Gregor rose slowly to his feet, smiling down at his cousin. “Now rest in His glorious peace, my brother in Christ. I will come to see you again this afternoon.”
* * *
“That was very beautiful,” Jeffrey told him as they crossed through the hospital’s main lobby.
“Mmmm,” Gregor hummed distractedly, then pulled the world back into focus. “I’m sorry. What was it you said?”
“What you told Alexander in there. It was really inspiring.”
“Oh, thank you . . .” His mind remained elsewhere. Once through the main doors, Gregor ceased his limping gait to turn and face Jeffrey. “I was wondering if I might ask a favor.”
“Anything.”
“It is time that I go and visit my Zosha’s resting place, but I find myself unwilling to go there alone. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”
“Of course,” Jeffrey replied. Zosha was the name of Gregor’s deceased wife.
Gregor offered a distracted smile. “I am indeed grateful, my young friend. This is most good-hearted of you.”
Jeffrey left him isolated in his contemplation and joined the ranks struggling to find a taxi in the misting rain. Once in the cab, Gregor gave the driver their destination, then lapsed again into silence. Some moments later he emerged to say, “Forgive me, please. I am sorry for being such poor company.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“No, that is the blessing of true friendship in such moments,” Gregor agreed. “I was recalling the distant past. Strange how vivid memories can become at these times. I was thinking of our escape from Poland. Or rather, the time leading up to our departure.”
“Alexander has mentioned your escape several times,” Jeffrey said. “I’m still waiting for the whole story.”
“Conversation would most certainly ease the burden of this journey,” Gregor assented. There was another long silence as the world shifted slightly to reveal a door long hidden within Gregor’s mind and heart. “When Alexander had recovered from his imprisonment at Auschwitz,” Gregor then began, “he immediately joined the Armia Krajowa, the Polish Home Army, as the underground was called. Of course, he never actually spoke of it to us. The AK, as the army was known, was utterly secret. Even within the ranks themselves, the soldiers were known by code only, and each was sworn never to try to learn another man’s true name. This was done so that if they were ever captured and tortured, they had less information to divulge. Of course, with my poor health, I was not permitted to join, much as I begged.
“As with most Poles, I came to know many of the activists within the local AK garrison. There were little signals you could detect if you looked carefully, such as a hint of pride and defiance against the overpowering German might, and the way they stood or looked or spoke. Alexander replaced the horror of his Auschwitz experience with this sense of secret strength, and I saw it in others. But I knew better than to speak of it, even to my dear cousin. I never had the opportunity to tell him how proud I was of him and his actions, or how much I lived through him. Or how, when he slipped away on a mission under the cover of night, he carried my fervent prayers with him. I never slept while he was out. Never. I spent the long night hours praying for his success and his safe return.”
The rain stopped, the clouds scattered, the sun turned the city air dank and sweltering. Traffic held them in a fumy embrace. Gregor seemed scarcely aware of the steamy heat, the beeping horns, or their crawling progress.
“After the Nazis were defeated in Poland and the Russians swept in,” he continued, “the AK soldiers began to disappear. Nothing was said, no accusations were made, no evidence was found by anyone who was willing to speak aloud. But one by one, the young men and women I knew to have been in the underground began to vanish. I watched Alexander and saw how distressed he became by this, yet I was unable to broach the subject without his speaking first. And I worried for him more than I ever had under the Nazis.
“Then one night I awoke to the sound of his moving about, the same secret movements that had woken me so often before. This time I went to him. He told me that he and two friends were going to vanish before the Russians made them disappear permanently. Where was he going, I asked. He hesitated, then told me it would be best simply to trust him, and to believe he would one day return. We embraced, and he slipped from the room, and that was the last I saw or heard of my dear cousin for seven long months.”
“That must have been terrible,” Jeffrey said quietly.
“It was and it wasn’t,” Gregor replied. “I missed him more than I thought it possible to miss another man. But it was also a time of great beauty, for that was when the Lord brought my Zosha into my life. By the time Alexander returned, I was a married man.”
Gregor looked with sad fondness into the distance of his memories. “Perhaps the Lord whispered to our souls that we would only have those two short years together, and so we lost no time in lighthearted flirtation and simple chatter. Perhaps, too, we shared with such desperate openness because of who we were and what the times held for us.
“Zosha had experienced the Warsaw Uprising and arrived bearing the agony of having survived. Despite her past or because of it, we met, and we loved; that is the whole story of our lives together. We met, and the world sang with the tragic beauty of two young people loving each other in a world with little room for love. We shared all we were and all we had and all we knew, and life became so enriched that each new dawn spoke of promises too great for one small day to enclose.
“Zosha was the answer to my every prayer, even the ones which I knew not how to place into words. She drank in the lessons I had learned from my studies of faith, and in taking them so wholeheartedly taught me the heavenly delights of earthly love, of what it meant for two to join as one.
“How Zosha came to be with me, ah, to have a miracle of such joy arrive in the midst of such chaos and turmoil! The trauma of her passage—my boy, you cannot imagine what Zosha went through before she joined me.” Gregor sighed and murmured, “Yet she came, my angel in earthly form. And she loved me. Ah, how that woman could love. I saw God more clearly in her eyes than ever in anything else contained within this world.”
