JEFFREY ARCHER
KANE AND ABEL
PAN BOOKS
TO MICHAEL AND JANE
CONTENTS
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
PART TWO
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
PART THREE
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
PART FOUR
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
PART FIVE
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
PART SIX
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
PART SEVEN
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
PART EIGHT
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
PART ONE
1906-1923
1
April 18, 1906, Slonim, Poland
SHE ONLY stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream.
The young boy who was hunting rabbits in the forest was not sure whether it was the woman’s last cry or the child’s first that alerted his youthful ears. He turned, sensing possible danger, his eyes searching for an animal that was obviously in pain. But he had never known an animal to scream in quite that way before. He edged towards the noise cautiously; the scream had now turned to a whine, but it still did not sound like any animal he knew. He hoped it would be small enough to kill; at least that would make a change from rabbit for dinner.
He moved stealthily towards the river, where the strange noise came from, darting from tree to tree, feeling the protection of the bark against his shoulder blades, something to touch. Never stay in the open, his father had taught him. When he reached the edge of the forest he had a clear line of vision all the way down the valley to the river, and even then it took him some time to realize that the strange cry emanated from no ordinary animal. He crept towards the whining, even though he was now out in the open.
Then he saw the woman, her dress above her waist, her bare legs splayed. He had never seen a woman like that before. He ran quickly to her side and stared down at her belly, too frightened to touch. Lying between the woman’s legs was a small, pink animal, covered in blood and attached to her by something that looked like rope. The young hunter dropped his freshly caught rabbits and fell to his knees beside the little creature.
He gazed at it for a long, stunned moment, then turned his eyes to the woman. He immediately regretted the decision. She was already blue with cold; her tired young face looked middle-aged to the boy. He did not need to be told that she was dead. He picked up the slippery little body that lay on the grass between her legs. Had you asked him why, and no one ever did, he would have told you that the tiny fingernails clawing at the crumpled face had worried him.
The mother and child were bound together by the slimy rope. The boy had watched the birth of a lamb a few days earlier and he tried to remember. Yes, that’s what the shepherd had done. But dare he, with a child? The whining suddenly stopped, and he sensed that a decision was now urgent. He unsheathed his knife, the one he skinned rabbits with, wiped it on his sleeve and, hesitating only for a moment, cut the rope close to the child’s body. Blood flowed freely from the severed ends. Then what had the shepherd done when the lamb was born? He had tied a knot to stop the blood. Of course, of course. The boy pulled some long grass out of the earth beside him and hastily tied a crude knot in the cord. Then he took the child in his arms. It started to cry again. He rose slowly from his knees, leaving behind him three dead rabbits and a dead woman who had given birth to this child. Before finally turning his back on the mother, he put her legs together and pulled her dress down over her knees. It seemed the right thing to do.
‘Holy God,’ he said aloud, the thing he always said when he had done something very good or very bad. He wasn’t yet sure which this was.
The young hunter ran towards the cottage where his mother would be cooking supper, waiting only for his rabbits; everything else would be prepared. She would be wondering how many he’d caught today; with a family of eight to feed, she needed at least three. Sometimes he managed a duck, a goose or even a pheasant that had strayed from the Baron’s estate, on which his father worked. Tonight he had caught a different animal.
When he reached the cottage, he didn’t dare let go of his prize, even with one hand, so he kicked at the door with his bare foot until his mother opened it. Silently, he held up the child to her. She made no immediate move to take the creature from him but stood, one hand covering her mouth, gazing at the wretched sight.
‘Holy God,’ she said, and crossed herself. The boy looked up at her face for some sign of pleasure or anger, to find her eyes shining with a tenderness he had never seen before. He knew then that the thing he had done must be good.
‘It’s a little boy,’ said his mother, taking the child into her arms. ‘Where did you find him?’
‘Down by the river, Matka,’ he said.
‘And the mother?’
‘Dead.’
She crossed herself again.
‘Quickly, run and tell your father what has happened. He will find Urszula Wojnak on the estate, and you must take them both to the mother. Then be sure they come back here.’
The boy rubbed his hands on his trousers, happy enough not to have dropped the slippery creature, and ran off in search of his father.
The mother closed the door with her shoulder and called out for Florentyna, her eldest child, to put the pot on the fire. She sat down on a wooden stool, unbuttoned her bodice and pushed a tired nipple to the little puckered mouth. Sophia, her youngest daughter, only six months old, would have to go without her supper tonight. Come to think of it, so would the whole family.
‘And to what purpose?’ the woman said out loud, tucking her shawl around the child. ‘Poor little mite will be dead by morning.’
