The Pianist

by Wladyslaw Szpilman

  After seeing my reflection I decided to use some of my sparse water supply to have a wash, and at the same time I would light a fire in one of the few intact kitchen stoves to cook the remains of my oatmeal. I had eaten nothing warm for almost four months, and as the cold autumn weather came on I was suffering more and more from the lack of hot food. If I was to wash myself and cook something, I had to leave my hiding place by day. It was not until I was already on the stairs that I noticed a troop of Germans outside the military hospital opposite, working on its wooden fence. However, I had so set my heart on some hot porridge that I did not turn back. I felt I would fall ill if I did not warm my stomach with that porridge here and now.

  I was already busy at the stove when I heard SS men striding up the stairs. I left the flat as fast as I could and hurried up to the attic. I made it! Once again, the Germans simply sniffed around and then went away. I went back down to the kitchen. In order to light a fire I had to shave chips off a door with a rusty knife I had found, and in doing so I got a splinter a centimetre long under my right thumbnail. It was so deeply and firmly embedded that I could not pull it out. This tiny accident could have dangerous consequences: I had no disinfectant, I was living in filthy surroundings, and I could easily get blood poisoning. Even if I looked on the bright side and assumed the blood poisoning would be confined to my thumb, it could well be left deformed, and my career as a pianist would be at risk, always supposing I survived until the end of the war.

  I decided to wait until next day and then, if necessary, cut through the nail with my razor blade.

  I was standing there looking ruefully at my thumb when I heard footsteps again. I swiftly set off for the attic once more, but this time it was too late. I found myself facing a soldier in a steel helmet carrying a rifle. His face was blank and not very intelligent.

  He was as alarmed as I was by this lonely encounter in the ruins, but he tried to seem threatening. He asked, in broken Polish, what I was doing here. I said I was living outside Warsaw now and had come back to fetch some of my things. In view of my appearance, this was a ridiculous explanation. The German pointed his gun at me and told me to follow him. I said I would, but my death would be on his conscience, and if he let me stay here I would give him half a litre of spirits. He expressed himself agreeable to this form of ransom, but made it very clear that he would be back, and then I would have to give him more strong liquor. As soon as I was alone I climbed quickly to the attic, pulled up the ladder and closed the trapdoor. Sure enough, he was back after quarter of an hour, but accompanied by several other soldiers and an NCO. At the sound of their footsteps and voices I clambered up from the attic floor to the top of the intact piece of roof, which had a steep slope. I lay flat on my stomach with my feet braced against the gutter. If it had buckled or given way, I would have slipped to the roofing sheet and then fallen five floors to the street below. But the gutter held, and this new and indeed desperate idea for a hiding place meant that my life was saved once again. The Germans searched the whole building, piling up tables and chairs, and finally came up to my attic, but it did not occur to them to look on the roof. It must have seemed impossible for anyone to be lying there. They left empty-handed, cursing and calling me a number of names.

  I was profoundly shaken by this encounter with the Germans, and decided that from now on I would lie on the roof by day, and climb down to the attic only when night came. The metal chilled me, my arms and legs were stiff and my body numb from my uncomfortable, tense position, but I had already endured so much that it was worth suffering a little more, although it was a week before the troop of Germans who knew I was hiding here finished their work on the hospital and left this part of the city again.

  Today the SS were driving a group of men in civilian clothing to work on the hospital. It was nearly ten in the morning, and I was lying flat on the steep roof when I suddenly heard a volley of firing quite close to me, from a rifle or machine pistol: it was a sound between whistling and twittering, as if a flock of sparrows were flying overhead, and shots fell around me. I looked round: two Germans were standing on the hospital roof opposite, firing at me. I slid back down into the attic and ran to the trapdoor, ducking. Shouts of, ‘Stop, stop!’ pursued me as bullets flew overhead. However, I landed in the stairway safely.

  There was no time to stop and think: my last hiding place in this building had been discovered, and I must leave it at once. I raced down the stairs and out into Sędziowska Street, ran along the road and plunged into the ruins of the bungalows that had once been the Staszic estate.

  Yet again my situation was hopeless, as it had been so often before. I was wandering among the walls of totally burnt-out buildings where there could not possibly be any water or remnants of food, or even a hiding place. After a while, however, I saw a tall building in the distance, facing Aleja Niepodległości and backing on to Sędziowska Street, the only multi-storey building in the area. I set off. On closer inspection I saw that the centre of the building had been burnt out, but the wings were almost intact. There was furniture in the flats, the tubs were still full of water from the time of the rebellion, and the looters had left some provisions in the larders.

  Following my usual custom, I moved into the attic. The roof was quite intact, with just a few holes left in it by splinters of shrapnel. It was much warmer here than in my previous hiding place, although flight from it would be impossible. I could not even escape into death by jumping off the roof. There was a small stained-glass window on the last mezzanine floor of the building, and I could observe the neighbourhood through it. Comfortable as my new surroundings were, I did not feel at ease here – perhaps just because I was now used to the other building. All the same, I had no choice: I must stay here.

