While Still We Live (60 page)

“Clever girl,” said Olszak approvingly. “How did Zygmunt let her know that we had arrived?”

“By the window. He knocked there, gently. I didn’t even hear it. But she did. She had been expecting him all evening. She put out the light and opened the shutters. They talked in
whispers. Then he went away. And she waited in the corridor. It sounds simple now, but it really was quite a strain. For me, anyway. Kati doesn’t seem to worry. She has no nerves at all. And no fears.”

Mr. Olszak put a finger to his lips, went over to the door to close it gently. He paused. For the front door had been opened by Kati. Her voice was welcoming. There was a smothered laugh, a stifled squeal. Zygmunt was going into action. A man who must have come out into the corridor from the front room said boisterously, “Well, who’s this? All safe? No Germans? Thought I’d better make sure.”

Kati was explaining now.

The voice said, “Come in, come in and have a drink. Come on, fellow. You’ll need it if you’ve been doing any travelling. What’s the news?”

Other voices, more distant, more blurred, said, “Come on, Zygmunt.”

Zygmunt was saying, “Never refuse a drink or a pretty girl.” There was laughter. Then the voices, the laughter, the sound of footsteps were shut inside the front room. In the corridor, there was silence, darkness. All that remained was the mixed smell of pinewood and boiled cabbage.

Mr. Olszak finished closing the door. “That wasn’t Peter who spoke,” he said. “Was it Zak?”

Madame Aleksander said, “No; it must be the stranger. He sounded cheery. I’m glad. His story is so sad.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Oh no. I’ve been kept in here. He only came this evening. But Kati heard it and she told me. He’s lost his wife and her young brother. They were refugees. He can’t find either of them.”

“That’s the man I met this morning,” said Stefan. “He was in Zorawno then.”

Olszak was watching Sheila. “Yes?” he asked.

She shook her head. The rough voice from the corridor had been familiar: a note, an inflection... Something so vague, so distant yet faintly disturbing. She shook her head again. “Nothing definite,” she said. “Just...”

She sat down on a bench and imagined the voice once more.
Come in and have a drink. Come on... What’s the news?
The harder she tried to catch it, the further it slipped away. She looked up at the observant Olszak. “Nothing,” she said. “Just a very faint imagination.”

“Which was he?” Olszak said. “Anxious or curious?”

The two women and the boy looked at him in perplexity.

Madame Aleksander said, “You don’t trust this man?”

Olszak sat down on a bench. “Until I find out more about him, I shall have to stay here.” He looked sharply at Madame Aleksander. “You were followed as far as Radom after you left Warsaw.” She looked so amazed that he smiled. “Why else do you think the Germans gave you such quick permission to leave Warsaw, after questioning you? But we took great care you wouldn’t be followed from Radom to this district. The only thing is the dog. He could easily have given you away. That was why I was angry about the dog, Teresa.”

Madame Aleksander looked crushed. “Casimir was so happy to see him. Besides, I couldn’t abandon him in Warsaw again. I couldn’t do that, not even to a dog.” Then her voice brightened. “But he was hidden for most of the journey from Radom to here. Inside bundles, inside jackets, covered with rags on the bottom of carts. He wasn’t allowed to run along
after us. Your men saw to that.”

“You are positive no one saw him?”

“Only the people with whom I stayed. And you trust
them
.”

“Yes. Then the Pole who is looking for his wife and brother-in-law may be looking for his wife and brother-in-law after all. Perhaps—” he silenced them with his hand. The front room door had opened, then the entrance door.

“Someone’s going out,” Olszak said. Other footsteps were running lightly along the hall. Kati entered, and held the door open for a man.

“Here’s Peter,” she said. “Zygmunt is taking the man out for—” she glanced at Madame Aleksander—“for a walk. He’s showing him the barn where he can sleep tonight. They’ll be back soon.”

She was gone, leaving Peter, tall, red-faced, blue-eyed, waiting for Olszak to speak. He shuffled his feet in their clumsy high boots, rubbed his square chin with a very large, very red hand, and then scratched his wrinkled brow uncertainly. The straight straw-coloured hair bristled like a haystack. On the broad face was a fluctuating smile. Peter swayed a little, the smile vanished, and then reappeared. He walked towards the bench with a slight list and rather too much determination. His audience looked at each other in dismay. Olszak said coldly, as the bench grunted beneath Peter’s sudden weight, “Peter, I’m afraid you’re drunk.”

Peter shook his head. “Not drunk,” he said. “Other fellow’s drunk. Not Peter. Not drunk. Just tired.”

“Then I hope he’s drunker than you are.”

