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The National Treasure

Page 9

by William P Wood


  “Stop here, Gabriela,” Janusz said, rubbing his chin nervously. “My sense of direction is poor, but the map and everything around us looks like the farm is about a half mile ahead.”

  “We can hurry then, for the sergeant.”

  “No, you stay here and try to keep everything as quiet as you can. I’ll go on ahead and make sure it’s safe. I’ll come back in, say, an hour and get you.”

  She studied him, her eyes cool but friendly and worried. “What if you don’t come back, Papa?”

  That stumped him for a moment and he flailed around, finally saying, “Well, wait a little while longer and then try to find shelter in the trees. I’ll come find you.”

  “But what if you can’t?” she asked soberly. “Where will we go?”

  “Take shelter if I’m delayed. It’s probably nothing. Do the best you can.”

  Gabriela nodded, as if she had come go a decision. “All right, Papa. I’ll wait for a while. I don’t have a clock.”

  “No. Of course not. How about counting very slowly?”

  She nodded again. “I’ll see if he’s all right, too.”

  Janusz smiled, for her sake, patted the mare’s flank and turned his back on them and walked briskly, a little hesitantly, off into the fading fog, toward the farm. He walked by counting his own footsteps, to keep his mind off Gabriela and Peszek behind him and the insoluble problem of what they would do – no food or water, one of them desperately sick – if he ran into trouble or couldn’t get back to them. I must come back, he vowed. That’s all there is. That’s my decision.

  At any moment he expected to hear trucks or tanks or the shouts of enemy soldiers or to see a phalanx of them drawn up in front of him. He tried humming the new tune once more and found, to his amazement that a whole second melody had followed it into his imagination and started to appear, almost as if he could see the notes on the music paper, marching across it just as they should.

  After what seemed like a very long time, but was actually only fifteen or twenty minutes, Janusz saw a building emerging from the haze, a large steeply red-roofed house with a neatly laid out gravel driveway bordered by tall hedges. It was white and luxurious. He was startled. It was a quirk of the fog, his fear, the hunger.

  But it remained tangible and even became more detailed as he walked closer: many windows, elegant wrought iron fence work, clean dimensions, just what Lidia would design for the two of them, the ideal home they had talked about but they never had. It certainly wasn’t a farm.

  Suddenly, Janusz stopped, his blistered feet leaden. He was afraid. He had no idea what she would do when she saw him again. He had not been timid or hesitant when they first met, but then again, he really didn’t know at first that they had met or what that random encounter would mean for both of them. Lidia, coming up beside him on the mountain trail, vibrant, lively in simple shorts, very daring, and a yellow blouse open at the collar emphasising her compact swimmer’s breasts, also very daring, the sleeves rolled up on her tanned arms. She was tall, her shoulder-length blonde hair pinned back, framing her face, long and high-cheeked, eyes dark brown or black depending on the light. Later she complained that she had the eyes of a cockroach, but he loved them, because they could see so deeply. She asked for some of his water, and he gave her his canteen, intrigued that this beautiful young woman was alone with him and they started walking again, falling into banal but wonderful chatter about the bracing glories of the mountain and the trail, the pleasures of the long hike. That was the first time he experienced the staccato crispness of her voice. He naively told her he liked her perfume and she looked at him oddly. Then she laughed. No perfume. She wore a homemade mosquito repellent compounded from mint, eucalyptus and lavender. Janusz should have been embarrassed. But her gaiety was so open and sensual, it was impossible to be embarrassed. In fact, everything she did had an insouciant sensuality to it. He even told her that bugs never bothered him and Lidia said he must be blessed. Later, not very much later in fact, he delighted in ferreting out that sensuous, ripe scent in the hidden places on her body where she put it.

  Then, she said she had to take a fork in the trail to meet some friends, and she put out her hand. When they shook hands, Janusz felt the erotic tingle of her touch as she held him longer than mere courtesy, and drew her thumb across his palm, looked at him with a half-smile, as she cocked her head a little, and she strode away into the trees.