He was silent for so long that Jeffrey thought his questions would have to wait for another time. But the taxi jolted to a stop at a light, and Gregor stirred himself and continued, “My Zosha spent the war years in Warsaw, until the time of the Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising was one of many tragedies during the war years, yet it held a special bitterness because of the Soviet treachery. The Red Army had promised our underground forces that they would come to our aid and push the Nazis from Polish soil once the battle for Warsaw began. Instead, they massed across the Vistula and watched the Germans pulverize our glorious capital and decimate the population.
“They stood and watched our people die, you see, because they never intended to let Poland be free. Every Polish patriot killed by the Nazis was one less that the Soviets would have to concern themselves with. Neither the promised soldiers nor the arms ever arrived. Half-starved AK soldiers faced the modern Nazi army with petrol bombs and sharpened fence-staves and hunting guns and whatever weapons they could steal.
“The battle lasted two months and was nothing less than sheer butchery. During that time, Warsaw was a city apart. There were no supplies, little water, no electricity or oil. Then, when the city surrendered, the Germans ordered all survivors to leave their homes immediately, taking only what they could carry. Most of these people were starving and weak. They were forced to walk for two days. Along the way they were given nothing—no food, no water. There is no record of how many died in that trek of blood and tears. But my Zosha said that every step of the way was littered with the bodies of those who could not continue and were left where they lay.”
Gradually the taxi made its way beyond the cramped confines of central London. Streets broadened and lawns appeared and shops sprouted from low buildings. “German soldiers marched along either side of the road, with perhaps
twenty meters between each soldier,” Gregor went on, “My Zosha was eighteen, walking with a girlfriend, and their two mothers walked a few paces away. Suddenly a man scrambled up from the hedge and, unnoticed by the Germans, began walking alongside them. He whispered that they had to escape immediately, to go with him right then; there was not a moment to lose. They of course replied that they could not leave their mothers, that they would be all right once they arrived at the prison camp.
“The young man whispered fiercely that they would not be allowed to stay with their mothers. Only the elderly were to be placed in the camp. All young girls were to be sent to the bomb depots near the front. These places were called death factories, the young man told them, because they were being bombed so often. There was no chance of survival. None.
“He was in the AK, this young man. He pulled them from the road, flung them down on the earth, and ordered them to stay there until he returned. He waited for the next soldier to pass, then was up once again and back in line, continuing his death-defying mission of mercy. He never came back, that man.
“Later, once we had all arrived safely in London, we learned that what the young man had said was true. Virtually none of the women sent to the front ever returned. My Zosha never had a chance to thank that young man who had risked his life to save her. She never even learned his name.
“When all the people had passed and the young man did not return, Zosha and her friend walked to the nearest house, where a woman came out, took one look at them, and said, you’re from the Warsaw Uprising. That was how strong an impact the events left on the innocent. The woman took them into her house and cooked the only food she had—rancid potatoes and black, grimy flour made into potato pancakes. My Zosha told me it was the finest meal she had eaten in her entire life.
“They stayed with the woman for two days, until the Germans began a house-to-house search for escapees. That resulted in a journey from home to home, village to village, by hay wagon and horse cart and lorry, sleeping in barns or vegetable bins or cellars or open fields, until one early dawn my Zosha arrived at our own doorstep in Cracow. She was so exhausted and weak that her hold on life was a bare thread. My family took pity on the poor girl, and instead of passing her on as would have been safe, they gave her Alexander’s room. And I, in turn, gave her my heart.”
The taxi turned a corner, and instantly the city was exchanged for a narrow country lane. Verdant fields opened to either side. Wild flowers filled their car with the perfumes of summer. Gregor watched the line of ancient trees parade past their car.
“Alexander had been gone for seven months, as I said,” he continued quietly. “He returned as silently and suddenly as he had departed, riding the winds of danger and urgency with a strength and focused power that filled our little world. We had to escape, he said. All of us. There was no time for discussion or debate. The Soviet noose was tightening and soon would close off all remaining channels to freedom.
“We did little to protest, as we could see the evidence of the Soviets’ growing might all around us. So that very night we began a journey which took us the entire length of Poland, up to the Baltic Sea and across by boat to Scandinavia, and from there on to England. Every step of the way we were aided by silent, nameless friends whom Alexander had met in his time away from us. Every place we traveled, I saw how those strong men accepted my dear cousin as one of their own, a man who had fought the good fight, and I knew a pride so fierce I was sure it would burn eternal scars in my heart.”
The taxi turned through great stone gates into a quiet cemetery, stopping before a tiny chapel. The driver turned off the motor and waited patiently as Gregor sat where he was and went on, “But my darling Zosha had never recovered her strength from the trauma of the Uprising. Her weakness had not been evident when we departed; otherwise, I would never have attempted the journey. But as the days of endless toil and danger wore on, that same look of haunted exhaustion which she had worn upon her arrival at my home returned to her features.
