While Still We Live

  “Yes. I’ll explain that later, once you have answered a few questions. Now, quietly, Miss Matthews. Please be patient. The questions are important to me. First, what did you know about your father? What did your uncle tell you?”

  “Only that my father was killed in the war.”

  “Did you never ask for more information than that?”

  “Of course. But you don’t know Uncle Matthews. He isn’t very communicative. There wasn’t even a photograph of my father. And it was only last winter, when Andrew Aleksander came to London, that I found out that my father had died in Poland. I had always thought it was France.”

  “Men like your father, Miss Matthews, don’t go about being photographed, and don’t have medals pinned on their chests. When they are wounded, it must be explained by the word ‘accident’. When they are killed, there is no military funeral, no name on a Roll of Honour. Their families can’t talk about their deeds, for their families even don’t know about them.”

  “My father was a spy?” Sheila asked haltingly.

  “A spy, to me, is someone who finds out information for a certain amount of money. The money smothers his conscience if he is a traitor. If he is a patriot, the money softens the lack of public recognition. But there is another word which I prefer to give to men who care neither for the money nor for any recognition. Their lives are often ruined; they may meet an unpleasant death; but they fight in their own way—with their brains, secretly, courageously—because all that matters to them is what they are fighting for. I think it is only fair to give them full credit for that. Shall we say that your father was a secret agent?”

  Sheila didn’t answer.

  “Now tell me another thing... Why did you come to Poland this summer?”

  Sheila said with some difficulty, “Partly because I wanted to see the Aleksanders. Partly because I wanted to see where my father had died.”

  “I want you to be frank, for I have been frank with you. You came to see the Aleksanders?”

  Sheila’s colour deepened. “Andrew wanted to marry me. I wasn’t quite sure. I...”

  Olszak seemed pleased. “That’s better,” he said. “Now you are being as frank as I am. Good. And when you came to Poland, you intended to leave before any trouble started?”

  Sheila’s face was scarlet. “Yes. It sounds mean and callous now. But I never thought of it that way then, somehow.”

  “Why didn’t you keep your intentions?”

  “I’ve been trying to find out the reasons for myself. Perhaps I stayed so long because Poland was so like, and yet so unlike, anything I had expected. We, the people at home I mean, don’t know so very much about Poland. And when I stayed here, I found a lot of answers which I hadn’t found in books. You can’t capture the spirit of a people by just studying facts. You’ve got to live with people, and talk and argue and laugh with them and see their worries, before you begin to understand why they believe certain things, do certain things. I felt I was beginning to understand a little. And it was important to me that I should at least begin to understand. For although I never knew much about my father, I’ve thought of him...a good deal. When I learned he had died in Poland, I wanted to know why. I mean, I wanted to find out what he believed in so strongly that he was willing to risk his life here. I felt if I learned about Poland, I might learn something about my father.”

  “That’s one reason. Any other?”

  Sheila hesitated. She was embarrassed that Mr. Olszak should be playing father confessor, embarrassed in case she bored him. But he didn’t seem impatient or bored.

  He was saying, “Yes?” very quietly.

  That gave her courage. “Another reason, a lesser one but still another reason, was the fact that I have never known much about what we call ‘family life’. I got plenty of it with the Aleksanders. I liked it. I wanted to hang onto it as long as I could. That was how the weeks vanished.”

  “Yes?”

  “And then, I just lost my temper at the station last night, I think.”

  “Why?”

  “Because... Oh, just because.”

  “Because?” Sheila had a feeling that Mr. Olszak was waiting eagerly for the answer, as if much depended on it.

  “Well, I felt—perhaps I’m wrong—I felt that the people at the station weren’t leaving Poland so that they could join the fight in their own countries, or because they wanted to go on fighting in other places. I felt all they wanted was to get away from the fight. And do you know what I wanted? I wanted just one bomb, only one, to be dropped right on top of them. That’s how they made me feel.”

