The Fires of Lilliput

by Michael Martin

  “Karl. Hurry!”

  He waved at her. He jumped off the tank and stumbled in the rubble and ran toward her. They went through the hole toward darkness and a terrible smell. They were in the sewers.

  “I can’t breathe,” Karl said.

  “It’s not poison,” Shosha said. “You can breathe. You have to.”

  “I’ll hold my breath.”

  The tank exploded above ground, knocking them into the walls and causing Shosha to stumble. She took Karl’s wrist. “You can’t hold your breath,” she said. “You’ll faint, and if you faint, you die.”

  They walked in darkness over wet bricks. There wasn’t much water now so the way was dry. They passed sunlit spots that went a few feet then became darkness again. They said almost nothing—each word encouraged breathing. Shosha guessed the way toward the river. She heard people above them and figured they were going out of the city along a street near the bank. They climbed up rusty steps toward an open manhole and the sun. Karl emerged first. He helped Shosha. They stopped and breathed.

  Women, children, and men flowed like lava out of the burning city. Some people carried clothes, books, and food. Others dragged their things with slender ropes, stopping every few meters to rest. Some people were burned, others wounded and bleeding, walking around bodies to the left and right—Germans and Poles, fallen in battle or to stray bullets that screeched everywhere in the air like birds.

  “Where from here?” Karl asked.

  Shosha walked up to a woman. “This is an evacuation?” she asked.

  “Yes,” the woman said.

  “To where?”

  “They haven’t told us yet, but no one’s been shot.”

  Shosha motioned to Karl. They walked in the procession.

  “Run,” someone yelled. “They’re shooting!”

  People heard screaming in Ukrainian. “Himmler's Hounds,” someone cried. The crowd ran across the highway and up an embankment, but the Trawniki men shot them like fleeing game. The Ukrainians ran up the hill and pulled the women down and the children, the easy ones. They beat them in the head with rifles and sticks and anything else they had. Karl and Shosha crawled up the embankment. Karl looked toward the top.

  “Come on.” He turned to reach for Shosha but she wasn't there. He looked down. Two men were dragging her feet. Karl went after them and remembered. He pulled the revolver he had confiscated from his belt and undid the safety and aimed. They had Shosha at the bottom of the hill and the first man stopped and stood back. Karl fired and hit him in the neck and he grabbed himself and fell. The other man looked up. Karl fired again. The bullet missed but the man turned and ran. Karl slid down the hill.

  “Your hand,” Shosha said.

  “What?” Karl looked at his hand, then her. “Are you all right?”

  Shosha took up her skirt and tore it. She wrapped Karl's bleeding hand. “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “Me? I wasn't the one almost killed.”

  “Did you take a bullet? I didn't see anything.”

  Karl looked up the hill. “Maybe glass. Something in the dirt.”

  The dead Ukrainian lay nearby. “We have to keep going,” Shosha said.

  They started up the hill again and Karl took her hand. At the top, Shosha stood and turned and saw before her the Wisla and Praga across the water.

  Forty Two

  Shosha and Karl spent a mid-September night under stars and trees near the river. They heard guns and shelling into the early morning hours. Across the Wisla, in the low exploding lights that reflected off the water, Shosha saw Soviet tanks and Red Army soldiers, walking, standing, and talking, knights leaning against muzzled dragons.

  “Why do they sit?” she asked. “Why don’t they do something?”

  “It’s a complicated situation,” Karl said. “That’s what they said in the city.”

  More than any other, one man complicated the situation. When the British parliament protested to the world press that Joseph Stalin was being grossly unfair in his dealings with Poland—a fellow ally—the Soviet dictator decided on a course of duplicitous assistance designed to calm the international uproar. On September 9, 1944, Stalin ordered his planes to drop arms and ammunition to the insurgents—but at night without parachutes. The crates smashed on the ground and the supplies were ruined or confiscated by the Germans. In mid-September, the situation started to look more hopeful. Stalin ordered Praga subdued—a process that took only four days. Liberation for Warsaw seemed just across the river.

