Peter observed the little theater, the glib reassurances and the unspoken misgivings, and mused about the likelihood of Alex and Anna ever returning from the land of milk and honey, the land of peace and prosperity, to their homeland—a shattered corpse that lay decaying under the Nazis’ heel. The wedding, he realized more and more, was just an excuse for a great gathering of the clan— the marriage ceremony itself seemed rather tangential to the family gathering, to the farewells being said to Alex and Anna, to the fond wishes for Ryszard and his family as they headed to Berlin. This did not annoy Peter—indeed the changes in their lives were far more disruptive than what he and Zosia planned, and he did not begrudge them their family reunion. However, he was slightly perturbed by the interactions of the group at large. It was so obvious to an outsider—one such as he—that they had been surviving for too long in isolation, that the Underground society might well collapse under the accumulated weight of preserving itself against the Nazi regime that surrounded it and threatened it with death at every turn. They had learned to cope with the most extreme of circumstances, but they were losing every other aspect of themselves as a result. The children’s chants at his adoption of Joanna returned to haunt him. How long could a people survive surrounded by murder and mayhem and still hope to maintain a semblance of normalcy? Could it continue even ten more years?
“In any case, my dear friends,” Alex was saying quite loudly, “I know I’ll get tosee my youngest daughter here and my granddaughter quite soon since I’m sure they’ll be accompanying Peter on his visit!”
“What?” Peter responded in alarm, unable to reconstruct whatever had gone before.
“Ah, yes, the dear boy, he’s going to speak on our behalf! It will be a great coup!” Alex did not address Peter directly, but aimed his comments at the crowd of well-wishers.
“What are you talking about?” Peter yelled over the heads of the crowd between himself and Alex. He was being set up, it was clear, but he saw no way out except to walk into the trap and try to get out the other side. The room fell quiet, and everyone turned to Alex to hear his answer.
“Alex!” Katerina warned.
“You!” Alex enthused, pointing at Peter. Alex winked at Katerina, then continued, “You’re the perfect piece of propaganda. A living, breathing example of the tyranny visited upon our two lands! Your experiences, your fluency in English—it will all go down wonderfully there. And because you’ll be serving the purposes of the Brits as well, they’ll foot the bill for getting you there!” Alex smiled broadly. “We’re thinking of August. Good time—just before the Canadian elections. And the USA will be into election fever as well! Hot though. Hot as hell then.”
Alex had spoken German to be sure Peter would understand every word. He did not miss the implication: he was being offered the chance to help the cause in front of everyone so he would have no opportunity to refuse.
“Father! You promised to be subtle,” Zosia chided.
So she knew. And she had not warned him! He bit his lip as he considered his reaction. He noticed Wanda’s scowl, saw how Ryszard spoke into Katerina’s ear as they both studied him. It was unclear to him all the subtleties of what was going on, but one thing was clear: it was too late to ask for privacy—whatever debate took place would have to take place in front of everyone, and they were all Alex’s friends and Alex’s comrades and Alex’s relations.
“Ah, subtle.” Alex waved away the objection. “We have a dire need—I’m sure your future husband has no objection to doing his bit!”
“He might have less objection,” Peter said evenly, “if he were granted the courtesy of being told exactly what ‘his bit’ is.”
“Captain”—Alex used Peter’s military title quite deliberately—“all you have to do is come to the NAU, talk a bit about your experiences to various groups, and help us in the election campaign.”
“That’s all,” Peter responded sarcastically.
“Yes, it’s not asking much.” Alex chose not to notice the sarcasm.
“Is it an order?” Peter asked carefully.
“I can’t imagine why it should have to be. Surely you want to help. You must have heard how bad things are getting there.”
Peter shook his head; he had heard, but he wanted to hear Alex’s version of events. It would give him time to think.
“Well, in the last local elections in the USA, the Republicans swept the polls. You must know they’ve been running on a platform of isolationism. They rant that there are too many problems at home, that they can’t afford to be the world’s policeman, blah, blah, blah. And they want to pull out of the NAU or at least trim back their role in it. They want to cut all funding for socalled overseas adventures—that’s us, you realize—so they can balance the federal budget and give tax breaks to everyone. As if we were genuinely a bigticket item!” Alex waved his hand in annoyance. “But that’s neither here nor there. The amount they spend is irrelevant—it’s their outlook. They want to abandon any role in our future. They want to begin talks; they’re working their way toward a treaty with the Germans, and they would just give us all away as a lost cause.
“The situation in Canada is just as bad—the Nationalists want to pull out entirely—and they’re leading in the polls. Any party that bothers to speak up for us is taking a hammering. They say all our claims are just hype—that the regime here is just not that bad. Statistics are meaningless to them, they can’t understand numbers. They’re dealing with emotions and that’s the way we have to fight them. With emotions. With you! You’ve experienced everything we say happens . . . well, short of being shot”—Alex laughed—“of course, but, anyway, there you are—winning smile, blue eyes, blond hair—the perfect American image of his European brother. They’ll identify with you, with your youth, your ability to speak English. They’ll adopt you as their own, then you’ll tell them what happened to you, and they’ll feel that it has happened to one of their own. Their son, their husband, themselves. You have to do it—you are in a unique position and we need every bit of help we can get.”
