While Still We Live

  “What’s wrong now?” she asked patiently.

  “The door of our room. I shut it firmly this morning.”

  “Well, it isn’t shut properly now.” It certainly wasn’t. The slight draught from the window had been sufficient to draw the door, improperly closed, a long inch away from its frame. “The old lady has been up looking for you,” Kati suggested, and then watched Sheila closing the door once more, testing the hasp. She shut it the way she had closed it this morning, cautiously, slowly. The door stayed firm.

  “Ryng had looked into his room. He probably looked through every room in this corridor,” Sheila said. She had got rid of that mad fit, Kati thought: her face was cold and hard now.

  “They’d have heard him,” Kati said, nodding towards the sleeping Aleksanders.

  “They haven’t heard us.”

  Kati shrugged her fine shoulders, but before she could answer, Sheila had crossed quickly over to the open window and pushed the shutters closer. Someone was outside, loitering. Ryng, no doubt. Loitering to see the dawn break, perhaps, just as he had loitered round this house looking for the food pantry. He made no pretence of silence now: he must have heard her footsteps. He was walking carelessly, kicking a stone along his path as he went. He was whistling softly to himself. Sheila tried to see out through the shutter’s hinge, but there was nothing to be recognised from that angle. All she could do was listen to the careless kicking at the stone, to the soft whistling as it faded.

  The practical Kati was attending to the stove. Madame Aleksander stirred restlessly, and woke. “Thought I heard something,” she said sleepily, and Kati laughed. But Sheila didn’t laugh. If I can just let my mind lie fallow, just for two minutes, just think of nothing, perhaps I’ll remember, she was saying to herself. For there was something to remember. The coarse voice in the hall with its touch of dialect...it held something of a voice she had heard once before.

  Kati pointed a poker at Sheila and said to Madame Aleksander, “She thinks something is wrong. She’s been hearing things, too.”

  Madame Aleksander had the good sense to keep quiet. She looked at Sheila, and then she sat up in bed. She began to fasten her corsets, button her dress, smooth her hair into its usual neat pattern.

  Sheila walked over to the stove. She stood watching the new flames, leaping greedily inside their little cave. The stove door had been left open to increase the draught. She warmed her hands, and looked at the charcoal’s orange glow.

  Kati was worried about the continued silence. “What’s wrong, anyway?” she said. “He was a man searching for food. What’s wrong about that?”

  “A man searching for something,” Sheila said slowly.

  “Aye. For his wife and her young brother, Zygmunt got bored to sleep with his story, last night!”

  Sheila bit her lip. “Zygmunt. Get Zygmunt. And Peter,” she said suddenly.

  “Zygmunt? He’s still asleep. When he’s asleep, he stays asleep.”

  “Get him, Kati.”

  The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Well, don’t blame me for his language,” she said.

  Madame Aleksander was wakening Stefan gently. “Please, Stefan. We may have to leave.” Her eyes watched Sheila’s face anxiously.

  There were other signs of life in the house, now. A woman’s voice, strong and confident, was giving orders. That would be Jadwiga—Kati’s mother. Doors opened noisily. Shutters creaked. There was a sound of dishes, of a stiff broom sweeping a hard floor. Peter and the man Zak stumbled out of the front room, and Jadwiga’s voice followed them. Sheila heard the hiss of water, as the two men wakened their heavy heads under the cold stream from the pump. The hiss of water...water hissing against a hot dusty pavement. A man whistling softly... whistling the same little tune she had heard that morning...

  What has he to be happy about?

  “God...” Sheila said. “Oh, God.”

  “What is it, Sheila?” Madame Aleksander came over quickly. Kati and Zygmunt, with wild hair and his half-opened shirt wet with water, stood at the door.

  “Kati,” Sheila said very quietly. “Ryng is not a Pole. He is a German. His real name is Dittmar.”

  Her denunciation ended in anti-climax. They all stared at her unbelievingly. Zygmunt’s face was still half drugged by sleep.

  “What’s that?” he said slowly.