  Olszak’s smile didn’t appear. “I am glad you didn’t tell that to Colonel Bolt. He would have thought you were an anarchist. What are your politics, if you have any?”

  “A liberal,” Sheila said firmly.

  “I didn’t know there were any left. What makes you so sure of being a liberal, Miss Matthews?” His voice was amused, now.

  “My conservative friends say I am a radical. My communist friends say I am a reactionary. So obviously, I must be a liberal.”

  Olszak wasn’t smiling at all, yet strangely enough she knew he was laughing. It seemed as if the sardonic smile was there only when he was not amused.

  “Now, what do you know about your uncle?”

  “Uncle Matthews?” Sheila was on guard although she still smiled. “Oh, he’s a business-man. He’s been very good to me, really. It must have been a frightful bore to have a month-old baby dumped on him. Especially when he is what you might call a total bachelor.”

  But Mr. Olszak wasn’t to be sidetracked.

  “Come, Miss Matthews, you promised to be frank. It saves so much time.”

  “I know nothing except the usual things any niece knows about her uncle. He has been very busy recently. Exporting and importing, you know.”

  “Shall I phrase it another way? What do you think about your uncle?”

  “I’m very fond of him. He’s rather a pet, although he looks formidable enough.”

  “Miss Matthews, you are fencing. Why? Did your uncle send you for any reason to this country?”

  “Send me?” She felt relieved that she could once more give a direct answer. “Why, he wasn’t even in England when I left! He travels a good deal. I sent him a letter explaining why I had decided to accept the Aleksanders’ invitation. By the time the letter reached him, I was already on my way here.”

  “Didn’t he ask you to come home?”

  “Recently there have been telegrams from him,” Sheila admitted.

  There was a pause and a sharp look from Mr. Olszak. “In a way, I am pleased with the way in which you have fenced. It proves a certain loyalty, a certain control. And they are important. But I am not asking you to betray your uncle. I know about him. More than you’ll ever know. And,” Olszak tightened his voice to a command, silencing Sheila’s lips as they opened, “don’t give me that export-import stuff once more. I know your uncle would not tell you anything important, but I think you can add two and two together as well as anyone. You have the advantage of being pretty, so that most people will underrate you. I, however, have not fallen into the mistake of underrating you. I know you must have had suspicions about your uncle, but because he didn’t want you or anyone else to have them, you very loyally avoided thinking about them. Isn’t that so?”

  Sheila’s memory was already working. Things, little things she had noticed about her uncle’s life, about his visitors, about his trips abroad, came crowding into her mind. Old unanswerable questions, old half-formed guesses now began to take the more solid shape of possibilities. Particularly after the news about her father...secret agent. She returned Mr. Olszak’s stare.

  “Remembering now, Miss Matthews?”

  “Nothing very much,” she said, and didn’t let her eyes waver.

  “Your uncle will be pleased with such obstinate discretion. But it adds to my difficulties. All I wanted to know was whether you came here with a particular mission entrusted to you, or
not. All I wanted was any information or knowledge which you had gathered here in recent weeks. It might save me much time. More important, it might save lives. We are on the same side, aren’t we?”

  “Of course we are. But I can’t help you in any way; I would like to, but I can’t. For I know nothing. I am what is called the innocent bystander.”

  Olszak replaced his glasses carefully. “Well, that’s as far as we get, I see,” he said, and swung his legs off the desk. Sheila rose with relief. “May I go?”

  “Only next door, I’m afraid. You’ll have to stay near me or be locked up as a suspected enemy agent; Colonel Bolt still has you on his little list.”

  “But you could tell him all about my father!”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  Olszak took a long time to light a cigarette.