“And do you think this will influence an entire election?” Peter asked to gain more time. He glanced at Zosia to try to gauge her feelings, but she was looking raptly at her father. Peter was on his own, that was clear.
“Not really, but that’s not our goal,” Alex answered. “We’re just one tiny issue on an entire election platform; all we have to do is remove this issue from the agenda. Make isolationism a vote-loser!”
“Or at least not a vote-winner,” Anna inserted.
“Yes, yes,” Alex agreed. “It doesn’t matter who wins the elections in either place—they’re all the same—we’ve just got to change the attitude of the voters on this one issue, make the pollsters find out that abandoning us is politically unacceptable. Make the whole concept seem immoral. If we can do that, then there’s a chance this item will get dropped from the agenda, and we can work with these clowns the way we usually do.”
“How could they do a turnaround like that and save face?” Basia, Joanna’s teacher, asked.
“Yeah, if I understand you, Alex, they’ve already put a lot of effort into promoting this idea,” Konrad added.
Alex, Anna, and several of the other, older members laughed. “Don’t worry,”Anna answered once she had contained her laughter, “if they find out that something is unpopular, they’ll forget it overnight. As if it never happened.”
“Don’t the people press them about such lack of conviction?” another voice inquired.
“No,” Marysia answered. “No, they forget as fast as the politicians—if they even bothered to know about the issue in the first place. Generally, the pollsters tell them, by asking the right questions, what they’re worried about, and they tell the pollsters which way the wind should blow that day. The politicians happily oblige. When a new issue comes along, it displaces the old one and everyone forgets about it. Even if voters were concerned about a particular but unstylish issue, they often have trouble determining w
here the politicians stand. So in general, they just pick and choose according to whatever issues are spotlighted.”
“And our goal,” Alex picked up the thread, “is to spotlight this issue, but differently from the attention it has been getting. We have to humanize it. Make sure that those sums of money which seem all-important now suddenly seem trivial when faced with the human cost. Once we’ve done that, we can let them quietly forget that they ever wanted to dump us, and they can fight the election about other things—like whether or not the vice president really did have an affair with his male secretary.”
“So you see,” Anna chimed in, looking directly at Peter,“we really need you to come over. And it will be a great experience for you. You’ve never been there, have you?”
“No.”
“Then it’s settled!” Alex stated.
“No, it isn’t,” Peter replied with deceptive calm. He was so furious at the way he had been ambushed that he could not possibly think clearly about the implications of agreeing to this venture, nor could he rationally judge the likelihood of its success. All he knew was that he felt an uncomprehending terror growing within him. That and an overwhelming sense of being utterly alone.
“What? But of course you’ll go!” Anna said. She was followed by other voices.
“Peter, how could you not?”
“Yes, it’s so important!”
“We need to convince them—”
“Stop it! Just stop it!” Peter snapped angrily at all of them.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not a show animal! I’m not for sale!” he replied to no one in particular. Where was Zosia, why did she not come to his defense?
“He shouldn’t go,” Wanda stated without emotion.
Peter was surprised by her defense of his position, but before he could say anything, several other voices interjected, “Yes, he should!”
“It’s a great opportunity to serve your country and ours!” Tomek said with a definite emphasis on the distinction.
“If you had had your way, Major, I wouldn’t be alive to carry out this greatservice,” Peter retorted. “I do remember you voted to have me shot!” Peter saw, out of the corner of his eye, Barbara’s sudden, angry look in Tomek’s direction.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Katerina roused herself, “this is all classified! Enough!”
“And my life isn’t? How dare you all just sit here like vultures making decisions for me!” he said, gesturing around the room. Then, turning to Alex, he said, “And how dare you try and blackmail me like this! Why couldn’t you just ask?”
Alex glanced at Katerina, smiled sheepishly, then turned his attention to Peter. “Well, since the issue has been raised here, now, with everyone obviously in agreement that it’s a good idea—”
“I’m not,” Wanda interjected.
“Almost everyone,” Alex corrected. “What about it? Huh?”
All eyes turned to Peter, awaiting his answer.
Just like that, he thought, without even five minutes alone to consider the ramifications. Just like that, without any warning. Like the way they’d come and get him in his cell—he never knew when, he never knew for what. All those faces staring at him as he stood helpless and alone. All those uniforms standing around, waiting for the entertainment to begin. Using him as if he were not really human, just some sideshow set on the earth to amuse them all. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and though he tried hard to hide his fear, he realized he was trembling.
He looked again to Zosia. She was busy rubbing the back of her neck, her head down. When she finally looked up, she had an absent expression on her face; her tongue probed along the edge of her upper lip as though she were deep in thought. She did not look at him. “I’ll think about it,” he finally said aloud.
“Oh, come on, what’s there to think about?” Alex pressed jovially.