“Still, we survived, all of us. In Sweden we rested, and again I hoped that all would be well. But it was not to be. About a year after our arrival in London, my Zosha went down with a fever, and she never rose from her bed again.”
With a long sigh, Gregor eased himself from the taxi. While Jeffrey arranged for the driver to wait, Gregor purchased a map and a great bouquet of lilacs and chrysanthemums from the flower stall by the cemetery chapel. Together they followed the cemetery map past progressively older tombstones, until they arrived at a carefully trimmed plot lined by flowers and bearing a simple black marble marker.
“This is Alexander’s doing, bless his soul,” Gregor noted quietly. “He has seen to all these details since that very day, when I was too poor and too distraught to manage.”
Gregor stood for a long moment in bowed stillness while Jeffrey strolled along ways sheltered by ancient chestnuts. When he saw Gregor wave in his direction, he hurried back.
“It was good to come here once more, before—” He stopped, looked back at the grave site, and concluded. “It was good to come. I have Alexander to thank for this as well. Though I must confess to you, my young friend, that I feel no closer to Zosha at this moment than I have when seated alone in my tiny Cracow flat on many a winter’s eve.”
Jeffrey thought of his own new love and was brought face-to-face with its fleeting fragility. He found himself with nothing to say as they made their slow way back to the waiting taxi.
Chapter 8
The following afternoon Katya walked cheerfully, though somewhat frazzled, into Alexander’s room, where Jeffrey was visiting. She bestowed kisses and greetings on both men and asked, “Where is Gregor?”
“Back at Alexander’s flat,” Jeffrey said glumly. “Packing.”
“You couldn’t persuade him to stay?”
He shook his head. “I got about as far as you did.”
“Oh.” Her cheerfulness slipped several notches. “He did warn us. I just hoped—”
“Gregor’s place is not here,” Alexander said kindly. “You as well as any have the perception to know that.”
“But the wedding is just six days off,” Katya complained, slipping into the seat Jeffrey offered.
“There is urgent relief work among the Cracow orphanages which simply will not wait,” Alexander replied. “He has explained it to us in great detail. And his work here is over.”
“You really are feeling better, aren’t you?”
“My dear,” Alexander said, “Gregor’s visit has positively transformed me. This and the news that you are relocating the wedding on my account.”
“Jeffrey told you, then.” She bestowed the fullness of her gaze on him. “Did he tell you it was his idea?”
“I did not because it was not,” he replied.
She nodded slowly. “Yes it was. You were just too smart to suggest it yourself.”
“Whoever is responsible,” Alexander said, “I thank you both. Your offer has done much to restore me. And I do hope that you still intend to hold your reception in my flat.”
“If you really think—”
“Nothing could bring me greater pleasure, except to be there myself,” Alexander pronounced gravely. “Know that I shall most certainly be there in spirit. As shall Gregor.”
“Well,” she said, turning brisk, “my last calm moment before the wedding was shattered by yet another call from our Mr. Markov. Whenever he phones, he seems to grow distressed by degrees. He starts off all cool and polished, ordering me in the most civilized manner to get you on the phone. When I insist that’s not possible, he goes bright red.”
“You’ve seen him?” Jeffrey asked.
“I don’t need to.” She smiled at him. “I’m just glad he waited to call until you had left to collect Gregor. I’d hate you to have a shouting match with somebody six days before our wedding.”
“Perhaps I should give him a call,” Alexander said thoughtfully.
“From the sounds of things,” Kat
ya said, “whatever he has on his mind is quite urgent.”
“You do not speak French, do you, my dear?”
She shook her head. “It is a language I have always wanted to learn.”
“Well, perhaps the future shall afford you an opportunity. Be so good as to dial for me, would you?”
“Of course.” Katya placed the call, then handed him the phone. A woman’s voice answered with, “La Residence Markov.”
“Oui. Monsieur Markov, s’il vous plait.”
“Et vous etes Monsieur . . . ?”
“Kantor. Alexander Kantor.”
A long moment’s pause, then, “Ici Markov.”
Alexander switched to English. “Mr. Markov, this is Alexander Kantor returning your call.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Kantor. Thank you so much for responding so quickly. I understand you have had a bout of ill health. Not anything serious, I hope.”
Alexander took in the bleak surroundings in a single sweeping glance, made do with a simple, “Thank you for asking.”
“I do apologize for disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” Alexander replied. “I understood that you were under some time pressure, and I did not wish to delay you further.”
“But of course I would expect nothing less than a prompt response from a professional such as yourself.”
“You are too kind.” For the first time since his attack, Alexander felt a surge of his old acquisitive spirit. The familiar feeling lifted him enormously. “And how are you enjoying your life at Villa Caravelle?”
“Oh, it is a most splendid place. As you know, I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.”
“And you don’t miss—” Alexander searched his memory for the name of Markov’s former residence, one of the largest palaces along the Corniche, and was delighted when he came up with “Beau Rivage? That was certainly a magnificent residence.”
“Ah, yes. Beau Rivage. No, I must say I have had quite a number of other things on my mind these past two years. Which brings me to the reason for my call. I have a business proposition for you, Mr. Kantor.”
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