While Still We Live

by Helen Macinnes

  Sheila looked sharply at Hofmeyer. What riddle was this?

  “Streit is Gestapo chief for our district. He commended your information on Gustav Schlott as a future helper of the Poles. Don’t look so distressed. I assure you Schlott was too warmhearted and simple; he had already talked too much. He would have been caught red-handed helping the Poles. Then he would not have been evicted. In fact, we saved his life. I forwarded your report on him two days ago. Yesterday, action was taken.”

  “What a miserable kind of person you’ve made me out to be,” Sheila said resentfully.

  “But what an excellent Nazi, Fräulein Braun. And after all, I have got to justify your existence here, from time to time.”

  Neither of them spoke as they approached the large house where Hofmeyer had his suite. They kept their silence until they were inside Hofmeyer’s own private office.

  “I brought you here,” he said crisply as he rubbed circulation back into his fingers, “because a decision about Korytów has been reached. It seems that the village has been giving us trouble. A punitive expedition is to be sent against it. An example will be made of the village, and certainly the Aleksander woman will not receive permission to travel there. I, at the moment, am too busy to be able to find a solution for you. So are the other departments. For the victory parade into the city takes place on the sixth of this October; that is the day after tomorrow. The Avenue Ujazdowskie has at last been made fit for the parade, and our Führer will himself be present. Naturally, we are busy finding prominent hostages and arresting potential troublemakers. You can see how the problem of Korytów is now one for you alone.”

  He watched the amazement on her face and continued: “I have done all I can at the moment. Here are the necessary permits which will allow you to make the journey. If you do so, it will of course be on your own judgment and risk. Herr Ditt—the other department which I hoped would facilitate your journey refuses to help at this moment. They consider the Aleksander woman and her children are of no importance.”

  Sheila’s horror over the fate of Korytów gave way to dismay as she realised that if Herr Dittmar’s policy (for that slip of Hofmeyer’s tongue as he referred to the department which had been so uncooperative was no accident) meant no Aleksanders, then that meant in turn, no Sheila Matthews. As Anna Braun she would be given some real German work to do. Dittmar might even try to have her transferred to his department.

  A telephone call interrupted Hofmeyer’s account of how she might attempt the journey to Korytów if she decided to make it. Sheila sat tensely while he answered it. Surely Hofmeyer realised that this was Dittmar’s thin end of the wedge to ease her out of the Aleksander-Matthews relationship? Surely—and then, looking at the number of permits, clipped together, which Hofmeyer had pushed across the desk to her as he reached for the telephone, she knew that he fully realised that. He wanted her to go to Korytów and keep the Aleksanders together, together with her own excuse of being Sheila Matthews. He knew, too, that any other solution would lead her into grave complications, perhaps himself and Olszak into danger. He knew. Otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to get these permits for her. If his permission now seemed grudging, it was only because he was manoeuvring against a department or combination of departments which were powerful. She examined the permits: they allowed her considerable freedom of movement. She couldn’t help thinking what an involved way of wasting time and energy all these pieces of paper represented: this was carrying German method to a ludicrous extreme. She thought of Uncle Matthews for the first time in days: how he used to grumble over the inanities of income tax returns. He ought to see the complexities of German rule. And then she realised that Uncle Matthews, attached to some branch of British Intelligence as he must be, would probably see samples of all these permits. And Department Fifteen of Olszak’s organisation was no doubt making excellent copies of them, at this very minute. Department Fifteen. Stanislaw Aleksander. There was her plan. Her main problem was solved. Once she could get the Aleksander children and their mother reunited, Stanislaw could attend to their papers and credentials. She would get them safely out of Poland, yet. The feeling that she must go to Korytów was strengthened. And she must go at once. If only Dittmar’s department had been helpful, she could have made the journey so quickly, so easily. With an official car, she would have been there in less than an hour. She would have been in time to warn Korytów. She stuffed the papers into her handbag, wondered how quickly she could make the journey on her own initiative, worrying if she would reach the village in time, wishing Hofmeyer would stop phoning and let her leave.

