Warsaw (11 page)

But for a moment Thomas paused and felt a shard of
vulnerability and disadvantage, but then replied.
 

"I fear that we've both changed - for good or ill -
from our University days, have we not Lieutenant?"

Halina Rubenstein's hands ached, as if someone had plunged
her bones into boiling - or freezing - water. Rheumatism. And there was nothing
for the pain. She had just finished, or amended, writing yet another letter to her
children. It was the one, kept beneath the floorboards with what little
valuables the family had left, which said goodbye to her darling Jessica and
Kolya and instructed them in what they were to do should she and their father
be taken away. More and more over the past week or so Halina had obsessed over
the contents and tone of the note. Re-writing. Re-writing. Sentimental.
Practical. Authoritative.

The dull rheumy eyes of her husband rested upon her as
Halina wrote and talked to herself while drafting the letter. Halina often
asked his advice on what and how to put something, or if he too had anything
special he wanted to say in the letter, but for the most part Solomon
Rubenstein remained inexpressive or at best monosyllabic. He shrugged his
shoulders or occasionally nodded in assent when his wife read parts of the note
back to him. But his pebble of a heart wasn't in it. The once active doctor - a
member of the Warsaw Liberal Club, keen angler, devoted husband and father -
only became animated now in his fits of coughing or when he compulsively
scratched his scalp or skin rashes. He would scour till the skin would break
and bleed. Halina even had to trim his nails a day or so ago to prevent the
doctor from further doing harm to himself.

Both players were schooled enough in the game to desire to
control the centre of the board - and both had been willing to sacrifice pieces
to do so. Christian Kleist however had proved himself the more successful and
aggressive player in achieving the upper hand, to the point of ignoring or
dismissing his opponent's superiority along the sides of the board. Partly to
put Thomas off, and partly from intrigue, the Lieutenant was confrontational in
his conversation as well as in his play. Out of the blue he unassumingly exclaimed

"Do you still write? I think I still might even have an
old copy of your book of poetry somewhere on a shelf back home."

"I'm too busy writing out cheques for my wife to
indulge in writing anything else nowadays I'm afraid."

A thin smile laced Christian Kleist's smooth features but
internally he was frustrated with the Corporal's glib humour. Not a single bead
of sweat was dotted upon the Corporal's countenance whilst the Lieutenant grew
increasingly hot and uncomfortable in his tightly worn uniform. In between
moves he began to blow cold air out of the side of his mouth to cool his
sweat-glazed face, or he would shuffle in his damp chair. Questions were
deflected. Attacks nullified by a strategy which was almost deliberately
designed to engineer a draw. Yet at least the officer had now been gifted an
opening in terms of a certain subject he wished to broach.

"I can certainly sympathise with being too busy to have
any leisure time of late. I feel like I am as much a clerk as a soldier
sometimes. Actually, I'd be grateful for your advice Corporal on a related
topic. To help me with my administrative duties I'm toying with the idea of
employing a secretary. For reasons of security I'd rather recruit someone from
our ranks, rather than from the civilian population."

The Lieutenant noted the slight change - the inquisitive
narrowing of the eyes - in the Wehrmacht Corporal's expression. Thomas
Abendroth was indeed curious and suspicious as to the sudden change of subject.
For a second or two Thomas was worried that Kleist might have been trying to
recruit him for the position.

"You have a young Private in your platoon, a Dietmar
Klos. What are your thoughts on his suitability and character?"

"It's a shame that sometimes his ability and judgement
do not match his enthusiasm for things, but I cannot give him a poor reference
- if that's what you’re asking."

"If, as you say, he possesses enthusiasm and a
willingness to please then the correct abilities and forms of judgement may be
moulded into him I dare say. The position could ultimately prove advantageous
to the youth, not only from the experience he will glean - but so too his
position will secure him exemption from any transfer to the Eastern Front.
Should he have a fiancé, or even sweetheart, this would be an incentive would
it not for him to accept the post? Do you know by chance if indeed the boy does
have a girl back home, or is engaged to be married?"

"I've heard him talk of his family back home
occasionally, but no, I do not believe he's seriously attached."

Something inside of Thomas, the itch of suspicion or
strangeness, began to stir. Something was amiss. Although the position could
indeed prove advantageous for the lad Thomas grew afeared that he might have
sealed the decision for Dietmar to be recruited onto the dangerous officer's
staff.

"Are you not worried that Klos might be too
inexperienced for the post?"

"No, if I'm honest I'd prefer someone free from the
cynicism and coarseness of having a long service record. I've always been one
for letting our youth get ahead Thomas. As a teacher I'm sure you too can
appreciate that philosophy. Besides, his academic achievements suggests he will
be equal to the task and pick-up the duties entailed in no time."

"It seems that you have gained a secretary, whilst I
have lost a Private."

"I will certainly interview him to assess his
suitability. I'd be grateful however if, in the same way that you have given
him a reference, you could offer him a recommendation regarding the positives
in accepting the post. Although of course he'll have no choice in the matter
should he be officially ordered to transfer. That's check."

