The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  “Torture, retaliations, confessions. Some are really quite gruesome,” he warned. “My favorites are the subtle ones—some of my cinematographers are quite good at nuance. No blood at all, yet you can feel the pain. It sends shivers up and down my spine. Makes me feel quite randy, you know.”

  Stefi shuddered and set the tape back on the shelf. “But you would be taking such a risk. I don’t think it’s worth it for a bit of film. Do you?”

  “Risk?”

  “Yes, like my father explained.” She came back over to him and continued her massage.

  “Oh, yes, forgot about that. Oh, oh, oh, that feels so good! Remind me about that tomorrow morning. Oh, yes, that’s great, oh, oh, yes. I don’t want to forget. What did he say, provisions?”

  “Protocols. I’ll tell your personal assistant tonight and he can make sure it’s stopped before tomorrow. That way we won’t have to worry about forgetting and I won’t have to worry about your safety. And my father’s.”

  “Good idea,” he sighed. “Exquisite! You have exquisite fingers! Why don’t you come to my office every day and give me a massage?”

  “I’m not in town much.”

  “I know!” he pouted. “But where are you?”

  “I take care of my great-aunt. She lives out East, in a colonial region, and has fallen ill. She needs someone to help her out. Someone she can trust.”

  “You’re wasting your talents.”

  “It’s family.” Stefi let her thoughts stray only momentarily to the old woman who had been established in a farmhouse just to provide her the cover she needed to return to Szaflary. The neighbors knew of the brown-haired young woman who visited her regularly and, if asked, would make their reports accordingly. “She needs me.”

  “What about your mother, she’s just had a baby. Doesn’t she need you here in Berlin?”

  “Not as much as my aunt. My mother has the other children to help her.”

  “Well, you tell your aunt to take good care of you. If she doesn’t, she’ll have me to answer to.”

  Stefi leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I’ll tell her. Now, shall we return to the party before my father starts to worry?”

  The Führer laughed heartily. “Yes, of course! We wouldn’t want him to think we’re up to anything!”

  2

  BY THE TIME Peter came home, the effusive welcome and celebratory atmosphere that had greeted Zosia and Joanna had abated somewhat, but he was still greeted warmly and congratulated and thanked for his efforts from all around. He learned that his words had been more effective than anyone could have predicted and that the increased flow of money and equipment into Europe had begun even while he was still in America.

  “They aren’t being very discriminatory,” Tadek informed him during a game of poker. “A lot of stuff is falling into the hands of loonies.”

  “I think,” Peter replied as he ordered his cards, “they think we’re all loonies here.” He shrugged and thought of what they all took for granted as normal. “Maybe they’re right.”

  “Well, this helter-skelter approach is causing some unfortunate strains in our resistance efforts. The number of random bombings and snipings is up considerably. Not only here, but in the rest of the Reich as well. Security has been tightened everywhere.”

  “They’ve called up reserves,” Romek interjected, contemplating the mess in his hand.

  “Unfortunate,” Peter replied, “but I think it was unavoidable.”

  “Perhaps,” Tadek agreed as he laid down an initial bid. “You could have been clearer about whom you supported and more willing to denounce the crazy fringe element while you were on television.”

  “What crap,” Peter muttered, looking at his cards.

  “It’s all pressure on a system that must sooner or later collapse,” Romek suggested as he threw in his cards.

  “Yes, the fringe element serves the purpose of making the regime more willingto deal with us, since we are at least reasonable,” Peter said, growing annoyed at Tadek’s undertone of condemnation. “It wasn’t my job to direct the flow of funds; I did what I was supposed to do, and that was to raise American awareness of the situation in Europe and to gain sympathy for the cause of the Resistance.”

  “Random murder is random murder,” Tadek pronounced solemnly.

  Peter glared at him, thinking of how close Tadek had come to randomly murdering him upon his arrival. He decided not to mention that though, and as he met Tadek’s bid and raised him, Peter replied instead, “And wanton violence has been a way of life here for decades, my dear colleague. Maybe it’s about time that the Germans feel some pain.”

  “We’re not looking for revenge,” Tadek reminded him, meeting Peter’s bid and indicating that he wanted only one card.

  “No, that would be impossible.” Peter motioned for two cards. “But if a littlebit of hurt gives them an idea of what they are doing to the rest of us, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to have terrorist bombs and random murders.”

  “The Jewish leaders in Warsaw formally requested that of the Allies back in ’42, I think,” Romek remarked. “Tit-for-tat executions of Germans living abroad. They hoped that the request, at least, would draw attention to their desperation.”

  “We should have listened to them,” Peter said. “We still can.”

  Romek nodded noncommittally. Tadek shook his head. “I don’t think it will work.” He tossed in two more chits.

  “You have no idea how many of them are cowards,” Peter retorted, matching Tadek’s two and adding another six. “I do know! And, I’ll tell you this—if mein Herr had suspected that he might one day have his bones fractured with a shovel in retaliation for his actions, he might just have decided to restrain himself.”