  He ended his series of abrupt “Ja!” and “Jawohl!” He replaced the receiver, looking at her with eyes suddenly worried, with lips tightly closed. “Herr Dittmar would like to see you. He has sent Hefner round here to collect you. He wants you to identify Kordus.”

  “Kordus?”

  “Yes, they have a body over at the Gestapo headquarters which they believe to be Kordus. The man would not admit anything before he died.”

  “I am to go to Gestapo headquarters?” The look on her face awakened Hofmeyer’s pity.

  He stopped looking worried, and said lightly as if to cure her of this sudden stagefright, “Yes. They are in the former Ministry of Education building on Aleja Szucha. That isn’t so far from Frascati where you are living. Consider it just a break on your journey home with your new autumn clothes.”

  Sheila smiled weakly. “That parcel is becoming a nuisance,” she said. “I think I’ll ask Herr Hefner to take me to Frascati Gardens first. That’s on the way, anyway.” And then I can at least tell Casimir to leave, she thought. Perhaps she herself would never come out of the Gestapo building once it swallowed her up.

  Hofmeyer was obviously relieved at the casualness of her voice, but he noticed the tense neck, the hands held too stiffly. “So we’ve got Kordus,” he said. But he shook his head wamingly. Don’t believe it, his eyes said, don’t believe it.

  “Now I have some work to do, Fräulein Braun. While you wait for Hefner, here are some copies of the newest decrees and regulations. They will show you how we intend to treat the Poles.” He handed her a pile of printed sheets with impressive headings. On a slip of paper attached to the top page, he had scribbled: “Careful. Fake.”

  She left him, with a newly lighted cigarette in his mouth and a piece of flaming paper in his hand. His eyes were on her as she closed the door. He gave an encouraging smile. That was the last time she ever saw Herr Hofmeyer.

  * * *

  Herr Hefner set himself out to be fascinating. He talked gaily all the way to Frascati Gardens. Sheila had an uncomfortable doubt as to whether all this charm was the result of a genuine liking for her, or he was only following special orders. He was extremely obliging about halting the car round the corner from Steve’s flat and letting her carry the heavy parcel towards the doorway.

  “Only a few minutes!” Sheila called over her shoulder to the waiting car. As her neat new heels sounded smartly on the pavement, she was already planning how to use every available second.

  She called out half-way up the staircase so that they would know she was coming. Madame Aleksander was blowing out a match. In a soup bowl, the pieces of paper on which she and Casimir had been writing, remained unburned. She was smiling, partly in welcome, partly in relief.

  “We have been playing that funny game you taught the children this summer,” Madame Aleksander said. “What is its name?”

  “Consequences,” Sheila answered in a very normal voice, but her fingers had become all thumbs and she could hardly open the parcel. She looked sideways at the pieces of paper which Casimir and Madame Aleksander were now smoothing out to show her. So Madame Aleksander had been forced to tell him something about the dictaphone to silence his otherwise irrepressible remarks. Now he was excited. Like all children he loved a secret, especially one so strange and mysterious. His blue eyes were shining, and there was a flush on his pale cheeks. This was a game which he enj
oyed, and perhaps even understood better than the two women.

  Madame Aleksander had noticed Sheila’s clothes. “But how nice you look,” she said delightedly.

  “I asked Herr Hofmeyer for an advance in my salary.” Sheila pulled out the dress for Madame Aleksander, the sweater for Casimir and the two scarves. “For you,” she said, and watched Madame Aleksander’s surprise give way to pleasure.

  “I was feeling cold,” Casimir admitted, grinning happily because he had not been forgotten. Sheila had lifted his pencil and piece of paper. To Casimir, his head emerging with ruffled fair hair from the neck of the new sweater, she made a sign of silence. She began to write:—

  “Casimir! The Gestapo already know of the torn posters. You must leave at once. Friends wait for you at Warecka 15. Keep silent.

  The boy looked wonderingly at the piece of paper, at Sheila, at Madame Aleksander. The new game was no longer funny. He knew what the message meant. He was to leave this house, and his new friends, and all the happiness he had begun to find again. Madame Aleksander was clasping his hand with a pleading intensity. She was nodding and biting her lips and laying a finger on his to keep him silent, all at once.

