Warsaw
Richard Foreman
© Richard Foreman 2012
Richard Foreman has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published 2012 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Contents
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Epilogue
End Note.
Extract from A Hero of Our Time: Chapter One
1.
"Like every policeman, he was duty bound to deliver five people to the Umschlagplatz everyday personally, on pain of being resettled himself if he did not comply."
Wladyslaw Szpilman. The Pianist.
Warsaw. 1942. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach; the cramped room was peppered with dust. An acrid smell that Jessica Rubenstein would have at one time turned her nose up at stained the air. She sat - poised - upon the uneven chair. Still attractive to the adolescent policeman - still retaining the debris of a bourgeois bearing - the daughter of a once prominent Doctor reacted not, either in tenderness or revulsion, as his coarse fingers tucked back her hair. The hand then ran itself down her chest.
"I will be gentle," a voice, attempting an amorous whisper, expressed.
Only when his drink-soaked breath warmed her ear did Jessica shudder. She closed her eyes. The tighter she closed her eyes the darker it became but still she could not transport herself away from the policeman's den. He kissed her bare neck. His lips, cracked, were dry but his tongue was wet like a dog's. The conceit and reward - that she was saving her family by offering herself to the policeman in order that he would choose another group for resettlement – which sustained Jessica, thus began to flake like ash.
She tried to regain her self-possession by scanning her tormentor's habitat. The two windows which Jessica looked out of were filled with a brown-bricked tenement block which almost touched his building, separated as they were by a slender alley. A couple of plants graced the windowsill, strategically placed in order to catch the slither of sunlight which cut through the room. One of the dunny clay pots contained a small white flower which Jessica didn't recognise and the other pot contained a stubby, resilient cactus of all things. A table, whose accompanying chair Jessica sat on, was placed next to the window where she imagined that the vulture-eyed policeman sat and viewed a strip of life happening outside. Sitting on a worm-ridden desk, orderly placed upon it like fine cutlery on a dining table, there rested a couple of pens (one an expensive fountain pen that the policeman had no doubt stolen), a cudgel, a bottle of spirits (also confiscated) and various papers.
Adam Duritz squeezed the girl's breast in order to arouse her. Duritz was not the only constable to abuse his privileged, despised and envied rank in the "Jewish Police" (the "Jewish service of protection and order"); Adam more than most was amused by the inadvertent sarcasm of the title. With his other hand he slowly, carefully, undid the buttons on the back of Jessica's once expensive looking but now worn pale blue (high necked) dress. The colour had faded like the lustre in her expressive eyes the policeman would later muse to himself. As he began to undress the unresponsive girl he also started to unconsciously rub his groin upon the back of the chair in order to arouse himself.
As disturbing as the feeling was - as the vile monster grinded up and down behind her whilst touching her unblemished body - Jessica tried to look to the positive and willed herself to become a block of stone. She thanked something, not God, that she didn't have to look at his lecherous eyes and feel his molesting breath upon her face. Also, she did not fear that the policeman would become violent. Again Jessica catalogued his room in an attempt to turn off her body as if it were a light switch. Upon the floor near to the door there were piles of various provisions and, Jessica imagined, valuables which the policeman had extorted out of other families. In the case of the Rubensteins though the policeman was single-minded in that he would accept Jessica and nothing, no one, else. She told her parents, who knew nothing of her being here, that she had given the policeman her silver earrings as payment. Her father had given them to Jessica for her twenty-first birthday a couple of years ago.
Still the "Jewish Princess", as Duritz had sardonically labelled her in the past, would not respond. The policeman craved interaction - intimacy. This was not how he had imagined their meeting. Even if she begged him not to go through with it, got on her knees and supplicated him, that would be something. If it was just about sex then he could've paid or blackmailed a number of women in his quarter of the ghetto. Didn't she realise that she was special? He wanted to animate her, seduce her even. Adam had no desire to make love to a corpse. He would say something to her; he would try to reveal himself. This afternoon had been his life and twisted purpose since the conception of his desperate idea a week or so ago. Or maybe the former philosophy student had desired to be in this position for half a decade.
Although it was tantalisingly in the upper corner of her vision Jessica strained her eyes and latched onto the most vibrant and interesting feature in the room, the swelling bookcase upon the wall. Were the books his? Were the titles, of which she could only work out a few, a window into the soul of the collaborator? Schopenhauer's "The World As Will And Idea", a collection of Kafka's short stories - and a biography of Napoleon. The books may have just been the legacy of the previous proprietor. Jessica remembered that the building once contained the offices of a Jewish newspaper. Or were the books spoils of the corrupt policeman's rounds?
Relief suddenly succeeded a sticky apprehension as the hands removed themselves from her body. His nasal breathing and movements ceased. Just as Jessica was about to turn around to see what the constable was about to do he ushered himself into her view, moved his things to one side on the desk, and sat upon it - staring intently at the comely figure which passively sat upon his chair, unable to look him in the eye.
"Do you know that we've met before, I mean before the occupation?"
