The Katyn Order

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  There was a smaller neighborhood church around the corner. The early morning mass had just finished. Natalia and Rabbit waited while the parishioners filed out, then slipped into the empty sanctuary. The odor of incense still hung in the air, and sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows as two nuns collected booklets from the pews, then exited through a side door.

  They sat for a while eating the bread and cheese until Rabbit slumped back in the pew, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve.

  “What happened?” Natalia finally asked.

  The food seemed to revive him a bit, but there was a look of fear in his eyes that she had never seen before, not even during the most gruesome battles in Warsaw. “NKVD,” he said, glancing around. “They broke into the safe house in Lodz. It was a week ago . . . I think . . . just before dawn. I was asleep in the attic. But I woke up when I heard car doors slamming.” His eyes darted around the empty sanctuary. He moved closer, lowering his voice. “They knew everything.”

  “Everything? What do you mean?”

  “The two NKVD men you shot. They knew all about it. A Polish policeman was with them, and they were looking for a woman and a teen-age boy.”

  Icy fingers played on the back of Natalia’s neck, and she half expected a cadre of NKVD agents to burst into the church with machine guns. “What happened then?”

  “They shot someone—the owner of the house, I think. They had Hammer and Zeeka. I climbed out on the roof and got the hell outta there.” Rabbit took a deep breath and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve again. “I didn’t know where else to go, so I came here . . . to find you. You told me about the big church on the market square. I’ve been goin’ there for the last three days. One old nun was startin’ to look at me kind of funny, like I was trying to steal somethin’.”

  Natalia put her hand on Rabbit’s shoulder as she tried to absorb the devastating news. Zeeka, Hammer, and how many others, were probably being tortured and murdered because of what she’d done. The NKVD would get the information from them, she was certain of that. One way or the other they’d find out that she had gone to Krakow. And that was a week ago!

  “You did the right thing,” she said, squeezing Rabbit’s bony shoulder. “I am very glad to see you.”

  He bit off another chunk of bread. “Now what?”

  Natalia thought about it. Since the NKVD was looking for a woman traveling with a teen-age boy, they’d have to split up. And she had to find somewhere for Rabbit to stay. Meanwhile, it was already Tuesday, and Adam hadn’t returned. They were going to need help, and there was only one place in Krakow where she had a contact. But she’d been told never to return.

  Later that morning, Rabbit walked along the boulevard overlooking the Vistula River, following the directions Natalia had given him to the Kazimierz District. He felt better now than he had for a week. The food and a chance to clean up in the washroom they discovered in the church’s lower level had revitalized him, as did the clean shirt that Natalia had managed to buy at one of the stalls in the marketplace. It wasn’t new, but it fit and it didn’t stink like the one he’d been wearing for as long as he could remember. Natalia had returned to the church’s lower level from the marketplace, wearing a gray scarf over her head and carrying a cane and a black felt hat. In her pocket were scissors that she used to cut his long, blond hair. Then she had handed him the hat. He hated hats but wore it anyway, wondering how much good it would do if the NKVD traced him to Krakow.

  Rabbit slowed his pace as he entered a narrow walled street leading to the Church of Archangel Michael and Saint Stanislaus. He suddenly felt very conspicuous, certain that he’d hear heavy footsteps behind him at any moment.

  Two women stood talking at the entrance of the church courtyard. As Rabbit approached them, he noticed a man on the other side of the street, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Is he watching the church?

  At that moment the two women turned and walked across the courtyard toward the church. Rabbit made an instant decision and followed them. He kept a few paces behind as they climbed the steps. At the top landing an elderly caretaker stood with his back to the door, pulling bits of weed from a stone planter. Rabbit hesitated, but one of the women ahead of him held the door open. So he entered the church.

  Rabbit let the two women go first, then knelt in the pew and pulled out the rosary Natalia had given him, resisting the urge to glance back at the door. He waited, absently moving his fingers over the beads and trying to ignore the tingling on the back of his neck.

