Underground

by Tobias Hill

  I come to a pair of wide-open doors. I look inside and there is flour everywhere, on the machines and shelves. It is a flour mill, like my mother’s father’s. His mill, which was not his mill. I get some of the flour and put it in my mouth but it doesn’t taste of much. I clap my hands to get rid of it.

  Outside I can see the railways, lines going away silvery, crossing and separating. There are queues of cars at the border. One lot waiting to go into Russia, one lot queuing to come out. Some of them will wait for days to go through, but when Dad goes he doesn’t have to wait long. Uncle Jan gets him through. They work together on the speculations.

  I see glasshouses long as trains with giant doors. Sunlight in Russia but not here yet, it moves across the flat fields towards me. On the far side of the glasshouses is where Russia begins. It looks ordinary. There are chimneys steaming in the light. Houses with roofs built heavy for snow. The land white with snow and black with thaw.

  ‘America is the land of milk and honey, but Russia is the land of champagne and caviare.’ Dad says that. He tried to give me golden caviare one time. It smelt like cod liver. He sold it to the Finns for dollars. They’re welcome to it. I like tinned sardines better.

  It starts to rain. I stand by the flour mill, watching the rain in Poland and the rain in Russia. The asphalt smells of sourdough. It makes me hungry. I go back to Uncle Jan’s house to see what I can find.

  The woods are my special place. I never get lost or forget my way, like my mother.

  It makes me angry that she forgets. I know she does it on purpose, because she told me. Forgetting is what she does with secrets. That’s what she told me. I think about her at night, under the ceiling cracks. There are new cracks, one like East Germany, one like Great Britain.

  The woods start after the allotments with their woodsheds and fruit trees. The allotments start after the factories with their red-topped chimneys. Sometimes there is woodsmoke through the trees and sun through the smoke and what happens is, the trees and the shadows of trees are both bars of dark cutting through the light, you can’t tell which is which. I like it.

  Today there is food in the kitchen, dried peas soaking in water for the soup and potato pancakes with cheese and eggs from our friends the Wittlins. I am alone. I take one pancake wrapped in newspaper. I take an egg too. I leave a note, so it isn’t stealing.

  I go westwards into the woods, away from the big towns of Katowice. First I pass the Wittlin farm, round the bottom field. Then I come to a rubbish dump, its bitter smoke catching in the trees. There are fewer firs here in the deep wood; the trees are naked inside and thick at the tops, stands of pine and larch and birch. The bare pine earth rolls up and down where the Germans hid tanks in the war. I see squirrels and I find boar shit. In the deep woods there are bison, they are red and they eat bison grass. Grandad told me that before he died. I don’t know if it’s true, because sometimes he lied.

  Now I go south, then west, then north-west. Walking a circle is more interesting than a there-and-back. It’s past noon now and raining. I’m looking for somewhere dry to eat and just when I turn, the ground falls through.

  There is no time to scream. The darkness comes down around me and I hit the ground blind and go over on one side. My legs hurt and I cry out, not moving. There is cold black water coming through my coat. The underground place smells sweet and oily. It’s the smell of coal, the smell of my town.

  I open my eyes. There is light from the hole; it isn’t so far up. I sit up and look at my hands and they are black, steeped in coal dust.

  I stand up, the water echoing off me in slow drips. I breathe softly, listening. The shaft sounds big. First I look up and there are big tree-roots round the sky. I can climb out; it doesn’t look so hard. Then I look around.

  In school Mrs Nalkowska told us about the old mines. Some of them are a hundred years old, or hundreds. They were the most dangerous things, more than gun shelters or strangers. But here I am. It’s too late to stay away.

  The coal shaft goes away westwards and downwards. When I was small, my friend Karol’s brother went into an old mine and found a German shell and died. Still, now I know where I am my legs don’t hurt so much. I climb out to make sure I can. I get a birch stick and then I climb in again.

