No Going Back

by Anna Patrick

  After supper, all the prisoners, except for Zofia, lined up in two rows facing the door. The warden – a small, dumpy woman with down-turned mouth – entered.

  ‘Cell number 14. All 20 prisoners present and correct, Frau Inspector.’

  The warden walked a short distance into the room, looked around without changing her expression and went out locking the door. Marta who hadn’t realised she had been holding her breath, let out a sigh and the atmosphere lightened. During the next few minutes they moved the mattresses, spreading them out on the ground.

  She lay down. Zofia was a remarkable woman to have suffered so much and yet remain so resolute. Courage wasn’t relevant to her; there had been no choice about the path she took through life. Was it really that simple? The decision to help Ludek was similar: the need to take his place was obvious. Would she have gone if she’d had a bad dream? Yes, though she might have been more circumspect, less inclined to suppose all would be well.

  Her thoughts turned to Father Jan Zieja, her father’s friend and childhood companion, a man whose love of God sustained him and encompassed everything he did. He saved the lives of Jews without thinking twice about it, knowing it was the right thing to do, the Christian thing to do, the will of God made clear. The baptismal certificates he signed provided new identities to thousands and his search for hiding places never ended. Offered a meal and a bed for the night, he would accept, and then turn up an hour later with two Jews in tow ready to take his place.

  He never seemed to have any doubt about what he needed to do and always did it with boundless love, with a blessing for those he absorbed into his mission, with a kind and encouraging word for those whose courage failed them.

  Love made things simple, she realised with sudden clarity; it took away the need for choices and decisions and weighing up pros and cons. Love of God and of his every neighbour gave Father Zieja his strength of purpose; love of freedom and of her countrymen gave Zofia that same strength; perhaps in her own case her love for Ludek would see her through this ordeal.

  9

  Ludek arrived home to find the building empty. His brother, whose experience in local government had enabled him to find employment with the Central Welfare Council, was still at work and none of the lodgers was around. He made himself a glass of tea and waited until it was time to go to Wanda’s apartment.

  What had she found out? He lit a cigarette and drew on it several times before remembering his pledge to give them up. Annoyed with himself for forgetting, he decided not to waste it. He would need to ration the smoking around his work and worked out a schedule to avoid the shakes. By cutting right back he could put aside at least two packets of cigarettes a week.

  Anxiety about Marta gnawed at his stomach. Would he ever hold her in his arms again? He needed to be strong for her sake and do everything to help her. Instead paranoia returned with a vengeance: find out how the bloody hell this happened. Thoughts screamed inside his head. Who did this to you? And why?

  By the time Ludek set off again, he had worked himself up into a state of incoherent thoughts and aggression. Thumping on Wanda’s door, he stormed inside and checked round all the rooms.

  ‘What have you found out?’

  Wanda looked horrified.

  ‘Good evening, Ludek,’ she said quietly. ‘Is this how you enter the house of a friend?’

  An equal horror overcame him and his body caved in.

  ‘Oh God, my dear friend, I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Well, perhaps I do but let me talk about that later. Apologies for my behaviour. Please forgive me.’

  With these words he took her gently by the hand and kissed it, his face expressing penitence.

  ‘Forgotten already,’ said Wanda. ‘Now come and sit down and I’ll tell you what I’ve found out. Marta is being held at Montelupich. A friendly guard told me prisoners receive Red Cross parcels regularly in the women’s section. Unfortunately, Marta is still in the main prison. If we compensate him for his trouble, he will deliver private parcels. Although he wouldn’t give a name, he told me when he was next on duty.’

  ‘Thank you for doing this. It’s a comfort she isn’t being held at Pomorska Street. I don’t suppose it’s much better at Montelupich, but at least it isn’t Gestapo headquarters. So, when do we send the first parcel?’

  ‘Let’s wait until they have transferred her to the women’s section. I’m not sure why, but I feel we ought to be careful and find the right balance between helping Marta and not creating too much fuss that might be counterproductive to her well-being. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I guess so. Oh I do wish I’d asked her what she would say if they caught her, but I honestly never imagined it would happen. She seemed so confident she was just going to breeze through it, my beautiful girl.’

  ‘Maybe she hadn’t worked out what to say until the moment they arrested her. Sometimes a spontaneous reaction can be the most believable. One day soon, we’ll find out.’

  This was a lie, but Wanda didn’t want Ludek dwelling on the past and getting himself agitated again.

  ‘At the end of the week I’ll go back and find out if she’s there. Now, tell me what upset you so much that you forgot your normally beautiful manners.’

  Ludek grimaced.

  ‘Apologies again. It’s just that I can’t get the thought out of my head that someone betrayed me.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Someone did betray you. What else accounts for Marta’s arrest?’

  ‘I’m sorry, this doesn’t make much sense to you, but it makes perfect sense to me. There has been a betrayal, but what I didn’t think until now, is that the betrayal was aimed at me personally.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone meant for me to get caught. Someone set me up as a lure for the Gestapo, to be sacrificed without my knowledge for a purpose I’m not aware of.’

