A Place to Stand

by Ann Bridge

  “That will be quite all right; there is plenty of petrol here for the lady’s Father, as the lady knows,” said Gyury, winking as old Antal had winked.

  “What about him?” Hope asked, with a glance at the snoring sentry.

  “Oh, he’s no trouble! He’s just a country-boy, and now he’s sleeping like one of the pigs they all are,” said the man, picking up some cans as he spoke; he carried them out to the pump, set them down, filled them, and stowed them in the back of the Dodge. In spite of his confident words about the “country-boy,” Hope observed that he contrived to do all this in complete silence, except for the fizzing hum of the petrol as it rose in the pump—yet normally petrol-cans seem almost to have a voice of their own, clanking at the slightest touch. But no amount of care will make a car start silently, and when the Dodge was run out to the pump the sentry woke up. He stretched, yawned, and then jumped to his feet. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “American client,” Gyury said, gesturing at Hope.

  “Americaan!” he repeated, with emphasis, and the sentry sat down on his oil-drum again.

  While the petrol was rushing into the tank Hope put a question to the garage-hand. The Wagons-Lits man’s horrid phrase about Poles being hunted out like rats had stuck in her mind like a thorn, inflaming it with anxiety; now she asked—“Have you seen much of the Germans tonight?—last night?”

  “Oh yes—they’ve been running round the streets like beetles, in their police cars,” Gyury replied. “All night long, the animals! What they were after I don’t know; nor did he”—he nodded in the direction of the sentry, who had gone to sleep again. “They knocked off about two hours ago. While they were about he stood outside, at the ready, smart as you like!—but he’s tired out, he was falling asleep on his feet, so when it got quiet I told him to sit there, and I would rouse him if any of his god-be-damned-eternally countrymen came along. He’s only nineteen years old,” the garage-hand added—“and his Mother is a widow.”

  “How did you find all this out? How could you understand each other?” Hope asked, pitching her bouquet and her chocolates into the back of the car, and sliding in herself.

  “Lady, my Mother was a Schwab, and I picked up a little of their wretched lingo from her, as a child. Oh, I thank the lady!”—as Hope slipped a tip into his hand. “Kezicsókolom!” (I kiss your hand!) he said, as Hope switched on and drove off.

  She ran the car into a side street leading off the Radolny utca, but out of sight of the house where the Moranskis lived, and locked it. Then, with a beating heart, she walked round towards the Penzio.

  When she emerged into the Radolny utca and had gone a few steps along it, Hope came to a dead stop. A group of uniformed police were standing outside the arched doorway, with some men in plain clothes as well. Frightened, she drew back into the side street quickly—it was now nearly 6 o’clock, and a pale daylight was beginning to fill the high narrow streets. And this needed thinking about. Oh, what should she do? What could be going on? She had better try to find that out before she did anything else. Would the Sörözö be open at this hour? If so, the horn-faced woman might know something. Taking a roundabout route, Hope hurried round there. As she crossed the Andrássy she noticed that even the big thoroughfare seemed curiously empty—she felt somehow intensely conspicuous in that great vacant street when she caught sight of her small grey figure, with the huge bouquet of red and white flowers, in the plate-glass windows of the big Liliom Kávé.

  At the door in the little alley she knocked, and stood waiting. Nothing happened. She knocked again, a number of little quick low taps somehow she felt afraid to make too much noise in this unnaturally silent and empty town. After a moment—without a step inside, without a sound—the door opened a little way, and the horn-faced woman peered out. When she saw Hope she opened the door a little wider—still in complete silence—put out an arm, and swept her in; then she shut the door, and noiselessly slid the bolt home. The lights were only on in the inner room; always without a word the woman led her through into it. There was no one there but a priest, who was sitting at one of the small tables. The woman set Hope down at another, and went through and fetched her a cup of coffee from a pot on the hot-plate—“Drink that up,” she said—the first words she had spoken.

  Hope was uncommonly glad of the coffee; she was beginning to feel very empty indeed, and drank it eagerly. Only when she had emptied the cup, and it had been re-filled, did Hornface begin to talk. “What’s happened? Your friends told me you had left last night.”

