The Fires of Lilliput

by Michael Martin

  “Entdeckungabdeckung!”

  Someone came out of another building yelling and pointing downward.

  The crush began toward a basement. People tripped over bags and suitcases. They swore and prayed and pushed their crying children. The first explosion shook the walls. Luftwaffe bombers circled in the sky. Karl and Shosha saw the bombs falling and dust clouds rising above the houses. The people heard tanks and the swoosh of flamethrowers and fire crackling.

  The bombing slowed by early evening and they moved toward a pristine park near the German officers’ recreation center. It had big, old trees, green shrubs and a thick green lawn. They found lawn chairs and benches. Shosha and her men set down their sacks and suitcases. They lowered themselves to the cool green grass. Dozens of refugees spent the night on the lawn, covered with coats, blankets and rags.

  Cooking smells awakened Shosha in the morning. Women were using pots and the few utensils they managed to save. Men were showering in a hydrant, and though the morning was chilly, children ran through the spray.

  Shosha saw an SS officer among the evacuees. “Can we go home?” she asked. “They aren’t burning the houses.”

  “They will,” the soldier said. His voice shook. “The order was only postponed.”

  “Why?”

  “They need more petrol.”

  “Do we have time to get a few more things?” Eugeniusz Pszenny asked. “Our houses are near.” Stazek took his son by the shoulder.

  “I don’t think so,” the soldier said.

  Shosha noticed his hands shaking. “We have vodka at home,” she said. “Everyone does.”

  The soldier thought. “Nein,” he said again.

  “Too bad,” Shosha said. “It’s Red. The best.”

  The soldier raised a trembling hand to his face. “All right,” he said. “But stay with me.”

  Eugeniusz started to walk with them, but Stazek held him back. The soldier led Shosha and two women wearing white handkerchiefs tied around their sleeves. Karl ran and caught up with them.

  “Where are you going?” He was out of breath.

  “Back,” Shosha said. “We could use more food.”

  “He’s taking you?” Karl asked, indicating the soldier.

  “For vodka.”

  They walked over bricks and glass and metal rubble and arrived back at the row of flats, empty save for a few people who would not leave. The women went into their houses and gathered food and Shosha brought the soldier a half-bottle of vodka. He sat on a bench in the courtyard and drank. He closed his eyes. When it was time to return, Shosha went to rouse the soldier. She shook him.

  “Do we need him?” Karl said. “We can get back on our own.”

  “It’s a good idea if he took us back,” a woman said. “They won’t shoot at him.”

  Shosha patted his cheeks. She shook him again and he slumped. Shosha—the former infirmary attendant—felt his neck and wrist for a pulse. “I think he’s dead,” she said.

  “Dead drunk,” Karl said.

  “No—really—dead.”

  Karl and the women came over to the soldier. “From one drink?”

  Shosha stood back and saw a small envelope sticking out of his coat pocket. She bent and picked it up. Something inside felt like sand.

  “What is that?” Karl asked.

  She opened it and looked inside. “It’s white,” she said.

  “Smells like almonds,” said another woman. “I can smell it from here.”

  Karl looked at the vodka bottle. “Poor man’s Amaretto,” he said.

  “He killed himself,” Shosha said.

  “Good,” one of the women said. “One less killing us.”

  Karl looked around. He reached down and took the soldier’s handgun and tucked it away. He went through the soldier’s pockets. He took money, tobacco, some coins.

  “What about the rifle?” Shosha said.

  Karl picked it up. “The soldiers will see us with it,” he said. He threw it over a high brick wall.

  When they returned to the park with food and supplies, more refugees had flooded in. Their clothes were dirty and torn, and bones shown in their cheeks. Down the long stretch of lawn toward the street, SS stood or sat, poised with rifles.