  But across the river is where the liberators stayed. Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky stopped the Red Army in Praga. Sometimes known as “the son of a Warsaw railwayman” the Soviet commander attended a Gymnasium in Warsaw, worked in Warsaw as a young man, and spent time in the Pawiak prison. He wrote in his memoirs that his former home was in the “throes of its death. The city was covered in clouds of smoke. Here and there houses were burning. Bombs and shells were exploding. Everything indicated that a battle was in progress.” A battle Rokossovsky—on orders from Stalin—would not engage. With little explanation, he maintained his armies “would not be able at the present time to liberate Warsaw,” and so they sat across the river.

  Logs captured from the German 9th Army cast the matter this way:

  “...as long as the fighting in Warsaw went on, it constituted a harassment of the Germans that could not but be welcomed by the Soviet command. A successful outcome of the uprising was not in the interest of Moscow, because it was bound to bring demands totally incompatible with Moscow's intended course of action.”

  “I BROUGHT FOOD,” SHOSHA SAID. She descended the narrow embankment with a bucket. Karl was sitting under trees near the river.

  “Oh,” he said. He rubbed his neck. “I’m stiff.”

  She looked at him and set down the bucket with two sprouting potatoes, a half sausage looking dry, and a tin can filled with clean water.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “In a flat,” Shosha said. “No one was there.”

  She knelt down and put her hand on his forehead.

  “You’re hot,” she said.

  “Head aches, too.”

  “You’ve been keeping your hand clean—right?”

  “It’s fine—much better.” He pulled back the cloth dressing.

  “It doesn’t look bad,” Shosha said. She felt around the edges. “Sturdy and pink—it’s healing.” She took the tin of water from the bucket and handed it to Karl. “Drink a little,” she said.

  He sipped the water. “I was thinking about getting into the river,” he said.

  Shosha looked across the mid-day haze that lay atop the water. She saw tanks on the Praga side. She saw children there, and Reds—soldiers, sitting and smoking.

  “Let’s get in,” she said. “Take your clothes off.” She started unbuttoning her blouse.

  “Here?” Karl said.

  “Certainly here. We need a bath. We stink.”

  Shosha slipped off her blouse and Karl turned away. She laughed. “To see or not to see,” she said. He didn’t look at her. “We’re already naked,” she said. She undressed the rest of the way and stepped into the water. Her skin wrapped her bones. “Ahh—it feels wonderful,” she said.

  “It’s clean?”

  “Cleaner than we are,” Shosha said. “I’m not planning to drink it.”

  She bent down and submerged herself to her neck. Karl looked at her.

  “Get in,” she said. “It’ll cool you.”

  He hesitated and daubed his forehead with his shirt.

  “Come on.”

  Karl pulled his shirt over his head. He slipped his shoes off, stood, and walked behind a tree.

  “Shy?” Shosha said.

  “You should turn your head,” Karl said. “It’s only fair.”

  “Fair has nothing to do with us,” Shosha said. “Come in.”

  “Turn your head.”

  “No. Then I have to look at that tragedy across the river and worry
about my mother and the rabbi.”

  “They’re safer than we are.”

  “Who says?”

  “Cover your eyes, then.”

  Shosha brought her hand up to her eyes. “Chicken,” she said.

  “Yes, if you have some. I’m very hungry.” Karl walked naked into the river. He lowered himself. Shosha watched him.

  “Handsome boy,” she said.

  “You cheated.”

  “No.”

  “Ahh—you were right. This is wonderful.”

  They stood a few feet apart with the water up to their necks. Karl looked across at the Praga shore. “Think they can see us?”

  “Fuck them if they can.” Then Shosha yelled toward the Russians: “Jeszcze Polska nie zginiela bugy my zyjemy!” Poland is not dead whilst we live!

  “I’ve heard that. Who said it?”

  “Kosciuszko,” Shosha said. “He was here before us.”