  Finally it was his turn. He stepped over to the confessional, knelt at the screen and whispered the greeting Natalia had instructed him to use. “In the name of the Lord I come seeking.”

  Silence.

  Rabbit whispered, “The Conductor sent me.”

  There was another moment of silence, followed by a rustle of robes, and the priest cleared his throat. “What do you seek?” he said.

  Rabbit replied, “Jastremski.”

  More silence, longer this time. Finally the priest said, “We cannot take any more time here. Three o’clock this afternoon, at the Cloth Hall.”

  Rabbit exited the church, and hurried down the steps, across the courtyard and through the gate. The man leaning against the wall was still there. Rabbit continued down the narrow street, looking straight ahead. He turned right at the corner, then left at the next street. After five minutes he stopped and knelt down to tie his shoelace. The man was nowhere in sight.

  Breathing a bit easier, he walked back along the Vistula, then followed a pathway near the castle that led down to the riverbank. Natalia sat on a bench facing the river.

  Rabbit sat down next to her and said, “When I asked about Jastremski, the priest didn’t answer.”

  “Didn’t answer? Did he say anything?”

  “He told me to be at the Cloth Hall at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  Natalia closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples. Then she looked at her watch. “While we have some time, there are some things you need to know.”

  At half-past two, Natalia sat at a wrought-iron outdoor table at one of the cafés lining the perimeter of the Rynek Glowny. Most of the cafés were empty, so it was easy to select one that provided a clear view of the massive Cloth Hall on the other side of the vast cobblestone square. Rabbit was two tables away, reading a book about General Pilsudski and the Polish Legions that Natalia had purchased.

  Idly stirring a cup of bitter coffee, Natalia thought about the situation. Had something happened to Jastremski? Or had someone gotten to the priest? Was this meeting a setup? She picked up the cup, but her hand trembled and she set it back on the saucer. Calm down and think.

  As she glanced at her watch, a shadow darkened the table.

  She froze.

  Slowly, Natalia turned her head and looked up at a man standing over her.

  It was the caretaker from the church.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you,” the elderly man said. “May I join you?”

  “Yes, of . . .” She stopped to catch her breath. “Yes, of course. I was expecting the—”

  The caretaker shook his head, warning her not to say any more as he slid into the chair opposite. He wore a gray suit with a white shirt and solid blue tie. The suit was clean and neatly pressed but frayed at the ends of the sleeves. He removed his fedora and set it on the table. It was a warm afternoon, uncomfortably humid as though it might rain at any moment, and the elderly man’s high forehead glistened with a film of perspiration as he ran a hand over his thin white hair. “You may call me Leopold,” he said quietly. “I saw you sit down and thought I’d save some time.” His face was tanned and creased from years of outside work, but his ice-blue eyes revealed the intensity of someone who did a lot more than rake gardens. “And you can tell the boy to join us.”

  A waiter appeared. Leopold ordered coffee, and the three of them waited in silence until it was delivered. There were only a couple of other people at the café, se
veral tables away, engrossed in their own conversation.

  “Jastremski has disappeared,” Leopold said abruptly. “So has his wife.”

  Natalia felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “NKVD?” she whispered.

  The caretaker nodded and sipped his coffee.

  Natalia slumped back in her chair. It had to be Tarnov. She suddenly felt very warm, and sweat trickled down the back of her neck. If Tarnov had gotten to Jastremski, they were sure to find out about Adam. And they’ll know where he went!

  Leopold leaned over the table. “What do you need?”

  Natalia drummed her fingers on the table as a dozen thoughts swirled around in her mind. She had to decide exactly what to do, and in what order. She said to Leopold. “It’s best if Rabbit and I aren’t seen together. Do you have somewhere he can stay for a few days?”

  Leopold studied Rabbit, sizing him up. “I have quarters at the church. There’s plenty of room. Do you cook?”

  Rabbit smiled. “No, but I eat.”

  “Can you scrape and paint windows?”

  “I can if you feed me.”

