by James R Benn
“He’s at another hotel?”
“The Free Polish government is headquartered there. It is a fine hotel, of course, but as you know Lieutenant Kazimierz prefers the Dorchester.”
I knew that, and I knew the reason why. I thanked Walter and took the elevator up, remembering my first day in London, and my first sight of the Dorchester. I had been nervous, and working hard not to let it show. Walter had thanked me for coming, and it took me a moment to realize he hadn’t meant to the hotel. A year ago, things had looked darker than they did now. Back then, Italy was still in the war, and along with the Vichy French, the Axis had held all of North Africa. Now Italy had been knocked out, we’d cleared North Africa, and were slowly working our way to Rome. The sandbags were still stacked in front of the hotel, but they seemed to be from another era. It had been months since a bomb had fallen on London. The Germans weren’t exactly on the run, but now neither were we.
I unlocked the door and stood for a moment in the hallway. The wood paneling glowed in sunlight streaming through the windows, and sparkling colors refracted from the prisms of the crystal chandelier. It was quite a place for a kid from South Boston to bunk in. It was the only home Kaz had now, and it was filled with ghosts. His parents had visited him in England before the war, when he had been a student. They’d celebrated Christmas 1938 in this very room, the last time they’d all been together. Now everyone but Kaz was dead. When I got here in 1942, Daphne Seaton, Diana’s sister, had been living with him. She’d been killed soon after that. Then I moved in, after Kaz gave up caring if he lived or died. We’d stuck together, through North Africa and Sicily, until the Polish Government in Exile called him back to London.
His father had been wise enough to deposit his considerable fortune in Swiss banks before the Germans invaded Poland, which allowed Kaz to keep this suite permanently available. His family had been rich, really rich, and he was actually a baron of some sort. Lieutenant Baron Piotr Augustus Kazimierz. It was only his connections that got him a military commission in the first place, since he had a bad heart, poor eyesight, and a physique like the kid who got sand kicked in his face at the beach. Uncle Ike had taken him on as a translator, since he understood most European languages. Turned out, Kaz was as good with a gun as he was with paperwork, and there had been times I was damned glad of it.
I’d missed him, and as I emptied my duffel bag, I thought I should head right over to the Rubens Hotel, which wasn’t far. It was still early afternoon, and he probably couldn’t get away until late. But then I took off my shoes and lay down to rest my eyes for a minute. It had been a long trip, first waiting for a flight out of Naples, then cooling my heels in Casablanca for a day before the roundabout flight to avoid German fighter planes. New Year’s Eve had come and gone, toasted with a bottle of bourbon passed hand to hand while we bounced around inside the fuselage of a C-54 transport twenty thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. A catnap seemed to be in order.
I heard a noise, and lifted one eyelid. The room was darker than it had been a minute ago. The noise came again, a muted thump. I got up quietly and dug out my. 45 automatic from the duffel bag, found a magazine, and loaded as I listened to heavy, labored breathing. It sounded like a quiet struggle, or someone searching for something. Occasional grunts and rasping gasps carried in the still, darkened room. I glanced at the clock. I’d been out cold for three hours.
I pushed my door open with the muzzle of the automatic. The hinges creaked, and I froze. There was no one in the living room. The glow of sunset lit the park outside, and the sounds of traffic drifted up from the street. I felt my palms go sweaty and my heart slamming against my chest. A crack of light showed at the door to Kaz’s bedroom, and I edged around the furniture toward it. Another grunt, this one louder and more anguished. There was no time to lose. I kicked the door and spun sideways, presenting the narrowest target I could, pistol leveled, cupped in my left hand, exactly as Dad had taught me. “Don’t give them any advantage, and take even the smallest for yourself. And be ready to pull the trigger.” I was.
I didn’t. Instead I stared into Kaz’s wide eyes as he lifted a dumbbell in each hand, then let them down slowly. His teeth were clenched and his neck muscles tightened as he began again.
“You… looked… like… you needed… to sleep,” he said, as he finished a final repetition and set the dumbbells down on the plush carpet. Thump.
