While Still We Live (12 page)

Sheila felt that the woman hated her for being here. There was certainly resentment in her eyes.

“It was safe.” Sheila was now praying for Korytowski’s return. She was feeling too tired, she was losing the alertness which her fear had given her. She would make a mistake. Why didn’t Korytowski come?

“It was a good front, all right,” the woman admitted. “Hofmeyer’s a sharp fellow. But my guess is that he will tell you to clear out now, before the police arrest you again.”

“But the police were satisfied yesterday.”

“God, what innocents we are using nowadays! Don’t you know that the police are never satisfied? Listen, you are fairly
new to this game. Not like me or Margareta Koch. And the first thing you’ll have to learn if you want to stay alive is that you’ve got to smell danger. I’ve just got to take one look at this set-up and I smell plenty of danger all round you.”

“Margareta Koch? Where is she?”

“Haven’t heard for nigh on six months. One of our men in the police building reported yesterday that Koch had been arrested disguised as an English girl. But it turned out to be you and not Koch. I won’t say you weren’t a surprise. But then, Papa Hofmeyer usually has one or two up his sleeve. I’ll tell you one thing: he’s pretty angry with you, right now. Called you a string of names to Heinrich for getting onto the police list. You won’t be much good to us now, not until we take over here. Come on, back into bed with you. Clever of you to have chosen to be the English milady. No one expects them to speak Polish correctly.” She picked up one of Sheila’s shoes, and shook her head admiringly. “Trust Papa Hofmeyer. Everything correct down to the English shoe label. Nice piece of leather. I haven’t been allowed to wear anything like that for a long time. Too damned long. Wait until you’re made a caretaker’s wife some day. You’ll know, then!”

Sheila pressed her head further into the pillow, as if to shut out the woman’s venom. She suddenly felt at the mercy of this woman’s bitter heart. She almost cried out with joy when she heard the outside door being opened. The woman dropped the shoes and picked up the empty cup.

“No more medicine!” she said quickly. “Remember. You’re not ill. They are doping you to keep you here. And you’ve got to leave. The plans are being made.”

Elzbieta was opening the bedroom door, now. “Good
evening, sir,” she said very timidly, very politely to the man who came in. It wasn’t Korytowski. It was Olszak.

“Well,” he said to Sheila, “don’t tell me you are a casualty. Where’s your host? I brought him a copy of my war editorial.” He uncorked the medicine bottle. “Want some now? One of my best accomplishments is holding a spoon of nasty medicine for someone else. Allow me.”

“No,” Sheila said as clearly as she could. “No, thanks. I don’t need any more medicine.”

“Too bad.” Olszak corked the bottle again, regretfully.

They both listened to the closing of the outside door.

Olszak moved swiftly, in strange contrast to his diffident entry, back into the hall.

“Thoroughly locked,” he said when he once more returned. “Now, what did she say?”

Sheila was so amazed that Olszak should expect the woman to have said anything interesting, that she could only stare at him.

“Quick, Miss Matthews, tell me everything that happened.” His voice was strangely excited. “I know you are ill, but if you ever wanted to help in this war, by God I think you are going to do it now.”

The wild enthusiasm in his voice lifted Sheila out of her lethargy. She told him about Elzbieta, haltingly, yet as accurately as she could force herself to speak. Sometimes she would forget something (why should she have to be ill at this time?) and then she’d pause, force herself to go back and straighten out what she had jumbled. Mr. Olszak listened patiently, intently, without interruption or prompting. He let her choose her own tempo, and his silence helped her. It wasn’t so long, after all,
before he could piece together the whole scene.

“Good,” he said. “In fact, excellent. That’s all I wanted. You know, it is a nice feeling when you have a suspicion that no one else will share, when you work out a little plan to deal with it, to find that everything does fit into place and that you’ve a neat success on your hands. It’s a nicer feeling than many a bigger, more obvious victory.”

He looked at Sheila critically. “You’re tired. You should sleep. I’ll wait for Korytowski in the other room. Anything I can get you?”

“Some medicine. I want to get out of this bed as soon as I can.”

Olszak nodded approvingly. “I think I’d better warn you,” he said as he poured a careful tablespoon of medicine, “that your real name is supposed to be Anna Braun. It was the first name that Hofmeyer could think of, when Henryk contacted him with the news that you were under suspicion. Henryk, of course, wanted to know all about you. There: that’s the way. Swallow it quickly when your mouth is wide open. Now here’s some water. That’s the way.”

