But now the sun had gone, the shadows and the fox’s mask had gone, the doctor and the woman had gone. Only Uncle Edward was still there, still standing silently watching her from the doorway. He was so quiet that it seemed strange he should have wakened her. Her thoughts were slow like her movements. She wasn’t shivering now. The bed was as hot as an oven. The pillow felt damp when she moved her neck. All air seemed to have gone from the room. There was a jangling in her ears as if she were listening to a distant, violent fire-alarm.
“I really don’t think you can be moved,” Uncle Edward said. He walked slowly into the room and switched on the small light beside her bed. “But I think you ought to know, now that you are awake, that we are again under attack.”
“Again?” Sheila swallowed painfully. Even the voice didn’t seem to come from her dry throat. It sounded as if a ventriloquist were using her for a dummy. She raised herself on one elbow, but there was no support in her arm, and she was glad to sink back into the pillow’s furrow.
“Yes. The first came this morning, just after the doctor had given you some pills and put you to sleep. Then there was a second attack, fairly quickly. I’m beginning to lose count now. The air warden from upstairs has been trying to herd us over to the trenches in the Park, for the recent raids have been coming closer to this district. But I don’t think you should go.”
“And you?”
The blue eyes, tired, worried, suffering, smiled at her. “I helped to dig them during the last two days. I prefer to stay here, myself. Four walls give an illusion of protection.”
An angry, staccato rattle sounded from the courtyard.
“Anti-aircraft,” Korytowski said gently. “It was set up in our garden this morning.”
Sheila nodded. Her hands were clenching the sheets in the same way she used to clench her handkerchief while the dentist’s drill ground out a deeply decayed tooth.
“Just rest and you’ll be all right. Two or three days, and we’ll have this fever beaten. If we could only send you to a hospital, it would be better for you. But the hospital beds are being kept as empty as possible.” He shrugged his shoulders. The kindly face looked so sad that Sheila tried a smile.
The sound of airplane engines seemed closer. Sheila shut her eyes. She couldn’t bear that sound: it was worse than the explosions as the bombs landed. For the bombs had at least finished when they crashed on the ground, but that loud coughing from the sky went on and on, threatening those still alive, promising pain and destruction.
Korytowski sat on the edge of the bed. “Words are extraordinary things,” he was saying. “They persist through the centuries as if they had a real life of their own. Stevens was telling me that the vulgar expression for legs in his country is—” There was a violent blast the room seemed to rock, glass smashed on the pavement outside. Korytowski looked at the black square of window speculatively. “It really was fortunate that I boarded it up this afternoon. Never did believe in these strips of paper. Well, the vulgar expression is gams, I believe.” Another blast tightened Sheila’s body into a rigid stretch of bone and muscle. “Now the extraordinary thing is this: back in the days of Rome, the soldier who didn’t speak proper Latin would insist on a rough slang all of his own. His word for a pretty leg was—” The room moved again, this time more insistently. Sheila’s eardrums were bursting, but her hands couldn’t leave hold of the sheets to shut out the overwhelming sound. Professor Korytowski waited patiently for silence, as if he were facing a crowd of coughing, shuffling students in a classroom. “His word,” he continued when the first short lull occurred, “his word was gamba.”
The planes had gone. The anti-aircraft guns had fallen silent in the courtyard. But the ringing in Sheila’s ears was louder. He noticed her tenseness.
“Fire brigade,” he said briefly. He poured a glass of water and held it to her lips. “This bed has got to be changed again. We are soaking the fever out of you, anyway I’ll go and get Henryk’s wife. She said she would look after you until Teresa arrives.”
“Madame Aleksander is coming?”
“She has already left Korytów with Barbara. They decided they ought to be here at the hospitals. Stefan and little Teresa have stayed with Aunt Marta. It will be safer in the country. The Germans will not waste bombs on anything so small as Korytów. Marta ’phoned me after Teresa and Barbara had left; couldn’t reach me on the ’phone before then.”
“Then only Aunt Marta knows I am still here?”
“So far. And do you know what she said about this chill of yours? ‘Never did wear enough clothes.’”
Sheila wanted to laugh, arid found she couldn’t, somehow.
“I’ll go down to the porter’s lodge. I don’t think there will be another raid for at least an hour.”
“Uncle Edward...”
“Yes, Sheila?” The blue eyes smiled kindly, reassuringly.
There was a slight pause. And then, “Aren’t you afraid?” The question came hesitatingly.
“Yes, I was. Very much so. But I’m getting accustomed to the idea that bombs can drop around me, and as soon as you get accustomed to that, you begin to feel so many other emotions—anger, chiefly—that fear loses some of its importance.”
“Is there much damage?”
“What you’d expect.” The blue eyes had hardened.
“Has London been bombed?”
“No. Nor Paris. Not yet. We are fighting alone so far.”
Sheila closed her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” the quiet voice was saying. “We’ll hold on here until our allies can reach us. All you’ve to worry about is recovering as quickly as possible. I’ll tell the porter’s wife to come up here, now. When she has left and you are back in bed, I’ll give you some medicine.” He nodded towards a bottle standing on the table beside the bed.
