‘Can I be alone for a moment?’ she asked, suddenly hoarse. ‘I need to gather my wits.’
‘Sure.’
As soon as the door closed, Róża quickly untied the bow on the orange file and lifted the cover, her eyes scanning one side of the stacked grey paper. They came to a halt towards the bottom, when she spotted a pale blue line, a single sheet. With a quick tug, her memory shuddering with emotion, she tore it free from the binder. Without even a glance at the columns and boxes she crumpled the paper and thrust it deep into her pocket. Hastily closing the file, she made a new, tight bow, and then opened the door.
‘I’ve thought about it, and I’d like to leave immediately, thank you very much.’
Sebastian’s mouth opened in stunned disappointment. He stammered some sympathy but finally said, blocking her way ‘You only gave it a minute, Róża, whereas that lot —’ he nodded past her towards the table ‘— was built up over years. Don’t you want to take a little more time? Just give the proposal the consideration it—’
‘What do you want me from me?’ Uncontrolled feeling spilled from some inner guttering. He was watching her expectantly not realising how deep despair can run. ‘You bring me here … you push my face into my past; you ask me to clean it up? You ask me to explain to children I don’t know why I failed, why I leave Brack’s account on the table, why Brack won and I lost … lost everything I loved and cared for? You bring me here and offer me a glass of water and a chance to redeem myself? You expect me to sit down and smooth out the creases in my life?’ She paused, unable to express the extent of her subjection. ‘You have no idea — and I mean no idea whatsoever — of Brack’s power, back then; of its reach. You don’t understand. You haven’t the faintest—’
‘Róża,’ Sebastian’s whisper stifled her indignation. ‘We have something in common. I’ve got a story too, you know. Not as bad as yours, I accept, but it’s a story. It marked me and others. It’s why I became a lawyer.’
Róża blinked and noticed that her hands were clenched; her teeth were tight against each other. Relaxing her bite, she made a low moan, wanting to get away from untold stories, other people’s and her own. Not telling them saved a lot of harm; kept life manageable. She swallowed hard, knowing it wasn’t true.
‘We’re not that far apart,’ said Sebastian, opening wide the door. ‘Which is why I have the courage to bring you here and the cheek to ask you to have the last word.’
‘What on?’ snapped Róża. She wasn’t beaten but she felt a reluctant attachment to Sebastian, to his starched shirt, the wrinkled suit and his scuffed expensive shoes. She was drawn to his relentless, tousled energy. ‘There’s nothing I can say.
‘Yes, there is,’ insisted Sebastian. ‘We keep a voice archive. Recordings of interviews with those who fought the fight. I just want you to relate everything that Otto Brack didn’t contaminate.
Afterwards, you’ll get a transcript and you can change anything you like.’
Róża felt herself surrendering again. ‘But there’s nothing … nothing at all.’
‘Are you so sure?’ asked Sebastian, coming back into the room and, by default, edging Róża towards the table. He was smiling hope and fascination. ‘You had a childhood. You survived the Occupation; you were there when Warsaw was razed to the ground. You saw the Nazis leave and the Communists arrive. Tell us what you saw and heard. Don’t you understand, Róża, there’s so much to say? And no mention of the Shoemaker, Mokotów prison and Otto Brack’s hold on your life … his reach from then to now I’m also looking towards a kind of desert, Róża. A part of your life that escaped his touch … the thirty years you spent between leaving Mokotów and coming back. Three decades of experience that wasn’t chewed up and spat into a file. Tell us what happened out of his sight. What were you doing? Why did you go back to the Shoemaker? How did you put Freedom and Independence on to the street? Give us a taste of the time untouched by Otto Brack. If you want, I’ll open some Bison Grass:
Sebastian slipped his hands into his pockets. The appeal was over. He was waiting for Róża to reconsider her decision.
