Against a Crimson Sky

by James Conroyd Martin

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Is it Jan?”

  Zofia sighed and remained quiet for a long while.

  “Zofia?”

  “It is and it’s more than that. Paweł, I never loved Jan. Despite the grief I gave him and Anna, I never loved him. You need to know that. If I believed in prayer, I’d ask God to bring him back to Anna.—So, yes, these tears are for him—and they’re for the loss of my home and estate and my mother and God knows what might be next. And Poland! I’ve often made light of the fact that we are Europe’s plaything and from one day to the next often wake up in new ownership. There should be a sign placed on the Royal Castle: ‘Under New Management.’ But I do care, Paweł, I do!—And I don’t know how much more I can take.” Zofia started to shake now and the tears streamed as if she had been shoring them up for years. She reached out and clung to Paweł.

  Zofia seemed a fragile doll, as he held her trembling form. He spoke to her softly, consoling her, wondering where all her strength had gone. If only he could tell her there would be no more losses.

  If only he could ask whether she might love him one day.

  Paweł opened his eyes to someone nudging him. He stared into the beautiful black eyes of Zofia, and they were laughing at him. She was fully dressed and made up.

  “Paweł—you are a slug-a-bed! This is your only full day in Warsaw—are you going to sleep it away? After breakfast you’re to take me for a drive.” She bent low and kissed him lightly. “Now get up.”

  Paweł took hold of her, attempting a more passionate kiss.

  Zofia pulled back, smiling. “There’ll be time for that later—if you behave.”

  The old Zofia had made a comeback, he realized. And he was glad for it.

  26

  Anna sat at her secretary writing to Anusia Potocka, declining yet another supper invitation when a knock came at the door. “It’s Zofia, Anna. May I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  Zofia entered and took care to close the door behind her. Anna looked up and knew immediately from her cousin’s face that something was amiss. “What is it?”

  “Anna, you have a visitor.” For once, Zofia seemed at a loss as to how to word something. “From Sochaczew—the starosta.”

  “What foul joke is this?” Anna stood. “He’s dead, Zofia. He’s dead!”

  “The new starosta. I’m sorry. I should have said so.”

  It was no wonder the color had gone from Zofia’s face. Anna felt faint, also. Her mouth was suddenly dry. “Is it about—about Doliński?”

  “Yes, but that’s all he would say to me.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Anna whispered and fell back into her chair. “They know! They know!”

  “They can’t know anything,” Zofia said, coming forward. “You must be strong, Anna. You must.”

  “What are we to do?”

  “Nothing. We do nothing. We know nothing—do you understand?”

  “We should have told someone at the time. Now it looks as if—”

  “Listen to me,” Zofia hissed. “It wasn’t murder.” Her hands reached up to grasp Anna’s shoulders. “We both know that. And there isn’t another person alive who knows what went on that night. Remember that.”

  “The boys know!”

  “Yes, and if not for your own good, then its for theirs that you are not to say anything.”

  “But the starosta—he must know something. Why else would he come here?

  “We’ll find out what he knows when we go down. But we’re not to give anything away, do you understand?”

  “You’ll stay close by?”

  “Of course. You’re in a fragile condition right now. I’ve told him that. Play that up as you need to.”

  Anna paused for a moment outside the downstairs reception room to compose herself anew. She was not playacting. She was in a fragile state. Zofia led her in then and introduced her to Lord Bolesław Myszkiewicz.

  “Pardon me for this intrusion, Lady Stelnicka.” He bowed and kissed Anna’s hand.

  “Oh, it is no intrusion, Lord Myszkiewicz. I am always glad to see someone from my birthplace.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course! Please, do sit.”

  The starosta retreated to the couch where he had been sitting when they came in.

  “Will you have tea?” Anna sat in the chair across from him.

  “I did offer,” Zofia said.

  Anna saw that she had moved around behind the couch and stood near the window. This would be the vantage point from which she would coach Anna.

  “And I declined, Lady Stelnicka.”

