‘But at what cost?’
‘I suppose that depends on who’s paying and what they got in return.’
Anselm’s bemusement was genuine. He waited for enlightenment, sipping his water.
‘We, too, need to apply some leverage, continued Sebastian, almost harshly ‘Maybe quite a lot. Maybe to the point of damaging the house … waking up not just the kids but the neighbours on all sides:
‘You mean I have to apply some leverage.’
‘If it fell to me.’ I’d pull with both hands But Róża didn’t ask for my help.’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’
‘Like what?’
‘That she wants things done differently. That she doesn’t want us to behave like them.’
Sebastian put down his glass, the water untasted. He became politely firm, repressing impatience like a teacher tasked with instructing a dim fee-paying pupil whose parents he couldn’t afford to upset. He raised his hands as if he were holding out the bleeding obvious.
‘Look.’ Róża has given us … you … a document designed to lead you to the door of an informer. She thinks a quiet chat is all that it’ll take … a few well chosen words out of everyone’s earshot. She wants the informer to take responsibility for what they’ve done … and it’s crazy What she doesn’t understand is this: the informer isn’t going to admit anything, even if we ask him nicely You know, Father, blunted tools aren’t what they once were. There’s no longer any point in handling them carefully.’
‘I don’t believe you mean that.’
‘In these circumstances, with this individual, I do.’
‘It isn’t what Róża wants.’
‘It’s what Róża needs.’ Sebastian appraised Anselm as if he, too.’ was eyeing up a tool for the job. ‘For some reason, she pities them. You don’t have to. She needs you to act differently She needs you to be merciless. Look —’ the teacher emerged again, smiling woodenly, trying to wipe up the spilled impatience — we’re not trying to understand the human condition, or work out why someone ticks in the way that they do.’ we’re trying to bring Otto Brack to court. And to do that we need the informer to play ball — this time for us. Subject to our rules and timekeeping.’
‘And so we become like Frenzel.’ after all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we lose what sets us apart.’
‘No, we don’t. We become like them for the right reason. In the end, the world we’re fighting for is better than the one they kick-started in the torture chambers. It’s as simple as that. And if there’s a risk of getting dirty hands, well, frankly, there’s no other way. This is the nasty business of law enforcement.’
As opposed to the abstract pastures of monastic contemplation. Sebastian had the grace to keep that conclusion to himself, but Anselm now fully understood the irritation he’d detected on the telephone. And he wasn’t enjoying the elucidation, the substance of which was that the mumbling monk might be swayed to compassion by the calamity of human frailty; that the former barrister, softened by his prayers, would neglect to confront FELIKS, or whoever, with the degree of animosity required to secure his co-operation.
Sebastian hadn’t finished.
‘Whatever the pressures, these low—life agent runners and their collaborators played God with people’s lives for a benefit,’ he said.’ introducing an analogy that might reach Anselm. He’d seen the blank face, not sure if it was scruple or persisting incomprehension. ‘The runners got information. The collabos? They’ve had their passport, their reprieve, their promotion. Now they have to pay the people they robbed. We want our information.’ He sighed, still not convinced that Anselm was ready for the exam. ‘Do you really think that an appeal to conscience is enough? That remorse will come so cheaply, so easily? Don’t you realise, this informer, whoever it is … he’s already watched Róża grow old? He’s eaten at the same table and said nothing. He’s waiting for her to die.’ Sebastian sat back, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘When she’s gone, they’re free. You see, Father, whoever it is, and whatever goes through their clouded mind when they drift off to sleep, they’re not that different to Brack. He’s waiting too.’
Anselm had taken a mental and judicious step backwards — it was his way of managing rising anger. He considered himself an old hand when it came to handling a witness. He knew when to take the gloves off and experience had taught him that the occasion rarely, if ever arose, because there’s nothing quite so effective as kindness and courtesy And Anselm had never come across a case where, in the end, the deeper human question — the how and why of the ticking — hadn’t been a matter of decisive importance, all the more so when it wasn’t evident on the face of the papers.