  I went down to the mezzanine floor and looked out of the window. Below me were hundreds of burnt-out villas, an entire part of the city now dead. The mounds of countless graves stood in the little gardens. A troop of civilian workers with spades and picks over their shoulders was going down Sędziowska Street, marching four abreast. There was not a single uniformed German with them. Still nervous and agitated by my recent flight, I was seized by a sudden longing to hear human speech, and my own voice replying. Come what may, I would exchange a few words with these men. I ran quickly downstairs and out into the street. By now the working party was some way further on. I ran and caught up with them.

  ‘Are you Poles?’

  They stopped, and looked at me in surprise. The leader of the party replied, ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Talking seemed difficult after four months of absolute silence, apart from the couple of remarks I had exchanged with the soldier from whom I ransomed myself with the liquor, and I felt deeply moved.

  ‘Digging fortifications. What are you doing here yourself?’

  ‘Hiding.’

  The leader looked at me, I thought, with a touch of pity. ‘Come with us,’ he said. ‘You can work, and you’ll get some soup.’

  Soup! The mere idea of the chance of a bowl of real hot soup made my stomach cramp with hunger so badly that for a moment I was prepared to go with them, even if I was killed later. I wanted that soup; I just wanted enough to eat for once! But common sense prevailed.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to the Germans.’

  The leader grinned, half cynical, half mocking. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he protested. The Germans aren’t so bad.’

  Only now did I realize what I had somehow failed to notice before: the leader was the only one who spoke to me, while all the others remained silent. He was wearing a coloured armband on his sleeve, stamped with a mark. There was an unpleasant, shifty, abject expression on his face. He did not look me in the eye as he spoke but past me, over my right shoulder.

  ‘No,’ I repeated. ‘Thanks, but no.’

  ‘Just as you like,’ he growled.

  I turned to go. As the troop moved off again, I called, ‘Goodbye!’ after them.

  Full of foreboding,
or perhaps guided by an instinct for self-preservation that had been well honed over my years in hiding, I did not return to the attic of the building where I had decided to stay. I made for the nearest villa, as if the cellar there was my hiding place. When I reached its charred doorway I looked round again: the troop was going on its way, but the leader kept looking back to see where I went.

  Not until they were out of sight did I return to my attic, or rather to the top mezzanine floor to look out of the window. Within ten minutes the civilian with the armband was back with two policemen. He pointed out the villa into which he had seen me go. They searched it, and then some of the neighbouring houses, but they never entered my building. Perhaps they were afraid of coming upon a large group of rebels still lurking in Warsaw. A number of people escaped with their lives during the war because of the cowardice of the Germans, who liked to show courage only when they felt they greatly outnumbered their enemies.

  After two days I went in search of food. This time I planned to lay in a good supply so that I did not have to leave my hiding place too often. I would have to search by day, since I did not know this building well enough to find my way around it by night. I found a kitchen, and then a larder containing several cans of food and some bags and boxes. Their contents would have to be carefully checked. I untied strings and lifted lids. I was so absorbed in my search that I never heard anything until a voice right behind me said, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  A tall, elegant German officer was leaning against the kitchen dresser, his arms crossed over his chest.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you know the staff of the Warsaw fortress commando unit is moving into this building any time now?’

  18 ∼ Nocturne in C sharp minor

  I slumped on the chair by the larder door. With the certainty of a sleepwalker, I suddenly felt that my strength would fail me if I tried to escape this new trap. I sat there groaning and gazing dully at the officer. It was some time before I stammered, with difficulty, ‘Do what you like to me. I’m not moving from here.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of doing anything to you!’ The officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘What do you do for a living?’

  ‘I’m a pianist.’

  He looked at me more closely, and with obvious suspicion. Then his glance fell on the door leading from the kitchen to the other rooms. An idea seemed to have struck him.

  ‘Come with me, will you?’

  We went into the next room, which had obviously been the dining room, and then into the room beyond it, where a piano stood by the wall. The officer pointed to the instrument.

  ‘Play something!’

  Hadn’t it occurred to him that the sound of the piano would instantly attract all the SS men in the vicinity? I looked enquiringly at him and did not move. He obviously sensed my fears, since he added reassuringly, ‘It’s all right, you can play. If anyone comes, you hide in the larder and I’ll say it was me trying the instrument out.’

  When I placed my fingers on the keyboard they shook. So this time, for a change, I had to buy my life by playing the piano! I hadn’t practised for two and a half years, my fingers were stiff and covered with a thick layer of dirt, and I had not cut my nails since the fire in the building where I was hiding. Moreover, the piano was in a room without any window panes, so its action was swollen by the damp and resisted the pressure of the keys.

