While Still We Live

  The shivering dog, its tail tucked well between its legs, moved uneasily round the room. It came to Sheila and cowered at her feet.

  “He’s filthy,” she said softly, sadly. We all are, she thought. And we are all just as afraid. She rubbed the dog’s head gently as the men talked. She felt her eyes close in spite of her attempt to hold them open and be polite. The dog had stopped shivering. He looked up at her. As one human being to another, he seemed to be saying, just what is wrong with the world these days?

  “How’s your hand?” Steve was standing beside her. She smiled for an answer; she was too tired to speak. He pushed her shoulders gently down onto the couch. The dog jumped up beside her, and none had the heart to put him down. Sheila listened to the men’s voices growing more blurred. The candles became a haze. The dog stared at her solemnly. She scratched his ear, and his watchfulness relaxed. He settled comfortably, and gave a small sigh.

  16

  CAPITULATION

  The bombardment continued unceasingly. In Stevens’ rooms the men were restless. When the guns seemed about to level off, they would talk and argue. They would make brief sorties out into a grotesque world where volunteers were useless. The end was near. The men felt it, and each made his own plans, his own preparations for that moment. Only the Americans and the Swede would be free men once the Germans came, and even they had to plan how they could keep that freedom.

  During the day, Bill’s remaining tins of food were scraped clean. The last bottle was emptied, and the final candle was inserted in its neck. The boards over the window had been loosened to let some light into the room, so that the candle could be saved for the night. A cold wind swept into the room and huddled them together in their coats. Once, either because the guns seemed to be directed more against the north of the city, or because sitting in this room had become unbearable (“It’s madness to go out,” Jim said, “but it’s misery to sit here and just wonder”), the men rose and left together. Sheila seized the chance to tidy the room. Now that she was alone, she had to do something. She couldn’t sit still and let herself just think. Even the Polish grammar book was no longer a diversion. She moved the conglomeration of private possessions into neat piles. She tried to get rid of some of the thick dust which drifted in clouds through the open window. After she had swept the white powder into heaps three times in succession and found that the coating of dust still lay on everything, she was forced to close the window boards. Barbara, she thought as she looked round the room, Barbara would have made a neater job. Barbara... She lifted the pail and almost ran downstairs, and went searching for the nearest well.

  It was farther away than she had thought, and it was an unpleasant journey. She almost wept with rage when a sudden blast, nearer than the others had been, made her duck so that almost half of the precious water was spilled onto the road. The little dog had followed her to the well, had waited patiently beside her in the long queue. He had kept very close to her, padding along beside her, looking up into her face now and again as much as to say, “See, I’ve got one of those humans, again. She’s got some quite good points, too. Might be intelligent. At least, she tries very hard. Perhaps I’ll get round to teaching her some tricks one of these days. She certainly learned very quickly how to walk on all fours this morning when she was retrieving the things on the floor.” His tail was carried proudly, his ears were erect. It hadn’t been the guns or the lack of food which had cowed him so much, last night. It had been the feeling of being lost, of being unwanted. He now lapped up the pool of water spreading at Sheila’s feet, and cocked his head to one side as he looked up waiting for more. His cool assumption made her laugh, and her rage vanished. Strange, she was thinking, that things never seemed so bad if you had someone—even a dog—to share them with. The last stretch of the journey seemed the easier for having the dog trotting along so closely beside her.

  The men had returned in her absence.

  “I told you to stay here,” Stevens said sharply. “You gave us a scare, walking out on us like that.”

  Schlott took the half-filled pail of water and said gently, “We can do this.”

  “You had other things to do. Besides, all the other women and children are standing in line for water. That’s our job now. I’m sorry my hand would only let me carry one pail. Doesn’t seem so much, does it?”

  “The pioneer woman,” Bill said and looked round the neat room in amusement.

  “The woman’s touch,” Jim said with pretended scorn. “Now it will take us two hours to get things comfortable again. I see the dog didn’t desert us, anyway. What shall we call him?” He reached down and shook the dog’s paw solemnly, “What shall we call you, funny face?”