  “Yes, we did. But at Kelenföld there was a long wait, and a lot of noise, and when I looked out I saw the station full of Germans, and people being pulled off the train—and the sleeping-car man said they were Poles,” said Hope miserably. “I was afraid they—my friends—might be among them, so I came back.”

  “From Kelenföld?”

  “No—I was undressed then. From Kecskemet.”

  “Jesus help us! How did you get back from Kecskemét, at that time of night?”

  “I took a car,” said Hope simply. “But do you know where they are, my friends?”

  “No, I don’t. I haven’t seen them since early yesterday evening—the Germans and the Bureau have been all over the place all night long! Have you been to their place?”

  “Yes—at least I tried—I started along the street. But the police were all round the door, so I didn’t go in; I came here. I thought you might know something.”

  Instead of answering the woman turned to the priest—“Father Kowalski, here a minute.”

  The priest got up and came over to Hope’s table. He was a little, worn man, and his face was unshaven; Hope noticed that his boots were muddy and broken, and that the shabby black trousers under his soutane were muddy too.

  “She is an American,” the woman said, nodding at Hope. “She is their friend, she has helped them.” The priest looked at the girl, a little surprised, a little enquiringly, but with a sort of benevolent calm—at length he too nodded slightly, as if he understood and agreed. Somehow that nod gave Hope a curious sense of reassurance.

  “Father Kowalski also wants very badly to see your friends,” the woman went on, looking rather intently at Hope.

  The girl looked at the priest for a minute; at the muddy trousers, the broken boots, the exhausted unshaven face.

  “Have you come a long way to see them?” she asked, in French.

  “Yes, Mademoiselle, a very long way,” the priest answered, also in French, but with the familiar Polish accent.

  So that was it—he must have got what they were waiting for. Then perhaps they haven’t gone, she thought; her heart gave a bound of relief that after all they had probably not been on the train last night. But obviously someone must find out where they were, and what was going on. She sprang up.

  “I’ll go and see what’s happening,” she exclaimed. “I’m a foreigner—the police can’t do anything to me. I’ll come back and let you know.” And picking up her flowers and her parcels she ran off, the horn-faced woman letting her out, as she had let her in, in complete silence.

  11

  As she crossed the Andrássy ut again on her way to the Penzio, Hope noticed that it was no longer quite so empty; a number of bicyclists were about, pedalling away to work. She felt much more cheerful this time—maybe it was the coffee, or the comfort of doing something active, instead of just fretting and wondering. She walked boldly up to the group of police who still hung about the porte cochère below the Penzio, and started to go in; at once a policeman stopped her.

  “Who are you, and what do you want in there?”

  Hope flourished her bouquet at him.

  “I’ve come up from the country to get married,” she said gaily. “I’m going in to see some friends.”

  One of the plain-clothes men started to cross the street from the further pavement; as he came he put a question to the man who had spoken to Hope.

  “She says she’s come up to get married, and has frie
nds in here,” said the policeman, grinning rather amiably at Hope.

  The plain-clothes man looked quite unamiable—severe and suspicious. Hope whipped out her passport, and tendered it to him; while he looked at it she glanced quickly up at the names on the board under the archway, as she had done the first day she came, and chose one, at random, on the seventh floor. Oh God, was she going to get stuck?

  “And who are your friends?” the plain-clothes man asked; he spoke with the ugly German accent of the Schwabs.

  Hope held out her hand for her passport. As she took it—“You see that I am an American,” she said. “It astonishes me that an American lady should be interrogated by the police—and on her wedding day!”

  Strangely enough, at that he let her pass, and Hope hurried upstairs, thankful that she had not had to say that she was going to see a quite unknown Mme Buday. On the sixth floor—oh goodness!—were two more policemen standing outside the door of the Penzio itself. However these were nice, dumb, fresh-faced Hungarians; she showed her passport again and got in, and then tiptoed rapidly, but as silently as possible down the corridor and along the side passage to No. 11.