  ‘Ludek, you’re still not making sense.’

  ‘Not to you, but it is as clear as daylight to me. This wasn’t some ordinary piece of bad luck but a betrayal from the top, the very top, downwards.’

  Ludek leaned in, eyes blazing, cheeks tinged with colour.

  ‘They didn’t just find some unlucky partisan and torture him for information. They headed to the Planty hoping, intending, determined to find me.’

  His voice rose to a falsetto.

  ‘I was to be their prize. And I don’t understand why.’

  His head fell to his chest, and he kept shaking it from side to side.

  ‘London. They’re behind this, but why.’

  Wanda was at a loss how to handle this. The Home Army took its orders from the Polish Government-in-Exile, based in London, but to suggest they had masterminded the betrayal of an individual agent was complete madness. Marta’s arrest had unhinged Ludek. Should she play along with his theory or dismiss it out of hand? What would be the least damaging for him and for Marta?

  ‘Have you ever heard of the resistance deliberately betraying one of their own?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.’

  ‘Ludek, you are overwrought. Marta’s arrest has come as a devastating shock and your own feelings of guilt have twisted your brain into seeing enemies where they do not exist. Trust me, this is not how the resistance works; it never has and it never will. There is no doubt of your commitment to the cause of Poland’s freedom and if the resistance wanted to sacrifice you, they would not have hesitated in asking you to make that sacrifice. And I am sure you would have done so willingly and proudly.’

  Ludek nodded, his features at once serious and noble. Somehow Wanda had struck the right note.

  ‘No more reflection on the matter is required, Ludek, nor is it profitable. Our one aim now is to help Marta survive. That must be the focus of all our efforts. Are we agreed?’


  ‘Yes. Agreed.’ Ludek smiled and looked optimistic.

  ‘Before I came here, I had the most tremendous headache, worse than any I’ve experienced before, and it’s only subsiding now.’

  ‘When did you last have something to eat?’

  ‘Breakfast or was it last night? No, I can’t remember. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it matters. We have to keep ourselves fit and well to help Marta.’

  She moved into the tiny galley kitchen and directed Ludek to help her.

  ‘Now, if you open that cupboard, over there in the corner, you’ll find two soup plates and the spoons are in that drawer, next to the stove.’

  While he looked for the items and lay the table, Wanda set about warming the soup, stirring the contents and thinking about Marta.

  She was about to ask Ludek to cut slices of bread, when the idea of him holding a sharp knife in his hands, made her turn queasy. She steadied herself against a cupboard and told herself not to be so foolish. This wretched occupation has shot all our nerves to pieces, she thought, but she still didn’t ask him to cut the bread.

  The soup was a hearty vegetable concoction to which Wanda added crumbled chunks of rye bread. At first, the silence between them seemed strained, but as the warm, nourishing soup filled their stomachs, they both relaxed and ate in companionable silence.

  Ludek told her about his day and his attempts to give up smoking. His tone was light and amusing and before long Wanda was laughing at the tale, delighted to have the old Ludek back. She told him about her lucky escape from a street round-up that morning.

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen it happening with my own eyes. I really thought my end had come. Walking down Dietlowska Street I saw the trucks pull across the road; I did an about turn and ran when the next load of trucks shut off the other end. My knees just gave way, and I sank to the ground as the shouts and swearing and gunfire formed a kind of audible panorama around me. I honestly couldn’t move and thought if they order me onto the trucks, they’ll end up shooting me, because I can’t move.

  ‘Then a rough voice said “Young lady, get in here, quick.” It was a workman with a little striped tent next to a hole in the ground. “They won’t take me and they won’t search my hut.” Suddenly I was moving with no trouble at all. I made myself as small as a mouse inside his tent and he kept the flap open to avoid any suspicion he was hiding somebody. Then he wielded his pick axe rhythmically as if round-ups were no business of his.

  ‘When the round-up was over, I went straight to the nearest church to pray for them. I spent my last coins to light candles for them and one for Marta.’

  ‘Thank you, dear friend.’

  ‘There’s no need to thank me. I love her as much as you do and I would do anything to have her back with us.’

  Ludek remained calm and reminisced happily about times he had spent with Marta and conversations they had had and outings they had enjoyed and the silly, joyful things they had said and done.

  With the curfew fast approaching, Wanda invited him to stay the night on her couch, but he declined saying he wanted to update his brother. They agreed to meet up at the end of the week, when Ludek would bring a parcel of goods to deliver to the prison, and they hugged each other in a warm goodbye.

  The brisk walk home energised Ludek, and he planned his next recital, scheduled for the following weekend. He took his resistance work for the Home Army seriously and with complete dedication, but this form of civil disobedience afforded him even greater pleasure. Performing plays, reciting poetry, reading extracts from the classical Polish writers, were ways he continued to practise his chosen career while cocking a snook at the Nazis.