  “He’s a spy. I first met him as Henryk, a Polish concierge at Professor Korytowski’s flat. When war came, he changed to an official in the German Auslands-Organisation, working closely with the Gestapo. He arrested and questioned you after my disappearance, Madame Aleksander.”

  Everyone turned to the older woman. She shook her head nervously, blankly.

  “The name means nothing... I didn’t catch any of their names when they questioned me. They were just...faces.”

  Sheila said, “A tail man of about forty, powerful shoulders, round white face, small grey eyes, straight mouth with thin lips, short nose, long upper lips, short bristling fair hair growing over a once-shaved head?”

  Madame Aleksander looked amazed. “Yes, there was one with very short hair, almost a shaven head. And grey eyes, small and hard...”

  Kati was staring too. “That’s Ryng, all right. You’ve got him pat.”

  Stefan suddenly broke his attentive silence. “That was the man who was at Zorawno, yesterday morning, when I went there to warn its Jadwiga about the shot.”

  Kati looked at Zygmunt in alarm. “It’s the camp, Zygmunt. That’s what he’s after.”

  Stefan said, “Mother, perhaps he followed you after all. Perhaps that dog...”

  “No,” Sheila said, “he came for none of those things, but he may have found out about them. Zygmunt, did he describe his wife to you? How she might be travelling?”

  Zygmunt was very much awake now. His face still looked tired, but his eyes were alert. “She was a blonde, quite young, with pretty fair hair to her shoulders. She had delicate hands but the left one had been scarred by a pot of boiling soup. The brother was young, just a kid. They were travelling south, trying to hide from patrols. There was an older man with them at one time. A big fellow. Ryng seemed jealous about that man. Didn’t know whether he was the reason his wife had disappeared, or whether it was the Germans. I felt kind of sorry for him: he was sort of worried.”

  Sheila looked at her left hand, and so did Stefan.

  “You and Jan and me,” he tried to say. Sheila nodded.

  “Devil take his pock-marked soul! Bloody fool that I’ve been,” Zygmunt said.

  “You were out on a raid when we arrived in camp, Zygmunt. You didn’t know that Jan and Stefan and I arrived together, or that my hair was longer, then. But at least we know that Dittmar came here looking for me. Not for the camp. But he traced us to this district and then we vanished into thin air. Now, he has seen Madame Aleksander here, knows she evaded the men who followed her from Warsaw, knows she must have friends here to help her. Yesterday he heard a shot from the forest although the villagers had told him the forest was a dead place with all its paths blocked by undergrowth. When he adds up all these things the answer will be that refugees are hidden in the forest.”

  “But how did he know we came south towards the forest?” Stefan asked.

  “He found out that we were travelling south. After that it was only a matter of searching. He probably examined all reports from patrols, and what he didn’t learn from the Germans, he learned from the Poles who believed his story.”

  “But why should he follow you? What are you to him?” Zygmunt asked bluntly.

  “Because I could tell him about so many things.”

  “You wouldn’t, Sheila,” Stefan said.

  “I’d try not to. But they might take a long time to kill me.”

  “Sheila!”

  Sheila shrugged her shoulders. “There’s no use pretending to be heroic in the face of torture. No one knows how he will behave until he is actually being taken apart, bit by bit.”

  “Sheila!” Again it was M
adame Aleksander. The others were silent.

  Then, “What about the camp?” Kati asked.

  “If he really knew about it, he would now be travelling to the nearest German garrison to give the alarm. His guess about the forest will only be that it’s a refuge for hunted people.”

  “But even that is dangerous,” Madame Aleksander said. “That could lead him to the camp.”

  Again there was that silence.

  “We had better take care of him,” Zygmunt said. “You are sure about him?”

  “Yes,” Sheila said, and then thought how strange it was to condemn a man like this. “I didn’t see him this morning. But I’m sure.”

  Zygmunt limped towards the window and pushed back the shutters. “Dawn’s here,” he announced. “Stefan, take your mother eastwards to the line of trees there. Wait. When it’s evening, move towards the forest. You can guide her that way?”

  “Of course.”