  As at the Sörözö, the door did not open at first when she knocked. Can they all have gone?—Hope thought in panic. She stood listening; she thought she heard a sound inside, and tapped again. “Do please let me in,” she said in French.

  At that, the door did open, and Litka’s face peeped round it. “You!” she exclaimed, when she saw Hope. “But you had gone!” And suddenly she burst into tears. “Oh Hope, oh Hope, my dear friend!”—and she flung herself into the girl’s astonished arms.

  Hope’s arms were rather full anyhow with her two large boxes of chocolates and Tibor’s bouquet—this last she let fall to the floor as she steered Litka to a chair, soothing her as best she could; then she put the sweets down on the table, and still murmuring encouraging words she glanced round the room. Old Mme Moranska lay on the bed, and even to Hope’s inexperienced eyes it was clear that she was desperately ill—her breath was coming in little fluttering gasps, and there was a shocking tinge of blue on her face. Oh dear God, what frightful thing had happened? A dozen horrifying possibilities ran through her mind in as many seconds.

  “Litka, what is it? What has happened?—and what is the matter with your Mother?” she asked, giving the Polish girl a little shake.

  “She is dying,” Litka said, struggling to control herself. “The police came last night, about two, and they were horrible to her; and she was so terrified, it brought on a seizure.”

  “And the boys? Were they here? What has happened?” Hope asked, in an agony of anxiety.

  “Oh, they got away. Someone from one of the floors below brought up word, just in time—they ran up to the top floor, and round the balcony, and got away over the roof.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, quite sure. First because someone came in and told us, and then the police came back a second time, furious that the raid had failed—it was then that they were so brutal with Maman—and me; because they were so angry.”

  “Then where are they now? But of course you don’t know.”

  “At the Sörözö, I expect.”

  “Oh no, they’re not—I’ve just come from there.”

  “Tiens!—well in that case, I have no idea. There are other places where they go.”

  “There’s a cordon all round the city now,” said Hope. “The Germans are checking over the passengers on the trains, and they have check-points on all the roads.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because I’ve just come through it.” But now that her most immediate anxiety about Stefan and Hempel was relieved, Hope’s thoughts turned to Mme Moranska. “Oughtn’t your Mother to have some of her drops?” she said, glancing at the small blue-faced figure on the bed; the bottle stood on the table.

  “She’s had them, but they don’t act any more,” poor Litka said, beginning to cry again. “The doctor always said it would be like that, at the end. He said she must avoid agitation—and guess if this last night has been agitating!”

  “Oh, terrible, terrible!” said Hope, with fullest sympathy.

  “But how come you to be here?” Litka asked. “And what do you mean when you say you’ve come through the cordon? Did you leave last night, or didn’t you?”

  “Yes, we left: but at Kelenföld they were checking over the people on the train, looking for Poles, and then I heard about the cordon. So I got off at a station down the line, and took a car and drove back,” said Hope, with intentional casualness.

  “For us?”

  “Well, to find out what had happened.”

  Litka got up and again flung her arms round her. “What a friend you are! What a person! And your parents?—what did they say?”

  “They don’t know, poor darlings.” Involuntarily Hope glanced at her watch. It was nearly seven—at latest in half-an-hour, when the train reached Belgrade, they would find out that she was missing; probably sooner, because Mother always came along to one’s sleeper to make sure that one would be up and dressed in time. Very likely she was in a frenzy now, already. The thought caused Hope a certain compunction, but the emotion was quite inoperative; she just wasn’t going to do anything about it till this job was finished. This was far more important.

  A tiny moaning sound came from the bed. Litka flew to it, followed by Hope. “Mother darling! What is it?”

  With obvious difficulty the old lady managed to bring out the words “Father Russenowski”. Litka wrung her hands, even while she said tenderly—“Yes, Mother dearest, we are sending for him. But meanwhile, do make your Act of Contrition.” She turned an agonized face round on Hope. “Father Russenowski was our parish priest at home,” she said in a whisper. “And now she must die without a priest at all!”

  “No!” said Hope, loudly. “I can get one at once.” She stooped over the bed and said, very clearly—“Dear Madame Moranska, it is I, Hope Kirkland. I will have the priest here in seven minutes.”

