And what if he let them look into his mind? That part of himself that was damaged the most? What if he let them see the “phantoms” that stalked him, the self-doubts that beset him, his inexplicable feelings of guilt? What if he let them know of the overwhelming fear that even now made his heart thunder in his chest? He shuddered at the thought. Even worse, though, what if his words failed to convey those humiliating images about himself? Then his efforts would be pointless, and he would be seen as whiny, self-pitying, and weak!
He walked toward Ryszard, the crowd parting before him as he crossed the room. When he was face-to-face with Ryszard, he stopped. “You left out one small detail,” he said so quietly that only the complete silence of the onlookers allowed his words to be heard.
“And what is that?” Ryszard asked.
“The third component of the silence: no one wants to hear about it! It embarrasses the audience, makes them uncomfortable, so they tune it out. ‘It can’t be that bad!’ they’ll say. ‘You’re exaggerating!’ they’ll say. ‘Jeez, can’t you make it a bit less, you know, unpleasant!’ they’ll say,” Peter said with a sneer. He glanced around the room to make sure everyone was listening. “They won’t want to believe such things happen—not to good people, anyway. So, they’ll either decide I am evil or foolish or hopelessly foreign, and deserving of my fate, or they’ll point out I’m still alive, relatively healthy, and I should stop whining and thank God that I’ve been granted my life!”
He took a deep breath. “The only way out of that trap is for them to dehumanize me—make me the perfect sacrificial lamb, suffering in noble silence! Heroic and redeemed! But then I can’t be bitter, can I? I can’t be fallible or human or scared. In fact, I should view the whole thing as an inspiring adventure! I should find Jesus! I should write a fucking book about it!”
Ryszard raised his eyebrows at the sudden vehemence of Peter’s reaction, but his expression said that he had expected no less. Peter turned away from Ryszard and his all-knowing attitude. He was one of them. One of those faceless uniforms who watched impassively as others suffered, screaming, weeping, begging God for mercy.
Peter turned to the others in the room, almost pleading with them to understand. “That country is filled with asylum seekers, many of whom have stories worse than my own. The victims of torture walk around like ghosts, no rational person wanting to believe they exist. And if they do speak up, the truth of their words is doubted, their motives are questioned. If the Americans haven’t heard anything yet, it’s because they don’t want to. Would you? Would you listen? Would you do anything?” He scanned the faces. Nobody said anything. “The sad truth is, even if I were to speak, you wouldn’t be able to find anyone who would listen.”
Peter turned and walked out the door, ignoring Alex’s “I’ll handle that part of it!” He strode down the hall to the entrance and left the bunker for the anonymous peace of the cold, snowy night. As he walked slowly through the trees toward the escarpment where he usually sat and looked at the stars, he heard someone running up from behind, panting loudly from the effort of plowing through the snow. It was Zosia. She smiled at him and joined him, and they continued to walk in silence for a few moments.
When the warm feeling of her hand in his had calmed his heart, he asked, “Why didn’t you help me in there?”
“Well, mainly because I think you ought to do it, so since I couldn’t say anything useful to your cause, I said nothing at all. But also because I thought you should be seen to fight your own battles. I knew you could handle it.”
“Why didn’t you at least warn me?” He couldn’t tell her of the terror Alex had provoked, of how it was like another show trial: all those faces waiting to con-demn him, waiting for him to condemn himself. But certainly she must have had some idea!
“Oh, I’m sorry. If I had known Dad was going to pull that stunt, I certainly would have. He just mentioned it in passing, and I said I thought it would be a good idea, but I told him he should talk to you directly—that it was completely up to you. I assumed it would be in private, so I just advised him to be subtle so he wouldn’t jar old memories, and he said he would be. God, I’d hate to see what he thought unsubtle was!”
“I can’t believe he ambushed me like that.”
“Me neither. But I’m sure he had his reasons.” Zosia wrapped her arm around his waist, and he put his around her shoulders. They felt comfortable together like that, as if they belonged together for all time. They stopped at the escarpment, and clearing away some snow, they sat and looked at the stars, holding each other and enjoying the biting cold of the cloudless night. Eventually Zosia shivered and suggested they should head back. They walked along the trail they had made, the snow muffling all sound save the whisper of their breath. They continued in their warm togetherness, but just before they reached the entrance, Zosia pulled him to a stop. “You know, I was just thinking about my father’s idea and about what Ryszard said. Maybe you should do it.”
Peter took a breath and then exhaled carefully.
“Maybe talking about it would help you heal. Maybe it would help stop your dreams.”
He shook his head. “You know better than that.”
Zosia contemplated the stars. Peter followed her gaze upward and they stood in silence together. “It’s important to us,” she said quietly.
“I know. I wouldn’t even consider the idea otherwise.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I need some time to think about it.”
“What’s to think about? Didn’t you hear what Ryszard said? Don’t those people-matter to you?”