  Somebody usually brought a bottle or two of home-made vodka to the proceedings, but even without liquid refreshment, the atmosphere was always uplifting. People would sit on chairs, on stairways, on beds in adjoining rooms, anywhere they found a place to enjoy the performance. More often than not, their enthusiasm for the show resulted in people forgetting the curfew and having to bed down for the night on rugs and bare boards with folded towels and cushions for pillows.

  The group he belonged to always appointed a Master of Ceremonies to ensure the audience did not get too rowdy or clap too enthusiastically, drawing unwelcome attention to their activities. But even the MC was part of the fun, wagging his finger ostentatiously, and goose-stepping his disapproval in the ridiculously small space available to them as a stage.

  Just recently two of his friends had started performing satirical pieces of such devastating wit that the audience would gasp in appreciation. ‘Last night I attended…’ was a favourite when the performers took turns to be theatre critics of the latest ‘Nazi show’ which covered anything from military disasters to proclamations by Goebbels. The pieces were short but trenchant.

  People came in from work looking haggard or deflated but within minutes you observed their spirits lifting, the pride returning. Even without the applause, Ludek always found the experience exhilarating. He would miss Marta’s enthusiastic face in the audience but determined to do her proud with his performance.

  The poetry of the 19th century poet Cyprian Norwid was his choice for the night; Norwid was her father’s favourite poet, but Marta too relished his use of words, and found comfort in them.

  He would peruse his brother’s collection of poetry books. But even as he walked, lines of remembered poems came into his head: “Tenderness can be like a cry full of war” or “Oh! How sad and rare is deafness – When you hear the Word – but miss the punctuating notes.”

  His recitation would start with a quotation from the poet: ‘Of this world only two things will remain: poetry and goodness… and nothing else…’ It seemed appropriate.

  He saw the light coming from their room. Motionless he whispered: ‘Poetry and goodness, my dear brother, poetry and goodness.’ Then he stepped inside.

  10

  On the Friday guards escorted Marta back to Pomorska Street. The interview took place in Inspector Bauer’s office and he began by offering her a cigarette.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and I must say these surrounding are more conducive to civilised conversation than our previous meeting room.’

  ‘Indeed, Miss Paciorkowska, my office was being renovated when we first met.’

  ‘And you now say my name correctly. Well, I must congratulate you. Some Germans find Slavonic names almost impossible to pronounce, which must irritate the master race.’

  Start as you mean to go on.

  His eyebrows wiggled. While his phone might be tapped, there were no listening devices in the office so he let his feisty prisoner be free with her tongue.

  ‘There are one or two matters I would like to clear up following the search of your rooms.’

  ‘You searched my rooms?’

  She stiffened and shook her head.

  ‘Of course you searched my rooms, why would I expect any different?’

  ‘That bothers you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s like a burglary. It’s a violation to have strangers go through your possessions.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine so.’

  ‘Well, there it is; there is nothing I can do about it so please continue.’

  ‘Thank you, that is most generous of you.’

  He imagined relating the conversation to Henni and suppressed a smile.

  ‘Perhaps you can identify the people on these photos?’

  ‘That is a picture of my parents taken after their marriage. That is a group of friends from university days. That one is another friend, again from my days in Warsaw.’

  ‘Names and addresses, please.’

  Marta obliged as far as she was able.

  ‘The young lady here looks Jewish.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘She w
as. Whether she is alive is quite another matter.’

  ‘And you are not embarrassed to admit being friends with a Jewess?’

  ‘No. She was one of my best friends, actually. An exceptionally beautiful and highly intelligent girl who went to Jerusalem to study medicine and made the mistake of visiting her family days before war broke out.’

  ‘That was bad timing from her point of view.’

  Marta agreed.

  ‘Did you help her?’

  ‘No.’ She squirmed in her seat.

  Bauer cleared his throat, pulling at his collar.

  ‘Mm I dare say it wasn’t easy.’ He mumbled and straightened his papers

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  This was interesting. Did the Inspector have some connection with Jews? Was it something she could use?

  He took the yellowing newspaper out of his file. ‘This was in your desk. I wondered why.’

  ‘I am sure you have worked that out, Inspector.’

  ‘Maybe, but I would prefer to hear it in your own words.’

  ‘The newspaper article is about the murder of three thousand Polish officers in the forest of Katyn. Each man had his hands tied behind his back, and a bullet put through the back of his head. One of those men was my father.’

  Tears welled in her eyes as she remembered reading the news.

  ‘The crème de la crème of Polish society: intelligent, creative, beautiful human beings whose lives were cut short in the most appalling way.’

  ‘I agree that it was a most terrible crime perpetrated, as I am sure you are aware, by the Soviets.’

  ‘Yes, the Soviets carried out the crime, but let’s not pretend that your own countrymen haven’t carried out similar atrocities.’

  ‘Be careful, Miss Paciorkowska. While I can permit a certain amount of loose talk – it makes my job, a great deal more interesting – it would be unwise to push the boundaries too far.’