“Kaz?” It was all I could say. He was in his skivvies, and there were ropy muscles on his arms. Not massive, beefy biceps, but real muscle where before there had been skin and bone. And I swear he actually had a chest that broadened above his rib cage, instead of caving in on it.
“Who did you expect, Betty Grable?” He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and wiped sweat out of his eyes. Kaz was a skinny guy, but now he was packing some muscle onto his frame. I could tell he was enjoying this exhibition. “One minute, Billy, and I will be done.”
He dropped and did twenty push-ups. The last few were pretty shaky, and I figured he had gone beyond his usual quota to impress me. It worked.
“What gives, Kaz?” I said as I collapsed into a chair. “You turning yourself into a pug?” Kaz liked American slang, and I was sure I hadn’t taught him this one.
“A dog?” He toweled himself off and sat on the edge of the bed. “That can’t be right.”
“A boxer, or maybe somebody good with his fists.”
“Ah, pug. Excellent,” he said, savoring the new word. “It is good to see you, Billy.”
“Same here, Kaz. Are you sure you should be doing this? With your heart condition?”
“Billy, after seriously considering the alternatives, I have decided life is to be lived. Fully.” He got up and took a drink of water, setting the glass down hard, the noise clear and sharp. It fit the new Kaz before me. In his eyes I saw the first acknowledgment of his penchant for taunting death. He looked in the mirror on the table next to me, his gaze lingering there. He touched his scar absentmindedly, drawing his finger from his eye down his cheek, tracing it as if it were a map to lost fortune.
“In this war, one must be strong,” he said, moving away from the mirror. “I have decided to strengthen myself. There once was room for a weak, studious man in the world I used to know. That is why my father decided I should come to England to study, that a quiet life with books would be the best for me. But he is gone, and so is that studious boy, who lived for words. I believe that is why I was careless of my own life, because I felt so adrift from everything. Family, country, and finally even the woman I loved.”
“I think about Daphne all the time,” I said. “I half expect her to walk through that door.”
“Yes, I know,” Kaz said. He sat on the bed again, unable to keep his gaze from the entrance to the room. He was sad, but didn’t look as hopeless as he once had. “Daphne is gone, my family is gone, all dead, everything ruined by this war. Even my face.”
We sat for a while in the quiet, the rumble of traffic a faint reminder of the great city around us. The sun was setting, and Kaz stood to draw the curtains. All over London, people were doing the same, shutting in the light, trying to live with the blackout and the threat of death, the reality of it.
After a minute of silence I said, “You were never that good-looking in the first place.”
Kaz laughed. “Billy, that is one reason why I missed you! You remind me not to take things too seriously.”
“Glad to help, buddy. It’s good to see you smile. So you’re lifting weights, doing push-ups, what else?”
“The army won’t let me train, because they know of my heart condition. So I do what I can here. I’ve started to jump rope, which is very challenging. And I walk in the park at a fast pace, whenever I have time. The only thing I have left-besides you, my good friend-is the hope of a return to my country when the war is over. It will take more than scholars to accomplish that, I believe.”
I glanced at the pile of books on Kaz’s nightstand. He hadn’t exactly given up on
his studies; there were several tomes in foreign languages among the foot-high stack of books and reports. With whatever the Polish Government in Exile had him doing, and his workout routine, I doubted he’d been having any fun.
“Why don’t we both get cleaned up and go out? We can catch up over dinner.”
“We can go down to the dining room or have room service bring something up if you’re too tired.”
“No, I want to stretch my legs and take a look around.”
“Very well. You’ll see London has changed since you were last here. There hasn’t been a Luftwaffe raid in months.”
I washed up, got into my Class A uniform, and showed off my first lieutenant’s bars to Kaz. He pretended to be impressed, but he was a baron, so I shouldn’t have expected much. As usual, he managed to outdo me in his hand-tailored dress uniform, making me look like a rumpled bumpkin. I rubbed my shoes on the back of my pants leg, hoping for the ghost of a shine.