“And didn’t you hear what I said? I’m not so sure he’s right. I’m not so sure that it will do any good at all,” Peter replied. A shooting star drew a fiery line across the sky and then disappeared forever. “What I do know is that it may well destroy me.” He waited for Zosia to respond to that, to say that she now understood what a difficult decision she was asking him to make. He waited for her to echo the words of her question, to say that not only all those anonymous people mattered to her, but he did as well. When she said nothing at all, he added, “I don’t know what motivates Ryszard, but I know what makes your father tick. What he wants out of this is political advantage, money, and weapons. He doesn’t want to help people like me, he’s just using our misery to buy guns. I’m not sure I want to be used like that.”
“You owe it to us,” Zosia whispered to the firmament.
“I know. I owe you my life, I owe you everything. I owe you all a debt of grat-itude that I will carry to my grave. I’ve tried hard to repay you, but I know it will never be enough. Still, I will beg one more favor of you.”
“What’s that?”
“Allow me the dignity of making this decision for myself. Release me from my debt, just this once.”
Zosia brought her gaze down from the heavens to study his face. She looked at him a long time, her mouth working its way back and forth between a smile and a frown. She bit her lower lip and seemed to come to some decision.
“What is it?” he asked.
She wrapped herself around him, burying her face in his coat, then suddenly she pulled back and looked up at him again. “Do you love me?” she asked tenderly.
“With all my heart.” Stroking her hair back from her face, he kissed her.
“Would you do it for me?” she asked breathlessly. “As a wedding gift?” He narrowed his eyes as he studied her, but he could not quite grasp the significance of his nebulous suspicions. She looked up at him, her face suffused with love, and his heart melted. “All right, as a wedding gift.”
38
THE LARGEST ROOM available was too small, so the ceremony took place outside under the pine trees in knee-deep snow. Everybody was bundled up against the bitter cold, and the wind carried their words away before they had even finished speaking each sentence, but it was, nonetheless, a beautiful exchange of vows. Peter had chosen Olek as his best man, and in a fit of matchmaking, Zosia chose her niece
Stefi. Zosia and Peter removed their warm leather gloves long enough to put the rings on each other’s finger. The ring Zosia had worn for Adam was an heirloom, so Peter agreed to use it again and placed it on her finger in the certain knowledge that it represented far more to her than simply their wedding vows: it was for her a symbol of her current marriage, her previous marriage, and her ties to family and cause. In contrast, he had no heirlooms, no previous marriages, and if, by some chance, he had ever owned a gold ring, it would have been taken from him by force long ago. So, she presented him with a new ring that she had bought, and as she placed it on his finger, it represented only his marriage to her, and that, he felt, was enough.
The priest, who had traveled to the encampment for the ceremony, was convinced by the biting cold to limit his advice to the happy couple to just a few brief words. An altar boy held a small crucifix mounted on a staff to one side so that the couple could be married in the presence of Christ. The lonesome, agonized figure on the cross looked incongruous in the snow under the pines, and Petereyed it wryly, remembering his comment to Zosia on his first day at the encampment. He listened as the congregation repeated the Latin phrases of the mass in a jumble of meaningless syllables, watched as most of them took a bit of bread and a sip of wine, and sighed his relief when the incomprehensible ceremony finally came to an end.
The reception was held inside the bunker, spread out among rooms and hallways with food in one area, dancing in others, and people milling happily about the hallways drinking and conversing. Initially Peter and Zosia stayed in the largest room, but Zosia eventually felt obliged as a hostess to mingle and greet each guest. She tried to convince him to do likewise, but since she declared it “silly” to march around as a couple, he steadfastly refused, opting instead to sit with Joanna on his lap or idly drinking and watching the festivities as though through a window. He chose a chair in a corner of a room where there was dancing, placed a full liter of vodka on the floor nearby so it was available as necessary, and let his thoughts drift through the haze of conversation and music and dimly lit faces.
Zosia returned to him several times during the evening to try to convince him to take his duties as host seriously, and by the third attempt she seemed somewhat annoyed by his unwillingness to actively socialize. “Could you not be so rude!” she pleaded angrily.
“I’m not rude, I’m talking to everyone who cares to chat with me!”
“You should go out and greet them! It’s your duty to make the guests feel at home here,” she insisted, leaning over his chair so she could speak quietly.
“They’re your friends and family, Zosia, and they feel more at home here than I do. I don’t feel comfortable talking to people I don’t even know—it’s not something I’ve ever done.”
“Can’t you do it anyway? You’re embarrassing me!”
“And can’t you just get off my back!” he snapped. “I said it makes me uncomfortable!”
Zosia opened her mouth to say something to that, but decided better of it. She stood looking at him for a long moment. He gave her a hopeful smile, but she did not respond. He tried to find the words to soften what he had said, but she turned and walked away before he could say a word.
He watched her leave, unable to decide what to do. He thought maybe he should make the effort of circulating and chatting to people he did not know, painful as that would be, to show Zosia that he did care, but by the time he had decided to move, Barbara came over to chat with him for a bit, then Olek and Stefi did likewise. Halina and eventually Teodor spent some time with him nattering about business and the troubles they were having with their computing needs. Eventually the priest who had conducted their ceremony sat down, uninvited, in the chair nearest to him and began a one-sided conversation.