Peter looked so shamefaced that Sheila wanted to laugh.

“Then what did you find out about him?” Olszak went on. “Or can’t you tell us?”

Peter wiped his face with his hand as though to drive away sleep from his eyes. “Nothing. He’s looking for his wife and her kid brother. That’s all.”

“Didn’t he talk?”

“Plague on it, didn’t he talk? He talked us all under the table.”

Olszak continued his questioning. Peter, making an effort, concentrated. And he achieved something. The answers were slow, but conclusive. The man was looking for his wife. Once he had asked about the forest: was there good hunting there? Mostly they had talked about the war, about what the future held for them. Zak had asked him what he was going to do: was he going to fight on? The man—Ryng was his name, yes, that was it, Ryng—had said he was going to find his wife first. After that, he’d know what to do.

Even Olszak was satisfied. “He didn’t ask about a white dog, did he?”

Peter looked surprised. “No,” he said very decidedly. “No, No dog.”

Olszak was pacing the small patch of floor. “Well,” he said at last, to Madame Aleksander, “this man Ryng isn’t interested in either you or the camp. That’s one good thing.” He turned to Sheila. “But I’m afraid I chose an unlucky night for your guide. You will have to wait until tomorrow night before you leave. When Zygmunt takes Madame Aleksander and Stefan back to the forest, then you will go with Peter. He should be fit, by that time.” Olszak gave Peter a bitter look and received an apologetic grin in return.

“I’ll be all right. Just tired. Sleep,” said Peter. He curled himself comfortably if somewhat precariously onto the bench,
pillowing his cheek on his arm.

“Not in here,” said Olszak, and with unexpected strength he pulled the half-sleeping man towards the door. “Sleep it off in the front room,” he said with a final push on the man’s shoulder which sent him lumbering down the hall. “Fool,” he added.

“You forget men aren’t trains. They can’t be made to run on time, Michal,” said Madame Aleksander. He didn’t answer. He stood at the door, listening.

Kati was helping Peter into the front room. And Zygmunt and Ryng were re-entering the house. Olszak waited until the babel of sound in the corridor had ended before he left the door. He was looking at his watch again.

“This is really most regrettable,” he said. He went over to Sheila unexpectedly. “I would take you to Nowe Miasto myself. But by tomorrow night I have to be near Warsaw. There’s a meeting which I must attend. I simply cannot come with you.”

“I’ll go with Peter tomorrow. It will be safe enough then. We’ll take care.” Mr. Olszak was watching her, measuring her lifeless face and the quiet voice. She would do as she had said.

“Good. Remember, after Radom the journey will be pleasanter.”

“Where do I go from there?” Again that quiet acceptance. He felt angry with himself. His voice was all the colder.

“To Cracow. Then to Vienna. By train. Your story and papers will reach you at Radom, where you will be hidden until they arrive. In three weeks’ time you should be—” He paused. He took her hand. “You must take care. You have suddenly become twice the responsibility you once were. I will be held doubly answerable for you now.” His eyes were half-laughing, half-serious. For the first time since she had known him, Mr.
Olszak seemed completely human.

Sheila smiled back. I don’t know why I like you at all, she was thinking. I should hate you; and yet I cannot. I don’t know why I should smile for you, except that I know you want me to. She said, “Yes.”

He kissed her hand, and quickly turned away. “Trust is the most powerful flattery,” he was saying in a low voice to Madame Aleksander. “She weakens my resolution, that girl.”

“Michal, what have you been doing?” Madame Aleksander challenged him.

“Playing the thankless role of father,” he answered.

Together they looked at Sheila. But the girl wasn’t listening to them. She had walked over to the high bed which stood in the corner of the room. She was standing before the little shelf beside it, with its two small candles under the carved figure on its cross. She was watching the hollow cheeks, the deep eyes, with a strangely curious detachment.

“What is it, Sheila?” Madame Aleksander asked at last. Sheila turned to face her slowly. Then she became alive, as she noticed the room again. Olszak had left.

“He’s gone?” she said quickly. And no reprieve. No last-minute reprieve. The last faint hope flickered and died.

“Come here, Sheila.” Madame Aleksander took her hand and led her to the bench. “Now the simplest thing is to begin at the beginning.”

But Kati had come back to the room. Her round pink face looked as if she were going to cry.

“Peter’s dead asleep,” she announced vehemently. “And Zygmunt’s getting louder and louder. Everything’s going wrong.”

“Provided Zygmunt doesn’t talk about the camp...” Sheila
began.

“He’s not doing that. He and Ryng was just telling stories.”