But having stepped backwards, he’d gained a sudden perspective on something he hadn’t noticed, and it calmed his irritation:
Sebastian’s altogether personal engagement in the hunt for justice. All at once.’ Róża appeared less the victim and more the means of his way of getting to Brack. He examined the lawyer’s troubled features, seeing the strain in a subtly different light.
‘I’ll bear all that in mind, he said, magnanimously.
‘Thanks. I hope you don’t mind me being so direct.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Once we get the name from the file, you’ll have to lean on the informer.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Hard.’
‘Absolutely Right from the shoulder.’ He frowned, innocently mystified. ‘I appreciate that material considerations aren’t my forte, but aren’t you forgetting something? Frenzel wants more money Rather a lot, in fact.’
‘I’ve asked for a shoebox to be lodged in the hotel safe.’ Sebastian reached for his glass of water but thought better of it. ‘You’ll find ten grand inside. He’ll keep holding back what we want, raising the price along the way, dragging out the premiums. Let him have his day Give him what he wants. As we used to say, ours is the spring. Now, can I offer you something stronger than water? Żubrówka. Bison Grass. Róża drinks it every Sunday’
Anselm didn’t notice the approach of the beast, so to speak, until an hour or so later. It came from behind, its hooves in slippers, and whacked him on the back of the knees, just as he stood up to shake Sebastian’s hand. Smiling inanely, he shambled to the lift, prepared to catch his head just in case it rolled off his neck. Lying in the dark of his bedroom he pondered the one part of Sebastian’s argument that had roused no anger. Instead, it had disturbed him: the recognition that people who set out to clean up a mess always end up dirty It was, indeed, bleeding obvious. There was no escape, even for the kind and courteous. John had said something similar: in the search for the truth, sometimes you had put your hand in the sewer. Maybe Sebastian and the Prior were right after all: Anselm hadn’t been trained for this, either at the Bar or at Larkwood. He wasn’t entering a courtroom or the confessional, he was crawling behind a skirting board … perhaps he’d have to learn some new tricks, even from a rat like Marek Fre—
The phone rang, jolting Anselm upright. He turned on the light, squinting and blinded.
‘Do you have the funds?’ came a woman’s trembling voice in heavily accented German.
‘Yes.’
‘Then present yourself at the following hotel …’
Anselm swung out of bed, abruptly sober, and jotted down the details using the pen and paper ready to hand.
‘Make a booking for room forty-three.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘I will arrive at eight p.m.’
‘Your name?’
‘You will come alone. Sebastian Voight stays behind.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I have no name. I just have what you’re looking for.’
The line cut dead. A sort of echo rang in Anselm’s mind, carrying that alarming confession: ‘I have no name’. He listened for a long time, discerning more fear than authority, inexperience rather than the familiar exercise of low trade. Who was she?
Frenzel had almost certainly been there in the background, feet up, picking his teeth, unrelenting.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
IPN/RM/13129/2010
EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A STATEMENT MADE BY
RÓŻA MOJESKA
2h.04
The Shoemaker had not lost his eloquence. He spoke like one released from a long and imposed confinement. An outpouring of fresh ideas filled the pages of Freedom and Independence, born from having watched events in silence and from having reflected deeply upon them. He wrote simply speaking directly to the crisis of the times. It was his gift … to choose words and order them in such a way as to light a fire in winter. He wrote about the past as if it was ours and the future as if it had already arrived. It was the rhymes and rhythms of independence; a meter first heard during the Nazi Occupation. The Shoemaker was back. And I felt proud; he’d only spoken because I asked him to. I’d set him free to speak again.
2h.33
His words travelled further than I imagined. An English journalist from the BBC sent a message from a café along the distribution chain. It reached Barbara, who told me. John Fielding he was called. He wanted to meet the Shoemaker. Mateusz delivered my reply: he was to wear his overcoat like a cloak and wait at the grave of Prus. I tailed him from the entrance of the cemetery … but he didn’t go straight to where he’d been directed. He went first to another grave, lingered there a while, and then made his way to the meeting point. I lingered, too, and then joined him.