‘Sebastian,’ said Róża, not wanting to disappoint him, ‘you have to understand …’
Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t help noticing the two perpendicular creases to the front of his shirt. She was right: he’d put it straight on, probably leaving a few pins in the shoulder or cuff. Had he bought it for her or was shopping a desperate measure to avoid the ironing board? Either way Róża was moved. If he’d been her grandson, she’d have told him what she could about her life, within the limits that remained available; she would not have allowed the shadow of Otto Brack to fall so heavily between them. She’d have told of small glories and some vanquished pain. Róża took off her coat and hooked it on the nearby stand.
‘You have to understand,’ she repeated. ‘I only drink on Sundays.’
Chapter Four
A ventilator purred in the corner. House plants rose from mulch in plastic pots. There were various pictures on the walls — grainy shots from the forties and fifties, images of party leaders proclaiming change from a balcony, and then colour photographs of mass demonstrations, portraits of jubilant unionists: the whole a symbolic litany of the last sixty years. The snaps and clips took the place of the windows. It was as though Róża had an elevated view on to history. Wherever she looked she saw landmarks from her own passage to this basement deep beneath the city.
‘Speak as and when you like,’ said Sebastian, standing behind the facing chair. ‘The machine’s running.’
Where do I begin? thought Róża.
One of the pictures on the wall showed Warsaw in ruins: gable walls teetering over bent and twisted iron, smoke rising from open pits. But Róża recalled the elements that no image could capture: the terrible grunt of a building just before it collapsed; the moaning from heaps of rubble; the smell of burning flesh. Explosions thundered in her memory, shaking the ground and her teeth. Dead horses on the pavement had been stripped of their meat. Five years later she’d joined an Uprising with Otto. He’d been angry then, too. And unquiet; remote with his grievances. She’d finally held his hand and he’d wept: they were child soldiers facing annihilation. But they’d escaped through the sewers, each taking a different tunnel, each finding, eventually a sudden peace and the Communists. No, Róża couldn’t speak of her childhood or the war. They’d been incinerated. And Brack was there, as a friend. Oddly she thought it something worth keeping. He’d been Otto back then.
But neither could she speak of Pavel and the brief time they’d spent together rebuilding their shattered city. Anything she might say led inexorably to the Shoemaker: for while her war had ended, Pavel had begun another. She hadn’t known at first, but then he’d told her a secret, the keeping of which had eventually brought her to Mokotów.
All that remained was what Sebastian had called a desert: the thirty years that joined two shattering periods of imprisonment. And, in truth, it had indeed been a wilderness — a period of wandering and dryness in exile, striking rocks for water and begging for bread. But the barren ground had flowered, suddenly and unexpectedly Even Róża had been stunned. She’d gone back to the Shoemaker immediately Yes, Sebastian was right: Otto Brack hadn’t followed her into the wasteland on the other side of prison. It was hers alone …
Sebastian hadn’t followed her either. The blue sheet of paper had been the one clue to the meaning of her exile — and that was now in her pocket, its significance having escaped Sebastian’s attention. Throughout his pleading, he’d shown no inkling of the true scope of Róża’s journey.
‘In May nineteen fifty-three a guard opened the cell door,’ she said, knowing she was in control. ‘He called my name. I followed him out of the building with another guard walking behind. The sun was full and the sky that deep blue you find on old plates and teapots. It was a glorious moment … a moment of exhilaration and joy I thought, “At last they’re going to shoot me.” My heart raced with anticipatio
n and a sort of bubbling gratitude but he led me across the yard towards the gate that fronted Rakowiecka Street. The next thing I knew the thing swung open and there was Otto Brack, standing on the pavement — he’d come to say goodbye. The guard behind shoved me out … but I didn’t want to leave. I’d forgotten how to live and I didn’t know what to do out there, on an ordinary street. For years I’d been in a cell with a tiny window so high that I had to strain my neck to see the clouds. I turned round and banged on the gate, I kicked it and screamed but they wouldn’t let me back in. Brack just watched me and, when I finished beating on the gate, he watched me wander to a junction a few hundred yards up the road. That’s when I thought of a friend … I can’t use names, you appreciate that, don’t you?’
