While Still We Live

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t bring that up, Miss Matthews.”

  She closed the door behind her, leaving Olszak examining a sheet of paper.

  “You may not have found out too much, yet,” she told herself bitterly, “but you certainly guess too much.”

  She turned on the wireless set, in order to divert her worries. Her purpose was certainly achieved. She felt an increasing disgust with herself as she listened. The news was still worse, and here she was insisting on making her own choice of the way in which she wanted to help. At a moment like this, choice became a selfish privilege. And why didn’t she want to accept Mr. Olszak’s suggestion? Was she afraid? She might as well face it: she was afraid. Afraid of being called a traitor when she wasn’t one. Afraid of living with fear and worry and lies. Afraid of being incapable and unsuccessful. Afraid of a possible death which would not earn her any kind memories. She was not only a coward, but a vain little coward.

  The announcer’s voice was saying “...certain amount of unrest on the Polish frontier, due to diversionist activities. The Government asks...continue to keep calm...”

  She listened to the radio voice, to the traffic sounds dying away on the street outside. She watched evening come to the waiting city, to people heart-sore and mind-weary. She saw the cold wind rising, blowing the dry dust in little swirls off the pavement. Darkness came, and with it were no lights.

  When Mr. Olszak entered the room, it was fully eleven o’clock. He stopped at the doorway in amazement, silhouetted against the brightness of the other room.

  “Why in the darkness?” he began, crossed over to the window to close it and its screen of black cloth, and switched on the light. He shook his head as he noticed the half-eaten food on the tray, the untouched magazines. He switched off the radio, now talking of Danzig, and waited for her to speak. Sheila rubbed her cold hands together. Her foot doubled under her as she rose from the edge of the chair.

  “Take off your shoes and stand with your foot flat on the floor,” Mr. Olszak commanded.

  Sheila began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny? Standing that way to cure cramp?”

  “No. Just having cramp at this moment. I wanted to rise, erect and noble, and say, ‘Mr. Olszak, I agree to do what you think is best. Instead, I stand here listing to starboard, trying to straighten my leg.”

  “That’s better,” Mr. Olszak said, “that’s much better.” He wasn’t referring to her cramped foot. Behind the solemn grey-green eyes he was thinking, she can laugh at herself again. For a moment his thoughts touched on the girl’s dead father. When Matthews had joked about a personal emotion, it had meant a depth of feeling that had better not be underestimated. And then, Olszak’s mind switched back to the cold room and the girl whose loose, fair hair fell over her eyes as she bent to find her shoe. He knelt quickly and replaced the shoe on her foot and smiled to himself as he noticed her confusion. They are so independent nowadays, and at the same time so young, he thought. She was twenty-three. At twenty-three, his mother was not only married, with three children, but had followed his father into political exile in Czarist Russia. At twenty-six, she was a widow with four children, and all her possessions in Poland had been confiscated when her husband was executed. At thirty-seven, she was a grandmother, and had seen two of her sons imprisoned like their father. At fifty-seven, she was a great-grandmother, with all her sons (except Olszak himself) killed in the last war. She too had taken part in that war, sheltering escaped prisoners from German camps, aiding her grandsons and their friends when they were wounded in guerrilla fighting. She still lived, in a neat little house in a small village, high in the Carpathian mountains. People had always thought how gentle and frail she was.

  And then Olszak became aware that Sheila was watching him. “You aren’t really so terrifying as I thought,” she wanted to say. But the quick change in Mr. Olszak’s eyes silenced her.

  “What do you want me to do?” she said, equally business-like.

  “At the moment, nothing. I want you to go back to Korytowski’s flat. I’ll have a story ready for Colonel Bolt in the morning, so don’t worry about that. Shall we say that you are still under my department’s observation? Forget everything we have been talking about. Be natural. But keep alert. That’s all.”

  Sheila looked keenly at Mr. Olszak. Her initial disappointment over the first sentence of his speech now vanished. She thought she detected a rather satisfied look in Mr. Olszak’s eyes.

  “I shall take you to the flat now.”

  “I can manage, really. You are probably too busy, Mr. Olszak.”

  Mr. Olszak said patiently, “I shall take you to the flat.”

