The question now was, would Viktor show himself today? His agency no doubt had a hand in sending the three members of the Patriotic Society to Siberia in ‘26. Had Viktor played any role in the operation? Had he recognized prisoner Jan Stelnicki as Barbara’s father? The chronology played out in Michał’s head. No, it seemed unlikely that he could have recognized him at the time, for it was some months after the exile that Barbara introduced Viktor to the family. He remembered her speaking of an accidental meeting.
Nonetheless, the secret of his identity was out now. Only Viktor didn’t know that his guise had fallen away, that his two brothers-in-law knew his real position under the Imperial Commissioner. So what would keep him away? Would his father recognize him? That would do it. Otherwise, he would show. The thought of him here—eating, drinking, toasting—during such a sweet celebration set Michał’s teeth on edge. It was all he could do not to curse his sister for bringing a viper into the family.
The front door opened and Michał and Anna rose from their seats as Wanda and Elzbieta went running. Anna reached for Michał’s hand. Hers was trembling. A few seconds later Zofia minced into the room. Michał watched as Anna braced herself a bit, covering her disappointment.
“Still no guest of honor?” Zofia asked.
“Not yet,” Anna answered, excusing herself from the room.
“Oh, Anna, if you’re going upstairs, tell Iza to come down. I expect she’s still fussing about her dress. One day she could care less and the next—oh, I’ll never figure her out.” Zofia turned and approached Michał. “Jerzy Lesiak was here earlier today, Michał. You were out.”
“You saw him?” This was news, indeed. How had that meeting between her and Jerzy gone? Did she deny knowing him to his face? Or—
“Yes,” she said simply, her beautiful face smooth and placid. There was a puzzling sort of calm about her. “And he waited about for you a while. When you didn’t come, he left this note he had dictated to someone. He can’t write himself, you know. I said I would give it to you.”
Michał took the sealed note from her. “You—you talked with him?”
“Yes, dear,” she said, her expression enigmatic, “we talked.”
Michał was fishing for another way to open up this mysterious subject of Zofia and Jerzy when a commotion arose in the front hall, and they turned to see the servants—as well as Iza and Anna—running past, moving toward the front door.
After an absence of four years, Jan Stelnicki had come home.
In the reception room, Iza watched Jan and Anna from a little distance. How they wore their emotions on their sleeves! It warmed her heart to see their happiness. And Michał—he was clearly thrilled to have his father back and to witness life suddenly transform his mother, like the blooming of a long dormant flower. Dressed in a green satin gown that set off her amber-flecked emerald eyes, Cousin Anna fairly glowed as she sat on the sofa with her husband holding her hand, patient with his slow forming answers to questions, so many questions. He was avoiding sober answers to serious questions about his treatment, choosing instead to make little asides and jokes. His captors had done nothing to damage his spirit.
But beneath the joy on Anna’s face Iza could read also the surprise and shock. The very sight of Jan Stelnicki touched everyone. It was not the drab brown of the frayed frock coat and trousers that were surely someone else’s castoffs. It was that he had aged so, many years beyond the four he had spent as a Russian captive. He went away a hearty, sturdy fellow, a horseman with the swagger of a longtime soldier still in his blood. And he was returned to Anna a ghost of a man, thin and pale, like a chalk drawing left in the rain. The sandy-gray hair was white now, the facial handsomeness still present though the translucent skin scarcely covered the bone structure. His vision had clearly deteriorated, for he seemed unable to focus exactly at first upon the person addressing him. Iza wondered if the daily exposure to bright sunlight on snow and ice hadn’t done damage. The oddest thing was, however, that he had not removed his gloves and when Anna suggested he do so, he put her off, saying something about still being cold through and through from the trip.
He took the news that Barbara had married a Russian with a long, silent stare and a nod of the head—but in no time he was joking about his being a dziadek and had everyone laughing at his grandfather jokes. Iza realized now why Barbara had managed to be late in arriving: the news of her marriage had to be broken to him first. Anna lighted up, delighting her husband with tales of little Dimitri and Konrad.