  “Try some Polish on it,” the Frenchman said.

  Schlott obeyed, and they all laughed as the dog cocked his head to the side and his tail fluttered like a flag.

  Sheila, watching the relaxed faces round the little animal, thought, it’s a good thing that Jim did salvage this dog; it has given them all a new topic for conversation. For the arguments were now centred on breeds of dog, on dog-training and animal intelligence.

  “What shall we call it?” Sheila asked when these subjects had been exhausted.

  “Him, not it,” Jim said, as he tried to straighten the tangled coat with his broken comb. “Wonder who owned him? If you washed this soot off him, and combed him correctly, you’d have a good West Highland terrier. What about Prince Charlie?”

  The game started; each had his own idea of a name, and each idea led to another.

  The Frenchman said incredulously, “If anyone had told me a week ago that I should spend my last hours in Warsaw naming a dog, I would have said he was completely mad.”

  “This may keep us from going mad,” Schlott said.

  “What about me?” Sheila asked. She held up the torn jacket which she was trying to sew in order to keep herself occupied. “I think I ought to warn you that I’ve never sewn a man’s jacket or shirt before, in my life.”

  “No embroidered rosebuds on the collar, please,” Bill said.

  “What, none? I thought a spot of broderie anglaise would have been appropriate. Or perhaps you might prefer some Richelieu work round these holes? I can’t disguise them, I’m afraid.”

  “Just stop the seams from bursting altogether,” Jim said. “We only want these things to be able to hang onto us. It can’t be helped about the wide open spaces.”

  The man from Vienna alone said nothing, and didn’t laugh. He sat on the floor with his head resting against the wall, his eyes counting each unseen shellburst. But then, he had known what the Nazis were like: he had escaped from a concentration camp. He spoke only once. He said, “Do you realise the Germans may be crossing the bridges? Do you realise—”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “Hope some of them stick in the wire entanglements I met last night. If a Pole hadn’t shown me the way out, I’d have been hooked up there still. That is what made the holes, Sheila.”

  “We thought it was moths,” Stevens said, but Sheila noted that he too was listening openly to the falling shells, now. They all were. Schlott blew out the candle and removed a window board. A red glow spread over the opposite wall. Schlott began to curse, solemnly, sincerely.

  “Come on,” he said suddenly, and left the room. The others followed. They didn’t even pause, this time, to gather their equipment. Their footsteps clattered on the top stairs, and then were lost as the guns’ thunder grew louder. The dog whined uneasily and then lay down, its nose pointing to the door which swung half-open. Sheila collected Madame Knast’s sewing materials and replaced them neatly in their little wicker basket. She pretended to be busy, but the red glow on the wall was deepening, the house trembled with the distant blows like the engine room of a ship ploughing its way through heavy seas, the air which came into the room was hot and dry and smelled of sulphur. The dog coughed uneasily and padded about the room with its ears flat against its head. This is the end, Sheila thought as she lay down on the
couch. No one was going to live through this night. For a moment she had the impulse to go out and face this terror in the streets as the men had done. But then she remembered that if any of them did get back to find she was gone once more, then they’d come out searching again. She would have to stay where she was. Wait...wait... You waited for everything, for food and water, for the bombs to fall, for the night to come, for another day. Nothing but wait...

  The dog came over to where she lay. He took her forefinger gently between his teeth and held it that way for some moments, as if to say, “I’m here, too, you know.” She rubbed his cheek, and he jumped up beside her and crept to her side.

  She had to think about something. Not about people. Just about something. So she thought of London. She would take a bus-ride: from Hampstead down Tottenham Court Road into Charing Cross and Coventry Street and Piccadilly Circus. Then she would go up Regent Street, and along Oxford Street and then down Park Lane and through Hyde Park Comer along to Knightsbridge and Kensington. She was on her way back to Piccadilly, heading for Trafalgar Square and the Strand and Fleet Street, when she fell asleep.

