Intrigued, Elzunia watched out for her, hoping to draw her out, but, whenever they passed each other on the stairs, Marta gave her a bright smile and friendly wave and kept walking. It was clear she intended to keep her distance.
Elzunia was mulling over this while thrashing the dust out of Granny’s eiderdowns and pillows. There was an autumn chill in the air and by the time she’d finished the daily ritual, she always felt warmer. Calmer too, as though beating the bedding helped to exorcise her anger and her desolation.
Down in the yard, the two women were gossiping over their washing as usual.
‘One of these days that hussy will get what’s coming to her,’ the fat one said. Her little eyes were darting all around the yard. ‘Who does she think she is? Miss High and Mighty. Too busy to pass the time of day, always running around.’
Her companion had been bending over the metal basin, wringing her sheets, and now straightened up with a groan. ‘The Lord only knows what she gets up to,’ she said, and added with an insidious smile, ‘and who with.’
That was the question that had been on Elzunia’s mind as well. The visits had become more frequent and she often heard Marta and the mysterious caller whispering in tones that sounded hoarse and intimate late at night. She picked up the unwieldy bedding and carried it inside. She swept the floor, dusted the furniture, wiped the window sill and wondered what to do with herself. For the first few months after her ordeal in the Ghetto, Granny’s place had been a haven of rest and peace. But lately she felt she had lost her spiritual centre, as though a black hole had opened up inside and was threatening to swallow her up. With all hope gone of finding Gittel, and no trace of Stefan, there was nothing to live for. Nothing even to die for.
At night, when Granny knelt by her bed, saying her rosary, an irrational anger seized Elzunia. Didn’t the old woman realise that her prayers floated into a cosmic indifference? One night, after saying her prayers, Granny turned and saw Elzunia watching her, and with her uncanny instinct for divining her thoughts, said gently, ‘We have to pray harder than ever now, dearie, to make sure He hears us. You can see what happens to the world when people are left in charge.’
Elzunia had too much time to brood. Violent images from the last days of the Ghetto flashed constantly into her mind, and the sense of loss she felt each time she thought of her mother and Gittel, her brother and all her friends, was so overwhelming that she wanted to howl, hurl herself against the walls and bang her head on the floor so that the physical pain would dull the anguish in her mind.
The pressure continued to build so much that she thought she’d explode. All she could do was bash the eiderdowns and pillows each morning, and in between she tore at her nails until the skin around them was raw and bleeding.
In the Square of the Three Crosses, the cigarette sellers sometimes asked Elzunia about Stefan and Gittel.
‘Your brother sounds like a smart fellow,’ Giraffe said, stamping on the ground to warm his feet. ‘He might have got away. You might find him one of these days.’
‘But I don’t like your chances of finding the little girl,’ Toughie said gruffly. ‘Even if she got out of there, how would she survive? She’d get picked up by the police in no time.’ Noticing Elzunia’s dejected face, he asked, ‘Who is she, anyway? Is she your sister?’
Elzunia swallowed. ‘Sort of. She’s very tiny …’ Her voice trailed off and she pretended to look for something in her pocket.
‘Someone might have felt sorry for her and taken her in,’ he said, ‘but they’d probably change her name, stick a cross round her neck, take her to church and you’ll never find her. But at least she’ll be safe.’
Elzunia walked away from the square, kicking the stones with her shoe. Her heart ached at the thought that she might never see Gittel again, but perhaps Toughie was right. She would certainly be better off living as a Catholic than wandering around the streets, hungry, cold and in constant danger. But what if someone cruel had taken her and she couldn’t get away? Wherever Gittel was, whoever had taken her, however long it took, she had to go on looking for her.
She was walking towards St Aleksander’s Church on a chilly December day when a convoy of open cars full of SS men and armed police drove into the square. She sighed. It would soon be New Year but 1944 held no promise of joy or freedom. The cars came to a halt in front of the church and the officers jumped out and rushed inside. Elzunia’s heart was pounding with dread. They hadn’t gone inside to pray.