Odysseus had come home to his Penelope, Iza thought. This was no less of a homecoming, no less of a love story. She prayed now that Jan and Anna, having spent so many years apart, would still have many more together, that only death—long into the future—would ever separate them again.
Half an hour passed without Barbara’s appearance. Michał absently put his hand in his pocket, finding the folded and sealed note from Jerzy that Zofia had given him. In all the excitement he had forgotten it.
He rose now, excused himself and went down the hall to a little room Zofia used to attend to her mail. Closing the door behind him, he took out the letter and broke the seal. It read:
Be advised, Michał, that my comrades have come across information you have been seeking. The firebrands Wysocki and Zaliwski have moved up their little conspiracy. The recent student arrests and disappearance of several cadets precipitates this move. Our sources say that the plan is for the university students to take to the streets, inciting Warsaw’s citizens to action. The cadets’ objective will be to overtake the Russian garrison and arsenal. At the same time a small group of cadets are to overrun Belweder Palace with the goal of taking hostage the Grand Duke Konstantin. It is a bolder move than we had expected. We think we have a less than a week before the attempt.
Jerzy
“Blood of Christ,” Michał muttered aloud, “an uprising and abduction of the tsar’s brother?” He had little time to think about it, for a great commotion arose then out in the front hall, and he heard the high-piercing shrieks of little boys. Barbara and the twins had arrived at last.
Had Viktor come with them?
Viktor stood in the hall removing his greatcoat and hat. The boys had rushed ahead and Barbara followed in pursuit. Everyone was in the reception room, it seemed. One of the maids—the younger one—took Viktor’s coat and hat and he made his way toward the double doors, slowly, as if he were going to his own execution. He stood on the threshold for a full minute watching the scene, his wife talking to her father, clasping his hand, her mother watching, smiling like a matriarch of a family at last reunited. There were tears all around, excepting the boys and Jan Stelnicki, who was smiling at the twins, dry-eyed.
At that moment, having come from another room, Michał presented himself in the doorway at Viktor’s side, and offered a politely stiff hello. Viktor followed his cue, thinking Michał seemed almost surprised to see him there.
“Viktor, come in,” Barbara called.
Viktor produced a smile, drew in a breath and advanced.
Later he would not remember the stilted pleasantries of welcoming Jan Stelnicki home and Jan’s welcoming him into the family in return. Viktor was struck by the changes in Jan Stelnicki. He was so much older, so frail, so thin. As he reached for his hand, he prepared himself for the moment of recognition. It didn’t come—at least he was certain the man didn’t recognize him. His blue eyes, somehow paler, seemed not to find him at first and when they did—well, Viktor had the feeling that the man couldn’t quite make out his new son-in-law. Dared he hope that he would escape exposure?
At supper Viktor felt fortunate that he was at Anna’s end of the table, a good little distance from Jan at the other end. It would have been disturbing to have his father-in-law studying him. When the meal commenced, he noticed that Jan had removed the glove from his left hand, leaving the other glove on. Soup spoon in hand, Jan proceeded to eat his dill pickle soup using his left hand. Even though he was right-handed. Viktor felt a
heat come into his face. He knew what Jan was up to. He was taking precautions against calling attention to the gloved hand, the one with the missing index finger.
Sitting directly across from Viktor, Michał watched him with great interest.
And loathing. Viktor had remained very quiet in the reception room, his body stiff, eyes always moving, but at the table he had taken a second glass of wine and started to join in the conversation on a number of mundane subjects. He was well-informed on weather across the continent, particular crops in nearly every nation. Everyone seemed to know not to bring up the politics of those nations. Michał saw him glance—surreptitiously, it seemed—down the table at his father-in-law, a strange intensity in his eyes. He had to have known about the three men sentenced to Siberia in ’26. Had he been heading up the Third Department then or was he merely one of many? Perhaps his climb to power occurred later. Jan Stelnicki betrayed no recognition of him whatsoever and, true to form, had put aside his shock at finding a Russian son-in-law, speaking to him quite cordially. For Barbara’s sake, of course. And no doubt, too, for his grandsons’ benefit.