  My feet slap against the mine bottom. I tap ahead with the white stick, like the blind. The shaft smells of coal and earth and the trees above my head. I have a good look round for bullets but there’s nothing. The shaft is getting bigger and I stop, listening to it.

  I look down. There is no reflection off the black water. I tap ahead with the white stick and the ground has gone. The darkness is flat black, without sound. I can’t tell how far ahead it goes or how far down. Up above, a blackbird goes singing away in fear.

  My breathing starts to go fast and I wait, making it slow again. Then I take a step back, more steps. When I’m sure of the ground, I kneel down, feeling for a piece of loose coal or stone. When I find one I throw it forwards, into the downshaft.

  The darkness makes no sound.

  I go back to the mine entrance. My eyes are used to the underground now; I can see the walls, shining rough blue-black. I get another loose stone and scratch my name zigzag across the walls, KAZIMIERZ. Now it is mine, a secret place in the deep woods.

  I climb back out. The rain has stopped. I eat my pancake and my egg. It all tastes good but it makes me thirsty. I go back home the way I came.

  Her hair is tied back in tight red lines, like the copper wire in machines. Her shoulders are goat-thin even though she is tall for a girl. Her hips too. Her father and mother both work in the Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Public Spectacles. Dad says they are high up. He calls them leftover Yids. I also heard Mrs Nalkowska talk about them in the vodka and meat shop. She said it’s not their fault the Jews killed Jesus, after all. They had a Fiat before anyone in school but Hanna didn’t tell us.

  It’s not the colour of copper exactly. Sometimes there are goods trains which take old iron cable from the factories. Twisted and tough and rusted. This is the colour of Hanna’s hair.

  When I was small we were friends and sometimes we still are. When we are not I still dream of Hanna. In the dreams I made love to her. We are underground in the deep woods and naked and I lie flat on top of her in the cold black water. Lips on lips, belly on belly, legs on legs, down to the simple feet.

  After three days the squirrel stops moving and watches us. Waiting with its head on one side, the way it did in the forest to begin with.

  We take it to the abandoned mine and throw it in. This time you can hear the bottom. The cage clatters once. Then there is silence again and then it splashes. The Black Trout Shaft is called that because sometimes fish swim into the flooded chambers and the miners catch them and eat them. The cooked flesh is black and sweet. Maybe the trout will eat the squirrel, down underground. Maybe the cage came open when it clattered and the squirrel got out in time.

  When I was small I thought there was nothing else in the dark except myself, so I knew everything and I loved it. Now there are questions and dangers. The squirrel drowned white in its cage. I don’t know the darkness any more. It’s my own fault. Piotr takes his father’s torch, so we can see where we’re going.

  In Hanna’s house there are white patches where the stove and pictures were. They are the only Jews I know in town, the only ones I have talked to. Hanna says there are more in Warsaw, but not so many. Not since the war.

  There was a hole in the door where they kept Jewish things, and candles like trees on the mantelpiece. Her guest room was always dark and smelling of oil and turpentine, but now it’s plain, the net curtains blowing outwards, white and ordinary. Her mother sits in the car with their cat in her arms and the bread bin on one side of her and a green glass lamp on the other. I wave at her as we go past and she waves back.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The woods.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘They’ll wait for you.�
�

  She follows me. A #5 tram goes past us into town and the wire fittings ring together like sleigh bells, long after the carriage has gone.

  We pass the last tram lines, then the last houses. There are yellow cranes dropping four-fingered hands, lifting trees. Thin chimneys and fat chimneys. The thin chimneys are red brick with red and white stripes at the top to stop aeroplanes going into them. The fat chimneys have no stripes. If the aeroplanes can’t see the fat chimneys coming they must be blind.

  Factories, allotments, woods. Hanna walks ahead, then beside me. There have been deer here; you can see where they scratch their backs on the pine trees.

  Our hands are close; the knuckles knock together and the fingers catch. No one can see us here, where the light stops in the wings of firs. We can do whatever we want.

  It’s a long way to the mine but she doesn’t talk. When we get there I help her down, then along in the dark.