She did not repeat that sentiment to Urszula Wojnak when she arrived a couple of hours later. The elderly midwife washed the little body and tended to the twisted umbilical stump. The woman’s husband stood silently by the open fire, observing the scene.
‘A guest in the house brings God into the house,’ declared the woman, quoting the old Polish proverb.
Her husband spat. ‘To the cholera with him. We have enough children of our own.’
The woman pretended not to hear him as she stroked the sparse dark hairs on the baby’s head.
‘What shall we call him?’ she asked.
Her husband shrugged. ‘What does it matter? Let him go to his grave nameless.’
April 18, 1906, Boston, Massachusetts
THE DOCTOR picked up the newborn baby by the ankles and slapped its bottom. The baby started to cry.
In Boston, Massachusetts, there is a hospital that caters mainly for those who suffer from the diseases of the rich, and on selected occasions allows itself to deliver the new rich. The mothers rarely scream, and they certainly don’t give birth fully dressed.
A young man was pacing up and down outside the delivery room; inside, two obstetricians and the family doctor were in attendance. This father did not believe in taking risks with his firstborn. The obstetricians would be paid a large fee to stand by and witness events. One of them, who wore evening clothes under his long white coat, was late for a dinner party, but he could not afford to absent himself from this particular birth. The three had earlier drawn straws to decide who should deliver the child, and Dr MacKenzie, the family doctor, had won. A sound, reliable man, the father thought, as he paced up and down the corridor.
Not that he had any reason to be anxious. Roberts had driven the young man’s wife to the hospital in their hansom carriage earlier that morning, which the doctor had calculated was the twenty-eighth day of her ninth month. Anne had gone into labour soon after breakfast, and he had been assured that the birth would not take place until his bank had closed for the day. The father was a disciplined man and saw no reason why the arrival of a child should interrupt his well-ordered life. Nevertheless, he continued to pace. Nurses and doctors hurried past him, lowering their voices as they approached him and raising them again only when they were out of his earshot. He didn’t notice, because everybody always treated him this way. Most of the hospital staff had never seen him in person, but all of them knew who he was. When his son was born - it never occurred to him, even for a moment, that the child might be a girl - he would build the new children’s wing the hospital so badly needed. His grandfather had already built a library and his father a school for the local community.
The expectant father tried to read the evening paper, looking over the words but not taking in their meaning. He was nervous, even anxious. It would never do for them (he looked upon almost everyone as ‘them’) to know how important it was that his firstborn be a boy, a boy who would one day take his place as president and chairman of the bank. He turned to the sports pages of the Evening Transcript. The Boston Red Sox had beaten the New York Highlanders - other people would be celebrating. Then he saw the headline on the front page: the worst earthquake in the history of America. Devastation in San Francisco, at least four hundred people dead - other people would be mourning. He hated that. It would take away from the birth of his son. People would remember that something else had happened on this day.
He turned to the financial pages and checked the stock market: it had fallen a few points; that damned earthquake had taken nearly $100,000 off the value of his holdings at the bank, but as his personal fortune remained comfortably over $16 million, it was going to take more than an earthquake in California to register on his Richter scale. After all, he could now live off the interest on his interest, so the $16 million capital would remain intact, ready for his son, still unborn. He continued to pace while pretending to read the Transcript.
The obstetrician in evening dress pushed through the swing doors of the delivery room to report the news. He felt he had to do something to justify his large fee and he was the most suitably dressed for the announcement. The two men stared at each other for a moment. The doctor also felt a little nervous, but he wasn’t going to show it in front of the father.
‘Congratulations, sir, you have a son. A fine-looking little boy.’
What silly remarks people make when a baby is born, was the father’s first thought; how could he be anything but little? Then the news dawned on him - a son. He thought about thanking a God he didn’t believe in. The obstetrician ventured a question to break the silence.
‘Have you decided what to call him?’
The father answered without hesitation: ‘William Lowell Kane.’
3
LONG AFTER the excitement of the baby’s arrival had passed and the rest of the family had gone to bed, the mother remained awake, holding the child in her arms. Helena Koskiewicz believed in life, and she had borne nine children to prove it. Although she had lost three in infancy, she had not let any of them go easily.
At thirty-five, she knew that her once lusty Jasio would give her no more sons or daughters. God had offered her this one; surely he must be destined to live. Helena’s was a simple faith, which was good, for destiny would never allow her anything but a simple life. Although she was only in her thirties, meagre food and hard work caused her to look much older. She was grey and thin, and not once in her life had she worn new clothes. It never occurred to her to complain about her lot, but the lines on her face made her look more like a grandmother than a mother.