  He walked briefly from her before stopping in his tracks, just as he was now. He had stood there, briefly confused, then started after her. He had had four affairs by then, of varying intensity and severity, but he didn’t imagine himself worldly or perfectly familiar with women and what they wanted or thought or how they let you know either one. For example, Zosia’s purely superficial needs, “Buy that for me” or her “Touch this, lick this, stroke this, there, there” didn’t matter in that more profound reckoning. What Janusz did know, with the irreducible and magnificent clarity that comes unbidden and must be heeded when it does, was that this startling woman he had just encountered must be pursued. And so he did. He caught up with her a little way down the fork in the trail and she still had the half-smile, as if she knew he would be there. He asked her, much later, if she had expected him, and Lidia patted his arm. “I thought I’d frightened you away.”

  Now in the growing brightness of the morning, the house ahead of him resolving itself like a celestial body coming clearer and clearer as the telescope is correctly adjusted, he wondered what would have happened if he had not taken that fork in the trail. What would Lidia have done? She confessed later that there were no friends waiting for her, she was not often a solitary adventurer, but she was that day. She would have simply walked on, out of his life, and into whatever different destiny resolved itself for her. Happiness? Children? Success? Her life without him would have been wildly different, but at least Janusz knew that together they had two of the three.

  Janusz felt his chest close. If he had kept walking that day long ago, he likely would never have seen her again. Which meant he never would have written the music poor Henryk and the late lieutenant praised, or even the ubiquitous and shallow Song. He never would have become a national treasure because it was with Lidia that he heard the music as clearly as if it were already composed, printed and played.

  Janusz started walking now more slowly toward the large white house and its hedges and trimmed rose bushes. Good Lord, he thought, if I had kept going my way, I wouldn’t be here. No national treasure, no escape. I’d probably be dead.

  He hurried up the gravel driveway, noticing a shiny black expensive older car, like a bank president might own, parked to the side of the house. He was nervous, awkward, swept with emotion suddenly as he got to the front door. Memory had roiled him, thrusting him along subterranean paths of regret. All right. I’m here. All seems quiet and safe. This is Lidia, after all, and what we haven’t shared isn’t worth sharing.

  But he was afraid because the house was so still. So many things could be terribly wrong.

  The front door was oak, brown and solid, with a brass lion’s head knocker that he raised and banged twice. This was interminable, he thought, eyes closing briefly, like waiting for the baton to sweep down to start a riotous final movement with a childish roll of tympani and blare of trumpets.

  The door opened and Janusz grinned idiotically. Lidia stood in the doorway, tall, blonde, dark-eyed, safe and just the same, dressed in navy blue pants, beige blouse, pearls. Before he could reach for her or say anything, she said sharply, “Good Lord!”

  Coming behind her was an officer in an immaculate grey uniform with shoulder boards and insignia of significant rank, and Janusz instantly thought of Egon, the vanished doorman at his hotel, except that this doorman was in the uniform of the wrong army and he wore a large sidearm in a polished leather holster.

  Janusz understood in a flash. Lidia’s expression changing from shock and fear to bland politeness said it all.

  Their little band’s pathe
tic anthem of entreaty last night for a safe harbour had gone unheard or even worse, unanswered.

  Twenty

  “Is there something wrong, Lidia?” the officer asked, standing beside her, studying Janusz with faint disgust. He was a scholarly and youngish with close-cropped brown hair, thin nose and mouth, gold-rimmed glasses. He had an odd fidgety gaze.

  “No, no, Dieter. I was startled,” Lidia said quickly. “I was about to ask what this man wants.”

  “I can take care of him, if you like,” the officer said.

  “No, no. He’s probably like the others, hungry.”

  “Well, you can’t feed all of them. You,” the officer said curtly to Janusz, who had wisely lowered his eyes, “you’re lucky this morning. You came to the only house in this district where you’ll get something eat. This generous lady has a heart of gold even for garbage like you. Aren’t you a lucky man?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “You don’t look like a soldier. I hope you’re not.”

  “No, sir. Thank you. A farmer, sir.”

