The National Treasure

by William P Wood

  The National Treasure

  William P. Wood

  © William P. Wood 2017

  William P. Wood has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2017.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  The First Day

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  The Second Day

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  The Third Day

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  The Fourth Day

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  The Fifth Day

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  The Sixth Day

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  The Seventh Day

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  For my brother Mark.

  A much better man than me.

  In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

  I meet my shadow in the deepening shade …

  In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke

  ****

  Of all types of crowd, the flight crowd is the one which

  exhibits the greatest tenacity; its remnants keep together until

  the very last moment.

  Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti

  The First Day

  One

  September was a cruel month. He had known it since he was a child. He knew it now, trying to keep up with the briskly striding young officer and the harried people who met them, dropped away, were replaced with others. All around as they made their way along the Ministry’s broad, sun-dappled corridor, the white stucco columns seemed to mark out incomprehensible stations of some new Cross. Janusz smoked hastily. He had a fixed, rictus smile, his frequent expression lately in public. Even though he had given up God and worship and relics years ago, he was renowned for the beauty and majesty of his religious choral music. Perhaps the columns were stations for him. How would he know? So much of life, not just this present moment, was a mystery to him.

  Clerks clutching stacks of files ran by, carts piled with files rushed by, women in tears rushed by.

  The young officer didn’t even glance back to see if he was keeping up. Janusz exhaled cigarette smoke like a human engine, puffing ahead. Lesson from his father: march on, march on regardless!

  The first September when he recognised the cruelty of the month, it was freezing out of season, white ice and brittle frosty trees everywhere. He was six years old. His dog Cassius, a brown and white sweet animal, got away when he was taking him out for walk. They found the little dog frozen to death an hour later near the stone steps to the front door. He shivered and wept, seeing death and loss for the first time. His father, who was at home for once, hugged him and said he would get another dog, just as nice. He never did. A long string of unfulfilled pledges and promises began then; he came to accept them as the way things were.

  The second cruel September it rained, the streets became streams, the rivers became oceans, and the sky stayed grey and heavy. His brother Mickhal, two years younger, tried to swim the street in front of their house. Janusz stayed rooted with terror at the door, the steel-coloured water lapping the lowest steps. His mother and father were away, joining the futile effort to save the university library from the flood. His younger brother was swept away and they didn’t find his body for a week. He cried then too. His mother did not, but she started hiding in the back of the spacious closet in her bedroom and was dead herself in a year. He was blamed; he blamed himself.

  He flung his cigarette away, jammed another in his mouth, lit it awkwardly as they trotted down the endless corridor, a cart of files tipping over with a crash, the sounds of jangling phones screaming voices, pleading or angry, flushed from the offices they passed. In his music he disdained the modern enthusiasm for clattering and cacophony like this. He preferred melody and harmony, in music for voice or orchestra. Just this morning before the young officer arrived in the official black limousine and bundled him respectfully but unceremoniously onward, he had heard his Song of the Fatherland’s Children, the nation’s unofficial national anthem, four times, twice on the radio between or before announcements of military skirmishing, and twice sung by impromptu defiant groups on the sidewalk. He didn’t like the tune much anymore; like Rachmaninoff and the tedious Prelude, it seemed to be the only thing most people cared he had written and it was the only thing audiences demanded he play when he was at the piano. Well, maybe it was nice to be famous for something, to have carved a little notch on anonymity before the darkness swallowed you up. But did so much of his fame have to be the very singable but mediocre Song?

  They rapidly mounted a wide pink marble staircase against the squalling tide of men and women hurrying down, more files clutched awkwardly, faces tight with fear and exhaustion. Janusz was out of breath, ashamed at his physical state now when he used to climb hills for hours without a thought, lost in the sights of nature. With Lidia, his once and future wife.

  The young officer stopped suddenly at two large oak doors, shoved them open, the two soldiers on either side looking less soldierly than nervous.

  Janusz followed into the huge office, rictus smile aimed at the portly, red-faced man in the blue Italian-cut suit, light glittering in his pince nez, who darted forward to greet him.

  It was somehow completely understandable, he thought, that this third September would be the cruellest of all.

  The month of invasion.

  Two

  “Henryk, old friend. It’s so good to see you on this evil day,” Janusz exclaimed, clasping the other man’s sweaty hands in his. “Don’t despair. Things will turn out. I know it. Tell me how I can help.”

  “It’s incredible only a week ago we were all in your beautiful apartment, begging you to play something from the new concerto,” the red-faced man let his head droop momentarily in sorrow. “Zosia so lovely. The meal so magnificent. The conversation at your table, as always Janusz, food for the soul. Music, literature, art. Now this. Now this,” he said, holding Janusz by the elbow and leading him into the office. The young officer stayed by the doors. Henryk was a senior official in the Ministry, a stout contrast to the absent Minister’s lean, birdlike appearance.