  “First you go east, to the line of trees. Then when light fades, you travel south to the forest, then west until you reach the path by which you came last night. The patrol will see you coming. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” A grin spread strangely over Zygmunt’s dark face. “No telephone from here—the line’s been down since that last big thunderstorm. And the line’s down too in Zorawno where he heard the shot. He knows a lot, but he can’t get any information out. He will have to leave before he can let the Germans know. And he can’t leave. He’s got to watch us!” Zygmunt began to laugh, a deep low laugh which brought a smile to all the anxious faces.

  “Must we go now?” Madame Aleksander asked, and the smiles laded.

  Zygmunt nodded and Kati moved towards the door. “I’ll warn my mother and Peter and Zak,” she said as she left the room.

  Madame Aleksander crossed over to a corner of the room, and picked up a small bundle. “My worldly possessions,” she said, half sadly, half defiantly.

  “Couldn’t we go straight to the forest, now?” Stefan asked impatiently.

  “If they knew they weren’t seen?” Sheila asked in support. She didn’t like the idea of Madame Aleksander waiting out in the open country all day. It seemed so dangerous, so vulnerable.

  “If they knew. But it’s a big if,” Zygmunt answered slowly. He didn’t favour the idea, obviously.

  Stefan shrugged his shoulders. “And you?” he asked.

  “I’ll come on later.” Zygmunt looked at his hands. “I’ve business to do,” he said.

  Kati returned with the news that her mother was taking the German some food to keep him quiet, that Zak was with her mother and was going to stay in the barn with the man. Peter was already outside, waiting for the boy and his mother to leave. He was to guard their going.

  Madame Aleksander gave Sheila a long embrace. They had still much to say, and yet could say nothing. Stefan’s grasp on Sheila’s hand tightened.

  “We’ll meet again,” Madame Aleksander said at last. “Sometime. We will.”

  Sheila kissed the wet cheeks.

  “Dear Sheila,” Madame Aleksander said softly.

  Zygmunt was leading them out of the room. Kati pretended to fasten the blouse and skirt which she had added to her costume. Then she threw more wood on the fire, and closed the oven door. She picked up Stefan’s pillow, began pounding the bed’s mattress, and arranging the quilted cover. She avoided looking at Sheila, and Sheila was grateful.

  “I liked her,” Kati said suddenly. “Before the war, all of us here used to talk about people like her. We used to say ‘Those others with the big houses and fine clothes, they are really soft and weak. We may be poor, but we are strong.’ In the last month, I’ve seen all kinds of people coming through this village. There were cowards among them, and brave men among them. But never did the cowards all belong to one class, nor did all the brave men.”

  “Yes,” Sheila said. It was a relief to talk about something impersonal. “Yes, we are a mixed lot. All classes have their brave men, and all have their shirkers. That’s what my uncle used to say. He used to say the only true classes in a country were the first-rate men and the second-raters, and it didn’t matter how much or how little they possessed.”

  “Was he a communist, this uncle?”

  Sheila smiled, remembering Uncle Matthews and his contempt for revolution. (“Too many first-rate men get killed off because they aren’t workers; too many second-raters among the workers are honoured just because they have the right password,” was what he had once said. “Revolution’s wasteful.”)

  “No,” Sheila said, “I wouldn’t call him that. He believes that there are good men in all classes of society and that they should be preserved and encouraged. If anyone has to be liquidated or strung up to a lamp-post, then it should be those who just won’t do any job well, whoever or whatever they are. Only, I don’t think he would believe in having them liquidated. Just openly scorned and despised would be enough for his sense of justice.”

  Kati looked puzzled. “But he doesn’t believe in classes, then. That’s communism.”

  “He doesn’t believe in one class dominating. He believes in the best men of all classes being the leaders. He doesn’t divide people into horizontal levels. He divides them vertically: good citizens, bad citizens. He believes there’s a natural aristocracy among people: an aristocracy of courage and brains and human decency.” “But those who have much, they think they are the best.”

  “In some countries, yes. In others, those who have little think they are the best. Both are snobs. Quote, unquote.”

  “What?”

  “That’s my expurgated version of my uncle’s beliefs.”