The door closed.
Sheila stared at it, miserably. It was one of those moments in life when everything seems wrong.
* * *
The door opened again, cautiously this time. The pale-faced, pale-eyed porter’s wife came into the room.
“It’s only me—Elzbieta,” she said. “I’ve brought you some herb tea. Sip it, while I straighten this bed.”
She wrapped Sheila methodically into the blanket, and propped her once more on the chair. Sheila began sipping the tea. It was weak and bitter: it smelled of a wooden chest with scented clothes, long undisturbed. Sheila collected her thoughts in German. A lot of Poles knew German, used it with foreigners if Polish failed. Yet Sheila felt she should be surprised at this woman. At the moment, she was incapable of feeling anything except worry. Over the edge of the wide cup, she watched the woman methodically change the bed linen. She was dressed in an old skirt, a shapeless knitted jumper. Yet there was a neatness, a clean-scrubbed look to her in spite of the old clothes. Her straight hair was tightly pinned into a plaited coil at the nape of her neck. Only one short strand of hair was out of place, and she would blow at it out of the corner of her mouth as it fell over her eye. Then, quick-temperedly, she’d tuck it back into place, scarcely pausing in her work. Sheila took some time to notice that the woman was watching her as much as she was watching the woman. “You’re slow in the uptake, today,” she told herself, and at that very moment realised why she should have felt surprised at the woman’s German. It was good German, accurate and hard, with the clear enunciation of Berlin.
On an impulse, Sheila said to the waiting woman, “Are you German?” Her voice was a ludicrous whisper: the effort of sitting up in this chair must have been more of a drain on her strength than she had imagined.
Elzbieta looked at her with a strange smile. “Oh no!” she whispered back. “Are you?”
“No.”
Elzbieta laughed suddenly. She spoke in a normal voice again. “There’s no one here. You can speak as loud as you want. Old Korytowski’s down gaping at the bomb-holes.”
Sheila tried to focus her mind sharply. The callous impertinence in the woman’s voice had warne
d her.
“You work for Hofmeyer, direct?” the woman asked suddenly.
“Hofmeyer?” Sheila felt her mind dulling again. She was too tired to cope with all this, she thought in desperation.
“You don’t know anyone called Hofmeyer?” The voice was sarcastic.
Sheila shook her tired head.
“Come off it,” the woman said almost savagely. “Stop wasting time.” She went over to the dressing table, opened Sheila’s handbag, pulled out the airplane tickets and Hofmeyer’s leaflet. Sheila, who had imagined that Olszak had destroyed that sheet of paper, could only stare at the fact that it was still in her bag. And there was a reason behind that fact. So much she could guess, even at the moment, when her head felt it had fallen off her neck and was rolling around on the floor.
The woman said bitterly, “I found that this morning. Fine credit you are to us! Letting them dope you until you can’t even see what’s happening to your own handbag. Heinrich got in touch with Hofmeyer about you this morning, after the policeman left us.”
Heinrich. Not Henryk. Heinrich. And Johann Hofmeyer playing a double, yet single-purposed game. Hofmeyer, neither German nor Pole, living in Warsaw for twenty years as a German-Pole. Hofmeyer taking orders from Uncle Matthews, working now with Olszak, accepted by the Heinrichs. Surely that must be it. Surely Hofmeyer was in German pay in name only, for his own purposes. Surely—Policeman... What was that about a policeman?
“Policeman?”
“Political police. Watching you. A fine mess you’ve made of it. What did you spill at headquarters, yesterday?”
“Nothing.”
“Hofmeyer will be pleased for that small mercy. If it’s true. Wish he could see you now, so doped that when the police pick you up again they’ll get everything out of you.”
“Where is he?”
“Hofmeyer? Safe. And still in touch with us. He said you would hear from him.” The woman smoothed the top counterpane with quick decisive strokes of her hand. “What’s your idea in staying here, anyway?”
Sheila felt that the woman hated her for being here. There was certainly resentment in her eyes.
“It was safe.” Sheila was now praying for Korytowski’s return. She was feeling too tired, she was losing the alertness which her fear had given her. She would make a mistake. Why didn’t Korytowski come?
“It was a good front, all right,” the woman admitted. “Hofmeyer’s a sharp fellow. But my guess is that he will tell you to clear out now, before the police arrest you again.”
“But the police were satisfied yesterday.”
“God, what innocents we are using nowadays! Don’t you know that the police are never satisfied? Listen, you are fairly new to this game. Not like me or Margareta Koch. And the first thing you’ll have to learn if you want to stay alive is that you’ve got to smell danger. I’ve just got to take one look at this set-up and I smell plenty of danger all round you.”
“Margareta Koch? Where is she?”