  Anna took in a deep breath. The formalities were over, it seemed. Now came the business.

  “Lady Stelnicka, you knew Lord Grzegorz Doliński, my predecessor as starosta?”

  “Yes. Not well, however.”

  “And you’ve heard of his recent death?”

  “Yes, I’ve read of it in the Monitor.”

  “A tragic thing,” Zofia said. “Very tragic.”

  “Indeed,” said the starosta, turning his head to acknowledge Zofia. “It was a shock to all of Sochaczew.”

  “Scavengers, I suppose,” Zofia offered.

  “Actually, nothing was missing, Lady Grońska.”

  Before he could bring his head around and gaze back to Anna, Zofia shot her a warning glance. Be careful, Anna, it seemed to say. Go slowly.

  “You say not well, Lady Stelnicka?”

  “What?”

  “You say you did not know him well.”

  “Oh. No, I didn’t.”

  “Not in all the years he held that position?”

  “No, Lord Myszkiewicz.”

  “I see.”

  “I didn’t spend all my years there.” Anna felt sick at her stomach. The man was fishing.

  “Anna lived at my home in Halicz,” Zofia offered, “and then in Praga for some time.”

  Anna nodded. “Before the final Partition, of course.”

  “You left Sochaczew soon after your parents died, I understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your father was killed by a peasant?”

  The old darkness descended on Anna. “Yes, and Mother died soon after of depression and a broken heart. She lost an infant son, too, at that time. My brother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Anna was surprised how suddenly—and with what ferocity—all the pain of those losses rushed back at her.

  “Perhaps this is enough for today, Lord Myszkiewicz,” Zofia said, coming around to stand to the side of Anna. “As I said, my cousin’s health is not stable, and she should go back to her room to rest.”

  “I’ll only take a moment more, Lady Grońska, to fulfill my mission.”

  Mission? Anna thought. She looked to Zofia, whose face—probably mirroring Anna’s—had gone white as chalk.

  “Do you recall,” the starosta continued, his faded blue eyes on Anna, “the name of your father’s attacker?”

  It was not a question she anticipated. She sat suddenly erect. “I shall never forget it, Lord Myszkiewicz. It was Felix Paduch.”

  “I see.”

  The old bitterness—like tinder dried for a hundred years—was suddenly reignited and it flared within her. “Felix Paduch killed my father, and Doliński somehow allowed the murderer to escape.”

  Zofia quickly swung around behind the couch and out of the starosta’s view. Her face was full of fear—and caution. Anna realized at once she was stupidly handing the starosta a motive for killing Doliński.

  “You’re still tormented about it,” the starosta said in what Anna thought an overly solicitous way. “I find that very understandable.”

  “I—I have found my way to acceptance.” It was a lame statement, she knew. A glance at Zofia’s expression underscored its impotency. Just what evidence does he have? Let him say it now!

  “I regret having to bring up all this old hurt, Lady Stelnicka, but I think when you hear what I have to say, you will be glad.
”

  “Glad?” Anna looked from him to Zofia, whose veiled eyelids gave warning. Glad?

  He nodded and sat forward. “It seems that Felix Paduch, the peasant from your family’s little village, left for a while after somehow managing to escape, but that he came back to the town of Sochaczew and has lived there for some years.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true.”

  Anna thought she would pass out. “Did Doliński know this?”

  “Oh yes, he knew. I regret to say that Doliński was corrupt. How corrupt, we are finding out every day. It’s shocking.”

  “He just allowed Paduch to live peaceably in Sochaczew? Knowing what he had done?”

  “Yes, we even suspect Doliński aided Paduch in his escape back in ’91. He was probably paid for doing so. That was his specialty—bribery.”

  Anna’s mouth fell slack. Any regret she had for killing Doliński evaporated at that moment. If he were in the room now, she thought, she would do it again! She heard Zofia mutter some oath.

  “What’s to be done with Paduch?” Anna asked.

  “It’s been done. That’s what I’ve come to tell you.”

  “Been done?”