  Soldiers and inmates from the old Pawiak pulled carts piled with flock—a mixture of rags, wool, and oil-soaked paper. Other carts carried barrels of gasoline. The work was methodical. First, soldiers threw grenades through windows. Next, a blast scattered glass and debris. Finally, inmates lit flock and threw it through broken panes. Flames exploded and the refugees heard the whoosh and hiss from the park as the fire fought to breathe. The fires burned methodically, too. First they consumed lightweight furniture and drapes and then moved along wallpaper, to pictures and books. The flames became brighter and spread, creeping upstairs and piercing roofs. From as far as the park, people felt heat on their faces. Clouds of black smoke rose in the sky and billowed in the street.

  Some people watched from the park and broke from the crowd as the Germans moved up the street. They jumped over fences and ran toward their burning homes. When the first people returned with belongings on their backs, Eugeniusz Pszenny broke away.

  “Gene,” his father called. Stazek started after his son but Karl caught him.

  “I’ll go,” Karl said.

  “He’s my son,” Stazek said.

  “I’m younger and faster,” Karl called back. He chased Gene across the lawn.

  Karl ran and saw people throwing furniture and clothes and boxes from burning buildings. Soldiers continued up the street, breaking and burning, one by one. The fires burned higher and Karl dodged falling glass. The heat was so intense he couldn’t come near the sidewalk, so he stayed in the center of the street. He saw a man spraying himself with a hose. The man dropped the hose and ran into his house. Karl kept running. He stopped to catch his breath and turned and saw the man come out the front door with a stack of books. His shirttail was on fire. He set the books down. He lay and rolled on the wet grass, then picked up the hose and aimed it at the house.

  Karl ran again amid more gunfire. He turned and saw the man lying next to his books. He still had the hose in his hand, but he was not moving. In another block, Karl arrived at the Pszenny’s. The house was engulfed and he couldn’t stand near it so he stayed in the street.

  “Gene,” he called. “Eugeniusz!” Sunlight drifted in and out and shadows passed over the flames. Bricks crumbled and glass fell on both sides of the street. “Gene!” Clouds moved together. The sky darkened and Karl stood, calling to Eugeniusz. The light from the fires kept the street bright, even as rain fell.

  Karl waited out the rain in a vacant house. He walked back toward the park shortly after midnight. He heard thunder, but not from the sky. Through alleys in the dark, he saw faint shadows of tanks moving on neighboring streets. When the tanks fired in just the right place, Karl saw yellow and orange sparks rising over buildings and scattering along rooftops. He heard the bellowing cow three times and had to stop and cover his ears. The moaning made his eyes tear. He heard it came from a thing called a Nebelwerfer (smoke launcher) that fired six missiles at once. Karl heard the impacts and bricks falling and he smelled particularly pungent smoke. He crossed the lawn at the park. Stazek ran up to him.

  “Where’s my Eugeniusz?”

  Karl looked at him. Stazek grabbed his hand. “Don’t tell me this—where’s my baby, my Gene?”

  Shosha put her hand on Stazek’s shoulders. He crumpled. He wrapped his arms around Karl’s leg and pressed his head against it.

  “It can’t be,” he cried, and his voice fell. “Don’t tell me this. Don’t tell me this.”

  Karl knelt on the grass and held Stazek’s head to his chest.

  They heard gunfire and artillery blasts. Shosha saw ash and dust and fires glowing in the buildings across the street and she saw smoke rising to meet clouds that grayed the night over the burning city. She felt heat on her face.

  “Did you se
e Gene?” Stazek asked. “Did you ever see him?”

  “No,” Karl said.

  “So you don’t know if he’s dead—you don’t know. You didn’t actually see.”

  “I didn’t see him,” Karl said. “I called for a long time.”

  Stazek stood.

  “What are you doing?” Shosha asked.

  “I can’t accept this,” he said.

  “You can’t go back,” Karl said.

  “You’re saying give up—give in?”

  “Please don’t,” Shosha said.

  “What if he’s alive?” Stazek said.

  He picked up a bag with some food and water. Karl stood in his way.

  “Move,” Stazek said.

  Karl stood firm.

  “We don’t know that he’s dead. What if he’s hurt and he needs me?”