  After Russia invaded Poland in 1792, Tadeusz Kosciuszko led several battles to liberate his country. He routed the Russian Army more than once, most notably as commander of the Polish rebellion named for him, the Kosciuszko Uprising. He earlier fought in the American Revolution and returned to his native Poland an American hero. Thomas Jefferson said of Kosciuszko, “He was as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known.”

  KARL WAS HOT WITH FEVER IN THE NIGHT. He tossed and awakened three times and kept his eyes open. He looked at the stars through the glow of fires in Warsaw and listened to the guns. He tried to turn his head but his neck was too stiff. He tried to open his wounded hand but it was cramped and he had to raise it and pry it open with his other hand. When he awakened in the morning, he could turn his neck enough to see the sun casting shadows across the Praga shore.

  “I can barely move,” he told Shosha.

  She felt his head. “You’re burning,” she said. “I need to get help.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” he said. “Besides, where would you find someone?”

  “I can try,” she said. “I know where they might have a doctor.”

  Karl turned toward the shore. “I’m thirsty,” he said. “I’d rather have water.”

  “How does your jaw feel?”

  “Stiff. Like my neck.”

  “Open your mouth.”

  Karl opened it a little ways.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She took his wounded hand. She stared at him.

  “What?”

  “Can you move your fingers?”

  He tried. She looked at him.

  “What?” he said.

  She stroked his cheek and took his good hand and squeezed it.

  “I think you have tetanus,” she said.

  “Tetanus?”

  “Lockjaw.”

  “God,” he said.

  “You got it through the dirt.”

  “I cleaned my hand.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Have you had the vaccine?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked up at the bluffs. “There’s no antibiotics,” she said. “Not up there.”

  Karl breathed and held her hand. “Where did you get that water?” he asked. “Yesterday.”

  “From a broken pipe. I can get more.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “I didn’t see anybody. The soldiers have moved.”

  She took off her blouse and went down to the river and soaked it. She brought it back and pressed it to Karl’s cheeks and forehead. He saw her bones through her skin and the small, starved curvature of her breasts. She took his good hand and with it held her blouse against his face. He raised his other hand, curled and cramped, and smoothed the back of his palm against her cheek. She looked at his eyes. “I’ll get the water,” she said.

  DURING THE NIGHT, RAIN DRIZZLED AND KARL FELT coolness and relief. At dawn, Shosha saw him lying next to the river. His hands were in the water.

  “I wouldn’t drink that,” she called to him.

  “I’m not drinking.”

  She walked to him with a worn gray blanket around her shoulders. Karl was wiping his face with her damp blouse.

  “I can barely swallow,” he said.

  She took the blouse from his cramped hands and submerged it in the water and brought it to his brow.

  “Take me into the river,” he said.

  “You’ll drown.” She patted his forehead and cheeks with the blouse.

  A spasm ripped across his stomach and side. He clenched his teeth and winced. “I’m cramped,” he said. “But the heat is worse.”

  “I should have gone,” Shosha said. “I should have found a doctor.”

  “Where?”

  Shosha looked at the river.

  “Take me in,” he said.

  “I’m too weak,” she said. “I couldn’t move you.”

  “Put your arms around my chest and we’ll push off together.”

  “How did you get down here?” she asked.

  “Crawled. But that was last night, when I could.” He seized and cringed. “Come on,” he said. “Before I can’t move at all.”

  Shosha crept over to him. “Can you lean forward?” She slipped her hands underneath his arms and wrapped her fingers around his chest. “Ready—push,” she said. “Push.” They pushed their feet forward, together on the muddy bank. They turned toward the water.

  “I have to rest,” she said.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Why didn’t you do this last night?” she said. “When you could?”

  “I didn’t think it would get this bad.”

  They pushed again and together they slipped into the water. They moved out, into the river.

  “Can you stand?” she said.

  “Here in the water.”

  He felt chills and cramps. “Can you hold me?” he said.

  Shosha slipped behind him and stood with her arms around his chest. She tucked her head next to his, set her chin on his shoulder. Karl closed his eyes and his head fell forward. He laughed.