  “Name?”

  “Rybak, sir.”

  “I’m Major Henselt. I’m the military commander of this district. You have papers, Rybak?”

  Janusz let his head fall lower. “Everything was lost on the road, sir.” He was terrified that this enemy major would turn out to be a music lover like the late Lieutenant Walicki and recognise him. Janusz still had remnants of his old vanity that insisted a magnificent talent like his, a famous countenance like his, would shine forth no matter the obscuring setting or layers of dirt and grime. To his relief and chagrin, he was wrong about the major being a music lover and right about the camouflage of ill-fitting, filthy clothes and lack of hygiene.

  “Well, well, you are very lucky, Rybak. I’m in a good mood thanks to this generous lady. No papers mean you’re in trouble. Report to the mayor’s office in twenty-four hours.” He said to Lidia, “You should let me take care of him now.”

  “Go finish your coffee, Dieter,” she said. “I’ll send him on his way after I get him some food.”

  Major Henselt shrugged like a child denied a minor plaything and went back into the house.

  “Lidia,” Janusz growled, head snapping up, “what’s going on?”

  “Shut up, shut up,” she said, pushing him and pointing. “Go around the house to the back door, Janusz. I’ll meet you there. And please keep your mouth shut for once.” She closed the door carefully, lingering eyes on him. Wary? Yearning? Angry? He couldn’t pin it down.

  Janusz walked around the large house, thoughts in foggy, furious confusion. Why was this dangerous enemy officer in Lidia’s house, apparently on very familiar terms with her? ‘Go finish your coffee?’ Good Lord, they were having breakfast together, and then Janusz conjured something so mortifying and terrible, he consigned it to the furnace immediately. This Henselt was not with her this early in the morning because he and she spent the night together. He was not. Issue closed. End of movement.

  His fists bunched in his coat pockets. As he came around the house, he glanced at the spacious white-painted garage and the large robin’s egg blue touring coupé in it. ‘Go finish your coffee. Dieter’ This was monstrous.

  The rear of the house played out into a cricket pitch-sized green lawn sprinkled with full fruit trees and elms. A granite flagstone patio with wrought iron tables and chairs waited and Janusz sat down in a chair. He breathed heavily, trying to steady himself. Without much success.

  The back door opened and Lidia came out. She carried a small basket covered with a white cloth and she put it on the table. He stood up, trembling.

  “Listen, Janusz,” she said, before he could burst out, “I’m sending Henselt away right now. I’ll come back. Don’t do anything, please.”

  “I don’t understand,” he managed to say.

  “Please, just wait. Eat something.” She took the cloth off, and he saw boiled eggs, smoked carp and bread. “Are you all right?” she asked softly.

  “I am not.”

  “You look terrible.”

  He saw her half-smile and something tightened in him. Just like the first time, just as it always was, and he marvelled again at his idiocy or her clarity in realising they couldn’t stay together for very long. “You don’t,” he said, staring at her.

  “Wait for me,” she said again, and went back into the house. He sat for a moment in the morning stillness, broken only by the undercurrent of voices inside the house, the sound of doors, a car’s engine, the fading crunch of gravel. He should be worrying about Gabriela and Peszek, barely concealed in the trees, the clock ticking, feeling Gabriela’s increasing anxiety. But all he could think about was Lidia and the officer. He looked up into the hazy blue sky. He had too many awful questions.

  He started when the back door opened again and Lidia motioned, saying, “Janusz, come inside, quickly.”

  He followed her through a vast modern kitchen, white tile and steel, stoves overhung with exotic cooking gear, through parquet-floored and colourfully carpeted rooms, light and inviting, paintings of the sea and mountains on the pastel yellow walls. She walked a little differently, he thought. Not quite so confident. Maybe it was simply his jaundiced perception, but Lidia seemed slower, even hesitant. What about me, he wondered? How much more changed must I be?

  “This isn’t a farm,” he said, accusingly, as if it mattered at all. “You told me it was.”

  “It used to be. When Bolek and I bought it, there was a farmhouse and some outbuildings, but we built our own house.”