  “I’m completely at your disposal,” Janusz said fulsomely. He assumed during the march to the office that Henryk wanted him to do a broadcast, play patriotic music and rally the people. Fine. Good. Done.

  “I knew you’d say that, my very good friend,” Henryk nodded. “We have to hurry. Time is so short.”

  The wide windows were bright with dry September morning sunshine, flooding the old building’s nineteenth century spaciousness, incongruous and somehow inappropriate given unfolding events. There should be black clouds. The carpeting was rich but old and worn, the mahogany desk and conference table antique. Over Henryk’s wildly disordered desk was a stern portrait of the old Marshal himself, glowering in a medal-strewn uniform from a white horse, from a lost age, impotent and amusing under the current circumstances.

 
“Gentlemen,” Henryk called out when they got to the conference table, which was littered with maps and half empty cups of coffee and full ashtrays, interrupting the terse, loud conversation going on. Janusz noticed that the office was rank with the stench and haze of cigarette smoke, as if the immolation that was hurtling down upon them had already arrived. For the first time in many years he utterly lost the desire for a cigarette. Henryk went on, “It is my honour to present Janusz Rudzinski, our greatest living composer. Our national treasure.”

  He hated that ersatz title with all of its gluey connotations and dead weight. Who could ever measure up after being lumbered with that horse collar of shit? It was downhill from there, annoyance, disappointment, then anger when the treasure turned out to be spent or fool’s gold.

  But, it had some uses. He and Zosia got the best theater tickets, dinners, invitations, travel, gifts, the most palatial suites in any hotel. She was young enough to glory in the attention and privilege unabashedly.

  Now if he could only write one note of this famous unwritten concerto everyone wanted to hear. One note. Maybe the invasion was a blessing. At least everyone would forget he hadn’t delivered the concerto and it was long, long overdue.

  He saw there were five of them grouped raggedly around the conference table – old, middle-aged, bald, bushy haired, in elegant suits they had slept in, their immaculate white shirts soiled and creased, their faces tight, grey with fatigue and frustration. Henryk made the formal introductions, murmured courtesies. Even in their preoccupation and fatigue, they all seemed genuinely pleased to meet the national treasure. Janusz was good at these kinds of meetings, even under the terrible circumstances now. He was a name. He was the melody they all knew, the Song that opened a thousand soccer matches and a thousand concerts and a thousand school days warbled out by ten hundred thousand young voices.

  “Oh, and Lieutenant Walicki you already know,” Henryk gestured back at the young officer keeping vigil at the doors.

  “Our meeting was a little rushed for introductions. He said it was urgent, urgent.”

  “I’m sorry about the haste, Janusz. It was necessary. Things are not going well.”

  “They’re catastrophic,” snorted a young man with a black thin moustache.

  “So bad?” Janusz asked.

  “Look here,” the young man said, waving his fountain pen over one of the spread- out maps of the country, “two enemies coming at us from the west and the east. It’s coordinated.”

  “We’re defending ourselves. We’re counter-attacking,” Janusz said, knowing little about military affairs. He had missed doing his required service because of a heart murmur. His only time in uniform had been with the Scouts.

  “Who told you that?” demanded an older man, bald, in a tight tan suit with a wilted carnation. “We’re finished.”

  Someone protested, but Janusz was stunned into silence. So soon? Since the invasion began, he and Zosia had devoured every radio announcement of the army’s gallant blocking of the enemy attack, hammer blows throwing back the invader’s shocked troops. Now it was like being told a loved one, recovering from a fever, had incredibly died anyway.

  “I don’t believe it,” he finally whispered staring at the map and the strained, furious faces around the table.

  “It’s true,” Henryk said softly. “The Government’s moving again. We’re going back north. We might make it if we’re fast enough.”

  One of the men snorted again. “You’re fooling yourself, Henryk. We’re going to get crushed between two armies like a walnut in a nutcracker.”

  Janusz knew that these men were very senior government officials, like Henryk. If he told them that a certain musical phrase must be played a certain way, they would accept his expertise. He had to accept theirs. It was shattering.

  “Oh, my God,” he said involuntarily. “So what can I do? What can I do?”

  “You’re getting out, too, my old friend. Today. This morning. We’re getting you out of the country.”

  But he didn’t want to go.

  Three

  “No, no, no, no,” he said, backing away from the conference table. “I can’t. I can’t leave Zosia. This is our home.” He thought of her wide blue eyes, gaping as the young officer barged into the apartment. She was plainly scared silly, silk mauve robe pulled defensively around her lithe young body, pressing against him. Flee the city and the country? Impossible.