  * * *

  The silence awakened her. It was morning. She sat up quickly on the couch and listened. Yes, the guns had stopped. The planes had gone. The silence was so immense, so overwhelming, that it terrified her.

  Outside, in the street, there were people. They were looking at the sky unbelievingly. They moved as in a daze.

  “Come on, dog,” Sheila said, and was shocked at the loudness of her voice. Had they all been yelling at each other in these last two days? The dog’s tail thumped on the floor. “Come on, dog,” she repeated quietly, and went down into the street carrying the pail. She had learned never make any trip without doing something necessary. The dog padded heavily on the stairs behind her. Yesterday she had only seen the movements of his paws: now she could hear them. Yesterday she hadn’t heard his tail thumping on the floor, she hadn’t even known the handle of the pail creaked. The little noises could live again.

  In the street, a grey-faced woman stopped her. “What is wrong?” the woman asked. Sheila heard others asking the same question. You talked to strangers, to anyone, to the windowless houses. The guns had stopped, and you asked “What is wrong?”

  She saw the two Americans and the Swede walking slowly towards her. Their faces were old and lined with fatigue. Their clothes and skin and hair were covered with a fine dust. Bakers out of hell, she thought. “Where are the others?” she asked.

  “The Englishman and the Frenchman have gone. It was time for them to go,” Schlott said heavily.

  “The Spaniard and the Austrian?”

  “They went over the Kierbedz bridge. They haven’t come back.”

  Sheila looked up at the grey haze of sky as the others had done. The men’s eyes followed hers. Their little group stood closely together. Grim faces moved quietly along the ruined streets, searching for food, for shelter, for water, searching. Three children stood at the edge of a bomb crater, filled with water wasted in its muddy hole. Sheila saw one small arm raised to throw a stone, heard the high-pitched little laugh as the water splashed round the boy’s feet. The others were playing that game, too. “I’m a bomber. See!” one child yelled suddenly as he threw a larger piece of stone. “I’m a machine gun,” cried another, and scooped up a double handful of gravel to shower into the pool. “Hear it! I’m a machine gun!”

  The shrill calls of the children were the only sound in the street.

  Stevens turned away, and the little group followed him.

  Upstairs in Stevens’ room, the men dropped wearily onto the couch and the floor.

  “What’s to do, now?” Schlott asked. “What’s to do, now that it’s all over?”

  “Some still want to fight on,” Bill said. “Some are weeping in the streets because they aren’t to be allowed to die any more. I saw men in tears.” He picked himself up from the floor, and tramped blindly into the bedroom. They heard the springs creak as he threw himself heavily on the bed.

  “What’s to do now?” Schlott repeated.

  “I’m damned if my side is going to lose,” Steve burst out. “I’m God-damned if it is going to lose. It—”

  Schlott pointed at Sheila, and Steve grew silent. He rose too and paced between the hall and the room.

  “We must not sit here with our thoughts for company,” Sheila said to Schlott. “I’ve these rooms to clean properly. There’s water to fetch and food to be found. There are friends to see. Perhaps they still need our help. But first of all, you must sleep. You’ve been out all night.”

  “Stuck in a cellar. No damned good to anyone,” Steve said bitterly.

  Sheila unfolded a blanket. “Sleep, Steve,” she suggested. “Here, or in Madame Knast’s room? There’s a comfortable bed there.

  Stevens shook his head and slowly wound a small alarm clock. “This is my own place,” he said. “I guess we are damned lucky to have it.” He took the blanket from Sheila. “There’s that meeting, this afternoon. Four hours, just give me four hours of sleep.” Sheila glanced anxiously over at Schlott to see if he heard, but he was already asleep. Steve stretched himself on the floor and placed the clock beside his head.

  Sheila went into the wreck of the kitchen, and the dog followed her.

  “What is it to be, dog?” she said. “Shall we clean up, or shall we get some water and food?” The dog cocked its head to the side, thumped its tail, and waited with bright brown eyes.

  “All right,” Sheila said. “Water and food.”

  She lifted the pail once more, and they went downstairs and joined the searching people.