  The old lady opened her eyes. “Miss Hope? Wonderful. You can do anything. Please bring him.” She closed her eyes again, and a relaxed expression came over her old face.

  “But who?” Litka murmured, as Hope started towards the door.

  “Father Kowalski—he is at the Sörözö.”

  “No! At last! Has he got it?—But you wouldn’t know.”

  “Yes, I do know. He has. But we must get him to your Mother first,” Hope said, opening the door—all this took place in whispers. “Keep her going,” Hope said softly, and ran out.

  The police on the landing were no trouble at all. “I go to fetch a priest,” Hope said quickly, and ran down the stairs. As she turned the corner of the first flight she thought she heard a telephone ringing above her, but she paid no attention and ran on down, swinging lightly round those dusty angles, her skirts blown up by the draught. At the entrance she was again held up; and as before the plain-clothes man crossed the street and began to question her.

  “Listen!—I am, as you know, an American,” Hope burst out furiously. “But whatever I am, now I go to fetch a priest to a dying woman, and no one shall stop me!” The man stepped back, startled and abashed by her violence, and Hope ran off. Her errand was one which even the Deuxième Bureau was forced to respect.

  At the Sörözö she tapped; this time when there was no answer she did not wait, but at once gave a light imperious rat-tat-rat—and again the door opened silently. Horn-face looked out and saw her, and drew her in as before. But when the woman started to bolt the door Hope stopped her. “No! There isn’t time. The priest must come at once,” she whispered, walking on into the inner room as she spoke. “She is dying,” she said, panting a little from her running, to Father Kowalski—“please come now.”

  “Who is dying?” the priest asked, getting up from his chair.

  “Madame—” she checked herself before the name. “The old Mother of my friends. She has had a seizure, a heart attack, an
d she is asking for her own priest at home.”

  “What about the others?” the woman interjected.

  “They’ve got away—I don’t know where. But we must go at once—she is blue” Hope said urgently, turning to Father Kowalski.

  “And have the police gone?” Horn-face asked.

  “No, no—but it will be all right,” said Hope impatiently. “They know I am coming for a priest. And I promised her that I would bring one at once.” She put an urgent hand on the Father’s arm. “You will come?”

  He hesitated for such a fraction of a second that Hope could barely register that he did hesitate at all; then he said, “Yes, of course.” But instead of putting on the shabby black cloak which the horn-faced woman reached down off the clothes-rack behind him and held out, he began to fumble in his soutane, and drew forth a tiny white parcel, done up with sealing-wax and red string, like a chemist’s parcel, and handed it to Hope. “Please take this,” he said—“it will be safer with you.”

  The girl looked a question. He nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  Hope put the tiny package in her bag with a feeling of awe. This was it. What she was to do with it, how she was to get it out, to whom it must be given when she had got it out were all problems that would have to be solved later—at the moment all that mattered was to get Father Kowalski to Mme Moranska in time. But as she and the little priest hurried down the alley (where she noticed that the old flower-seller was setting up his stall for the day), across the Andrássy and along the Radolny utca, she thought with incredulity that the thing so long awaited, the cause of the delays and postponements which had so exasperated her, the thing that had meant more to Litka than her own personal happiness, and for which Stefan and Jurek had been willing to put their chance of freedom, if not their very lives, in jeopardy was now reposing in her, Hope Kirkland’s, handbag! What a strange outcome to a box of chocolates given her by Sam down at Belgrade. But Father Kowalski was right—for the moment it was undoubtedly safer with her.

  There seemed to be rather fewer police than before round the doorway when they reached the Penzio; to Hope’s great relief the disagreeable plain-clothes man was no longer among them. With a brief imperious “Here is the priest,” Hope passed through the little group unhindered, the Father beside her, and went upstairs; on the landing the two men on guard opened the door for them, and saluted as they passed. That was more the style, Hope thought, as she led her companion down the dimly-lit passage—though curiously, the knowledge of that mysterious object in her handbag made her feel more nervous than she had yet done during this crazy enterprise.