  Sheila said, “Casimir, we need some more wood for the stove. It is quite dead now. There’s supper to be cooked for tonight, you know.” She pointed the pencil to the written “Warecka 15” and kept it there.

  “Shall I take Volterscot?” he asked slowly.

  “No, I think he should keep Madame Aleksander company, for I have to go out once more.”

  Madame Aleksander gathered Volterscot, protesting with a strange half-smothered whine, in her arms. She held him there, struggling frenziedly, as Sheila pushed the reluctant boy out of the door.

  “Please,” Sheila said as they reached the hall.

  “As you wish, Pani Sheila,” he said. He looked slowly back at the room, at Madame Aleksander and the violently straining Volterscot, at Sheila. “As you wish,” he said again. He suddenly took the paper and pencil and underscored “Warecka 15” to show that he had indeed understood.

  And then his footsteps, no longer lighthearted or clattering, faded into the distance.

  Madame Aleksander’s face was drawn with sadness once more. She laid her cheek with its silent tears against the excited head of Volterscot.

  “I must go too,” Sheila said. She struck a match and burned all the pieces of paper, being particularly careful that nothing but fine dust was left of “Warecka 15.” “I’ll be back quite soon,” she promised. She watched the last curling ashes and thought of the lonely boy walking blindly towards the strange address. What kind of people would welcome him? Her heart swelled with pity and affection. It choked her. At last, “I must go,” she repeated in a voice which seemed hardly her own. “I’ll be back soon.”

  On sudden impulse she kissed Madame Aleksander’s wet cheek, touched Volterscot under his chin.

  Madame Aleksander didn’t speak. She was biting her lip cruelly, her cheek still against Volterscot’s alert ears.

  * * *

  Hefner greeted her affably. “More than a few minutes,” he observed, “but better than I expected. How did they like their new rags? Did you have a touching scene?”

  “Yes,” Sheila said. She let him talk of the victory parade as the car turned south in to Aleje Ujazdowskie, and then southwest into Aleja Szucha. Sheila, seemingly intent on his phrases with a concentration in her brown eyes which obviously pleased him, was thinking of Warecka 15. She was thinking of a boy of twelve, with a new wool scarf round his neck, plodding obediently towards that street; of a boy concealing his unhappiness behind an unconvincing frown. If only she could have told him that he wasn’t just going to hide in a strange house, if only she could have said, “You may eventually join a guerrilla army,” how much more quickly he would have walked. But she hadn’t dared tell him that. He might not reach Warecka 15.

  So she listened to the affable young man beside her, fixed her eyes politely on his face, and kept saying to herself, “Please let him reach Warecka 15. Please, God, let him reach it.”

  23

  AT THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

  Heinrich Dittmar, in a smart grey suit, waited with three uniformed men in a pleasant room. On a large desk were flowers, a huge ashtray of heavy crystal, a silver framed photograph. The chairs were comfortable and decorative. The men seemed in excellent humour. They rose to their feet and saluted her in the Nazi manner. Hefner remained tactfully in the background.

  The black-uniformed man with the exaggerated armband brought his heels sharply together, bowed and echoed “Streit!” as Dittmar said “Captain Wolfgang Streit.” He resumed his commanding position at the desk, his elbows on the polished rosewood, his fingertips joining his outspread hands as he waited for the other introductions to be completed.

  The man in the green uniform of the Waffen SS brought his heels together as Dittmar said “Captain Hans Greiser.” He bowed and echoed “Greiser!”

  The man in grey uniform with a black square and silver embroidered letters on his sleeve brought his heels together. Dittmar said “Herr Josef Engelmann.” Again there was the sharp bow from the waist, again the echo. “Engelmann!”

  Sheila inclined her head. She restrained herself in time from a full bow, heel-click and “Braun!” She took the offered chair, feeling as if she were on a stage and each small movement had become magnified into a gesture. She waited, her throat closing treacherously. The short silence probed like a knife at her heart. Fortunately, Dittmar was in a hurry.