  “I would like to meet this uncle,” Kati said with a smile. “I think he would like to meet you and Zygmunt and Madame Aleksander and—”

  “What does he call this political party?”

  Sheila was smiling again. “The Weed-killers,” she said. Kati looked at her disbelievingly, and then she was laughing, too.

  “Zak must talk with you,” she said. “He’s always discussing such things. He loves to argue.” She paused and listened. “Zygmunt’s a long time away.” And then with an effort, as if she were trying to keep from worrying, “We Poles talk a lot. It was the only thing we could do in the Captivity. Our fathers could only meet in secret, and talk and talk and talk. We got the habit then, I suppose.”

  “Who is Zak?” Sheila asked. This waiting seemed interminable. Had something gone wrong after all? What was happening outside?

  “The Elder of our village. We elect him... A sort of mayor. We’ve elected him for many years. He is wise.”

  “Don’t you ever want a change?”

  “We couldn’t get a better man. We might get a worse one.”

  The bed was neat, the room tidied. There was nothing else to do, except wait. Talk was no longer an escape from worry.

  * * *

  And then Zygmunt came, quite oblivious of the anxiety which he had caused.

  “Well away,” he said, his ugly and yet somehow not unpleasing face relaxed in a broad grin. “I stood and watched them go. No German patrol in sight. Peter went with them to the end of the village.”

  A small thin woman followed Zygmunt. She carried a plate of food. “I’ve brought you something to eat,” she said in her deep, strong voice, and handed Sheila a slab of dry bread and sausage. “Don’t wolf it,” she said sharply to Zygmunt. “It’s all you can get. The Szwaby have marked down every pig we own, every blade of rye. It’s been a job, I can tell you, getting these supplies for the camp smuggled out of sight.”

  “We know, mother,” Zygmunt said with his mouth shamelessly full. He patted the woman’s wrinkled cheek, and finished his portion of bread and sausage in three bites. “But I prefer to have a good taste of my food.” He pointed to Sheila. “See! She’s wasting it. She doesn’t even get one real mouthful.”

  They were laughing, partly at Zygmunt’s good humour, partly in relief that all was going so well, when Peter
entered the room.

  “All well?” Zygmunt asked quickly.

  “Aye.” Everyone relaxed again, and smiles were easy. “They reached the line of trees. No German patrol in sight.”

  “Good. Now while the mice are nibbling at their food, we’ll discuss our plans.” Zygmunt settled himself comfortably on the bench along the wall, his arm round Kati. Her mother, whom Sheila only knew as “Jadwiga,” sat beside Sheila near the stove. Peter leaned his tall body against a heavily carved table.

  Zygmunt spoke again. “Zak is with the German. In the barn. Talking. I’m going there now to take the German for a walk. Out of the village. I’ll come back alone. What do you say to that, mother?”

  Jadwiga nodded. “Out of the village,” she said. “Keep the village safe, and that keeps the forest safe.” She nodded again. Her blue eyes were strangely young against the fine network of wrinkles over her brown cheeks. She fingered the empty plate on her lap with her broad, large-knuckled fingers. “And then?”

  “The girl leaves tonight with Peter. Keep her hidden in here. The less known about her, the better.”

  “Aye. Now, if you can let go my daughter’s waist, get on with your dead German.”

  Zygmunt rose, grinning. “It isn’t your daughter’s waist which keeps me here. It’s your beautiful bright blue eyes, my darling.”

  Jadwiga’s hard, anxious face relaxed for a moment. “Get on with you,” she said.

  Zygmunt limped towards the door. He turned to say something to Sheila, “You’re sure about—”

  And then the door opened. An unpleasantly business-like Luger pointed at them. Behind it was Dittmar, tight-eyed, tight-mouthed.

  “Back against the wall, all of you. Hands high!” he commanded. “And drop that plate. Quick!”

  The plate crashed on the floor.

  His eyes travelled round them slowly, rested on Sheila. “So all the birds haven’t flown,” he said. And a smile, which contained much satisfaction and little charm, spread slowly across his face.

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