  “Look at us,” he said. “If my brother could see us. If my mother could see us.”

  Shosha smiled.

  “My mother would like you,” Karl said.

  “I’ll meet her someday,” Shosha said. “I’m sure I’ll like her too.”

  Karl was silent for a moment. “I think she’s dead,” he said.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s a feeling.”

  “Why aren’t you crying then?”

  “I don’t have it in me.”

  Shosha looked at the sky, where a lone cloud shadowed the river. She sang softly and slowly, about wishing on stars, waking up to cloudless skies, and troubles melting like lemon drops. Karl turned and looked at her, her soft brown eyes and her hair, wet along the edges.

  “That’s beautiful,” he said.

  “The Wizard of Oz,” she said. “Did you see it?”

  “Me?” He laughed and a spasm bent him. “I have to stop laughing.” He took a breath and straightened and looked across the water. “Is that all?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Do you know the whole song?”

  “I heard it in Warsaw when I was a girl,” she said. “You expect me to remember?”

  “It’s about a rainbow,” Karl said.

  “I thought you didn’t see it?”

  Karl looked at the cloud. It was single and peculiar. “I’m feeling tired,” he said. “You can’t hold me forever.”

  Shosha pulled them toward the shore. “Let’s rest,” she said. “You can stay where it’s shallow.”

  Karl set his head against a rock. Shosha got out of the river and brought fresh water in a can to his lips. He sipped and looked at her. “Tell my brother I loved him,” he said.

  “You can tell him yourself.”

  “No.”

  “You need to drink,” she said. “You have to stay hydrated.”

  “That sounds hard,” Karl said. “I’m tir
ed.”

  Shosha smoothed her hand along his face. “Rest,” she said.

  “Will you sing to me? You have a beautiful voice.”

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  She watched him. His hands slipped from his chest and the water lapped his side. When his breathing was rhythmical, she knew he was asleep. She went ashore and rested against a tree. She looked at Karl. He was turned toward the river and Praga across it. She thought about her mother and the rabbi and for a moment considered swimming across. She fell asleep thinking about the last time she had sucked a lemon drop.

  THE SKY WAS CLOUDY AND THE AIR MUGGY AND THICK. Shosha awakened and didn’t remember where she was. She heard voices and looked toward the river and saw Karl there, lying on his back. The water was higher than before and almost covered his chest. She felt faint in the heat and hungry but the voices roused her. She looked around first and then went down to Karl. A thin white crust glazed his lips. She saw a blister. She knelt down to him and patted his face.

  “Karl—we have to go. Wake up.” She flicked water on his cheek. “Wake up.”

  The voices were closer and she saw a slender line of soldier boys coming over a distant knoll toward the shore. She took Karl’s hands and tugged him. “You have to stand,” she said. “We have to move.”

  He didn’t open his eyes and she placed her ear against his chest. She thought she heard his heart but couldn’t be sure through the water.

  “Help me. Stand. Stand up.”

  She straddled his body and put her arms under his shoulders and tried to lift him. She stopped and considered the water. She slipped him away from the rock and tugged him out until they floated together. She saw his eyes open.

  “You’re awake,” she said. “Try to stand. Help me.”

  She thought they could move down river, away from the soldiers, in the water. She pushed them with her legs and kept her head close to his cheek. She heard him breathing softly. The water around them was still but Shosha saw the river moving faster toward the center. Tree limbs and war waste floated by, submerging in the chop, then surfacing in little eddies.

  She grew up warned about the undertow here and when she felt her legs pulled from beneath her, she was frightened and angry. She held Karl but felt the river tugging him. She kicked her legs and moved to the side of the current. She rested and moved her legs again, keeping her feet on smooth rocks along the hard pebbled bottom. She looked at the tanks on the Praga shore. They moved about a hundred more meters when the undertow pulled Karl out of her hands. She was weaker now but she grabbed his shirt and pulled herself forward and got her arms around his neck. She moved to get a better grip on him but the current slammed against her legs. She struggled to hold Karl and swallowed water and choked.