We left the Dorchester amid greetings and tips of the hat. The main door was held open. Kaz was popular with the staff, not because of his status as a permanent guest, but due to his reason for staying there. Everyone knew the story of his family, and took pride in his dedication to the memory of their home away from home. It made everyone feel special to be associated with that. It was part of Kaz’s charm, and the shared suffering of the war that he embodied. It was as if, having failed to protect Poland, this little bit of England had decided to protect Kaz as best it could.
We walked through Berkeley Square, and I felt the return of the easy familiarity Kaz and I had shared, here and in Algiers. The square was swarming with GIs, sailors, and the occasional English soldier. Most were Yanks, laughing loudly, whistling at the few young women out on their own, living life, killing time. Generally, when we passed a group of them, they ignored us, but every now and then one guy would salute, and we’d have to respond.
“If it wasn’t for the extra pay and better food, I’d hate being an officer,” I said.
“You wouldn’t be a very good enlisted man either, Billy. Tell me, how is Diana? Have you seen her lately?”
I told him about our little boat ride to the Isle of Capri. It had been two days ago, but already it felt like forever.
“Is her mission on?” Kaz asked in a whisper.
“Yeah. I think it’s the Vatican,” I said, lowering my voice as well. I don’t know whom I expected to overhear us, but I couldn’t help it. I told Kaz about my brilliant guesswork, and Diana’s reaction.
“Sometimes, I think for a smart detective, you are quite stupid.”
“Geez, Kaz,” I said, steamed at the remark. But then I thought about it, and found it hard to debate the point. “I do always seem to put my foot in it with Diana. We’re OK, though. I think.”
“Good. Women seem difficult to understand for Americans. Or perhaps you understand American women better than others?” Even in the dark of the blackout, I could see Kaz smiling.
“Yeah, I got them nailed, no problem. Hey, watch out.” We’d turned onto Regent Street, where the sidewalk was blocked by a neat stack of bricks. The pile was shoulder-high, and stretched along the road, broken every ten feet or so by a narrow passage to the vacant lot beyond. The smell of smoke and dust lay thick upon them. Beyond the bricks was a gaping hole where a building had once stood.
“The remains of homes and shops,” Kaz said. “Everything but the bricks bombed and burned away. All this once held life.” He trailed his fingers along the bricks, and I found I had to touch them as well. They were rough to the touch, and the smell of years of London’s coal smoke, the grit of collapsed buildings, and the soot from raging fires lingered on my hand. The odor of the Blitz. We passed another long row of empty spaces and more of the tidy piles of bricks salvaged from the rubble. Some of the lots had been cleared and planted with gardens. It was a warm December, at least by Boston standards, and I wondered if they had any winter crops still in the ground. I remembered my mother saying she liked to keep parsnips in the garden past the first frost since it made them sweeter, and suddenly I could see her hands cradling the good china, placing a steaming bowl of mashed parsnips on the table at Thanksgiving.
“Billy, we are here,” Kaz said, standing by the restaurant door. I had walked several paces on.
“Sorry,” I said. “Daydreaming.” I followed Kaz into Bertorelli’s, where of course the headwaiter knew him. I tried to shake off the visions of home but they stayed with me, an insistent ache I couldn’t dismiss. I had been away almost two years now, and I’d begun to wonder how long it would be before I returned.
I followed Kaz to the table. It was in a back corner, chairs arranged so they both faced the room. The place held about a dozen tables, with a small bar up front. It was almost full. Uniforms of blue, brown, and khaki draped most of the customers, male and female. The few folks in civilian clothes looked dowdy compared to everyone else. Clothes were rationed, as well as food, and the fashionable thing to do was to wear the oldest suit you had, to show you were doing your bit. Except for more wear and tear, that hadn’t changed since I’d last been in London.
“Backs to the wall?” I asked. “Are you expecting trouble, Kaz?”
“You’ve taught me to be observant, Billy. Remember when you told me I should start noticing more than women and artwork when I enter a room?”