2h.39
He was writing a number of articles on the underground media entitled ‘Lives Lived in Secret for the Truth’ and wanted a representative for print, radio and film. To that end he hoped to interview the Shoemaker. He had to make do with me, and I spelled out his ideas. The piece, derived from several interviews, appeared under a pseudonym in the Observer but then got reported on all over the place … Le Figaro, The Washington Post, Die Welt. Voice of America even did a broadcast on his thinking, sending his words right back to Warsaw.
While dealing with my life lived in secret, we naturally dealt with his. In time he told me about his mother’s death when he was a child, of his father’s swift remarriage. How his family had never even mentioned her name. I refer to it now because this was his reason for coming to Warsaw Like all of the Friends, he had a personal story that was tied up with the greater struggle.
2h.41
The ‘Lives Lived in Secret’ series brought him into contact with a journalist involved in visual media. An article on how film-makers steered between the truth and the censor duly appeared in the Observer, exciting a similarly international reaction.
2h.56
John couldn’t speak of her without blushing and he’d clam up if I asked any questions. A comical ritual soon fell into place: he would ask about the Shoemaker, and I would ask about the film-maker. He shoved me.’ I shoved him.
3h.34
Throughout 1982, those who’d been interned were being gradually released. And as they came home, I began to wonder if Freedom and Independence had done its job. The debate about the future had been taken up in numerous other publications and, as Mr Lasky used to say, once you’ve been heard there’s no point in repeating yourself. The Shoemaker’s contribution had been made. Every time I saw John he’d ask to meet him and I’d say no. But I increasingly asked myself, ‘Why not?’ Didn’t our ‘Yes’ involve a move from secrecy to openness? Pavel had said ‘Yes’ too soon, that’s all. And that act of trust was part of the meaning of his death … it rang out as a summons, not a warning.
3h.41
Mateusz didn’t tell me where we were going. He just picked me up and drove me to the Łazienki Park. After all the usual checks he brought me to a bench. Five minutes later a man pushing a pram sat beside me. I looked at the baby and turned to the father … he was grey and thin and tired, his cheeks hollowed. It was Bernard. They’d let him out. The boy in the pram was Tomasz.’ born the day I’d gone back to Father Nicodem.
3h.51
Bernard wanted to meet the Shoemaker. He’d read back copies obtained by his father and he wanted to get involved. He, too, had ideas that he wanted to share; and he knew others whose thinking on the crisis deserved a wider audience than a crowded basement. The war on ideas could never have been more important, he said, because we were winning.
Was I angry with Mateusz for setting up a meeting without my initiative? I don’t know, I just looked at the child’s fingers gripping the edge of his blanket.’ the clipped nails. Something inside me snapped.
4h.05
Father Nicodem opened the door and swore. Come to think of it.’ he swore each time I’d met him. It was a sort of surprised greeting.
I told him Freedom and Independence should finish with the next edition, and that the ensuing silence would serve to amplify and preserve everything that had been said beforehand. Oddly enough (he said) the Shoemaker had come to the same conclusion. Our minds had been running along similar lines. I was relieved. A moment of shared calm opened between myself and Father Nicodem. We’d travelled a very long journey, without the chance to talk along the way I was the first to speak. I said that before going home I wanted to meet the Shoemaker. That I had an idea for the future.
You’d have thought a train had come through the garden wall. Father Nicodem was on his feet, jabbering, ‘No, no, no, no, no.
The conversation, far from calm, went something like this:
‘Our time is over,’ I said. ‘Something new has to take our place.’
‘Like what?’
‘A new publication run by new people running things in a different way.’
‘Different?’
‘Yes, relying on trust rather than fear.’
‘Trust?’
You’d have thought it was a dirty word. He was standing over me, looking down as if I was insane. But he was old school, trusting to an absolute minimum. As a system, it had worked well enough, but we had to move forward, now, and leave all that behind.