And Kati is temporarily forgotten, Sheila thought. She said, “Peter passed out very suddenly. Does he always do that?”

“Usually he’s careful, when he knows there’s a job to do. It must have been that last drink Ryng dared him to take. He said it was dynamite. Peter didn’t believe him.”

“But it was?” Sheila felt suddenly very wide awake. “Ryng gave him a drink? How? I thought you were serving Ryng drinks.”

“Ryng had a flask of his own.”

“Oh.” Sheila exchanged glances with Madame Alexander. “Kati, you’d better get back to that room and watch that flask.”

Kati looked at them. “Why can’t I have just one quiet evening nowadays, with my sewing?” she asked plaintively. “Just one?” Only Stefan didn’t understand.

Madame Aleksander watched the closing door. “The Germans have taken our food, but they let us have plenty of cheap drink. They’ve taken away our guns, but they let us carry flasks,” she said bitterly. Then she noticed Stefan’s heavy head and sagging shoulders. From the bed she lifted one of the solid pillows, straightened his body on the hard floor, cushioned his cheek. She pushed back the thick black hair from his brow, and kissed him gently. He was already asleep.

She rose to her feet, her hands straightening the mended skirt, the darned shawl, smoothing the white softness of her hair. She looked round the strange room.

“How lucky I am,” Madame Aleksander said. “I still have Stefan and Stanislaw.” She paused before the crucifix. “The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be His Holy
name,” she said quietly. She crossed herself slowly.

She came towards Sheila, tears for the first time in her blue eyes. She clasped the girl suddenly, and Sheila felt all her self-imposed barriers dissolving like the grey-edged ice of a glacier.

“Now,” said Madame Aleksander, putting aside her own worries and troubles, “we’ll begin at the beginning.”

THE STRANGER

Madame Aleksander was asleep. Sheila raised herself slowly, carefully. She lifted Madame Aleksander’s hand gently away from her arm, and slipped her feet over the edge of the high bed. The warmth of the room was stifling her. After the forest, the small room seemed overfurnished, overheated. Its small comforts irritated her. She opened the shutters more widely. Outside, there was silence, the grey shapes of trees, and houses, air which was crisp and cold and clean. She thought of the forest and the men who waited there.

Her feet began to freeze. She turned back to the bed and searched for her shoes. She watched Madame Aleksander for a moment. The calm, gentle voice still haunted her. “Don’t leave him without seeing him first, Sheila.” Sheila’s mouth was in a tight, unpleasant line as she buttoned the instep strap of one shoe. “He isn’t a regular soldier any more. His fighting isn’t governed by rules.” Sheila forced the other hard round button through its
tight hole. “Michal doesn’t know him as I do. He lived beside us, often with us. I knew him as a child and a boy so I know him better as a man than all the Michals in the world.” Sheila lifted the gun from under the pillow and secured it once more under her blouse. She reached for the shawl lying on the bench. “If he believes Michal is right, he will accept this. If he doesn’t, he will become morose, bitter, sullen. He will take wild chances.” Sheila walked over to the stove. Stefan’s head had slipped off the pillow onto the floor. She eased the boy’s strained neck back onto the pillow, tried to straighten the wrinkled blanket with which his mother had covered him last night when he had fallen asleep on the floor. “Adam’s greatest asset was his directness. He was always honest with himself. He never pretended, never compromised. Michal has been too quick to decide.” The ashes inside the stove’s little door seemed dead, and yet when the fresh wood was added, their heat would kindle flame. She wanted to laugh at her weak symbolism. It was the result of five o’clock in the morning, no sleep, and a gentle voice telling her the things which made her still more unhappy.

She walked to the door. The restlessness which hadn’t let her sleep, which had made it impossible to lie on that bed, now urged her on. Behind her, the still figures didn’t move. She stepped quickly into the corridor, closed the door carefully so that the latch slipping into position would not awaken them. In the long hall’s darkness, she felt her way with her hands pressed against the rough wall. There was heavy snoring from one of the closed doors which she passed. The smell of sour cabbage seemed stronger. Still the haunting voice said sadly, “Sheila, you were too honest to please me by marrying Andrew. You were too honest to go away with Steve on false pretence.
Keep that honesty. It’s the only thing that matters. Don’t do what you think is noble or clever. Do what you know is right.” In the front room, the half-opened door showed Peter and another man asleep over the large wooden table. The light was too dim—the shutter had been opened, but the sun had not yet risen—to let her see the other man clearly. Perhaps it was the man Ryng. No, he was going to sleep in the barn. It was probably the villager Zak, who had never got home to his own bed after last night’s celebrations. It didn’t matter, anyway. Everyone was asleep.