There were two priests who visited the encampment with some regularity. Although Peter could not fathom the hierarchy, one seemed to outrank the other,and it was the lower-ranked of the two who had performed their ceremony. Peter had met the senior priest on a previous occasion and had decided he was a venal and uninspired man. He expected nothing better from this junior colleague.
“. . . have remained outside the church despite your marriage to Zofia,” the priest was saying when Peter finally decided to listen.
“Do you have a problem with that?” he asked the priest without any interest in the reply.
“Not on my account, no,” the rather young man replied. “I just thought you looked like someone who needed something in his life.”
“Not what you have to offer.”
“No? I’ve talked with others like you, people who have endured much. Always, it is the believers who are able to best sustain themselves, to find themselves afterwards.”
Peter turned his head with exaggerated care to look at the priest. “I would think that the essential characteristic of a believer is believing. Now, how exactly does one get around that? I can’t force myself to believe in something that I don’t believe in, now can I?”
“You can open your heart to the possibility.”
“I’d prefer opening a bottle,” Peter retorted, reaching for his vodka and filling his glass.
“Maybe someday you should come and talk. I think you’d be surprised.”
“Sure. And when you feel like discussing the wrongs of religions throughout the centuries, you can come and talk to me, eh?” Peter replied, perhaps rudely.
“I’d like that,” the priest surprised him by responding. “You have no idea how much I enjoy a good discussion!” Then, suddenly growing quite serious, the young man asked, “Do you believe governments have been without evil?”
“No. Of course not.”
“But you are not an anarchist, are you?”
Peter sighed, seeing the obvious connection. “No. It seems a necessary evil to have some structure in our lives.”
“So, the manipulations of men which have fouled religion in the past are not necessarily proof that God cannot be found in those same religions!” the priest trumpeted, jumping ahead a few steps in the desultory debate.
Peter paused long enough to down a bit of his drink before replying. “It’s entirely possible that your views contain the truth of the universe,” he said to his annoying guest, “but I, for one, shall never know.” He then turned his attention back to the room and refused to be drawn further into debate.
Later in the evening Katerina joined him and sipped some of the vodka he offered her. Despite both their best attempts, they began to talk business as he tried to convince her that he needed a higher security clearance—it was nonsense his working with such a low priority! Katerina agreed that it did not make his job any easier and that it was somewhat confusing, but was adamant that without a better vetting, he had no hope of getting a proper clearance.
“How can we show you sensitive material,” she asked in her usual matteroffact tone, “when we still don’t know who you are?”
“But you must see that I can be trusted. For Christ’s sake, I know all your names and faces and the location of this place and so much more—it’s stupid denying me access to files that I need to do my job!”
Katerina shrugged. “We’ll be the judge of that.”
“But didn’t everything that happened at the laboratory prove I’m not one of theirs?”
“Prove?” Katerina looked at him skeptically. “No. The evidence is in your favor, but it could have all been set up to secure your position here.”
“Isn’t that just a little bit paranoid?” he asked, exasperated.
“Before 1942,” she said solemnly, “I believed in paranoia.” She looked away, waited a moment as he digested that thought, then, still without looking at him, stated, “They’d give away laboratory information, they’d risk your life a million times over to get at us. If you were truly devoted to the Fatherland, you would have suffered your injuries gladly to prove your case.”
“I think,” he responded quietly, “that it is quite clear I don’t suffer them gladly.”
“Even if that were clear, it doesn’t prove anything.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. I can come up with many reasons you might obey their commands, whatever they’ve done to you. You have yourself admitted a tendency toward collaboration. What haven’t you admitted?”
“Nothing!”
“I don’t know that.” Katerina finally turned back to look at him. “But let me suggest a scenario—just one of a multitude. Let’s imagine that everything you said was true and that you lived your life as a lonely Zwangsarbeiter in Berlin. You meet a woman, a Zwangsarbeiterin, and you fall in love. She becomes pregnant, there is a child, and you love the child as well.”
Peter sighed heavily since it was obvious where she was going with the story, but he did not interrupt.
“Of course, such an event cannot remain hidden, and the woman is arrested and eventually implicates you.”
“No, I go to the police voluntarily, out of love for her.”
“Fine. In any case, they help you escape, pointing you in our direction. They know it is a difficult, dangerous task, but they have nothing to lose—just your life, which is worthless to them. They give you plenty of time, say three years—”
“Make it five.”
“Yes, five years. If you haven’t returned by then—”
“Enough already! If that’s how you feel, why are you letting me go to America? Why not forbid it?” He didn’t mention that he would be rather relieved if she did.
“Because Alex managed to get the entire encampment behind the idea.” She breathed deeply and added almost reluctantly, “And because I basically do trust you.”
Peter looked at her in surprise. “Then why can’t I get the sort of clearance I need to do my job properly? Why do I have to hand everything over to Olek as soon as I stumble across sensitive information? Don’t you know how inefficient that is? Why hamper my work?”
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