Nearly five hours later Róża’s testament drew to its close. Her story was ending where it had begun, in Mokotów prison.
She’d described her meandering journey but now she rehearsed that last encounter with Otto Brack following her second arrest: when he’d told her the price of any future justice.
‘Róża … are you all right?’
She could still see Brack’s death mask face.
‘Do you want a glass of water?’ Sebastian’s hand was reaching for the jug.
‘Yes.’
Brack was in a posh grey suit and a business man’s camel-coloured overcoat. The cut was too big, like the trousers, their hems slumped on his brown leather shoes. When they’d last met he’d been writhing in a drab uniform. His head had been shaved.
‘Róża, drink this.’ Sebastian was at her side, holding out the glass.
‘Thank you.’
She sipped the water, waiting for Brack’s presence to fade. He was sauntering towards the prison door, confident they’d never meet again.
‘I’m sorry, Róża. I should have known … I did know’
‘Forget it. You may have lured me here but I chose to speak.’
The ventilator purred in the corner; the plants seemed to watch from their pots. After a while Sebastian coughed and laid a hand on each of the two files. ‘Do you want to read them?’
Róża didn’t even look at the covers.
‘No thanks,’ she said, putting on her coat, ‘I was there.’
They walked down the alley of files, closely followed by the man from the Internal Security Agency The lift had been fixed so they rose to ground level, John discreetly checking his pockets for his electronic card, the Special Forces officer standing at ease. When the doors opened, Róża walked straight towards a chrome waste bin situated at the main entrance, into which she ponderously divested her coat pockets of two bus tickets, some sweet wrappers, a ball of crumpled blue paper and a used tissue. Sebastian watched patiently, touched by the strange rituals of the old.
Outside on the pavement they huddled awkwardly as if wondering where to go next. It was evening now and an autumn chill made them both shiver.
‘My grandmother was arrested during the Terror,’ said Sebastian, blowing mist at the cold. He seemed to be confiding to the passing cars on Towarowa Avenue. ‘She never spoke about it. All she’d say was that the cell was damp. I tried to find out more but she wouldn’t be drawn. So I turned to my parents — and even they knew nothing. We all knew nothing — and yet whatever happened remained part of the family structure, like a locked room in the house. I grew up trying the handle, never putting a direct question. Now I make a living picking the locks to rooms a lot of people would rather leave closed.’
This time it was Róża’s turn to talk at the passing cars. She watched them chase one another’s lights, feeling cut loose from the rush of ordinary life.
‘What about your grandfather?’
‘The Terror tracked him down.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
Róża felt close to the young man, wanting to better understand him. At the same time she felt a kind of heat coming from his memory She said, anxiously, ‘Why are you interested in Otto Brack?’
His eyes followed the roar of a motorbike and he smiled, as if he’d just hitched a ride to make a getaway ‘I’ll tell you on the day he’s convicted.’
But Róża gently shook her head, knowing there would be no trial, suddenly and acutely sad that she wouldn’t meet Sebastian again; that there’d been no more letters, messages, or trailing; no final ambush A siren wailed far off as if to say the raids were over. But Sebastian hadn’t finished.
‘Róża … find a way, if you can.’
‘A way?’
‘Yes. Find a way out of your silence.’
‘There is none.
‘Think again.’ He looked at her with an expression of intimidating seriousness, no longer just a lawyer but something of a renegade, a young man who would never accept that his investigation was over.
‘Do the one thing Brack would never expect.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Speak to the informer.’
Róża visibly recoiled but Sebastian wouldn’t listen to any more objections. ‘You might as well, because one day someone else will do just that … a journalist, a scholar, another lawyer, someone with an interest in the Shoemaker. The file might be half empty, but now these papers have come to light, someone cleverer than me will start poring over the holes. If they ever find your informer, they won’t be chary, like you. There won’t even be a warning. Their name will appear on the front page of every newspaper. Capitalised. Why not beat them to it, while Brack’s still alive? Do it your way with decency Lower case.