Barbara—was it possible she knew of her husband’s activity in the Third Department? Michał snuffed the thought immediately. It just wasn’t conceivable. But she must be told. She must be told soon. He would catch her alone later, before they left.
He glanced down the table, past the twin boys sitting on the mammoth books, to his sister, who had hardly eaten at all, had hardly taken her eyes from their father. On second thought, she was too happy to spoil it for her. Not tonight.
Part Three
Don’t stir Fire with a Sword
—POLISH PROVERB
13
Monday, 29 November 1830, Warsaw
JÓZEF AWOKE TO A VIOLENT shaking. He opened his eyes to see Marcin’s contorted face leaning over him. “Józef, wake up! Something’s going on. They’re rousing the whole floor!”
Józef bolted upright. “What time is it?”
“It’s not yet light out.”
At that moment the door to their quarters burst open. It was Piotr Wysocki himself. “Your moment’s come, Stelnicki! You too, Niemczyk. Most of the others up here are to assemble in the mess hall. You two are to come to my quarters in half an hour. Understood?”
“Project C? “ Marcin asked.
Wysocki shot him a look meant to melt. “Thirty minutes!” he shouted and slammed the door behind him.
Józef and Marcin looked at each other.
“Holy Christ, what did I say?” Marcin asked, humiliated.
“Don’t worry about it.” Józef pulled himself out of bed.
“Well, it could be just a drill.”
“Could be,” Józef said, “but we haven’t had one start this way. And when did you last see Wysocki deign to climb up to our floor? I think it’s the real thing.”
“Holy Christ.” The oath this time was expelled softly and slowly.
As they dressed, Józef replayed in his mind Wysocki’s words: Your moment’s come, Stelnicki! Could it be that his wish has come true—that he was to have some special role in the operation? It seemed so. Why else would he and Marcin be ordered not to the mess hall but to Wysocki’s quarters?
By the time he was fully uniformed, currents of excitement and anticipation coursed through his veins. He had been born to do something. Be something. He knew it, had always known it. To hell with music—and Fryderyk Chopin with it! And if his role had to do with the emergence of a free Poland, what better cause could there be? He would gladly die for it. Whatever the outcome, his parents would honor his decision. Hadn’t each of them in years gone by risked life and limb for Poland’s sake?
Marcin knocked lightly at Wysocki’s first floor quarters. The door swung inward at once and he and Józef entered. Józef’s exhilaration flagged at once. The two were not the only cadets chosen by Wysocki. The room was crowded with cadets, all wide-eyed and tense with anticipation. Józef counted twelve. Then came another knock and several more cadets of similar disposition scurried in, Józef’s disappointment and irritation increasing with each newcomer.
Wysocki surveyed the silent room, counting heads, it seemed. “All here, I see, and this may be the first time I have not had to call attention.”
Quiet laughter. Nervous laughter.
“We have good reason to accelerate our plans. I can assure you this is not a practice, gentleman,” Wysocki announced, suddenly serious. “This is the real thing. Project C. And there will be no questions until I’ve laid it all out. Understood?”
Silence. Nods all around.
“Good! You are eighteen in all, specially chosen.”
Only later would Józef learn twenty had been the original number and what had precipitated the early deployment. The two missing cadets had been among six arrested the night before. News, too, would come back that Gustaw’s mutilated body had washed up down river. Given time—very little time—the Third Department would paralyze the plans of Wysocki and Zaliwski. They would find things out. Punishment would be brutal. It would likely be the end of the academy. The end of a Polish military. The stakes were enormous.
“You are men—and you are Poles to the heart, yes?”
The response came in one roar: “Yes, sir!”