Although she squeezed her breasts hard, leaving dull red marks around the nipples, only little drops of milk squirted out. At thirty-five, halfway through life’s contract, we all have some useful piece of expertise to pass on, and Helena Koskiewicz’s was now at a premium.
‘Matka’s littlest one,’ she whispered tenderly to the child, and drew the milky teat across its pursed mouth. The eyelids opened as he tried to suck. Finally the mother sank unwillingly into a deep sleep.
Jasio Koskiewicz, a heavily built, dull man with a luxurious moustache, his only gesture of self-assertion in an otherwise servile existence, discovered his wife and the baby asleep in the rocking chair when he rose at five. He hadn’t noticed her absence from their bed that night. He stared down at the bastard who had, thank God, at least stopped wailing. Was it dead? He didn’t care. Let the woman worry about life and death: the most important thing for him was to be on the Baron’s estate by first light. He took a few long swallows of goat’s milk and wiped his moustache on his sleeve. He finally grabbed a hunk of bread with one hand and his traps with the other before slipping noiselessly out of the cottage, for fear of waking the child and starting it wailing again. He strode off towards the forest, giving no more thought to the little intruder other than to assume that he had seen him for the last time.
Florentyna was next to enter the kitchen, just before the old clock, which for many years had kept its own time, chimed six times. It was no more than a vague assistance to those who wished to know if it was the hour to rise or go to bed. Among her daily duties was the preparation of breakfast, a minor task involving the simple division of a skin of goat’s milk and a lump of rye bread among a family of eight. Nevertheless, it required the Wisdom of Solomon to carry it out so that no one grumbled about another’s portion.
Florentyna struck those who saw her for the first time as a pretty, frail, shabby little thing. Although for the past two years she’d had only one dress to wear, those who could separate their opinion of the child from that of her surroundings understood why Jasio had fallen in love with her mother. Florentyna’s long fair hair shone and her hazel eyes sparkled in defiance of her birth and upbringing.
She tiptoed up to the rocking chair and stared down at her mother and the little boy, whom she had adored at first sight. She had never in her eight years owned a doll. In truth, she had seen one only once, when the family had been invited to a celebration of the feast of St Nicholas at the Baron’s castle. Even then she had not actually touched the beautiful object, but now she felt an inexplicable urge to hold this baby in her arms. She bent down and eased the child away from her mother, and staring down into its blue eyes - such blue eyes - she began to hum. The change of temperature from the warmth of the mother’s breast to the cold of the little girl’s hands made the baby start to cry. This woke the mother, whose only reaction was to feel guilty for having fallen asleep.
‘Holy God, he’s still alive, Florcia,’ she said. ‘You must prepare breakfast for the boys while I try to feed him again.’
Florentyna reluctantly handed the baby back to her mother and w
atched as she once again pumped her aching breasts. The little girl was mesmerized.
‘Be about your work, Florcia,’ chided her mother. ‘The rest of the family must eat as well.’
Florentyna reluctantly obeyed when her four brothers began to appear from the loft where they all slept. They kissed their mother’s hands in greeting and stared at the intruder in awe. All they knew was that this one had not come from Matka’s stomach. Florentyna was too excited to eat her breakfast that morning, so the boys divided her portion among themselves without a second thought, leaving their mother’s share on the table. No one noticed that she hadn’t eaten anything since the baby’s arrival.
Helena Koskiewicz was pleased that her children had learned early in life to fend for themselves. They could feed the animals, milk the goats and tend the vegetable garden without any help or prodding.
When Jasio returned home in the evening, Helena had not prepared supper for him. Florentyna had taken the three rabbits Franck, her brother the hunter, had caught the previous day, and started to skin them. Florentyna was proud to be in charge of the evening meal, a responsibility she was entrusted with only when her mother was unwell, and Helena rarely allowed herself that luxury. Their father had brought home six mushrooms and three potatoes: tonight would be a veritable feast.
After supper, Jasio Koskiewicz sat in his chair by the fire and studied the child properly for the first time. Holding him under the armpits, his splayed fingers supporting the helpless head, he cast a trapper’s eye over the infant. Wrinkled and toothless, the face was redeemed only by the fine, blue, unfocused eyes. As the man directed his gaze towards the thin body, something attracted his attention. He scowled and rubbed the delicate chest with his thumbs.
‘Have you noticed this, woman?’ he said, prodding the baby’s chest. ‘The little bastard only has one nipple.’
His wife frowned as she rubbed the skin with her thumb, as though the action would somehow miraculously cause the missing nipple to appear. Her husband was right: the minute and colourless left nipple was there, but where its mirror image should have appeared on the right-hand side, the skin was completely smooth.
Kane & Abel (1979) Page 1