  She laughs. In the dark it is a wild sound. ‘What a place. Did you find it yourself? I want to see it. Do you have a light?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Now we’re at the mouth of the down-shaft. I got matches from the kitchen and tore rough paper from the box. She looks around in their flare. The shaft is round at the end, like the inside of the rabbit’s skull in the glass cabinets in room C2 at school. The down-shaft drops away in front of us. Its darkness begins again, ten or fifteen metres down. Hanna doesn’t make a sound. She puts out a hand towards the drop, palm out. Steps back into me.

  The match goes out. I find her face with my hands, then her mouth with my mouth. I feel her fingers link at the back of my head, where the bone is thinner. Her lips are soft against her hard teeth and I can taste her breath.

  ‘Light another match. I want to see.’

  I strike two at the same time. There are two more matches left. Hanna looks around for a stone to throw. I go back for some birch twigs because they’ll show up in the dark.

  We throw in the pebbles and twigs. Sometimes the pebbles click. The twigs make no sound at all. Hanna comes up close to me again. She puts something into my hand.

  ‘I got you this, look. Light another.’

  In the match-light I see it’s a little amber, still warm from her jeans pocket. The thin yellow of honey strung down from a spoon. The edges are not smooth, but carved. There is a face in it. Grinning, full of teeth.

  ‘I got it in Warsaw, when we went to see my new house. It’s a lion, you see? For your name, Ariel. It means “Lion” in Hebrew. Do you like it? Who chose it for you, your name? Was it your mother?’

  I have time to look at her before the match goes out. Then there is a sound from outside, a pheasant. It chatters like machine-guns. Then it stops.

  ‘When you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I asked you, you said you wanted to go somewhere where no one knew you were Jewish.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why tell me this?’

  ‘I don’t –’

  ‘Now someone knows. I know.’

  ‘I thought you knew already. Didn’t your mother –’ She’s feeling for my hand, but I step away from her. The down-shaft is close, somewhere beside me. I make myself stop.

  ‘Ariel?’

  The amber is still warm from her. Her body must be warmer than mine. I throw the carving out over the down-shaft. It clicks once, twice. Now it’s gone where no one will know.

  ‘Ariel?’

  Unless the trout eat it. Then the miners will catch the trout. When they cut it open the lion will be there, its yellowed teeth on the cooked black flesh.

  ‘Ariel!’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘Light the last one.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to see. Because I want to see your face. Please?’

  I do it. Her own face is thin and white. She runs up too fast and I reach out to stop her falling. I hold her for a minute or two. It’s true; her body is warmer than mine. It must be that her heart is stronger. Then I let her go.

  ‘Let’s go back.’

  We get out. Her hands and face are smudged but I brought newspaper to wipe them clean and she does that. We don’t say anything now. Underground in the secret place we could say anything, but not here.

  She walks ahead of me. Fast, so I have to keep up. We come into sight of the town, yellowed coal smoke rising from all the house chimneys. At the beginning of the tram lines she begins to run. I call her name three times but she doesn’t turn round. I called for her three times.

  7

  Undertakings

  ‘What’s up, sir?’ Weaver shouts to be heard over the roar of machinery. ‘Oy, Cass, what’s the problem?’

  Casimir glances around. The movement makes him look surprised, lining his forehead, making him old. ‘With what?’

  ‘With everyone. The geezer that left.’

  ‘Adams.’

  ‘Him. And you.’

  ‘Me? Nothing is a problem with me.’

  Above them the dark ceiling moves and roars. Great tanktracks of escalator machinery, an armour of steps flattening as they turn.

  ‘Yeah? Well then, I reckon you should all talk more, all the old workers. Get out a bit. If you don’t mind me saying. ‘Cos some days you’re all so quiet down here, it feels like Lenin’s Tomb. You know what I mean?’

  He smiles. ‘Yes, I know what you mean. Do you want to leave?’

  ‘No.’ There is a question in the trainee’s tone. It is gone when he speaks again. ‘No. A job’s a job, even if it’s underground. I just wish you’d all talk a bit more.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m glad you will stay.’