  Bolek was Boleslaw Rogalski, the husband. The missing husband. Engineer by profession. A big noise as engineers went. Silver-framed pictures of the toothy smiling character with Lidia were sprinkled casually around the living room. Never met him. Never wanted to, Janusz thought. Married Zosia, vowed never going to bring the two halves of my divided life together, never look back, always look ahead. Now Zosia’s gone and I’m in their house. Finis to petty intentions, good and otherwise.

  “I see your hand in the design everywhere, the lines and spaces,” he said, wonder and bitterness filling him as they stepped into the high-ceilinged living room, mirrors and delicate floral paintings on the walls, bright sofas and chairs, gleaming airy mahogany tables topped with Chinese’s vases of brilliant flowers. “This could have been the house we dreamed about.”

  “We never did it,” she stopped, arms folded. “We never would have. Why are you here, Janusz?”

  “I had to come because I thought you were in danger!” he shouted. “I heard you call out on the phone. The enemy’s in your house!”

  Lidia closed her eyes and shook her head. “You completely misunderstand. But we have to figure out what to do. You heard Dieter. He knows about you now.”

  “Dieter! Dieter! He’s the enemy, Good Lord, Lidia! You sound like he’s a house guest or your dinner companion!” Janusz was livid. “Maybe he is something else!”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Janusz. He’s nothing. You’re working yourself into a jealous rage for no reason. You haven’t changed.”

  “I had reasons before and you know it. Bolek for one. You were seeing him while we were still married.”

  “You had three of them. It was ridiculous and insulting. Two college girls and a dancer.”

  “I told you then, they were flings, adventures, nothing, nothing. You were vanishing before my eyes, I had to shock you.” Years later, his justifications sounded tinny and melodramatic even to him. They had worked for a while, but today they stood revealed as callow self-indulgences. He had been a childish, selfish man. He hoped he was not anymore.

  Lidia, this subtly altered, subtly matured Lidia, said levelly, “I’m not arguing with you now. It was pointless years ago and it’s ludicrous in these circumstances. You’re in danger. We have to make plans.”

  Janusz swung away from her. This wasn’t even remotely the reunion he imagined, not any of the possible reunions that had floated across his imagination in the last
few days. “It’s not just me,” he said, trying to calm himself. “There are others in danger from your house guest.”

  “What do you mean? Tell me,” Lidia asked slowly. She sat down on a sofa, elegantly crossing her long legs, just like they were in one of the successively luxurious apartments while they were married, arguing too often after a while, then reconciling in bed or going out for the evening. He was giddy suddenly with the insane juxtaposition of memories and reality.

  He looked at her. This was the one woman he knew better than any single human being on earth. Yet her face was subtly different: a few new lines around the intelligent eyes, a downturn forming at the corners of the lips he knew, even a trace of steel grey in her hair. He could only imagine how altered he looked, and how truly changed he was even without the outward remodelling. We’re not just older, he realised, but changed.

  He told her about Peszek and Gabriela. He told her about Henryk’s plan to spirit him out of the country to avoid the inexorable enemies crushing in from all sides, and the calamities that had made the plan futile.

  As she listened, Lidia watched him intently. She reached for his hand. “What a time you’ve had trying to come here. I’m sorry for what I said just now. I’m happy you’re here. Only you would have risked doing it, Janusz. You’re still an idiotic romantic,” she said, getting up, coming over to him. Janusz tensed, just as if she were a seductive stranger. No that was totally wrong: he tensed because he knew Lidia, and hoped and feared what was going to happen to them in the pandemonium of this new bloody world.

  She bent to him, and suddenly, Janusz held her face gently and they kissed. He had his arm around her small waist. It was reflective, imminently passionate, and they both knew it and slowly drew back. What was real love, physical desire certainly, also candour, trust, unselfish impulses? He had them all for her, once, and would again. She must for him, too. “I have to bring the sergeant and Gabriela here right now,” he said. “We can hide them in your garage if you move the car out.”

 

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