‘I’ve learned that whoever trusts the most is the most free,’ I said. ‘We have to live as normally as possible: that’s how we fight them. We live ordinary lives, giving fear the smallest room in the house.’
‘That’s how you get caught,’ he shouted. ‘Fear is your friend, Róża. Give it the double bed and sleep on the floor.’
‘Not any longer.’
I told him that there was a new generation of activists ready to speak — friends whose strength came from open, shared risk. All they required was an outlet for their ideas. They were married. They had children. They didn’t want to fight as if they were on their own. And they were all children of the Shoemaker. They wanted to meet him.
‘He is a hugely symbolic figure,’ I said.
‘A hidden one.’
‘I know, but before falling silent.’ he has one last task … to hand on the responsibility for tomorrow To tell them that his day is over.’ and theirs begins … with a new publication, under a new name.
In effect it would be the child of Freedom and Independence — using the Shoemaker’s press and distribution system. The transition from one voice to the next would be without a pause for breath.
Father Nicodem appeared to waver between more shouting and giving up. I then said something I regret, because it was heavy with implication. I didn’t mention Pavel, I just said, ‘If anyone has the right to meet the Shoemaker, it’s me. And I’ve earned a say in the future of his Friends.’
Father Nicodem slowly sat down. He pointed towards the door.’ signalling his defeat and consent. I told him I’d be back in a week.
4h. 13
The Shoemaker had agreed, he said. I named the day November 1st. The place: the grave of Prus. The time: six in the evening. I left him and went to the dustbin in the back yard. In it, ready for collection, was the last edition of Freedom and Independence. Its theme was mercy and justice.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Anselm took the Metro Line 1, south bound. Clutching his ol
d duffle bag he sat with his head against the window, feeling the jolt ride down his spine. His thoughts drifted to Róża’s statement. John’s mother had died. He’d never told him and yet he’d listened to Anselm’s disclosure, glancing when he could at the drama on a cricket square. He’d come to Warsaw with a personal story which even now Anselm did not know Anselm let the matter drop. Apprehension stirred deep in his guts: someone on the train was probably watching him.
Fifteen minutes later, after a short walk in the rain, a spectacled manager, hunched and kind, asked for Anselm’s passport and credit card details.
‘You’re very welcome, Father,’ he said in English, handing him the key to room 43. ‘Turn right at Saint John.’
At the top of a gentle ramp Anselm passed a large statue proper to a cathedral. He slowed, knowing that this was Frenzel’s joke. He’d picked this place on purpose, knowing the decor, knowing the manager’s public devotion. His contempt seemed to echo down the corridor.’ all the way to the locked door.
The room had a single bed with a deep blue cover. An old television on a wall bracket had been angled like a spotlight towards two chairs and a table. White gleaming floor tiles ran from wall to wall. The lights were low and yellow Abstract paintings hung slightly askew There were no saints on the lookout. He put his duffle bag in the bathroom. What on earth am I doing here? Frenzel’s taken a decent man’s hotel and made it into an expensive brothel for the sale of cheap information. And here am I, a punter with money in his back pocket.
After five minutes a knock sounded.
Riding a surge of agitation, Anselm slowly turned the door handle.
Standing outside like a janitor on his day off was a podgy man in his late twenties dressed in a tracksuit. Gloved fingers gripped a shopping trolley filled with bulging refuse sacks. His face was red and flabby, still wet from the rain. Anselm couldn’t imagine him doing anything more athletic than opening the fridge door. He waved him in, thinking this was the first act in some TV prank. Instantly, as if attached to the man by a thread, a hooded woman appeared, brushing past into the room. When Anselm turned, the man was squatting on the edge of the bed, his arm resting on the parked trolley The woman, hood removed.’ was standing beneath the television, arms tightly folded. She was fifty or so. As if following his cue, Anselm took a chair.
The Day of the Lie Page 17