  “Miss Matthews, just as Colonel Bolt found the evidence pointing to you as a German agent, I found the evidence pointing to you as a probable British agent. Don’t look so incredulous. I admit I am beginning to think I was wrong, too. But that was why I let the drama in Colonel Bolt’s room almost reach the third act. I can, as you very pointedly say, close it now. If you have no wish to help us, I will close it. I can go to Colonel Bolt, tell him I find you absolutely innocent, and your name will have that description written after it in his records. You will then be free to go. Will that please you?”

  “It would be something of a relief.”

  “But if I told you that you could be more useful to us, to Poland and Britain and our friends, by allowing Colonel Bolt’s records to have a grave question mark against your name, would you let that question mark still remain?”

  Sheila looked puzzled. She was groping for a meaning.

  “What do you mean by ‘useful’?” she asked at last.

  “That depends on the future. If we are faced with a catastrophe, then people like you who are willing to fight with only courage and brains for weapons will be very useful, indeed.”

  The only meaning that Sheila could discover in Mr. Olszak’s words was so fantastic that she simply stared.

  “I only hope the future for which I must plan now will not happen,” the exact voice continued. “I hope this with all my heart. I see you look horrified, Miss Matthews. I am not a defeatist. I am being a realist. In the past I’ve had grim experience in how to organise and fight hidden battles. I am talking, you see, of the possibility of a temporary German victory. For, if Germany’s overwhelming preparations for war do win, then there will be some of us who are already prepared in our turn to carry on the fight until the day Germany is ultimately beaten. That is one possibility of the future. And this is the one time that I hope all my plans and preparations will never need to be used.”

  Sheila decided to risk her fantastic guess. “In such a future, the Germans would be interested in anyone who was marked down in your police records as a possible traitor to Poland?”

  “I should think so.”

  “If you could have people on these records who were innocent of such charges and who would work with you, then you would find them useful against the Germans?”

  “That could be possible.”

  “Was that interview with Colonel Bolt a complete farce? Did he know I was innocent, after all?”

  “Good God, no. There’s only one man in the Security Police who knows why I have been appointed as Special Commissioner. Bolt would have apoplexy at the idea we were using his records for our own purposes. Of course, many of those whose names appear on the records are guilty; they get their deserts. Those I know to be innocent either ‘escape’ or are released under ‘strict surveillance’. But the question mark remains against their name in Colonel Bolt’s files.”

  “And they become your men? For future use, if necessary?”

  “You make me sound very autocratic,” Olszak said gently. “I assure you that I and my friends have merely decided on a certain course of action as a precautionary measure. An insurance policy, shall we say, against evil days?”

  Sheila studied a blot of ink on the surface of the desk. They either “escape”...

  “Was Hofmeyer really a German?” she asked innocently. Or was he an English agent, working under her uncle as her father had done?

  Olszak arranged some of the papers on his desk very casually. “I hardly expected such a wild guess from you, Miss Matthews.”

  Sheila, feeling very young and very stupid, offered her justification. “There seems to be a strong connection between my uncle and Hofmeyer. You have hinted that my uncle is no mere business-man, that he is more interested in other things, that he is doing the kind of work my father did. Then you jumped to the conclusion that I was an agent as soon as you saw that Hofmeyer leaflet which I had in my handbag. And Mr. Hofmeyer did say Matthews correctly. And he seemed to recognise me when he first saw me, so perhaps he knew my father, too. And then, he did escape in time.”

  Olszak ignored all that. “Matthews...” he was saying. “Anyone can say Matthews correctly, if they only read it correctly.”

  “You don’t say it correctly, Mr. Olszak.”

  They looked at each other steadily, and then Mr. Olszak surprised her by throwing back his head and laughing loudly. “Well,” he said at last, “I don’t pronounce Matthews correctly. Imagine that!” But Sheila felt that he had turned her question about Hofmeyer very adequately.

  Mr. Olszak looked at his watch. “The last train for refugees leaves at seven. In half an hour, to be exact. What is it to be? Do you take the train, with your name cleared of all charges against it? Or do you stay here, and help us as I have proposed?”

  “I will not take the train.”