  He nodded. “You no doubt read that a second man was killed the night Doliński died.”

  Anna instantly knew where this was going and her heart froze. Was that a question? Did he expect a response?

  “We read that there was,” Zofia interjected.

  “Yes, we did,” Anna said, trying to camouflage the shock reeling through her, for she knew what he was going to say next.

  “The other man on the Doliński premises—run through with a saber he was—turned out to be Felix Paduch.”

  Anna felt the room around her begin to revolve. The starosta went on at some length, telling how Doliński had taken in Paduch and given him shelter, all in return for chores about the manor house—and for following through on some of the starosta’s dirty work. It seemed that Felix Paduch had not lost his predilection for drink, threats, and violence.

  The room spun faster and faster, and the next thing Anna knew, the starosta was leaning over her, making his goodbye, saying something about closing a chapter to her life.

  “Thank you,” Anna said, as if in a dream. “Thank you.”

  Zofia saw the starosta out. When she returned, she sat across from Anna in the place vacated by the starosta. The vertiginous motion of the room slowed, stopped. The two stared at one another. Anna had no doubt that to some degree they had twin emotions. For Anna, it wasn’t so much relief that they had not been found out for the doings of that night. It was sheer amazement and shock to learn that Felix Paduch, the murderer of her father, ended up being killed by Jan Michał, the grandson of his victim.

  Anna thought about the starosta’s parting words. She looked at Zofia and spoke at last. “Oh, the starosta was right—a chapter has ended, it’s true. But he doesn’t know how strangely it’s ended, Zofia. How strangely.”

  “And may he never know, Anna,” Zofia said. “God’s blood!—Luck was with us today!” She threw back her head then and laughed.

  Jan vomited into the all-purpose pail. The ship rolled and pitched, and the two hundred Polish and French prisoners below deck rolled and pitched with it. Jan had never been at sea, but more than the motion, it was the stench of human vomit and waste that made him ill in those first days.

  He was one of six prisoners confined to the tiny compartment. Each morning they received portions of a foul tasting gruel, and each afternoon they plotted a takeover of the ship. From their limited vantage point, the prisoners thought the crew weak. At night several of their Russian captors took up places outside their door, speaking in a low Russian dialect, drinking vodka and throwing dice. Jan knew a bit of Russian, and some of the discernible talk was of a coming peace settlement, something that—along with fever, dysentery, and scurvy—tempered the prisoners’ thirst for revolt.

  When not fighting storms and squalls, the ship of prisoners sloshed and rolled on, endlessly it seemed. Forty-three days passed. Twelve Poles died, their bodies casually carted away and thrown into the sea like slop from the waste buckets.

  Jan staved off real sickness until the very end of the sea journey. By the time the ship docked at Riga, he little expected to live. His incarceration and illness aside, Lithuania seemed worlds away from Warsaw. He doubted he would see Poland again.

  The medics in the prisoner ward tended to him, bleeding him daily and ignoring his request of quill and a sheaf of paper so that he might write his last thoughts to Anna. After a bleeding, he would fall into a delirium dreaming of her, wishing that life for her had been different. That he had been the husband she had hoped he would be.

  “You are presumptuous, Major Potecki!”

  “General Grouchy,” Paweł said, “it is not my intention to be presumptuous. I am merely stating my opinion.”

  “I don’t wish to hear it.”

  Paweł looked out into the darkening sky. To his right, far as the eye could see, the fields and woods above Friedland and the River Alle shook and rumbled and glittered with guns and artillery. There Napoléon and his other generals were waging a multi-front battle that had begun early in the morning. From this vantage point, directly overlooking the village of Heinrichsdorf, Paweł watched as twenty-two Russian cavalry squadrons retreated from Napoléon’s main forces, scrambling to the only spot where the River Alle was fordable—and making their escape.

  “With all due respect sir— ”

  The general’s glare and his raised forefinger interrupted Paweł. “General Dąbrowski has allowed you to be attached to me because you know the terrain. When you speak to me, I expect you to speak of the landscape, not strategy.” The general lifted his field glasses and stared out at the vast lands beyond which lay Friedland.