  Shosha took Karl’s arm. Stazek walked around them and they watched Gene’s father cross the lawn toward the street. They saw nothing in the darkness and then they saw the shadow of a man moving toward the flames.

  Forty One

  Ash covered everything in the morning. Leaves hung gray with it and people stood where they had slept on the lawn and brushed it out of their hair and clothes. Children cried with it in their eyes. Men spit it out, especially the ones who snored with their mouths open. No one could hear any birds, not even the morning doves that always cooed the arrival of light.

  Shosha opened her eyes and saw a paper draped across her leg. She sat up and saw fliers littering the lawn, white on gray. She opened a flier and saw a crude illustration of a black eagle standing on a broken cross. Shosha (S) read the flier and interpreted it in her mind.

  ULTIMATUM

  To the people of Warsaw:

  The German High Command wants to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, which will mainly affect innocent women and children, and therefore has issued the following appeal:

  1. The population should leave Warsaw in a western direction, carrying white kerchiefs in their hands.

  2. The German High Command guarantees that no one who leaves Warsaw of his or her own free will, will come to harm.

  2S. Bullshit. The German High Command guarantees nothing.

  3. All men and women who are able to work will receive work and bread.

  3S. See 2S.

  4. People unable to work will be accommodated in the western district of Warsaw's province. Food will be supplied.

  4S. People unable to work will be starved or shot. Jews—who we all know aren’t people—will be deported for extra cruelty to one of the camps.

  5. All who are ill as well as old people, women, and children needing care will receive accommodation and medical treatment.

  5S. See 4S.

  6. The Polish people know that the German Army is fighting Bolshevism only. Anyone who continues to be used as a Bolshevik's tool, irrespective of which slogan he might follow, will be held responsible and prosecuted without scruples.

  6S. Bolsheviks? Scruples? Where?

  7. This ultimatum is for a limited time only.

  7S. Ultimatum! Then what—what more can they do to us? Fuckers.

  Signed this 11th Day of September, 1944

  ERICH VON DEM BACH

  COMMANDER IN CHIEF

  WARSAW DISTRICT

  S. FUCKER.

  Karl walked up with a plate of cooked potatoes and apples. “I think we should leave,” he said. “Word has it they’re breaking up families and taking the men to labor camps.”

  They ate as evacuees from other neighborhoods moved up the street. The people were dirty, bent and covered with soot. In their arms and on their shoulders, backs, and heads they carried packs of last things. Their eyes were dull and they walked with heavy, tired steps, wiping perspiration from their faces and foreheads and looking at the ash on their handkerchiefs. Karl and Shosha gathered their things.

  “What do you think happened to Stazek?” Karl asked.

  “I thought all night about him,” Shosha said.

  “I tried to make him stay,” Karl said.

  “Maybe he found his son,” Shosha said. “He knows the town well as anyone, better than any German. He can probably hide for a long time.”

  “We may see him again,” Karl said.

  “No,” she said. “We won’t see him again.”

  KARL AND SHOSHA CROSSED SEVERAL STREETS with soldiers nearby.

  “I don’t want to risk it,” Karl said. He motioned Shosha toward one of the buildings. “Let’s go through here.”

  The building was partly collapsed and smoldering but passing through it would lead to a different street. They stepped inside, over bricks and heaps. Heat from rocks and mortar made it hard to breathe. They started to sweat and their dirty clothing clung to their skin.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Shosha said.

  They got through the building and stopped and gasped for air on the street. Karl bent down. Shosha leaned against a light pole.

  “Look at this.” Karl pulled his wet shirt away from his chest and it made a sucking noise as it separated from his skin. He did it again. He made the shirt breathe in and out like a makeshift accordion. Shosha smiled and started to giggle.

  “I can’t believe I’m laughing,” she said.

  They walked through clouds of dust and smoke, the smell of fire, and rumbling between buildings. A tank came around the corner behind them.

  “Halten!” A soldier on the beast fired his rifle. Karl froze.