  Leopold patted the boy’s shoulder. “You paint and I’ll feed you. It won’t be fancy, but you won’t go hungry.” He turned back to Natalia. “Anything else?”

  Natalia hesitated for a moment, trying to decide how much to say. The more she told this man, the more jeopardy they’d all be in if he were questioned. But if Adam wasn’t in trouble already, he would be very soon. She was going to need help. Natalia removed General Kovalenko’s letter from the breast pocket of her vest and slid it across the table. It was written in Russian, but she told Leopold what it said.

  Leopold slid it back to her, his eyes darting around. Pigeons fluttered about on the cobblestone square among the pedestrians, clopping horses and creaking vendor carts.

  “You met a man in the courtyard of the church last week,” Natalia said. “You gave him a message to board the tram to Podgorze.”

  Leopold nodded.

  “That man is a friend, and he’s on a mission.” She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “I’m concerned that he may have been . . . detained. I’m not certain, but I may need help.”

  “What type of help?” Leopold asked.

  “Right now, some advice,” she said, tapping Kovalenko’s letter on the table before slipping it back into her pocket. “What do I do with this letter, just waltz into a police station and tell them to ring up General Kovalenko in Berlin?”

  “As crazy as it seems, that may be an option. A letter like that, signed by a general of the Red Army, should get their attention. On the other hand, the NKVD have planted spies among the police. Do you trust this General Kovalenko?”

  Natalia couldn’t believe she was even thinking about this. Trust General Kovalenko? Am I mad? “Could we send a message to London—to a certain person at SOE?” From what Adam had said about him, Natalia wasn’t sure she trusted Whitehall either. But she didn’t have any other options, and at least he wasn’t Russian.

  Leopold appeared thoughtful. “Yes, we could,” he said after a moment. “The location of the wireless was compromised recently. It’s been moved, and it will take a day for me to arrange it.”

  In the background a trumpet sounded from high in the Gothic tower of the Mariacki Church.

  “Three o’clock,” Leopold said. “Rabbit and I should go now. If you want to send a message, meet me here tomorrow at this same time.”

  Fifty

  19 JUNE

  ON TUESDAY the weather was clear. Piotr hitched up the horses to the wagon, and he and Adam left the small cluster of cabins just as the sun crept slowly above the tall mountain peaks. Thin yellow rays filtered through dense conifers. Nuthatches and chickadees flitted about, and an occasional rodent scurried in the underbrush as the horses clopped along the muddy pathway, the wagon creaking along behind. It was a quiet morning, gradually warming as time passed and the sun cleared the treetops.

  They had ridden in silence for awhile when Adam said, “You’re a lucky man, Piotr. Krystyna is a beautiful woman.”

  Piotr smiled. “That I am. I don’t deserve her.”

  “Was she in the AK before you married?”

  Piotr gave the reins a gentle flick as the horses plodded up an incline. He kept his eyes on the path and nodded. “Her father, Borys, was Casimir’s second-in-command. He and Krystyna made regular trips over the mountains into Slovakia back in ’39 and ’40, guiding our soldiers on their way to France. Since then we’ve kept the routes open for supplies, weapons, couriers, that sort of thing.”

  “Is Krystyna’s father still—?”

  Piotr shook his head.

  “What happened?”

  “Russians got him, last October. Borys and three others from Prochowa were on their way back from Slovakia. Krystyna wasn’t with him, thank the Lord. We were married two months earlier and we were living down here. Borys’ group encountered a Russian patrol near the border trying to find their way to Zakopane. They were hunting down some Germans in the area when they got lost.”

  Adam looked away. He knew from the pain in Krystyna’s eyes the night before what was coming next.

  “One of the men from Borys’ group was wounded, but he escaped and managed to walk back to Prochowa and tell the story. Borys knew the risk, but there wasn’t much he could do once they happened to cross paths with the Russians. They were now our allies, of course.” Piotr spit into the path. “As soon as they got what they needed, the fuckin’ Russians just turned on them and started shooting.”

