozlowski, and a faction in the government-in-exile used go-betweens, prominent people, émigrés, to work on him over the years. Even Malcuzynski, the pianist, became involved. As a sort of envoy, from Switzerland, where he lived after the war. Eventually Kozlowski agreed to sign. He gave in to the pressure and the two Ottawa trunks went back. This was in 1959. Your uncle was outraged. I have a letter of his here from that time. He could simply not believe that Kozlowski would betray this trust.”

Zbigniew began looking for the letter to show her.

“All those years,” Natalia said. “I would have been just a girl when all of this started to happen. A baby. I was born in 1958. Stanislaw never talked very much about this when I had grown up.”

“Well, he would not have had much to say to you about it, my dear. There were many things he could not dare to say after that. Because matters became even more complex, Natalia. Even more dangerous, I would say.”

Zbigniew handed her another letter, this one clumsily typewritten. Natalia could imagine her uncle hunched over his beloved Remington Noiseless in his snug house on Chesterfield Street, writing this secret letter to his oldest friend.

“Montreal

13 March 1959

Dear friend:

Zbigniew, I am writing to entrust to you a most important secret. I no longer know whom to trust here anymore but I know that I can trust you as always.

Kozlowski is behaving erratically now. The pressure is getting to be too much for him, it seems. Sometimes he says he had no choice but to sign the papers for the Ottawa treasures. Sometimes he regrets it so much that I fear for him. I really do. But I myself have taken action to safeguard the treasures left in Quebec from any further betrayals, my friend, and I am going to tell you how. And then it will be only you and me who know this new secret, Zbigniew. I know that you would never reveal it to the wrong people or at the wrong time.

I have been to see Duplessis. I felt that I must go to discuss what is happening with Kozlowski. And Duplessis, my friend, was in a rage that the Ottawa trunks went back. He shouted in French for a long time about that and about what was happening with Kozlowski. But I knew that he was angry also because he could see the end was in sight. He is not well, Zbigniew, and he also knows that the Catholic Church is no longer on his side in this. And if that is so in Rome, then it is so in Quebec, because the Quebec Church does the Vatican's bidding, as it must.

Eventually, the Quebec treasures will go back and the premier knows this. He is an expert politician, Zbigniew, an expert. He sees things clearly and he knows when it is time to act. Or, in some cases, when to let others act. And so there have been some changes made.

I had devised a little plot of my own that would safeguard at least some of what we had been entrusted with. I told Duplessis about my fears and that I had a plan. But he did not want to hear details of my plan, Zbigniew. He is too astute a politician for that. Sometimes people do things on behalf of powerful men and these men know to turn the other way while it is being done. They know when it is better not to know all that is being done for them. Each for his own reasons, my friend, but that is often how it is with such important matters. So be very careful with this information, Zbigniew. Because no one will know it but you and me. But someone must know it in case I die.

Duplessis agreed to let me have access to the treasures alone for a time for an “inspection.” He arranged this and he assigned his personal bodyguard, a policeman named Tessier, to accompany me to the vaults in the museum and to help me in any way required. And then Duplessis simply went on about his business and never asked me about any of it again. I was left to do my duty as I saw it.

So I have hidden a portion of the treasure somewhere else, Zbigniew. A small portion, but a very important one. Think of it. It is extraordinary. There will still be a cache somewhere in Quebec that will never get into the wrong hands. Something that will be valuable to our side one day, Zbigniew. Duplessis would want this too, if only as his last joke on Ottawa and on the Vatican. And so it was done.

There are 24 crates in the provincial museum. Kozlowski and Zdunek were the ones to pack them so many years ago in Krakow and they have been opened only a few times since then. Zdunek is now dead, Krukowska is dead, everyone in this matter is dying. But even here, Zbigniew, there have been secrets known only to a small circle. Secrets within secrets.

Inside each of the 24 crates, my friend, they hid some things that never got onto the bills of lading back in Krakow in those last few days before the Nazis came. Hidden, from everyone, you see — everyone. Not visible even when the crates were opened for inspection. Eventually, the story of whether there might be hidden portions became a mystery, Zbigniew, a kind of legend in the months after the invasion and the escape. It was a chaotic time when those goods were loaded and transported so long ago, my friend, as you well know. There were any number of places along the route through Malta to France and England and then to Canada where crates were opened and bills of lading examined, stamped, even altered.The government-in-exile was grateful anything was salvaged from that shipment at all. You remember how it was, Zbigniew. So there were only a few of us who ever knew eventually of the secret cache. And then fewer still who believed it had not been taken somewhere en route, or lost, or perhaps hidden again or sold by the London Poles.

But it did survive, Zbigniew, and I decided that it was my task to now hide these things and to never return them to a Communist government. Never. Two items from each crate, my friend, all exactly the same. And very valuable they are. Perhaps you can guess what I am talking about. Something that would have been terribly useful in wartime, that all warring parties would want. But I wanted also that something else be hidden along with these things, something very rare and special. Something religious. Duplessis would have wanted that too, I am certain.

So I chose for all of us. And it is something magnificent that I chose. Truly. Duplessis would have liked very much the idea of hiding something like that away from the Vatican, you see. He, too, feels he is to be betrayed. For this item, Zbigniew, I had to alter the Quebec government's lists, their museum receipts, in my own hand. But that was a simple matter after Duplessis had ordered that I not be interfered with.

And so it was for me to hide these items somewhere else, Zbigniew. With the help of Duplessis's bodyguard only, a policeman who has been with him for many years. He can be trusted. But even he cannot betray me because it was only I who eventually hid them away and only I have the new password. Only I can ever get these goods out from where they are now hidden. Not Duplessis, not his man, not Kozlowski. Only myself. And now I must tell you, my friend. Forgive me for giving you such dangerous information, but if I do not these things may be lost forever . . .”

Natalia paused in her reading. Zbigniew was watching her closely.

“What a responsibility, for you both,” she said.

“For him, my dear. I was safely in this apartment, reading letters and drinking coffee.”

“You know where these things are?”

“Approximately, my dear. Your uncle had become too wise and too suspicious to put such things as passwords and exact locations on paper. But with me, between comrades who had such a history together, sometimes a hint would suffice.”

“Do you know what he hid?”

“Read, my dear.”

“...If ever it becomes necessary to find these things, Zbigniew, and I am gone, remember what we used to talk about in the old days in the Wellingtons on our way over the North Sea to make a run. Remember the places we talked about and the things we said we would do. Not in Warsaw, of course, as things turned out, but in Canada. Marriage, children — no children for me, as things turned out — but marriage in special places, to special women.

And passwords, Zbigniew. In Scotland there were always passwords for the squadron. Wartime and passwords. These things go together. One could never be too careful on the watch or when we were about to take our Wellingtons up for a run. You remember of course. Always, a password.”

“And you know what he means by this?” Natalia asked.

“Yes, my dear. I think I do.

He will tell me now, and then I will be the keeper of my uncle's secret,
she thought.
The one he died for.
She put the letter back on the table.

“I can tell you, Natalia, if you wish to know,” Zbigniew said. But you should know the rest of the story first and then we must decide who killed your uncle, if we can, before you make up your mind what more you wish to know and what is to be done next.”

“All right.”

“You see, Natalia, it really did turn out that your uncle became the custodian of these last few treasures. Duplessis died later that year. Your uncle sent me press cuttings about the funeral. And almost as soon as Duplessis was gone, the Catholic Church and the new government and premier in Quebec betrayed him. Just as your uncle and Duplessis himself had suspected.