‘What others do is their affair,’ replied Róża, fidgeting.
‘And what you do is yours,’ he barked, aggression getting the better of him. ‘You know their name already You’re half way there. Speak to them. If Brack thinks you’d never confront them, then speak without confrontation. If you’re scared they’ll end their life, give them another reason for living. Do anything, Róża, only do something beyond his imagination. Use Brack against himself. Make up with his informer. Become friends once more.
Bewildered by the challenge, Róża wavered; she felt her knees slacken. Sebastian was walking to the kerb, one arm waving in the air. A taxi swung out of the stream. She found herself seated by an open window with Sebastian stooped on the pavement, his face pale with cold, his lips blue.
‘Find your way back here, Róża,’ he urged without a trace of parting in his voice. ‘Don’t leave us with his story.’
Chapter Five
As the taxi pulled away Róża muttered, ‘Powązki.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘The cemetery.’
The driver nodded and took her to the one place that haunted Róża more than the prison. She hadn’t passed through its gates since the evening of her arrest in 1982.
Róża faltered down a darkening lane.
On either side carved figures with bent heads grieved eternally A few candles flickered behind coloured glass. Vases with flowers stood propped by inscriptions. Róża’s hand slipped into her pocket and reached for the ball of crumpled blue paper … but then she remembered: she’d got rid of it, just like the guards got rid of Pavel’s body.
Her husband had no grave. Róża didn’t know what had happened to his corpse. Rumour had it that some of those who’d been shot in Mokotów were thrown into the back of a truck and taken to building sites or the main rubbish dump in Służewiec; others were tipped into empty cement sacks and buried without markers in an open field. In her waking dreams, Róża had stormed into a Ministerial office or she’d knocked timidly at the door of some underling. She’d screamed and begged and whimpered and pleaded. Where is he? Where have you put him? All to the air; no one listening, save her conscience.
Róża turned right.
Another man had been shot, too. Róża didn’t even know his name. She’d just seen him being dragged along the floor of the cellar, his two bare feet, angled in, broken or limp. Who was he? Who mourned him? What had happened to his body? Did he lie with Pavel in the foundations of an
office block?
Awful questions. Questions that trailed you with a low whine.
Róża turned left.
Time was not a healer. Year after year Róża’s attention would fasten on to the back of someone’s head — the curls at the nape of the neck — and she’d wonder, insanely if it might be Pavel, expecting some magic to have occurred, even though she’d seen his broken face and heard the kick of the gun. Then, as if waking, she’d grasp that he was dead, and off she’d go to that imagined door in the Ministry, full of hell or timidity. It was an endless cycle, rolling across the sand.
Don’t leave us with his story.
Sebastian had brought the law close to Róża and she hadn’t seen it coming. Yes, he’d said he was a lawyer, and he’d pleaded with her about forgotten crimes, but to have him in her flat, to deflect his questions and divert his hopes, had gradually made the law come to life. It was there, dressed in a blue linen jacket with silver buttons. He’d made her feel afresh the pain of justice denied. Year on year Róża had read of men convicted of monstrous crimes against women and children. She’d seen photographs of judges and barristers in their robes, knowing that they would never sit to consider the case against Otto Brack. And now here was a lawyer who wanted to put Brack in a courtroom.
Don’t leave us with his story.
Róża turned right again and came, finally, to a large granite monument. It was the grave of Bolesław Prus, the writer. This was where she’d been arrested. The light was fading, so she couldn’t quite make out the girl, carved in relief, reaching up to the inscription. But she knew the figure well enough: the thin legs, the pretty dress and the smart shoes. She’d always loved the little buckles by the ankles. Though she was the grey of stone, Róża had seen different colours, materials and textures, changing them every time she came.
The Day of the Lie Page 3