"Yes," Jessica issued after a moment's pause.
"You do?" the policeman replied, peculiarly and pleasantly surprised.
"You used to be a tutor to one of my neighbour's children".
Jessica failed to mention how she had always looked down on - or scornfully laughed at - the poor student who was painfully shy and blushed whenever she caught him staring at her outside the house. He was creepy. Sometimes she had felt disgust imagining the low thoughts that he was having for her. Once Jessica even toyed with the idea that she would talk to her neighbours to ask them to amend their tutor's manner and behaviour. He had ogled her. Sometimes the revulsion she felt was borne from the insult that he believed himself good enough for her. Yet sometimes, out of spite and to amuse herself, Jessica would make sure she giggled or whispered something in a girlfriend's ear as he hurried past her window - usually late from tutoring another pupil, or from attending lectures, or from working in his father's bakery. Once she positively had screamed with laughter from the time when the boy tripped over his satchel as she got a girlfriend to blow a kiss to him. It was here that Jessica realised that maybe this was all part of a revenge scheme for the petty, depraved student.
"Yes. We have both come a long way, in the wrong direction, since then. Yet you're still beautiful. Are you still a snob?"
"Are you still that same kind, intelligent teacher th
at my neighbours spoke of so highly? - Who your students were devoted to and respected?" A haughtiness, or moral superiority, made the girl lift her head up high as she spoke.
Jessica searched with her feminine aspect, as well as with her question, for the answer to her mocking remark. A beautiful woman can often be a bold woman. They held their glance for a moment but then the policeman - pleased that he had finally animated her, but slightly intimidated under the gaze of her bewitching features - stared down at his dangling feet. He smiled wistfully to himself.
"No, I do not believe that I am," the policeman said softly, sadly.
Emboldened by his increasing humaneness and the sense that she held some form of power over him - as she had in the past with most men - Jessica tried to keep him talking; if he was talking he wouldn't be doing anything else. The policeman she owned no authority over. If she could only reach the vulnerable student who had once been so sheepish towards her.
"Did you ever complete your studies? I don't believe I ever saw you without a book in your hand all those years ago. Do all those books belong to you?"
Adam gazed down at his gently swaying feet, his brow creased. He momentarily got distracted by proudly eyeing his most treasured possession, his library. Jessica slowly put her hand behind her back and re-fastened her buttons.
"Some are mine, most. No, I didn't complete my studies. When my father died he left the business in debt. And what did I know about running a bakery? I guess I was, am, a snob like you and I refused to consider being a baker - as you would never have considered accepting the advances of a baker's son."
Jessica ignored this last comment and continued to question the policeman. By now she was beginning to be genuinely interested in the character and history of this ghostly figure from her past who now held her fate in his hands. Physically he hadn't changed much, which was a rarity, if not a minor miracle, in the ghetto. Adam Duritz may have even been regarded as handsome, although he was not Jessica's type. He had strong dark features; his eyes were particularly engaging and intelligent and he had maintained his build - one might have even dared say that the vilified policeman owned a small pot belly. A fringe of curly black hair covered a small star-shaped scar upon his forehead. When Jessica later thought about how and why Adam had survived so well in the ghetto her revulsion for him returned, but here, relatively, was he not attractive (healthy) compared to most of the waifs and gargoyles that populated the district?
"Did you not have any family to support you or help you run the bakery?"
"My brother ran away from home when he was seventeen. My mother passed away when I was young."
"What did she die of?"
"A burst appendix." Duritz refrained from mentioning how his father had dismissed his mother's pain as being a mere stomach ache and only paid for a doctor when it proved too late.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. I'm glad she didn't have to experience all this. What do you care anyway? Feigned sympathy was not part of our deal" the policeman sarcastically issued, this time meeting and besting Jessica's wounded, womanly expression. She tried to look submissive in order to instil a portion of guilt into the once sensitive youth. Duritz screwed his face up in agitation - as though the crime of not sticking to the deal was a more heinous transgression to that of what he had proposed. Yet had he not dreamed over the last couple of days, in anticipation of their meeting, that maybe she would have sympathy or pity for him? That she would want to try and get to know him? Could that sympathy not turn into love he even fancied as the drink intensified his episode of romantic yearning? Loneliness had coiled around his heart for so long, choking reality.
Partly in desperation again - partly to satisfy her curiosity as to how the student could've developed into such a miscreant, betraying his own people - Jessica challenged
"Why are you doing this Adam?"
How dare she think she could get around him by calling him by his name! Drink quickened his pulse and clouded his thoughts. A familiar hate brewed up in his heart towards Jessica for having ignored him all those years ago - the waste of all his time and love. If she wasn't being a tease she was being a whore. For so long she had teased him. Now he would treat her like her a whore.