And so the plan for taking back Warsaw—and Poland—from the Russians was laid out. Wysocki unfurled a large map of the capital and placed it like a carpet in the middle of the floor.
The signal for the commencement of the revolution was to come at seven in the evening. That very evening. A deserted brewery, a wooden structure on Szulec Street, near the Vistula, would be set afire, providing a beacon for those involved at various locations throughout the capital and thus igniting the insurgency. More than 100 students gathered on the south end of the city would ride through the streets calling on the citizens of the capital to rise up. Simultaneously, Wysocki and Zaliwski would lead their cadets, numbering 120, to the Russian garrison in the center of the city, take it by force, attach men to the gates, and seize the garrison’s arsenal. The city would be in revolutionary hands by midnight, and those conservative Poles who had acquiesced to Russian rule, some of whom may have been waiting for some vague, more propitious time to throw off the yoke of slavery, would be forced to acknowledge and salute the banner of revolution. This revolution. Not tomorrow’s. Today’s.
“Now, your faces tell me,” Wysocki said, his eyes moving from man to man, “that you wish to know your part in this. It is a special part, you can be certain. The eighteen of you are more critical to the success of this revolution than any other citizen, student, cadet, or officer.” He paused for dramatic effect. “For weeks you have been guessing the significance of Project C, yes? Well, had you studied your Latin and Roman history a bit harder, you might have cracked the code. It wasn’t so hard.
Latin, Józef thought.
The room grew quiet.
“Sir!” Józef blurted. “You refer to the Roman emperor Constantinus who lived in the fourth century, yes?”
Wysocki smiled. “Indeed, young Józef!—And?”
“And Konstantin is a derivative of the Latin name Constantinus.” Józef spoke quickly so no one could steal his thunder. “So our target is Konstantin!”
“Exactly!” Wysocki snapped. “Bravo, Stelnicki!”
Gasps went in waves about the room as the enormity of the task the cadets were being assigned hit home. Then a murmur of amazement followed.
Józef flushed with pride at the compliment and his earlier pique at being merely one of the cadets chosen for the mission evaporated.
Wysocki allowed a full minute of reaction. Józef sensed a thrill running through his fellow cadets. He could hear Marcin at his side muttering “Holy Christ, Holy Christ.”
Surveying the intent faces of everyone, Wysocki explained further. “You eighteen are entrusted with the taking of Belweder Palace and the abduction of the Grand Duke Konstantin. Note this, gentlemen: I said capture, as in safe capture and detai
nment of the duke. Assassination is not the object of this mission and it is not to be considered at any cost. Even at the cost of your own lives. Is that clear?”
The cadets nodded in agreement.
“Good! We Poles are not in the habit of killing princes—and we are not going to begin today.”
Wysocki now took out another map and laid it over the one of the capital. Józef looked over Marcin’s shoulder and saw that it was a detailed map of Łazienki Park—and Belweder Palace. Home of the Grand Duke.
Józef sat at his desk, the late November sky outside the window darkening. He was stealing a look at his miniature portrait of Emilia Chopin, his childhood love, when Marcin came and stood behind him, staring out into the night. Józef dropped the miniature into its velvet pouch, drew tight the drawstrings, and secreted it in the pocket of his coat.
“It’s only 6:30, Marcin. What are you looking for? What’s gotten into you? We’ve got half an hour. . . . Are you nervous?”
“Aren’t you, Józef?”
“Maybe, a bit.”
“Józef, look there. There’s smoke!”
“Where? Near the river?”
“Yes, come, look there!”
Józef, still doubtful, rose and moved to the window. He peered over the rooftops of the city and he saw it, dark smoke thickening in the November dusk. As he stared in disbelief, orange flames suddenly flared up from the chosen location as if feasting on a roof of paper maché. “Good God!” he cried, even as the prearranged bells within the school sounded the call to action. “Half an hour off schedule!”
The Warsaw Conspiracy Page 19