  “We asked you to come here, Fräulein Braun,” he said quickly, “because you are the only person in Warsaw at the moment who can identify the man we have downstairs. All of us here, in our own way, are interested in that man. We believe he is Kordus. You can help us; for you were examined by Kordus after Colonel Bolt had questioned you, and then escaped.”

  “Discharged,” Sheila said. “The first time, I was discharged. The second time I didn’t wait to meet Kordus.”

  “Oh, yes! Discharged.” Dittmar’s watchful eyes smiled benevolently. “Anyway, you can help us. This way, Fräulein Braun.”

  The three uniforms exchanged glances. Their faces were expressionless as they could do nothing but follow the too quick Dittmar, who was already guiding Sheila out of the door. The short procession went down into the large, well-built cellars. Every inch of space in the enormous, modern building had been turned to use. Partitions had been erected to create more offices out of the cellar rooms. Men in and out of uniform hurried through the long basement corridor, stood respectfully aside to let pass Dittmar’s personally conducted tour. Sheila was glad of the length of the journey: it gave her time to prepare herself. Fake, Hofmeyer had warned her. And now Dittmar had warned her too. “Escaped,” he had said. He had said it purposely, as if trying to trip her up. Perhaps it was only what he thought passed for a sense of humour. But possibly it was a test. What if Dittmar knew that the body in this building was not that of Kordus? What if she said it was Kordus, hoping that would end the search for him? She had been tempted to identify whatever she might see as Kordus. Now she knew that such a clever piece of work was not clever enough. It was all that Dittmar needed to hear in order to condemn her. He still had doubts about her, then. She was glad she knew that, however unpleasant it was. It’s war between you and me, Herr Dittmar, she thought, smiling at him sweetly when he halted at one of the end doors in the cellar. As he swung it open, and led the way into the room so that he could turn and face her as she saw the body, she was already guarding herself against the chance that Hofmeyer had been wrong, that she would really see the body of the man whom the Germans knew as Kordus.

  A brilliant, cruel light came from the large naked bulb overhead. The smell was heavy and loathsome. Even after the smell of death in Warsaw streets to which Sheila had become accustomed, the thick, threatening air in this room was too much for her. She turned her head away, and fumbled for a handkerchief.

  One of the men behind
her said, “Whew! They don’t take long, do they?”

  “This will be cleared as soon as Fräulein Braun identifies them,” Captain Streit’s slow quiet voice said. “Quickly, Fräulein Braun. This way.” His highly polished boots struck the cement floor with self-possessed rhythm. He was taking charge, now. Dittmar was too busy watching her face to worry about that.

  She held the handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and followed Streit. Dittmar kept beside her. The others stayed near the door, sacrificing curiosity to comfort.

  “Come in and close the door. Don’t want it all down the corridor,” Streit ordered. They obeyed reluctantly.

  The first stiff figure, bent into a grotesque angle like a piece of hammered tin, had been thrown on a narrow table. Two other bodies were stretched on the floor.

  “Is that Kordus?”

  Sheila’s glance flickered over the gashed face, the gouged eye, the earless head. It wasn’t Olszak. In her thankfulness, she almost forgot her mounting sickness.

  She shook her head.

  “Definitely?”

  She nodded.

  “Know this?” Streit turned one of the bodies on the ground with the toe of his long black boot.

  She nodded. The battered face had a ghastly smile, as if the man had welcomed death when it came.

  “And that?” Streit pointed to the third body.

  She shook her head.

  The heavy door closed behind them.

  In the corridor, there was only the smell of Turkish tobacco and talcum powder, of men who were well-dressed and careful of their well-being. In Captain Streit’s office, there was the smell of roses from the vase on the desk. But she still felt ill, still crushed the damp ball of handkerchief in the palm of her hand.

  Dittmar began, “Well, that’s that. Now—”

  And then Captain Streit asserted his authority for the second time. He interrupted Dittmar unfeelingly, said quietly but firmly, “You were sure, Fräulein Braun, that the first body was not that of Kordus?”