A hush fell over the square. All eyes were on the church. They didn’t have long to wait. They heard screams and yells and then the SS men and police were herding the worshippers from the church. Most were elderly women still gripping their rosaries. All the worshippers were lined up in front of the church wall. Just then, a covered truck roared up. Four armed police jumped out, pulled back the khaki canvas, and pushed out thirty prisoners, whose hands were tied behind their backs. Elzunia looked at their faces and almost screamed. Their mouths had been taped with plaster.
A deafening salvo of shots rang out, and a few seconds later the captives as well as the worshippers lay on the ground.
Elzunia’s legs were trembling and she would have fallen if someone standing next to her hadn’t reached out and gripped her arm. She looked up into bright blue eyes beneath a broad-brimmed felt hat.
‘Dr Borowski!’
He looked around and placed a finger on his lips. ‘No names,’ he whispered.
When he felt it was safe to leave the square, he took her arm. Around the corner in Zurawia Street they slipped into a drab little café, whose occupants, like themselves, were shaken by what they’d just witnessed. Dr Borowski removed his hat and his thick white hair sprang around his face, like a nimbus. Still unable to speak, Elzunia looked at her trembling hands and listened to the conversations around them.
‘Why did they shoot those poor people who’d been praying in the church?’ the waitress asked as she placed two glasses of tea and some plain biscuits in front of Elzunia and Dr Borowski. ‘What did they kill them for?’
‘Just wait, they’ll finish us off like they finished off the Jews and they’ll flatten Warsaw like they flattened the Ghetto,’ said a man at the next table, and added, ‘At least the Jews fought back.’
When Elzunia finally picked up her glass and started sipping the scalding tea, the doctor leaned forward. ‘I’m so happy to see you, Elzunia. I’ve thought about you so many times and wondered whether …’ He left off because tears were streaming down her face. Seeing him again evoked all the tragic events that had happened since they’d last met. She covered her face in her hands and cried.
‘Don’t hold back; get it all out,’ he said soothingly, patting her hand.
She tried to speak but choked on the images in her mind before the words could come. Lech being blown up trying to save her, Edek’s body crushed by the tank, Szmuel being machine-gunned, Itzak and Rahela probably torn apart by grenades or suffocated by smoke. Her mother dead and probably Gittel and Stefan too, and the living torches leaping to their deaths from the windows of blazing buildings. She still had a vision of the curtains in deserted houses blowing about in the breeze like spectral figures performing a ghostly dance.
‘I don’t know what it was all for.’ Her voice came out as a hoarse rasp she hardly recognised. ‘All those lives lost, all those great ideals, gone up in flames. What was it all for?’
‘Never underestimate the value of what happened there during the Uprising,’ Dr Borowski said. ‘It was a noble stand for human dignity. For the right to choose.’
‘The choice to die in a hundred hideous ways,’ she retorted.
He shook his white head. ‘The choice to die on your own terms, not theirs. That’s true freedom. You rose against them and fought them for nearly two months. You’ve inspired us.’
She studied him. ‘Us?’ she asked. ‘Who do you mean?’
He put a few zloty on the table and stood up. ‘Let’s go,’ he said curtly. ‘This isn�
�t a good place to talk.’
As they strolled along Jerozolimskie Aleje, he threaded her arm through his and drew her closer so that he could speak softly.
‘Those people were dragged from the church and shot because someone tipped off the SS that there were members of the AK inside.’ He was looking at her as though he’d said something significant and expected her to show some reaction. She waited.
‘Elzunia, thousands of us all over the country are working secretly to free Poland. You said you don’t have a goal in life. Join us and you’ll be able to continue the fight you began in the Ghetto.’
Elzunia felt sick. All she wanted was a quiet life in Granny’s room as far away from the chaos and carnage as possible. Her courage was all used up.