  “Of course Zosia is going with you, Janusz,” Henryk said soothingly, then more coldly, “It’s been decided. Lieutenant Walicki will drive you back to your hotel, you and Zosia will pack a few things and then you’re travelling south, into Switzerland. He’s worked out a remarkable plan. He’s a university man. You‘ll get along perfectly. His plan has been approved at the highest level.”

  “But, how can I leave?” he asked. It was alarming to him at a very profound depth.

  “You have to, Mr Rudzinski,” said a thin, high cheek-boned older man with thick glasses. “You’re on a list. Actually, you’re on several lists. Both of our enemies have you marked down for liquidation.”

  “Me?” Janusz asked. “Why me? I just write music.”

  “Not just music,” Henryk said vehemently, “sublime, immortal music! They play your symphonies and concertos in Paris and New York and London and Milan. Even in Moscow, sometimes. You’re a symbol of the nation. You wrote Song of the Fatherland’s Children.

  “I know I did.” He bit his lower lip, a nervous tic like the frozen smile, twitches which had appeared since he discovered he could not write a single phrase or a single note of the damned concerto. “But I’m not an important person. Not really. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a doctor or a teacher. I’m not a government leader. I’m not a soldier. I live a selfish life. People have said so for years. I have parties and I go to parties and I only write music that I like.”

  There was a disarming chuckle around the table. Henryk wanly smiled. “Selfish? The man who brightens our lives with his art? Please forgive me, Janusz, you are the antithesis of a selfish man.”

  “Well, why can’t Zosia and I go with you,” he gestured at them, “safety in numbers?”

  “There’s a chance,” Henryk wearily took off his pince nez and rubbed his oyster grey eyes slowly, “we won’t make it north. We can’t take risk you either being captured or harmed in some way. Perhaps you are a little selfish. You don’t belong just to yourself or even to your wife. You have to face the fact now that you are a symbol of the nation.”

  Janusz saw them all nod. Good Lord. In the space of five minutes he had vaulted from national treasure to national symbol. It was enough to make him dizzy. He didn’t think he was a coward, not physically anyway, but the prospect of such upheaval, the unpredictable way it would upset Zosia shook him. The mere suggestion of the pain and panic their flight would cause her was more than he could stand. But what could he do?

  “I’m really on enemy lists?” he asked, leaning against the conference table, wishing he were home, in bed, the covers over his head, the cottony silence between his eyes blotted out.

  “Our intelligence has obtained the lists,” one of the younger men said sombrely. “We’re all on one list or another to be rounded up and probably shot.”

  “Unlike you, none of us made it on to every list,” another man added in a grudging tone.

  Janusz understood. He was resented. They had list envy. He was more important, in his own way, than any of them.

  His dismay grew. He was caught up in the gears of a machine, a vast mechanism represented by the stalwart officer guarding the door, by his old friend Henryk, by these gentlemen who faced destruction. He could no more evade or distract or turn aside the mechanism than he could levitate up to the dusty chandelier hanging pointlessly over the conference table, shedding its feeble artificial light in the sea of real sunshine flooding the office.

  All right. He was a treasure. He would do as they insisted for Zosia’s sake, too. She was younger than him by decades, eager
for the worldly pleasures he provided, yet trembled at the harshness of life. He had to shelter her. He had known that since they first met at the skating rink five years ago, and she almost fell into his arms. He protected her.

  “I’ll go, Henryk,” Janusz started to say, and then all of their faces jerked to the wide sun-washed windows. A howl came through the windows, a howl rising over the city. He heard B flat and D flat – the call of air raid sirens. Not bad actually. There were harmonic possibilities in an orchestral setting, he thought. Christ. Even now, he imagined tunes.

  “They’re coming!” the young man with the moustache shouted and all of them were in motion, heading for the doors that flung open. Janusz felt Lieutenant Walicki grab his arm.

  Before he could be yanked through the doorway into the stampede of people running by in the corridor, he turned to Henryk, shook his shoulder. “We will have dinner again, my friend. I will play the Bechstein like you’ve never heard it played. We’ll eat and laugh together soon.”

  Henryk was crying, nodding. A giant’s powerful feet stomped someplace nearby and the old building shook and plaster drifted from the ceiling and the old Marshal abruptly slipped crookedly on the wall.

  As Lieutenant Walicki pulled him away, Janusz didn’t think his old friend Henryk, bombastic, gluttonous, talented and funny with a wife matching in every aspect, believed for an instant what he just said.

  In fact, Janusz didn’t believe it either. He doubted he would ever see Henryk again.

  Four

  “I’ll tell her,” Janusz said as the car crept, bounced, slowed, leaped forward. “Understood? I have to explain what’s happening carefully to her. She’s very sensitive”

  “As you wish, sir. Only let me remind you that we’re on a strict schedule, for your own safety.”