  “Hands up. Hands up.”

  They raised their hands. Karl held the white handkerchief high.

  “What do they want with us?” Karl said. “We were free to leave.”

  The tank pulled beside them. The soldier aimed his sidearm at Shosha.

  “You—up here. Up here!”

  She looked at Karl.

  “Up here,” the soldier screamed.

  She started to move and lowered her hands.

  “Hands up. Up!”

  Shosha climbed onto the tank. She slipped. The soldier reached down and yanked her by the arm. He pressed her against the turret. He pressed his sidearm into her back.

  “Hands up.” He stuck a white handkerchief in her hand. He called to Karl and waved the rifle toward him.

  “You—in front. In front.”

  Karl stepped in front of the tank.

  “You’re not going to run over him,” Shosha said.

  “Walk.”

  Karl started to walk.

  “Hands up!”

  The soldier hollered down to the driver.

  “Alle! Raus!”

  The tank moved forward. Karl walked holding his hands and the handkerchief high. Each time he slowed, the tank commander yelled down and the tank sped within meters of crushing him. They marched from deserted, hollowed-out buildings to occupied houses still in Underground hands. Other soldiers joined the tank along the street. They came from no place in particular. They were not dressed like the German soldiers. They were Ukrainian Trawniki men.

  Shosha looked up and saw resistance fighters in windows and holes blasted in walls overlooking the street. They held fire, and a few withdrew their arms. Each time Shosha’s shoulder tired of holding the white kerchief, the soldier rammed the sidearm into her back. The soldiers alongside the tank fanned out and ran into each building, forcing stragglers to the street and lining them up in front of the tank. They dragged a woman clutching a newborn wrapped in rags. Shosha saw the infant’s flush, wrinkled face, still mottled with blood and afterbirth. There was little water to drink, and no water to wash. The woman with the baby slowed and fell behind and a Ukrainian soldier tried to take the infant. She screamed and the child screamed. The soldier hit the woman with his rifle and tore away the child. He smashed the newborn’s head into a pile of bricks and threw it into the ruins of a cellar. Karl felt sick and almost fell. But he gathered himself and kept his eyes straight. He trod over craters and rubble, tangled barbed wire, thick rebar and pipes, and corpses that, with the guns and the smoke, fille
d the air with a burning putrescence.

  The tank slowed against the rubble. The turret commander spoke to his driver. Shosha felt the pistol barrel. She heard shots. She was surprised to see a Ukrainian fall in the street ahead of them. The turret commander screamed obscenities toward the bombed out windows and wrapped his hand around Shosha’s face. He stuck the gun hard into her back. She looked up and saw shadows in the windows. She smelled hot, dirty fingers. They heard another shot and another Ukrainian fell.

  When another shot echoed, Shosha felt something swipe against her back and then nothing. She didn’t turn but looked up, toward the windows. In the darkness, she thought she saw a familiar face, thinner and older, but unmistakable. “Antek,” she whispered. She turned and saw the dead turret commander, slumped and bleeding around his collar.

  The tank kept moving and the people marched and a Ukrainian fighter in the street pointed to Shosha but before he could do anything, a bullet popped his gut. Resistance fighters ran out of buildings and rushed the tank. They pushed the line of people out of the tank’s way and came alongside and motioned Shosha down. The turret began to turn. A Polish resistance fighter grabbed Shosha’s hand and helped her down. He pulled her toward a hole near the street. They ducked and the tank fired, blasting bricks in a crumbling building.

  “Shit.” The fighter pushed Shosha toward the hole. “Take this toward the river—that way,” he pointed.

  “A tunnel?” she asked.

  “Kind of,” he said.

  She looked for Karl. He was with three resistance fighters stuffing incendiaries into the tank. The tank fired at abandoned buildings and swerved and the turret swung but couldn’t shake the fighters.

  “Karl,” Shosha called.

  He didn’t hear her.

  “Karl!”

  He looked around and saw her, standing near the hole. She waved him over.