He relented suddenly. “I suppose you have earned more of an explanation than that,” he said. “I had a suspicion or two about Henryk. Only, my sources were not reliable, and although we have watched him and the woman we could find out nothing definite. Hofmeyer knew nothing about them. But last night, one of my men was instructed to inform them very carefully that you were under surveillance, that you had some connection with Hofmeyer. This morning, Henryk contacted another German who knew where Hofmeyer is hiding. He actually met Hofmeyer. Now we know Henryk and Elzbieta are
Heinrich Dittmar and Lisa Koehler. We’ve more than enough proof.”

“Elzbieta knew who Hofmeyer was. She called him Papa.”

Olszak repressed a smile. “Only by reputation,” he said. “Just as Hofmeyer had heard of Dittmar. But he never met him until this morning. We did a good job of work last night.”

“I wish...”

“What do you wish?”

Sheila stirred restlessly. “Somehow I wish Hofmeyer could just have come along here and found out for himself who Henryk really was.”

“And let the Germans’ suspicions be aroused against Hofmeyer when Henryk is arrested? No, I’m afraid that isn’t the way we have to work. In fact you will have to be arrested again, along with the porter and his wife, just to keep yourself safe from the Germans. I’ve already arranged for a nice place for you to hide after you ‘escape’ from our police. But meanwhile the problem is that Henryk will be planning how to smuggle you out of this apartment so as to hide you from the Poles.”

Sheila said, “But I don’t want to leave here. Madame Aleksander and Barbara are coming. I want to see them.” Her voice was foolishly on edge.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. It’s a matter of your own safety. Henryk and the woman are too interested in the unknown Anna Braun. And Hofmeyer has got to invent a life story for you that will fit and you can’t answer any German questions until you learn that story. You’ve got to get out of here and be well hidden.” Mr. Olszak began to walk about the room. “The best way,” he said at last, “will be to let Henryk do his planning, to let him smuggle you out. You will appear then
to have escaped from this room with his connivance, whereas you really have escaped from him.” Olszak was looking pleased, now. “Yes,” he added, “that would be a neat way to use Henryk, and catch him.”

“Madame Aleksander—” Sheila began miserably. “I want to see her.”

“Yes, yes. Don’t worry. I’ll look after all that. Don’t worry. Get some sleep.” His voice was reassuring and strangely gentle.

* * *

Bombs wakened her again.

Olszak had come back into the bedroom. He was standing beside her.

“I’m afraid it would be ungallant to climb under your bed,” he shouted, and won a weak smile.

“Uncle Edward?”

“Still not here.” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “I can’t wait much longer. Yet I can’t leave you alone.” Sheila thought, it isn’t the bombs he is worrying about so much as the woman downstairs. As long as someone was with Sheila she would be safe from Elzbieta’s curiosity.

At that moment, even as if their thoughts had attracted the woman, they heard a pounding at the entrance door. Olszak gave Sheila a warning glance and moved quickly into the hall.

“Everyone to the shelters!” Elzbieta was yelling. “Air warden’s been hit. I’m following his instructions.” She pushed past Olszak to enter the room.

“Get dressed before the next raid. This is going to be a bad night. Everyone’s to get to shelter. Orders.” She stared at Sheila and then turned on her heel.

“Miss Matthews is ill,” Olszak’s voice was saying.

“I’ll help her to the shelter. Orders.” She left them as a building shattered to the ground. That bomb had landed not so far away. She didn’t even flinch. Her eyes, as she left the room, gave Sheila a final look and command. The entrance door slammed shut once more.

“She’s without fear,” Sheila said.

“She’s enjoying it. If I were in Berlin and the bombs started dropping, I’d dance with joy.”

“Have they dropped there, yet?”

“No.”

“England, France? Are they fighting?”

“Not yet.”

“America? The other countries?”