“Haven’t heard for nigh on six months. One of our men in the police building reported yesterday that Koch had been arrested disguised as an English girl. But it turned out to be you and not Koch. I won’t say you weren’t a surprise. But then, Papa Hofmeyer usually has one or two up his sleeve. I’ll tell you one thing: he’s pretty angry with you, right now. Called you a string of names to Heinrich for getting onto the police list. You won’t be much good to us now, not until we take over here. Come on, back into bed with you. Clever of you to have chosen to be the English milady. No one expects them to speak Polish correctly.” She picked up one of Sheila’s shoes, and shook her head admiringly. “Trust Papa Hofmeyer. Everything correct down to the English shoe label. Nice piece of leather. I haven’t been allowed to wear anything like that for a long time. Too damned long. Wait until you’re made a caretaker’s wife some day. You’ll know, then!”
Sheila pressed her head further into the pillow, as if to shut out the woman’s venom. She suddenly felt at the mercy of this woman’s bitter heart. She almost cried out with joy when she heard the outside door being opened. The woman dropped the shoes and picked up the empty cup.
“No more medicine!” she said quickly. “Remember. You’re not ill. They are doping you to keep you here. And you’ve got to leave. The plans are being made.”
Elzbieta was opening the bedroom door, now. “Good evening, sir,” she said very timidly, very politely to the man who came in. It wasn’t Korytowski. It was Olszak.
“Well,” he said to Sheila, “don’t tell me you are a casualty. Where’s your host? I brought him a copy of my war editorial.” He uncorked the medicine bottle. “Want some now? One of my best accomplishments is holding a spoon of nasty medicine for someone else. Allow me.”
“No,” Sheila said as clearly as she could. “No, thanks. I don’t need any more medicine.”
“Too bad.” Olszak corked the bottle again, regretfully.
They both listened to the closing of the outside door.
Olszak moved swiftly, in strange contrast to his diffident entry, back into the hall.
“Thoroughly locked,” he said when he once more returned. “Now, what did she say?”
Sheila was so amazed that Olszak should expect the woman to have said anything interesting, that she could only stare at him.
“Quick, Miss Matthews, tell me everything that happened.” His voice was strangely excited. “I know you are ill, but if you ever wanted to help in this war, by God I think you are going to do it now.”
The wild enthusiasm in his voice lifted Sheila out of her lethargy. She told him about Elzbieta, haltingly, yet as accurately as she could force herself to speak. Sometimes she would forget something (why should she have to be ill at this time?) and then she’d pause, force herself to go back and straighten out what she had jumbled. Mr. Olszak listened patiently, intently, without interruption or prompting. He let her choose her own tempo, and his silence helped her. It wasn’t so long, after all, before he could piece together the whole scene.
“Good,” he said. “In fact, excellent. That’s all I wanted. You know, it is a nice feeling when you have a suspicion that no one else will share, when you work out a little plan to deal with it, to find that everything does fit into place and that you’ve a neat success on your hands. It’s a nicer feeling than many a bigger, more obvious victory.”
He looked at Sheila critically. “You’re tired. You should sleep. I’ll wait for Korytowski in the other room. Anything I can get you?”
“Some medicine. I want to get out of this bed as soon as I can.”
Olszak nodded approvingly. “I think I’d better warn you,” he said as he poured a careful tablespoon of medicine, “that your real name is supposed to be Anna Braun. It was the first name that Hofmeyer could think of, when Henryk contacted him with the news that you were under suspicion. Henryk, of course, wanted to know all about you. There: that’s the way. Swallow it quickly when your mouth is wide open. Now here’s some water. That’s the way.”
He relented suddenly. “I suppose you have earned more of an explanation than that,” he said. “I had a suspicion or two about Henryk. Only, my sources were not reliable, and although we have watched him and the woman we could find out nothing definite. Hofmeyer knew nothing about them. But last night, one of my men was instructed to inform them very carefully that you were under surveillance, that you had some connection with Hofmeyer. This morning, Henryk contacted another German who knew where Hofmeyer is hiding. He actually met Hofmeyer. Now we know Henryk and Elzbieta are Heinrich Dittmar and Lisa Koehler. We’ve more than enough proof.”
“Elzbieta knew who Hofmeyer was. She called him Papa.”
Olszak repressed a smile. “Only by reputation,” he said. “Just as Hofmeyer had heard of Dittmar. But he never met him until this morning. We did a good job of work last night.”
“I wish...”
“What do you wish?”
Sheila stirred restlessly. “Somehow I wish Hofmeyer could just
have come along here and found out for himself who Henryk really was.”
“And let the Germans’ suspicions be aroused against Hofmeyer when Henryk is arrested? No, I’m afraid that isn’t the way we have to work. In fact you will have to be arrested again, along with the porter and his wife, just to keep yourself safe from the Germans. I’ve already arranged for a nice place for you to hide after you ‘escape’ from our police. But meanwhile the problem is that Henryk will be planning how to smuggle you out of this apartment so as to hide you from the Poles.”
Sheila said, “But I don’t want to leave here. Madame Aleksander and Barbara are coming. I want to see them.” Her voice was foolishly on edge.