‘You’re a nurse,’ Dr Borowski continued. ‘A very good nurse. Before long, we’re going to need nurses. Lots of them. Especially brave ones like you.’
Elzunia wanted to tell him that she wasn’t brave any more. That she was exhausted and apprehensive, that the scene she’d witnessed that morning had terrified her. But she couldn’t turn away from his gaze. ‘I don’t think I’d be any use,’ she murmured. ‘I’m not strong enough.’
‘None of us are strong enough,’ Dr Borowski said. ‘There are no heroes in resistance movements. Just ordinary people, like you and me. People who don’t want to live on their knees.’ He gave her a shrewd look. ‘Join us and you’ll have a reason to go on living.’
A wind sprang up, blowing sheets of newspaper along the pavements. Men held on to their hats and women struggled to keep the hems of their billowing summer dresses from flying up. Head down, Elzunia turned the corner into Nowy Swiat Street. A crowd had gathered and their heavy silence and the horrified looks on their upturned faces made her follow their gaze. Hanging from the balcony of a large ruined building were bodies swinging slowly by their hands with each gust of wind. Their ghostly figures reminded her of the curtains that swayed in the empty rooms of the blazing Ghetto. Among the bodies swinging from the balcony were three young women and a boy of about ten. Anger choked her. Dr Borowski was right. Something had to be done to stop this barbarism.
She knew little about the AK except that all over Poland its members were blowing up railway lines and bridges to prevent German supplies reaching the front. They spied on the Germans and occasionally shot key figures, and published illegal newsletters like the Information Bulletin that she’d read so eagerly in the Ghetto.
The bodies swayed in the wind above the street and in their staring eyes she saw a challenge. Something had led her to this spot. A gauntlet had been thrown at her feet. Was she going to walk on and ignore the message of those mute lips or join the cause her hero, Eagle, believed in?
Two weeks later, trembling with emotion, Elzunia took an oath to guard the honour of Poland and fight for its liberation from bondage with every ounce of her strength, even if it meant sacrificing her life. She promised to obey without question all orders of the Armia Krajowa. As she walked home elated after being sworn in, she felt that the third life Madame Ramona had predicted was about to begin.
Thirty-Eight
As the train rattled along the tracks, Elzunia stumbled through the narrow corridor with her straw basket until she found a seat. She squeezed in between a burly man with the shoulders of a carter, and a bird-like woman wrapped in a threadbare shawl who conducted a long conversation with herself in a dull monotone. Elzunia placed her basket in the overhead rack. She would have preferred to hold it, but that would merely draw attention to it, and that was the last thing she wanted. This was the most important mission she had been sent on since joining the AK six months before, and she was determined to prove herself.
The burly man fixed his inquisitive gaze on her, so, to avoid being drawn into conversation, she kept her eyes fixed on the windows. They were so thickly encrusted with grime that the cornfields were blurred and the sunflowers looked faded.
The train chugged along at an agonisingly slow pace with frequent stops between stations to let trains pass that were carrying German soldiers and supplies to the Eastern front. Each time the engine lurched to a halt, throwing the passengers forward, Elzunia glanced up at the basket and prayed it wouldn’t fall.
The stations all resembled one another, dismal waiting rooms on grimy platforms crowded with dejected people gripping their bundles and baskets.
Shortly before they reached her destination, the little market town of Ozarów, the train screeched to a halt. Elzunia was wondering whether she should risk getting off when the compartment door slid open, revealing two Gestapo agents standing there.
‘Papiere, bitte,’ one of them snapped. Elzunia fumbled in her pocket, and hoped they wouldn’t notice that her hand was trembling as she held out her Kennkarte. They scanned the identity card, which stated that she was Anna Wilczek, a trainee nurse working at the Infant Jesus Hospital in Warsaw.
‘Why are you going to Ozarów?’ one of them demanded, staring hard at her.