  Adam thought about Natalia and the story of her village being burned to the ground by the Russians. Her family had disappeared, and her brother had been shot in the back of the head and buried in a ditch in the Katyn Forest. He’d been away from her for three days and it was killing him.

  They stopped for lunch in a clearing alongside a stream, and ate heartily—cold chicken with black bread and cider. Piotr asked him again about America, obviously a subject of great interest. It reminded Adam of the night he and Natalia had huddled in the ammunition cellar in Warsaw and he told her about baseball.

  “Do you miss it?” Piotr asked.

  Did he miss it? It had been so long, and so much had happened that Adam could scarcely remember. In the years since he’d left, the years during which he’d shared the agony of war with the proud and stubborn people of his birth country, his previous life in America had faded to vague recollections. But there was one thing he remembered with complete clarity, one thing he knew he would never forget. “I miss freedom,” he said.

  Piotr nodded and looked off into the mountains.

  The air was crisp, the blue sky crystal clear as Adam watched a hawk gliding in a lazy circle high above the beech and aspen trees. The forest was still thick at this altitude, and he imagined a lynx, or a red deer, or a wild boar keeping a close eye on them from inside the tree line. He remembered Natalia saying she wished they could escape into the mountains. It sounded wonderful . . . if it could ever happen.

  Half an hour later they climbed back on the wagon and continued on, climbing higher and higher up the mountain, the path twisting and turning through thinning forests. Eventually the terrain flattened into a plateau, and the path widened into a rutted road, passing through broad grassland meadows populated with long-wooled Podhale sheep. Cabins appeared, nestled between small, neat fields of oats, potatoes and cabbage. A farmer, trudging behind an ox and plow, raised his hand to wave as they passed by.

  By mid-afternoon, the village of Prochowa came into view, dozens of cabins clustered close together, all constructed in the Górale style of whole logs, squared and notched at the ends, high-pitched roofs and narrow windows. Men working the fields shouted greetings as they recognized Piotr. Women and children peeked out of cabin windows as the wagon creaked past and drew to a stop in the village center.

  It was a grassy square, dominated on one side by a church with a high-peaked roof made of wood shingles. On the other side of th
e square was a large earthen area ringed with wooden benches and hand-hewn, oak tables. In the middle of the ring, large spits of meat roasted over wood fires, the smoke and tantalizing odor of mutton wafting through the village.

  Within minutes the wagon was surrounded by a dozen hardy men dressed in coarse, felt trousers, leather moccasins and wide-brimmed hats. They joked with Piotr and glanced curiously at Adam. Women with long, braided hair partially covered with tasseled scarves or white head-cloths stood nearby, children peeking from behind their ankle-length, embroidered skirts.

  Adam anxiously scanned the crowd, but his uncle was not among them. Should he be? What had he expected, that Banach would just suddenly appear in the middle of a crowd of mountain highlanders? He realized that he had no idea what to expect.

  Piotr stood up in the wagon and held his hands in the air, silencing the crowd. He motioned for Adam to stand and addressed the group in a deep, commanding voice. “Thank you, my friends of Prochowa, for your warm welcome. Allow me to present a friend—an American—who has traveled here by way of Krakow.”

  That sent a buzz through the crowd. The men glanced at one another and nodded, a ripple of applause, a few cheers. Adam’s face flushed. He waved and mumbled a few words of thanks. Then he and Piotr jumped off the wagon, surrounded immediately by well-wishers patting them on the back.

  A moment later a thin, regal-looking man pushed through the crowd. He appeared to be in his sixties, with leathery skin and dark piercing eyes. He wore a short black coat over a white linen shirt and gripped an ornate, hand-carved walking stick that Adam recognized as a ciupaga, with an axe blade on the top end and steel-tipped spear point on the bottom. The group fell silent.

  Piotr removed his hat, bidding good day to Casimir and said, “I bring greetings from Krystyna.”

  The elderly man smiled broadly. “Ah, Krystyna, I’m told she is with child. Is she well?”