  Tadek glanced at Peter’s face but got no indication of his thoughts. Tadek scowled at his cards and then threw in his hand.

  “If you feel that way, why didn’t you take revenge?” Romek asked.

  “I should have,” Peter said as he drew in the pot.

  Tadek was right. The sudden American interest in the various resistance causes had led to an upsurge not only in random terrorist acts, but contributed to a growing sense of political chaos within the Reich. There were more well-planned sabotage, heightened resistance in mountain retreats, greater efforts at intra-Reich diplomacy, nascent strikes, and new underground newspapers. The Reich authorities debated the appropriate reaction to these changes, one side arguing for greater repression and heightened vigilance, the other for a loosening of controls to release steam without letting the pot boil over. The political infighting between the two factions only added to the growing sense of instability.

  For Peter, the changes were almost moot. He ventured out to the local village on several occasions, but otherwise had little to do with the outside world. He retreated into his mountain fastness and picked up the threads of his life where he had left off. He continued with his physical retraining, sharpened his already impressive shooting skills, and began trying to play the piano so he could teach Joanna. He played poker with his friends, attended parties, went for long, pleasant walks with Zosia, and took Joanna out to harvest mushrooms and berries, or to picnic and swim, or just to observe the wildlife. He returned to tending the garden he had planted, thanking his friend Kamil profusely for keeping it during his absence, and even decided to expand the plot now that he knew what he could and could not plant in the harsh mountain climate. When he stopped to rest and leaned on the shovel, breathing in the fresh autumn air, sometimes he thought of the garden he had tended at the Vogels’. An image of those horrific few moments when Karl had attacked him with the shovel would occasionally flash through his mind, but he did not react to the memory; he just stared off into the distance and let the vision of the meadow wildflowers and the distant rustle of the wind in the trees soothe him.

  Sometimes, too, he thought of Elspeth and the weird experiences he had had with her. He thought often of Madzia, wondering what he could do for her, but he nev
er came to any firm conclusions. At other times, especially on dark or rainy days, he thought about the times he had spent in prison. He tried to approach the memories with a detached air of wakefulness, and to some extent it worked. He could view his past self with something like pity and was relieved that it was no longer he. Once in a while he tried to send messages of comfort back to that miserable wretch, whispers of hope from the future, but he could not remember if he had ever heard these time-traveling thoughts. For good measure, he sent a few words of comfort into the future as well so that they would be there when he needed them. It was a habit he had acquired in childhood, at a time when his only friend was his future self, and it was a folly that he still occasionally indulged.

  Other than for these visits into his past, he lived a contented life. The two months’ absence, first at Ryszard’s and then abroad, had sharpened his appreciation of the encampment. It was not that he had not recognized the freedoms that Americans enjoyed, it was more that he had been obliged to be diplomatic for so long, it was a welcome relief to voice his opinion openly among people he knew and trusted and who understood the basic issues about which he was talking. That was probably what had annoyed him the most in America: not his missionary role, but that so many people had no clue what he was referring to and that he often found himself reduced to simple diagrammatic discussions of a deeply complex situation.

  Not unlike the conversation he and Zosia had had with Katerina, he mused, as he leaned on his shovel and stared into the sunset. The encampment had many accreted flaws, which he more keenly recognized since his tour of America, and to remedy them he and Zosia had had Katerina over to dinner to try to persuade her to reorganize and reprioritize a number of things, in particular his work. But all she had left them with was the comment at the end of the evening that if she did not know better, she would think they were saboteurs trying to destroy whatever unity and organization had been established. Zosia had turned crimson at the remark, but in deference to Katerina’s age and standing had said nothing. Peter had not been so controlled and had blasted the old woman for having turned into a calcified and useless old fossil, and as he had closed the door behind her, he had said, still within her hearing, “She’s obviously gone senile.”

  Katerina’s attitude only compounded a problem that was already growing in his mind. It was necessary to reorganize the office and catch up on missed work, but he knew once that was accomplished, there would be little point to what he did. To keep up with the fast-paced developments in his field, they needed a massive commitment of resources and people, a commitment that they could not afford and that was not realistically available given the constraints of their existence. Logically, if he was to make a genuine contribution, he should be secondedto Warszawa or to the NAU, but the first was impossible and the second he did not desire as long as Zosia wanted to remain in the Reich.

  Worried by the developments in his work, he often sat and pondered what else he could offer the encampment, never sure of what it was he was looking for. Since completing his visit to America and the conception of their child, he somehow felt as though he had reached the end of his shelf life, as if his only purpose had been served and the only point to his current existence was caring for Joanna and tending to Zosia. He felt it was all well and good enjoying a life of leisure earned by his hard work in America, but he wanted to contribute more. He needed a new career, and for that, he thought, he needed to improve his knowledge of the language he now spoke so unsteadily. His goal was to be able to understand every nuance of Tadek’s speech, no matter how rapid or complex, and he hoped to be able to speak fluently enough to switch languages with Joanna so that they no longer used German as their common language of communication.