She didn’t drop her eyes. ‘I’m going to see my grandparents,’ she said. ‘They’re too old and ill to look after the farm so I help them out whenever I get a bit of time off.’ She hoped her voice sounded strong and confident.
The other agent’s eyes rested on her basket. ‘Is that yours?’ he barked.
She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart thumping as she nodded and said breezily, ‘Mama always bakes them some bread. She says they don’t eat properly. I’ll get it down if you’d like to have a look.’
Her nonchalant manner paid off because, making an impatient gesture with his hand, he turned his attention to the other passengers. After a perfunctory check of their papers, they left the compartment and she closed her eyes in relief.
Several minutes later, the train crawled into the station at Ozarów. As Elzunia was getting off, she caught sight of the two Gestapo agents leaning against the wall at the far end of the platform, talking and smoking with another man. She took a deep breath, and, swinging her basket, controlled her urge to quicken her step. As she drew closer, she could hear the three of them laughing together. Just as she was passing, the third man raised his hand to his mouth to puff on his cigarette. She noticed the mangled red stumps where two of his fingers used to be, and averted her face as he blew the smoke in her direction.
The long summer’s day was coming to an end and it was twilight by the time she reached the Janowskis’ farmhouse. A curved gravel path between straggly lilac bushes led to the old gabled house, a solid building that looked as though it had withstood battles, invasions and uprisings.
‘I hope you’ll enjoy the bread,’ she told the couple with a conspiratorial smile as she placed the basket on the table.
Ryszard Janowski was a hard-grained man of few words. With a curt nod, he took the basket and went out into the yard. From the small kitchen window she watched him remove the contents and lower them quickly into a deep hole.
After filling it in, he placed a large wooden barrow on top and heaped it with chopped logs.
His wife bustled around the large country kitchen, wiping her plump face on a corner of her apron. Placing a glass of buttermilk and a bowl of steaming potatoes in front of Elzunia, she urged her to stay the night. ‘The Germans patrol the roads at night searching for Underground activists from Warsaw,’ she said with a sigh. ‘They’ve caught quite a few of the partisans lately. Get some sleep and leave early in the morning.’
Elzunia had been instructed to return to Warsaw as soon as she’d delivered the revolvers intended for the partisans in the forest near Ozarów, but with all the delays, the journey had taken much longer than usual and she was exhausted.
As she followed the farmer’s wife up to the attic at the top of the stairs, she felt a surge of long-forgotten pleasure. As a child, she had often stayed at her grandparents’ estate in summer and as her head sank into the goose-feather pillow it seemed as though nothing had changed and she was back in the innocent days of her childhood, unaware that her hopes an
d dreams would soon be swallowed by a black void.
Something woke her and she sat up and peered through the small dormer window. It was a moonless night and she couldn’t see anything, but there it was again, a tinkling sound. When her eyes had become accustomed to the dark, she saw a man under the cherry tree. He bent down and a moment later she heard the tinkling sound again. He was tossing handfuls of gravel at the downstairs window to wake the owners.
Elzunia paced around the room. She should have left straightaway. But as she stood shivering by the window, consumed by self-recrimination, she realised that this visit couldn’t be sinister. Anyone coming to arrest or kill them would have burst into the house instead of using such a delicate method of attracting attention.
A moment later the front door opened a fraction and the man looked around before making a dash for the house. The door closed silently behind him.
Elzunia crept to the top of the stairs, wondering who the visitor was and why he had come in the middle of the night. From what she’d been told, the Janowskis arranged the delivery of weapons to partisan groups in the forests nearby, organised false papers for those on the run from the Gestapo, and helped to hide people who escaped from the transports heading for the camps.
She supposed the visitor was connected with their clandestine work. They were speaking in hushed voices, too muffled for her to make out. Instead of using their kerosene lamp, which might attract the attention of their neighbours, they had stuck a candle inside the neck of a bottle, which cast elongated shadows on the floorboards.
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