Peter considered a moment, then said in a conversational tone, “Tell me, Alex, have you ever been tortured?”
Alex glanced at the others, realized that the tables had been turned on him and that it was too late to do anything but answer the question. “Er, no,” he replied with reluctant honesty.
“Beaten?” Peter suggested as a precisely pronounced alternative.
“No.”
“Forcibly sodomized maybe?” he asked, drawing out the syllables.
“No, of course not!”
Peter snorted at Alex’s horrified response; he noticed a number of raised eyebrows among the guests—clearly gossip about him had been less widespread than he had guessed. “Interrogated?” he asked with feigned gentleness while he still had the initiative.
“Um, no.”
“Arrested even?” His tone had degenerated into the patient pitch used when asking a backward child a difficult question.
“No, well, er, yes,” Alex answered, relieved he could answer something other than no.
“When?” Konrad asked with surprise. “Certainly you’re not talking about your deportation from England?”
“Well”—Alex cleared his throat—“yes, that was the time I was thinking of. It was traumatic, quite traumatic.”
There were a few grunts of derision from their audience.
“I see.” Peter smiled grimly.
“But it’s not my experience we’re talking about,” Alex said, clearly embarrassed.
“No, it’s mine. And therefore any decision is mine to make—in private and after careful consideration.”
“It’s for the good of us all! You really must do it.” Alex regained his wind, prepared to launch into a long and persuasive speech.
“I said,” Peter interrupted in a tone that caused even Alex to fall silent, “I’d think about it.”
There was, Alex realized, no point in pushing further, and not a few of his audience looked at each other in surprise when he neglected to continue his assault. They were even more surprised when Ryszard did.
“For reasons which, for some of you, must remain unclear,” Ryszard drawled over the whispers that had followed Peter’s comment, “I know something about the methods of the security services.” The few mutters that had begun immediately dropped to an attentive silence. Peter glared at Ryszard, but did not interrupt.
“There is a method to their madness,” Ryszard asserted. “Most victims are released alive—there is a reason for that. They are meant to convey a message to the community at large, and that is, obviously, don’t do what this person has done, or else this is what will happen to you or someone you love. This is why ordinary objects are often used to inflict pain—so that terror will be provoked by the most innocent situations after the victim is returned home.”
“I wasn’t sent back home,” Peter asserted, angered but unsure why. “I wasn’t a ‘message’ for my compatriots!”
“Oh, yes, you were,” Ryszard disagreed. “You were placed among a population of fellow forced laborers, most of whom, I would guess, had not been tortured, and most of whom, I would further guess, ascertained that you had been. Maybe it was a coat hanger or a bottle or some other innocuous item which made you tremble. Maybe it was just certain words. Whatever it was, they would have noticed, and they would have understood the connection, even if you did not.”
Peter felt that somehow Ryszard was implying he was stupid, but before he could respond, Ryszard continued, “As useful and widespread as it is, though, torture has rather negative political implications, and no modern government indulges in it openly. They hide their complicity behind periodic assertions that a few ‘rogue elements’ have gotten out of control, or by labeling their victims as terrorists, criminals, or insane. All these devices help to distance governmentsfrom the procedure, and further to put some distance between the victims and the public’s perception of itself and its own innocence or sanity.”
Peter thought of his own constant irritation at the green triangle he was obliged to wear. He wet his lips as if he were going to say something, but no words emerged.
“Nevertheless,” Ryszard emphasized, “nothing is so successful at suppressing public outcry as the silence of the victims and the perpetrators themselves. This is efficiently achieved in two ways: first by planting in the victim’s mind an absolute distrust of humanity, thus destroying his ability to relate well to anyone or to trust anyone with the sensitive details of his life, making him see enemies and phantoms even among—”
“I am not insane!” Peter hissed.
“I didn’t say you were,” Ryszard responded coolly. “Second, they make the proceedings utterly humiliating. In general, that is the reason for the sexual violations, for denying the prisoner clothing or simple toilet facilities, for placing bags or buckets on their heads, or attacking their genitalia. There are more efficient methods of inflicting pain and lasting damage, but that is not the goal. The goal is to make the victim a silent witness, to make that person terrifying to all who know him, but at the same time to make him unable to carry any message of what has happened to him to the world at large. To make it all too humiliating to speak about.”
Peter found himself staring at the floor as Ryszard spoke. Could he ever tell anyone about having his stomach grotesquely distended with contaminated water, of being drenched in his own excrement? He looked up to see Ryszard’s eyes boring into his. “As long as you remain silent, you remain their tool,” Ryszard warned, “and if you think that speaking out will damage you, just think of the damage you do to others by remaining silent!”
Peter felt like a coward and at the same time resented Ryszard and the others for making him feel that way. They thought they were asking him to sit on a stage, fully dressed, and talk calmly. But if his words were effective, he would be inviting hundreds, maybe thousands, of strangers to strip him and see him as he had been then: naked, beaten, filthy, and violated. Drooling, scabrous, swollen, and discolored. Obscene and repulsive.
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