  Paweł knew that after the fall of Gdańsk, Prussia was a worry no more, and Napoléon considered Friedland the final victory that would bring Russia to her knees—or at least to the table. And yet the Grouchy cavalry, forty squadrons strong, stood watching the Russians cross the river—effecting their escape—when they might have been surprised and easily beaten.

  “Of course,” the general said, “another reason for your assignment may be your excellent French and my poor Polish, hey?” He shot Paweł a quick sideways glance. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking.”

  Paweł did not reply. He stared out, gripped by a terrible impotence.

  “You think we should be swarming down upon them like locusts. I can tell you, Major Potecki, that I have no orders to attack.”

  Emmanuel Grouchy was not a bad general. Paweł knew him to be brave and effective. Only that morning he had proved it. And at Eylau he led his dragoons pell-mell into Russian cavalry, ripping through it like a whirlwind. When his horse was killed beneath him, he remounted after the charge and led a second attack. But there were other stories about him, too, like his part in a bungled attempt to invade Britain in ’96. The French fleet under General Lazare Hoche had reached Britain safely, all but the ship carrying Hoche. Next in command, Grouchy chose to sit on board for three days rather than disembark. A great storm arose and the ships retreated across the channel to France, clinching Napoléon’s failure to take Britain.

  So it seemed to Paweł that indecision was Grouchy’s fatal flaw. He needed explicit orders from above or he was at a loss. At Eylau he had had Murat nearby and under his auspices performed gallantly. Murat, Paweł thought now. If only Murat were here.

  Days later, while waiting for the general in his tent, Paweł’s eyes fell on the emperor’s written missive to Grouchy concerning action at Friedland. Napoléon had directed the left wing to “maneuver so as to cause as much harm as possible to the enemy when he, pressed by the vigorous attack of out right, shall feel the necessity of retreat.” So Grouchy had orders. Explicit orders. Did the fact that the Russians were already in retreat negate the orders in the general’s mind?

  In the end, Friedland was take
n and the Russians, under General Beningsen, put to flight. Paweł had another mystery to ponder when Napoléon did not take up nighttime pursuit of the tired Russians with the French cavalry that had not seen heavy action. Surely Napoléon had proven in the past the advantages of running down an already beaten foe. What held him back now?

  Paweł suspected a treaty was in the offing and that perhaps Napoléon did not want to demonize himself in the eyes of Aleksandr by destroying absolutely Beningsen’s forces, and thus perhaps encouraging Aleksandr to fight on.

  This was a lesson about power, Paweł realized. A vast wealth of power used successfully—but unwisely—could lead to failure.

  27

  July 1807

  Barbara knocked and entered the little anteroom to Anna’s bedchamber. As she walked over to where Anna sat on a couch by the window, her green eyes narrowed. “You’ve been crying, Mother.”

  Anna denied it, braving a smile.

  “It’s about Father, isn’t it?”

  “Come sit, Basia. I just miss him, that’s all.”

  Barbara was not about to accept that answer. “I heard Aunt Zofia tell Madame Sic that he’s missing. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Anna bit her lower lip. “He’ll come back to us.”

  Tears started to form in Barbara’s eyes. Her lips trembled. She knew—and loved—her father, if only from his letters and her mother’s stories.

  Anna put her arm around her, pulling her close. “No tears,” she rasped. “I’ll not have it. Your father will return.”

  “Do you think so, Mother? Really?”

  Anna took her daughter’s face in her hands. “We have to think so, Basia. We must.” They sat for a long while as dusk settled. Anna thought how she was encouraging her daughter to hold her tears inside—as she had always done. Since her childhood, Anna had not cried in front of other people. It wasn’t a good thing, such holding back, she had come to learn. And yet she couldn’t help herself. She knew she should allow Basia to release her emotions through her tears. But if Basia were to cry, she knew her own tears would start—and there would be no sluice gate strong enough to hold back the flood.