  In the cold darkness of the street, an unobtrusive man silently joined them as they entered a cab. Nothing was spoken throughout the slow journey. They left the cab more than a block away from Korytowski’s home. The unobtrusive man lagged behind them, so that he was out of sight when Sheila and Mr. Olszak were admitted through the wrought-iron gateway by a sleepy Henryk.

  Henryk was curious in spite of his half-closed eyes. He gave Olszak a nod of recognition, but his chief interest was in Sheila. The lamp, now blue in colour, above his house door gave a feeble light which sicklied their faces. Three ghosts stared at each other. Then Olszak had taken her arm in his special grip above the elbow, and they left Henryk’s square white face with its two black shadows of close-set eyes.

  “He looked like a clown, a clown with a whitewashed face,” Sheila said.

  “He’s hardly a clown. He may be many things, but not that. I like clowns. I don’t like Henryk. But then, I dislike inquisitive people.”

  After that very final remark, Sheila’s next question remained unspoken. In any case, she wasn’t supposed to know if Professor Korytowski had any further connection with Mr. Olszak than that of an old friend. She wasn’t supposed to know anything.

  In the flat, there was once more a roomful of tobacco smoke and men’s voices. But this time Olszak led her into the living-room. “It will be all right,” he said aside to Professor Korytowski. “For one thing, she’s perishing with cold—didn’t have any coat with her. She needs a warm drink or we’ll have a pneumonia case on our hands. For another, I think they should meet her. She’s Matthews’ daughter, after all.”

  Korytowski’s look of worry and indecision disappeared. “Splendid!” he said with such enthusiasm and relief that Sheila knew he had been wondering how else to cope with a guest who stayed out so late and came back shivering. So Olszak was in command here, too.

  She was plunged into a sea of unknown faces. The men stopped talking, but they must have known her father, for their eyes were friendly and welcoming. The warmth of the room, the sense of returning security reacted strangely on her. She couldn’t say anything as she bowed shyly to each man who kissed her hand as he was introduced. Most of them had indeed known her father. She bit her lip, and her eyes were too bright, but none of the friendly faces laughed. There was only understanding and sympathy. That weakened her still more.

  Russell Stevens appeared at this moment, carrying a glass of colourless liquid. “I was told you needed this,” he began, and then with a quick glance at her face he added, “Thawing out, I see.” That started her laughing. It wasn’t a very good attempt, but still it was a relief.

  “So you are still in Warsaw?” he said severely. “What do we have to do to get you home? Hit you over the head and shanghai you?”

  “But you are still here too.”

  “I have a job to do.”

  Sheila looked at Mr. Olszak and returned his smile.

  * * *

  The inevitable telephone gave its harsh ring in the hall.

  “For me, I expect,” Stevens said quietly. There was a new tension in the room as he left. The faces were openly anxious now. The smiles and friendly talk of the last hours seemed very far away.

  When the American came back, he was grim. “Got to leave now. Emergency.”

  Korytowski was hurrying
with him towards the door. But Mr. Olszak had taken Russell Stevens by the arm—a strong, polite grasp it would be, Sheila thought—and that way, they entered the hall together. She heard their voices. Mr. Olszak was being firm. The American was being firm, too.

  “I’ll lay my bet on Mr. Olszak,” Sheila said to herself wryly. What was the argument about, anyway? If she suffered from too many guesses, then Mr. Olszak certainly enjoyed too many ideas. He was serene when he returned to the room, but you couldn’t tell anything from that. The outside door, banging abruptly, told Sheila much more.

  “I think you would be wise to go to bed,” Mr. Olszak was saying quietly. “The dawn is already here, you know. Soon it will be morning.”

  Sheila moved towards the hall. Her head was heavy, her eyes felt as if two pennies were laid on them. She began to notice each time she swallowed. Bed would be not only wise, but infinitely pleasant. I’m going to catch a cold, she thought miserably.

  The man whose shoulders were bent over the radio suddenly stiffened. He held up one hand. His head was thrown back, his eyes were white circles. The announcer’s voice cut through the sudden silence of the room.

  It had come.

  “Less than an hour ago, German planes bombed Polish territory. Without any declaration of war...”

  It had come.

  7

  SURVEILLANCE

  In the dark street, the unobtrusive man paced slowly under the chestnut trees. Twice he halted at the gate and peered into the gloomy cavern of faint light. The third time he approached the iron gateway, Henryk came limping forward.

  “Well?” he said, with a truculence that usually disposed of unnecessary visitors.