  “Then you have no alternative if you stay in Poland. You see Miss Matthews—rightly or wrongly pronounced—you have been caught up in a chain of events, which will make it dangerous for us to have you here unless we can trust you fully. I know you aren’t against us. But that isn’t enough. Knowing what you do, you must be with us, completely. For I must be sure of one thing. To put it quite brutally, your name, left in the doubtful category on our police files, will ensure your silence.”

  Sheila said slowly, “I see.” She did, only too clearly. She brushed the hair back from her forehead. She looked suddenly so young and uncertain that Mr. Olszak came over to her and took both her hands in his.

  “You mustn’t think I enjoy talking to you like this. But either you go straight back to England, having taken a very solemn oath never to speak of these matters, never to think of them, again...and I’ll have to send someone with you to make sure you do arrive safely. I shall also have to write a report to your uncle, so that he will see that you remain thoroughly discreet... Or, you stay here and leave your name on the files of the Security Police. I won’t have to worry about you then.”

  “But I would have plenty of worries if you got killed, or if my friends heard I had been arrested. I couldn’t explain anything to them.”

  “No, you could not.” Olszak looked pleased, as if she were showing the right responses.

  “But why would you have to send someone to protect me on the journey home?”

  “I am quite sure that your arrest will have become known to people who take an interest in these matters. Your name will also be on the German files.”

  “So soon?”

  “You are so trusting, Miss Matthews. It must be very pleasant to be so trusting.” He looked at her still more closely. “Perhaps you don’t want to accept my proposal unless you know exactly what it entails? Yet, I’m afraid, that’s what I can’t tell you. You must take my word for it that I shall ask you to do nothing impossible or useless.”

  Sheila smiled, but she still didn’t give him an answer.

  “Why don’t you rest next door? You can think about it, and if you decide to return to Britain, I shall see you get there, train or no train. You’ll find some magazines and a radio and a comfortable chair. And be sure to black out the window before you switch on the light.
I’ll order a tray with some food, and I’ll telephone Korytowski so he will stop worrying about your absence. I have other work to do, meanwhile. Orthodox work, approved by Colonel Bolt’s investigation of diversionist activities.”

  “Diversionist?”

  “Oh, Germans pretending to be Polish-Germans of great loyalty, who will inform against all Polish-Germans of great loyalty once the Germans get hold of them. Or Germans pretending to be Polish-Germans, to stir up trouble and spread untruths and panic among Polish-Germans. Or just Germans, doing their best to defeat us before the war even starts. What is wrong, Miss Matthews? You look amazed.”

  “It is all so mad, so difficult to believe. I mean, things all being planned under the surface, while ordinary people just eat and sleep and think about their own problems.”

  “Life is never simple, Miss Matthews, except for those who close their eyes and will not see. You thought I was being overdramatic at the beginning of our conversation. Perhaps you even thought I was at the stage of inventing secret and mysterious plans to satisfy my wild imagination. I said I was a realist. I am. But I don’t blame you for not quite believing my urgency. Anything outside of one’s own experience always seems ‘unreal,’ ‘fantastic,’ ‘unconvincing’. That’s the way most human beings react. Do you still think that I and my friends are mad?”

  “No.” Sheila smiled as she added, “I begin to think that I and all my friends may be the mad ones. At least, we haven’t been exactly realists, and I suppose it’s madness not to be realistic. My only worry now is—well, I don’t think I’d be any good to you at all, Mr. Olszak.”

  “Won’t you let me be the judge of that? After all, I’ve been watching you more closely than you think, during this conversation. I must say, you’ve shown a certain alertness and mental agility.” He was waiting for her answer, she knew.

  Sheila took a deep breath, and walked to the door leading into the next room.

  “You have work to do,” she said in a low voice. And then, as she opened the door, she paused. “Mr. Olszak, what happens to a simpleminded person like myself who finds out too much, and can’t cooperate with you?”