  The strange thing about a bucket of water was the way its weight increased. She set down the pail at her feet for the third time on the homeward journey. The dog sat down, too. It waited, watching her face.

  “Stop looking at me!” she said half angrily. The dog’s tail circled, and she laughed at the sideways-held head. The boy who had been walking along the pavement towards her, his eyes fixed on the ground, looked up when he heard the laugh. He stood looking at her with angry, blue eyes.

  “It’s this dog,” Sheila said. “He makes me laugh.”

  The boy said nothing. His eyes followed Sheila’s pointed hand, and now he stood looking at the dog. The dog looked at him in turn, and cocked his head to the other side. The boy’s fingers snapped half-heartedly, and the dog’s front paws beat an excited little tattoo on the pavement’s dust. The boy smiled involuntarily. The dog sat up and begged.

  “It’s a nice dog,” the boy said slowly, and knelt to rumple its coat. He kept his head bent, his face well-hidden.

  Sheila picked up the pail, once more. The boy straightened. He kept his head turned away. “I’ll carry it,” he said in a muffled voice.

  “I haven’t very far to go,” Sheila said.

  “I’ll carry it.” He lifted the pail out of her hand.

  When they reached the hall of Madame Knast’s apartment, the boy hesitated awkwardly.

  “Do you need more water?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get it. Have you another bucket? I can carry two.”

  Sheila searched for the second pail. “Thank you,” she said when she had handed it to him, “this is really a great help to me.”

  The boy clattered down the staircase eagerly.

  When he came back, he seemed happier. The tight lines had gone from his mouth. And when Sheila, cornering the last heap of broken glass and china and dust beside the cardboard box, said “Splendid!” he seemed happier still. He insisted he could fill the box with the rubbish and empty it downstairs. He made several journeys, carrying the box carefully so that no dust spilled over. When he came back he stood at the kitchen door.

  “Anything else?” he asked shyly, but there was such a pathetic eagerness in his voice that Sheila halted her final thanks.

  “I was going out to try to buy some food,” she said instead. “Do you know where I could buy any?”
>
  “Not buy.” The boy stood thinking, and then added, “I may find some.”

  Again he clattered down the staircase. When he came back he had a cabbage tucked under one arm and a small piece of raw, roughly-hacked meat in the other hand.

  “We’ll build a fire, in the courtyard,” the boy said. “We’ll make soup in a covered pot. I’ll go and get scraps of wood from the street.”

  “Perhaps the caretaker has a wood stove,” Sheila suggested.

  “The caretaker isn’t there. I looked in his kitchen. The stove has gone too.”

  Sheila looked at him in amazement. “I don’t know what I should do without you,” she said truthfully. The boy flushed, and his face became more alive. He jumped down the staircase, three steps at one time.

  Before he came back for the soup pot, Sheila had wiped the withered-looking cabbage—she couldn’t waste water in washing it—and had cut it into strips. She did the same with the hunk of meat, averting her eyes at intervals. There was salt and some herbs in the little hand-painted jars on the kitchen dresser. She sprinkled them liberally into the water covering the meat and the cabbage, and handed the tightly lidded pot to the waiting boy. The dog, watching all these preparations with instinctive pleasure, looked apologetically over his shoulder as he trotted after the boy and the pot of food. “I’m not deserting you,” he seemed to say, “I’m just guarding this pot you understand.”

  From the courtyard, she heard voices. The fire was burning brightly in its three-sided nest of stones. The boy had found a piece of iron grille, a pretty thing with a twisting pattern of flowers and vine, and had placed it across the top of the stones. “There’s room for other pots, too,” she heard him say proudly, and saw some women in once smart clothes hurry away to carry out his suggestion. “Go and find more wood,” the boy was saying to the children who hung round to watch the flames. They obeyed him with excited whoops.

  But they all must live here, she thought in surprise. And then she smiled at herself. Of course they did. It was like the last night on a stormy sea voyage: people whose existence you never had suspected suddenly appeared out of their cabins, and the whole ship became amazingly inhabited.