  I played Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor. The glassy, tinkling sound of the untuned strings rang through the empty flat and the stairway, floated through the ruins of the villa on the other side of the street and returned as a muted, melancholy echo. When I had finished, the silence seemed even gloomier and more eerie than before. A cat mewed in a street somewhere. I heard a shot down below outside the building – a harsh, loud German noise.

  The officer looked at me in silence. After a while he sighed, and muttered, ‘All the same, you shouldn’t stay here. I’ll take you out of the city, to a village. You’ll be safer there.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t leave this place,’ I said firmly.

  Only now did he seem to understand my real reason for hiding among the ruins. He started nervously.

  ‘You’re Jewish?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  He had been standing with his arms crossed over his chest; he now unfolded them and sat down in the armchair by the piano, as if this discovery called for lengthy reflection.

  ‘Yes, well,’ he murmured, ‘in that case I see you really can’t leave.’

  He appeared to be deep in thought again for some time, and then turned to me with another question. ‘Where are you hiding?’

  ‘In the attic.’

  ‘Show me what it’s like up there.’

  We went upstairs. He inspected the attic with a careful and expert eye. In so doing he discovered something I had not yet noticed: a kind of extra floor above it, a loft made of boards under the roof valley and directly above the entrance to the attic itself. At first glance you hardly noticed it because the light was so dim there. The officer said he thought I should hide in this loft, and he helped me look for a ladder in the flats below. Once I was up in the loft I must pull the ladder up after me.

  When we had discussed this plan and put it into action, he asked if I had anything to eat.

  ‘No,’ I said. After all, he had taken me unawares while I was searching for supplies.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ he added hastily, as if ashamed in retrospect of his surprise attack. ‘I’ll bring you some food.’

  Only now did I venture a question of my own. I simply could not restrain myself any longer. ‘Are you German?’

  He flushed, and almost shouted his answer in agitation, as if my question had been an insult. ‘Yes, I am! And ashamed of it, after everything that’s been happening.’

  Abruptly, he shook hands with me and left.

  Three days passed before he reappeared. It was evening, and pitch dark, when I heard a whisper under my loft. ‘Hello, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ I replied.

  Soon afterwards something heavy landed beside me. Through the paper, I felt several loaves and something soft, which later turned out to be jam wrapped in greaseproof paper. I quickly put the package to one side and called, ‘Wait a moment!’

  The voice in the dark sounded impatient. ‘What is it? Hurry up. The guards saw me come in here, and I mustn’t stay long.’

  ‘Where are the Soviet troops?’

  ‘They’re already in Warsaw, in Praga on the other side of the Vistula. Just hang on a few more weeks – the war will be over by spring at the latest.’

  The voice fell silent. I did not know if the officer was still there, or if he had gone. But suddenly he spoke again, ‘You must hang on, do you hear?’ His voice sounded harsh, almost as if he were giving an order, convincing me of his unyielding belief that the war would end well for us. Only then did I hear the quiet sound of the attic door closing.

  Monotonous, hopeless weeks passed by. I heard less and less artillery fire from the direction of the Vistula. There were days when not a single shot broke the silence. I don’t know whether I might not finally have given way at this time and committed suicide, as I had planned so many times before, if it hadn’t been for the newspapers in which the German wrapped the bread he brought me. They were the latest, and I read them again and again, fortifying myself with the news they contained of German defeats on all the fronts. Those fronts were advancing with increasing speed further and further into the Reich.

  The staff of the unit continued its work as before in the side wings of the building. Soldiers went up and down the stairs, often bringing large packages up to the attic and fetching others down, but my hiding place was well chosen; no one ever thought of searching the loft. There were guards constantly marching back and forth along the road outside the building. I heard their footsteps all the time, day and night, and their stamping as they warmed up their cold feet. When I needed water I slippe
d by night into the wrecked flats, where the bathtubs were full to the brim.

  On 12 December the officer came for the last time. He brought me a larger supply of bread than before and a warm eiderdown. He told me he was leaving Warsaw with his detachment, and I must on no account lose heart, since the Soviet offensive was expected any day now.

  ‘In Warsaw?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how will I survive the street fighting?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘If you and I have survived this inferno for over five years,’ he replied, ‘it’s obviously God’s will for us to live. Well, we have to believe that, anyway.’

  We had already said goodbye, and he was about to go, when an idea came to me at the last moment. I had long been racking my brains for some way of showing him my gratitude, and he had absolutely refused to take my only treasure, my watch.

  ‘Listen!’ I took his hand and began speaking urgently. ‘I never told you my name – you didn’t ask me, but I want you to remember it. Who knows what may happen? You have a long way to go home. If I survive, I’ll certainly be working for Polish Radio again. I was there before the war. If anything happens to you, if I can help you then in any way, remember my name: Szpilman, Polish Radio.’

  He smiled his usual smile, half deprecating, half shy and embarrassed, but I felt I had given him pleasure with what, in the present situation, was my naïve wish to help him.