  “Cold night,” the man said, and buried his neck further into the shelter of his upturned collar. “Should have brought my coat.”

  “Get a move on there. Or I’ll call the police.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders, lifted a hand out of his pocket to turn the palm towards the porter. A metal disk gleamed there for a moment in the blue light. “No need,” he said, and slipped his hand deep into his pocket once more.

  Henryk lost his truculence. He dropped his voice and added a smile. “You got business here?”

  “Yes. This the only entrance? No others?”

  “No... Who is it?”

  The man shivered slightly. “I wish to heaven this sudden wind would bring some rain. We could do with some rain. They tell me the roads are baked dry.”

  “It’s warmer in here,” Henryk suggested. “You can sit in the doorway. Less of a draught there, and you can see everyone going or coming. People are moving about tonight. Can’t settle.” He swung the gate, and the man entered.

  From the porter’s apartment came a rhythmic snoring. “The wife,” Henryk explained. He lowered the volume of the small radio beside his chair. “I was having some tea. I’ll get you a glass. Aye, there’s been a lot of traffic in and out here, tonight. I’ve got to stay up until it stops. Why they can’t stay in their beds at this hour is something I’ll never figure out.”

  “Wish I could be in mine. You and I appreciate our beds, and that’s why we’ve both got jobs that keep us out of them.” Henryk laughed and limped into the kitchen for more tea. “Someone been breaking the law?” be asked jokingly when he returned with an extra chair as well. The two men settled themselves comfortably in the little cubicle of a doorway, and stared out into the gloomy vault of the entranceway as they sipped the tea.

  “Someone I’ve just got to keep an eye on,” the visitor said. Henryk’s small, deep-set eyes studied the simple face beside him. “We are all highly respectable here. Can’t imagine you’ve come to the right place.”

  “This is the house, all right.”

  “You followed someone here? Well, that’s different.” The deep-set eyes were inscrutable now. The man, concentrating on his glass of tea, seemed lost in his thoughts, too. But they would have surprised his amiable host. Hurry up and get to the point, the man was thinking: the boss told me you were a curious chap. What’s happened to your curiosity all of a sudden?”

  “Do you know the people here well?” the man asked at last.

  “I’m getting to know them and their visitors now. Took a week or two to remember them by name.” Henryk’s voice was casual, almost diffident.

  “Any strangers recently?”

  “A girl. Came late last night, too. She’s a guest of Korytowski’s. Say, there’s nothing wrong up there, is there?”

  “Korytowski’s all right. Just another dopey professor as far as I know.”

  “But the girl is a friend of the family. My wife was told that today.”

  “He thinks she is. What do you think of her?”

  “Looked good to me.” Henryk outlined a curve in the air with his two hands, and laughed with the other man.

  “Would you say she was English? Have you heard her talk?”

  “She’s a foreigner for certain. Might be English.”

  “She didn’t seem German?”

  Henryk was impassive. Except for the slight pause there was nothing to show that the question had startled him.

  “No. Didn’t get that impression. In fact, I was out with Madame Sarna’s dog today—she’s the singer, third floor over there to your right—” he pointed into the dark courtyard—“and this girl appeared. She didn’t know much Polish, it seemed. Just stared at me when I wished her good day, and then said something which sounded like French to me. I wouldn’t know. I remember thinking her legs looked kind of French. What made you think she was German?”

  The unobtrusive man lowered his voice still more. “I don’t get told much. Do this, do that. And no explanations before or after, see? But today the hunt is on for a German spy. Hofmeyer’s the name. And she’s a pal of his. That’s all I know. It isn’t much, but it’s enough when you’re dealing with Germans.”

  “And Korytowski doesn’t know? Why, his house is always filled with good patriots!”

  “And that’s it. Who would suspect her if she were there? She’s a clever one.”

  “Aye,” Henryk said. He moved his stiff leg. “Wound from the last war,” he explained. His guest had no objections to changing the conversation, now. They talked of the old days.

  Henryk turned the radio louder. “Soon be morning,” he said cheerfully.

  “I’ll take a turn on the pavement and let you have a nap.”

  “Don’t feel like sleeping. I’ll get some in the afternoon when the wife’s on duty.” His hand played nervously with the radio’s station-finder.

  Footsteps running through the courtyard caught their attention. It was the American. He gave them a nod as he clanged the gate after him.