"Because I can, because I'm human. Yes, human, and that means being weak, wicked and bestial. We all do what we've got to do to survive. I'm just willing to do that bit more. You've lived in your ivory tower for too long. You should be thankful. There are people who do not even have a choice - most families are broken up and resettled in the blink of an eye. Believe it or not but I am saving you. I like you Jessica and, whilst you laughed at me or callously ignored me, I had time for your family also. Now that we have this deal other policemen and soldiers will leave you alone. You should thank me also for the lesson learned. You should get used to suffering and doing anything it takes to endure. And that involves undoing the buttons you re-fastened."
Jessica was tempted to dryly reply that he should forgive her for not being grateful for the lesson learned - and that he himself had visited their home and it was no ivory tower - but she was too struck and concerned for the transformation which had come over the seething policeman. His face had reddened, his forehead becoming plum-coloured. Adam's hands gripped the edge of the desk like talons. Years of bitterness and hate, of unrequited love, acted as bellows to the furnace of his heart. Before now Duritz had always been cold, sarcastic in his tone and dealings, but now power and passion possessed his will. The veins in his temples were throbbing, spittle issued from his mouth as he spoke. Duritz had become menacing. Jessica almost didn't recognise the youth and couldn't believe her ears as he repeated that she should undo her dress, swearing as he did so.
The policeman kicked off his black boots and removed his heavy cotton trousers. Petrified, Jessica noticed a blotchy rash - or was it a birthmark? - on Adam's inner thigh. But for her trembling lips and a lone tear winding its way down her fair cheek the sacrifice was motionless. With lust bulging from his eyes, his mouth twisted in an ugly sneer, the policeman walked over to his victim. With one hand holding the back of her head and the other firmly clasped to her buttocks the policeman pressed the girl's slender body against his and tried to thrust his hungry tongue into her mouth. Jessica vainly attempted to wriggle free from his muscular clutches and clamped her teeth shut.
Frustrated, the policeman temporarily desisted.
"Listen, the more you struggle the worse it will be for you. You can even walk out that door if you wish, but we both know what will happen then. I remember some of your boyfriends; you've played the part before."
Jessica remembered why she was here. She had told herself before that she would have to play a part, that it would just be her body he would violate. She briefly thought of her family - of her father, a grey shadow of the man he used to be. And little Kolya, who had his whole life ahead of him if he could just survive the war. Jessica would comply. Her heart sank and almost drowned in the black blood which flooded it.
From having a statue in his arms Duritz suddenly felt Jessica go limp, as if he now gripped a rag doll in his hands - one whose eyes remained closed. Yet her mouth opened and Adam violently stabbed his tongue into it. Jessica's own tongue lay asleep. After mining sufficient pleasure and stimulation from this - though again the constable was disappointed with Jessica's lack of reciprocal desire - he clawed her dress down.
The police man then drew the girl, now silently weeping, over to that corner of the room where Jessica had avoided looking at before. The mattress was sodden and pea green, stained with urine. The policeman sat his appointment upon the bed and stood over her. He was treating her now like she was any other whore or one of the many daughters who had offered themselves before. Jessica felt Duritz's clammy hands run up her thighs.
“Please God- no,” the girl whispered to herself, barely more audible than the sound of her breathing.
Adam felt a pang zig-zag along his chest like lightning as the words typed themselves on his hea
rt. He glanced up and saw the ghost of a reflection in the window pane. Duritz barely recognised the animalistic apparition snarling back at him.
The policeman instinctively recoiled from his doppelganger – and his victim.
Jessica continued to quiver and instinctively pulled the bed clothes up to cover her body, but Adam registered her not as he stood transfixed at the pane, lines furrowed in his brow. His face was contorted, repulsed – or as if caught in that comic and tragic pose just before one sobs.
They remained suspended in time for a minute, or more, the rest of the world spinning around them with fury and indifference.
"Can I go now?" Jessica, numb, finally asked.
"Yes, of course. Sorry," Adam politely replied, waking from his trance, walking across the room to get a glass of water.
Making sure that his back was turned, and that he himself had finished dressing, Jessica got up from the cot and fixed the shape of her dress.
"Would you like a glass of water?" the policeman said, attempting a conciliatory smile.
"No." Hollow.
Adam here noticed for the first time how much Jessica had been crying. Her face was flushed, her florid aspect dulled.
"I'm sorry Jessica, I never meant it to be like this. Here, please, take some food, candles."
The policeman placed a parcel of food and some candles into a brown paper bag.
"I've also noticed you staring at my library. Please, take any book."
The policeman was careful not to touch the girl, but he held out his arms as if to usher her over to his bookshelves.
As much as Jessica just wanted to leave - and us much as she didn't want to feel increasingly indebted to the baleful policeman - or make him feel better about himself for compensating her for what he had just done, she knew that the bounty of food could feed the family for most of the week. Father would enjoy a book also. So too the girl was still fearful of her tormentor. She didn't wish to spurn his generosity, else he might turn on her again. Not wishing to stay any longer than necessary - wary in case the beast regained its appetite - Jessica scanned the shelves quickly and picked out the nearest familiar book, a Polish translation of Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend".
Warsaw Page 1