  They are in the escalator-machinery chamber, waiting for closing time. To the south, the ceiling slopes upwards over two engines, all steel and axle grease. The engines are surprisingly large, barrelled sides curving above the heads of the two workers. At the southern end of the chamber there is room for two doors; to the north, the glittering movement of escalators almost reaches the floor. There is the fat smell of grease. The sour odour of metal and rust.

  He is thinking of Alice. For the time being, nothing is wrong. It is twenty minutes until closing time. Ten minutes along the lines to South Kentish Town. He has left the glass matchbox in Lower Marsh and now he wishes he had it with him. A souvenir of the abandoned station, he thinks; something to be remembered, by which to remember something. He remembers her skin, fine and freckled in late summer, and feels the fierce excitement of attraction. It is not unpleasant or unexpected. Not a problem. In this sense he is not lying to Weaver.

  Caterpillar belts and gear chains grind together overhead. When he looks up Casimir can see graffiti on the leathery hand-grips, electric-blue spray paint scrolling out on the escalators’ underside. He is too far down to read the ciphers, to see if Alice’s name is there. He thinks about running to the chamber’s shallow end to look again.

  The smell of the escalators reminds him of Polish churches, their black metal and turpentine. A Madonna outside the nunnery in Katowice with a tubular neon halo. Circular, like an insectocutor. The religion of an industrial town.

  ‘Are we finished, sir? Closing time soon.’

  ‘Yes. Almost finished.’

  They work for a few minutes more in easy silence, checking for obstructions until each belt of steps has circulated. At the chamber’s higher end Casimir stands upright, stretching his arms and shoulders. Weaver stops by the doors, wiping axle grease off his hands, reading the signs: ENTRANCE C, ENTRANCE D.

  ‘That’s good, that is. “Entrance-d”. Do you reckon they thought of that when they did it? What’s down there?’

  ‘You can see. We can go to the platforms that way.’

  Casimir unlocks the door and leads the way down one flight of stairs, out into a larger hall. It looms around them, damp and smelling of ozone. Like a sea-cave, thinks Casimir. The walls are cracked with subsidence.

  ‘What do you call this?’

  ‘The substation.’

  �
��That’ll be because it’s under the station then. It’s a bloody maze down here, isn’t it, sir? All hidden away. Gothic. Like in that film with the cannibals. You know what I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I mean you could get lost for days down here. Does it happen, people getting lost?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could happen. The Underground is old. Older than the states of Germany or Italy. Bigger than London. The deepest subway ever made.’

  ‘Is that right? Is there anything further down than this?’

  ‘Yes. In the war they built deep levels. Shelters. They were never used. The bombs became rockets, and the rockets were too fast to shelter from.’

  ‘Have you been down there?’

  ‘Not often.’

  Casimir imagines the deep shelters under him; their massive, locked silences. Around the two workers, panels of red lights flicker on domed ranks of back-up generators.

  ‘There isn’t anything living down here, is there?’

  Weaver wanders past him, into the dark, looking around. Casimir sees that he hasn’t shaved. Stubble emphasizes the teenager’s hollow cheeks and the nervous eyes. Fox-like.

  ‘Mice.’ He starts to walk, stepping around hooped ends of orange cable, the broken bowls of ceramic insulators. ‘Rats from the sewers; they are only small and brown. Much comes in from the sewers.’ Five more steps. A pile of emergency torches, a stack of decaying magazines with their sour smell of old perfume samples. ‘Once I saw a tunnel wall covered with white crabs. There are plants, mosses, where there is any light. And in the deep shelters there are moles.’

  ‘Bollocks!’

  ‘Bollocks, yes.’

  ‘Oh, right. Nice one. Hold up.’

  Casimir realizes he has been walking fast. Trying to get through the dark. Just ahead, steps lead up to a plain greymetal door. Limestone salts glitter on the raised concrete. Casimir makes himself stop and wait.