  “An American,” Henryk explained. “Friend of Korytowski’s. Always in a hurry, coming or going.”

  Silence filled the courtyard once more. Only the radio voice was speaking. There was a sudden pause, a sudden rush of words. “Less than an hour ago, German planes bombed Polish territory. Without any declaration of war...”

  The two men stared at each other, and then Henryk rose quickly to his feet.

  “Elzbieta, Elzbieta!” he was shouting into the bedroom. “Wake up, woman, wake up. It’s started!”

  The quiet man sat stiffly in his chair. “Dog’s blood,” he swore, “dog’s blood and dog’s bones.” He didn’t look at the staring-eyed woman, her straight hair stiff in thin pigtails, who clutched round her throat the shabby coat which she had thrown over the shoulders of her nightgown. Together with her husband, she bent over the radio to catch the uneven words. Henryk’s hands trembled. He wiped his mouth and the back of his neck with a rag of a handkerchief. The Pole, still sitting on the chair beside him, cursed the Germans for what they were in a steady, even flow.

  Other footsteps were hurrying through the courtyard, now. Olszak looked at the little group in the doorway as he opened the gate.

  “You’ve heard?” Henryk called after him. Olszak nodded. His quick footsteps died away on the paveme
nt outside. “That’s another friend of Korytowski’s,” Henryk explained. “He’s an editor of a paper that no one buys. He’s probably rushing to write an editorial that no one wants to read. Say, what are you going to do, yourself?”

  The man said dully, “Can’t leave this job until they get another man set.”

  Ten minutes later, Henryk’s ’phone rang.

  “Someone wants to know if the man waiting in the street outside this building can be brought to the ’phone,” Henryk announced with a grin. “Better not tell them you’ve been warming your back on my chair.”

  The man rose and went to the ’phone. He did the listening. Elzbieta had to wait until he returned to the doorway before her curiosity was satisfied.

  “Got to go now,” he said.

  “What about—?” Henryk motioned with his head in the direction of Korytowski’s flat.

  “That’s taken care of. Another man is set across the road, now that the daylight has come.” He stopped at the gate. “I wouldn’t say anything about this,” he advised. “These Germans are wary birds. She’ll fly at the first sign.”

  Henryk nodded. “I’ll say nothing. I’m too busy to notice anything.” He pulled out the hosepipe onto the pavement. He called back to his wife. “Get some clothes on. We’ll have breakfast when I’ve finished this job.”

  The unobtrusive man had already disappeared round the corner of the street, as Henryk started playing the jet of water round the roots of the chestnut trees.

  * * *

  Sheila, in her bedroom, heard the cheerful hiss of the water. Someone down there was whistling quietly to himself.

  “What has he got to whistle about?” she said savagely to her white face in the grey mirror. The mirror only answered her with unhappy eyes and trembling lips.

  The weight was pressing on the back of her neck, now. Her hands were hot, her spine was cold. The bed linen was as icy as a midwinter pond. She started to shiver.

  8

  ESCAPE

  When she awoke, the room was dark and stifling. If this were night again, then she hadn’t much to show for today. She could remember a man, one of those who had met her in the living-room last night, sitting beside her bed. He had taken her temperature, felt her pulse. He had made her swallow some small, square-shaped pills. Uncle Edward had stood watching her silently. The apartment no longer had any voices. She had thought, dismally, everyone had gone home: everyone, except herself. And she had started to shed a sympathetic tear for herself, and then she must have fallen into a sleep so deep that she couldn’t even gauge its length. Later, when the sun filtered through the leaves outside to cast moving shadows on the wall, someone had wrapped her in a blanket and propped her in a chair. It was a woman, she had noticed dimly, a woman with a straight wisp of hair over staring eyes. And the woman had talked, low quick words. Sheila remembered feeling alive enough only for a brief space to mumble, “Ja, jawohl...” in answer to a repeated question. It must have been asked in German, although she hadn’t realised that at the time. She had been too busy watching the shadows on the wall. One had turned into a fox’s face. It chased the other shadows up and across the wall, and then it would suddenly drop back to its original position and the fox’s mask would start its chase all over again. The woman hadn’t believed her even when she pointed out the exact position of the cunning face, had helped her firmly into bed, had covered her with sheets that were all smooth and cool once more.