Olszak shook his head. In a quiet moment he dropped his voice to normal and added, “This approximates my idea of hell.” He sat on the edge of the bed, as the torrent of noise broke loose once more. He had taken hold one of her hands as if to give her strength, and she clung to his wrist desperately. The anti-aircraft guns had burst out again with renewed venom. The angry coughing of the planes was nearer. The living-room window, which Korytowski hadn’t had time to board up—his guest’s room had seemed the only urgent one, to him—shattered suddenly. As the curtains blew wildly aside, and the doors were sucked open, Sheila could see a strange light sweeping through the blasted window to reach into the hall. Its rhythmical ebb and flow told her it was only a searchlight. Perhaps because her first fear had been so great, she felt almost calm in her relief. If only she could be out of this bed, if only she could identify these ripping, smashing, tearing crashes, she would feel better. She felt vulnerable because she felt so helpless. If she could
see other people waiting for the bombs, too, she would lose this feeling of war waged against her personally. It was always easier to bear trouble if you felt you weren’t the only one.

The noises slackened at last, and then ceased. She could smile to Mr. Olszak and say, with more determination than truth, “I think I’m getting accustomed to it, now.” She let go his wrist and added frankly, “But I’m glad you were here.”

He said urgently, “Can you get dressed? Can you travel for a short distance? I have a feeling that Henryk has planned your rescue from this room during the next big raid. Elzbieta gave you the warning. You saw that, didn’t you?”

Sheila nodded.

“I may have to leave you, for I have our own plans to put into action.” Olszak glanced at his watch. “It has stopped,” he said fretfully. “Damn Edward...what’s keeping him?”

And then the ’phone bell rang, a pathetic, plaintive little sound after all the noise of the last fifteen minutes.

“Edward!” Olszak said in relief and hurried to answer the ’phone. First, he listened, and than he insisted on something he proposed. He ended with the words, “Hurry, Teresa.” So it wasn’t Professor Korytowski. It must be Madame Aleksander, Sheila thought drowsily. It must be. She must ask but when Olszak returned to the room, she was already deeply asleep.

* * *

She was still asleep when Madame Aleksander arrived.

“Michal, what’s wrong?” were Teresa Aleksander’s first words.

“Gently, Teresa.” First I must calm her down, he thought. His voice was reassuring. “You are looking well, if a little tired. Come and sit down while I explain.” He locked the front door
carefully.

“Where’s Edward? You were so strange over that ’phone. Why didn’t you let Barbara come up here? Why did you insist that she should go to your flat? What’s wrong?” She halted at the doorway of the living-room. “Oh, look at this glass everywhere!” Her domestic instincts were outraged.

“Gently, Teresa,” he said again as he watched her white face. The silly disorder in the room seemed as if it were the breaking point of Madame Aleksander’s resistance. Small things like that were always the last straw. He tried to make the blackout curtains secure once more, so as to shield the room’s one small light from the courtyard. “As if it mattered, anyway,” he said irritably, thinking of the city so brightly illuminated now by flames. “Now tell me your story, Teresa. How did you get here?”

By the time she had finished her story of hopeless roads, of crowded fields, of children and women machine-gunned, she was again in control—as if by talking of these things she could bring herself to accept them for the harsh reality they were. Just as Barbara and she had reached Warsaw, walking the last ten miles on foot, the raid was taking place. “All we did was to stand and crane our necks,” she said in surprise. “So did everyone else. I suppose it’s because it is all so strange: it is like another world, somehow. I kept thinking, this can’t be Warsaw. This can’t be me or Barbara... We just stood and looked. Then it was all over, and the trams started running again, and people got into them, or started walking down the streets. And then I ’phoned Edward and found you; and I’ve sent Barbara to your flat as you insisted. But why?” She pulled off her hat wearily. “I hate hats. They make my head ache. But my feet feel worse.
Fortunately, I made Barbara wear a pair of sensible shoes this morning. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been here yet. Now, where is Edward?” She smoothed the heavy braid of silver hair which encircled her head. She looked more tired than she would admit: the shadows under the eyes were stronger, the high cheekbones seemed more pronounced.

“He is out. But the news is Sheila Matthews. She’s still here. She didn’t go to Britain.”

“Sheila!” Madame Aleksander was first aghast, and then dismayed. “Oh, Michal!”

“And she’s ill. Caught a severe chill. I want Barbara to nurse her at another address. I didn’t want Barbara to be seen coming here at all. No, don’t go to see Sheila now. She’s asleep. And I have more to tell you, for I must leave here, now that you have arrived to take charge.”