“Yes, I do. Seems like a long time ago.”
“Yes. In many ways, it was. I’ve learned that it is wise to be in a position to observe things, and one cannot do that facing a wall.”
“True,” I said, wondering if there was anything else to it. Kaz’s eyes swept the room, checking each table. I did the same, and found nothing but the usual assortment of brass, dames, and civilians. “Are you looking for someone?”
“No. Just looking at faces, checking the exits,” he said with a sly grin. There was a new strength in Kaz’s face, a hard determination where before there had been wryness disguising a great hurt. But there was something else, something he was holding back.
Our waiter appeared, who seemed to be an old friend of his. Kaz chose the fillets of beef for us both, and selected a red wine that sounded expensive.
“To obtain a really good meal in London is still possible, but one must be ingenious,” he said in a low voice after the waiter left. “The government has prohibited charging any more than five shillings for a meal, to contain the black market. It makes it difficult to get some things, like a decent cut of beef, but if one orders a good bottle with it, the beef miraculously improves.”
“Everyone’s got an angle,” I said. “And I’m glad you worked this one out. The last thing I had to eat was a cheese sandwich that had been made in Gibraltar.”
Kaz laughed and crossed his legs, leaning back in his chair. I heard a faint, soft clunk and looked for the source. There was a lump in one of the lower front pockets of Kaz’s uniform jacket, and when he moved it had hit the side of the chair.
“Are you carrying, Kaz?”
“Just a precaution.”
“A precaution? In London? What kind of peashooter do you have there anyway?”
“A Colt. 32-caliber automatic. I understand it is a model favored by American gangsters for its ease of concealment. I read that Al Capone always carries one in his jacket pocket.”
“Kaz,” I said, leaning over the table. “What is going on? Don’t give me that gangster riff, and tell me what the hell you need a piece for to go out to a London restaurant.” The waiter brought the wine, and Kaz went through his tasting ritual, acting like nothing was wrong.
“Welcome back to England, Billy,” Kaz said, raising his glass in a toast.
“Cheers,” I said, watching his eyes. We drank, and I set my glass down. “Spill.”
“It is difficult to explain,” he began. “You have heard of the Polish officers found in the Katyn Forest, yes?”
“Yeah, that was back in the spring, right?”
“April. The Germans broadcast the news that the bodies
of ten thousand Polish officers had been found in mass graves deep inside the Katyn Forest, in Russia. Outside of Smolensk, to be precise. They had just taken that area, and the local peasants told them where to look.”
“I remember. It was in the newspapers. The Russians said it was Nazi propaganda, that the Germans had captured those officers when they invaded. It would be just like the Nazis to kill their prisoners and blame it on us.”
“Us?”
“The Allies. Us. The good guys.”
“Yes, well, remember that Poland was attacked by both Germany and Russia. That’s what started this war. It is not so easy for Poles to think of Russia as an ally.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re making like Al Capone.”
“Billy, we know it was the Russians. We have evidence that they murdered thousands of Polish officers, professors, and priests in 1940 while they were at peace with Germany. But the British government has sided with the Russians and their story of a German massacre, since it is easier than facing the truth. Your government has been silent, which is just as bad.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Mountains of it. I can tell you the whole story later. For now, please understand that this is very dangerous. No one wants to hear the truth, since it may break the Allies’ alliance. Poland is being sacrificed, once again.”
“And you don’t like the idea of being sacrificed.”
“No. Neither did General Sikorski. You know what happened to him.” It had been big news. Four months ago, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish Government in Exile and head of Polish military forces, had died in a plane crash.
“Yeah. It was an accident. His plane crashed after taking off from Gibraltar, right?”
“Correct about Gibraltar. But what you don’t know, because the news was suppressed, is that a military aircraft carrying the Soviet ambassador and other officials was parked next to Sikorski’s plane before he took off. No explanation has been given for the crash, even though the pilot survived.” Kaz cocked an eyebrow, full of meaning.