  “I’m not sure switching is a good idea,” Zosia said when he confided his goal to her. They were sorting through some baby clothes that Zosia’s friend Franciszka had given her, and Zosia’s attention was momentarily diverted as she sought the match to a sock. Finding it at last, she continued, “You know, she needs to be utterly fluent in German, and your speaking it to her is good practice, you have such a lovely accent.”

  “I don’t want to practice German with Joanna. I want a language that we love as our common tongue. English or Polish. But not German,” Peter responded as he held up a tiny white gown. How was it possible that a human could wear something so small? Babies were wonders of miniaturization!

  “Oh, it’s so close to English, why don’t you want to speak it?”

  “It’s not close to English!” he sneered. “Anyway, it gives me the creeps. I’ve had it shoved down my throat so many years of my life. You can speak German with her. I’d rather use something else.”

  Zosia held up a pair of tiny socks.“Marvelous, aren’t they?”

  “The socks?”

  “No, babies! Marvels of miniaturization!”

  Sometimes they really did seem to think as one. “You scare me, woman,” he joked.

  “Rightly so. Now, what shall we name the sprog?”

  “Ah, how about Geoff, if it’s a boy.”

  Zosia made a face. “After your friend?”

  “Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Only that I wanted a Polish name. That doesn’t translate well.”

  “What’s wrong with an English name?”

  “It’s my culture that’s under attack and it’s me that is doing the hard work here. I want a Polish name.”

  “The baby will be more English than Polish, my dear. Let’s see . . . ,” Peter mused, should he count Alex as entirely English or half-English? “For argument’ssake, let’s say your father is only half English. That makes you one-quarter, and the baby is . . . five-eighths English.”

  “Oh, rot. He or she is pure Polish.”

  “I thought your mother had some Ruthenian as well.”

  “Utter rot!”

  “Or was it Cossack?”

  “Nonsense. She’s purebred Polish!”

  “Not even a hint of that wild Eastern blood in her?”

  “None at all!”

  “Now with Alex’s mother being English, his being born there, and assimilation,” Peter continued teasing Zosia, “I’d say your father is completely English, which would make the baby, hmm, three-quarters English.”

  “Luckily, our family tradition is the woman names the baby since she does all the work. So, whatever your clever calculations, I get the final say.”

  “You are joking, of course?” he asked humorously.

  “No, I’m not,” she replied without any humor at all.

  There were, he realized, the seeds for a huge argument there. His pride insisted that he have a say in the naming of his child, and now that she had made a point of rejecting it, he also felt like insisting on an English name. For a moment he felt that his personality, his independence, his culture, his pride, everything was on the line. Everything except his love for Zosia: that he took for granted, and he expected her to take it for granted as well. Hmm, now there was a thought.

  Carefully he asked, “Joking aside, is this important to you?”

  Zosia looked up at him from the pile of clothes. Something like surprise was in her eyes. She nodded slowly. “Yes, it is,” she said in a quiet voice as if the words were a revelation to her.

  He examined his own feelings and realized that, except to spite her, the origin-of the name was not really important to him. There were lots of beautiful names in both languages. It was important to her, it was not important to him, and he said he loved her. Was that enough to convince him to give up a stranglehold on this decision? Was that enough to convince him not to fight her about it just because he wanted to make sure that she did not get her way easily? Or to teach her a lesson for not having asked him in the appropriate manner? Put that way, it seemed silly to argue, yet still, something inside him said he had to fight for his rights. If he gave up this piece of territory, it would never be regained.

  What an odd way to think. They were not adversa
ries in a war fighting over a border, they were supposed to be partners in life. He claimed to love her, believed he would give his life for her, had seen her risk her life for him, yet this simple thing was so hard. He gave her so much that she did not appreciate, yet something that she wanted, he found difficult to concede. Indeed, that he had mentally termed it a concession revealed a lot.

  “You’ve gone all quiet,” Zosia commented on his sudden silence.

  “Oh, just thinking of the baby,” he lied. “What would you like to name it?”

  “If it’s a girl, I’d like to call her Irena.”

  He hesitated, then slowly, as if the words were so foreign to him that he was not sure what they would sound like, he said, “I’d like that.”

  “You would?” Zosia did not hide her surprise.

  “Yes. I think it’s a pretty name.”

  “You mean there is nothing else that you would rather have?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I don’t think it would be first on my list, but I like it, and if you want it, why should we search further?”

  “No reason,” she conceded.

  “What about a boy?”

  Zosia bit her lips. “I always liked, before that is . . .”

  “What?”

  “I always wanted to call a son Karol.”

  Peter took a deep breath; though Zosia had emphasized the slight difference, it was pronounced nearly identically to Karl. “I don’t suppose there are any other names you would like?” he asked painfully.

  “You could think of it as your father’s name—Charles.”

  “That wouldn’t help much.”

  “Well, how about Adam?”

  Peter breathed deeply. Beloved Adam. What better name to give his son? “Firstborn,” he whispered, thinking of his brother. He had always known his brother’s firstborn status had been special to his parents.

  “Not my firstborn, and since I’m the one giving birth . . . ,” Zosia interrupted his thoughts.