Jessica's weary face softened and radiated warmth and
comfort. It was a beautiful but affected expression, put on for the eleven year
old boy who lay peacefully in his bed - indeed the emaciated appeared so serene
that Jessica thought for a moment that little Joshua could have already passed
away. She clutched his hand to check for a response. Nothing. The trainee nurse
took his pulse. Weak, slow. Natural causes they'd call it. At least the worst
of it seemed to be over for the boy. No more palsy, coughing up blood,
migraines. His countenance was yellow, snow white and grey all at the same
time. His eyes, owl-like in his shrunken features, were closed. Joshua would
die in his sleep. He would be one of the fortunate ones.

Death thickened the air of the hospital. Grotesque, unreal,
commonplace death. Such was the rate of infection in the wards that it was
perhaps safer to keep the sick at home. All the hospital could do was prolong
people's suffering, grant false hope. Jessica mused that she had recently
become more of a mortuary worker than a nurse. She sat transfixed beside the
withered child, who Jessica had grown attached to over the past week or so, admiring
his fortitude and taking it upon herself to make the orphan feel loved in his
last days. But her inward eye was soon dragged back to the morning's events.
She shuddered, as if someone had just opened a window and there was a sudden
draught.

The cloakroom of the old newspaper offices, which was now a
hospital, had been converted into an auxiliary delivery room. And it was the
coats and rags of the dead which clothed and propped up the unmarried, wild
looking woman who was about to give birth. Some said she had been raped by a
Latvian policeman, but that the girl was determined to keep the baby. The
doctors advised her that the unborn child - and the girl herself - would in all
possibility not survive should she persist in going through with the pregnancy.
The woman had been adamant though in her wish - and religious hope - to have
the baby. "I'm not a murderer, I'm not a murderer," she had issued,
"You cannot take my baby away.” Such was the hysterical scene she had made
- and with the doctor being too tired to argue - he had allowed the girl go
ahead with the pregnancy. Greta however remained pregnant for longer than
anyone could have expected, through both blind fortune and the woman's own
zealous devotion to her unborn child. Her whole life became centred on looking
after herself - and the baby. She took on two, sometimes three jobs - from a
water vender's assistant to being a seamstress. Yet, what she joyfully thought
were labour pains after believing herself nine months pregnant, were not.

And so the farcical pregnancy approached its tragic
conclusion. The woman underwent a caesarean. The baby was stillborn: bloody,
blotchy, blue, veiny. Barely human. Awkwardness and silence overpowered the
room, as well as the smell. They both knew of the fervour and history of the
victim. The doctor shook his head at the pity and waste of it all - and at the
folly of the girl.

"I'm sorry Greta, but the child is stillborn," the
doctor announced with professional sympathy, coming out from behind the bloody
sheet which lay between himself and the torso and head of his patient.

"Isn't there anything you can do? Are you sure doctor?
I had a dream that he'd be all right. It is a boy, isn't it doctor?"

"Yes."

"I knew it would be a boy," she softly said,
smiling to herself, her face slippery with sweat, her hair matted to her
flushed cheeks and forehead.

"Can I see him, hold him? I named him David."

"Yes."

Jessica gave the doctor a hesitant look but he nodded as if
to say it would be fine. Although the nurse had left her squeamish days behind
her, Jessica still could not bring herself to pick up the awful child-corpse
directly. She found a bloodied cream sheet, wrapped the baby in it and handed
the stiff, fleshy bundle to the doctor who in turn carefully passed it over to
the doting mother.

"He's beautiful, beautiful. And he's just
sleeping" an altered Greta confidently exclaimed, nuzzling the baby's
slimy face into her own. Her drawn countenance suddenly brightened. Next she
clasped the tiny, shrunken baby by his hand, moving his arm up and down as if
to animate the dead infant. Tears of joy and pride, not grief, moistened the
would-be mother's eyes. Jessica passively took in the pathetic, gruesome scene.
Compassionate. Sickened.

"We must thank the doctor and nurse for what they've
done," Greta next expressed, speaking in the ubiquitous, silly,
high-pitched voice one naturally adopts when talking to children. She turned
the small horrific child towards Jessica and her kind doctor as if he were a
plastic doll. Such had been Greta's desire to have these fond, maternal moments
with her baby that her dream subdued the gory reality.

"He'll grow up to be a soldier I think, like his
Grandfather."

With a hundred and one other things to do the two staff here
left the patient, neither indulging nor destroying Greta's derangement and
macabre role-playing. When the doctor returned however, half an hour later or
so, he found the baby carefully wrapped up - with a Star Of David upon his
chest - and his mother dead, drenched in a pool of syrupy blood from where she
had slit her wrists. The doctor had called her - with a certain distaste laced
in his tone - "another holy fool". Jessica dealt with both of the
bodies.
 

  
Will I ever become
as delusional about my fate? - the nurse asked herself, Joshua's hand growing
cold and stiff in hers. There was a cheekiness and bravery in his humour which
had reminded Jessica of Kolya. The parallel between the two - and Jessica's
alignment with Greta - could not help but instil into the nurse a chilling, contemplative
air. Unless something happened - or she did nothing - why shouldn't she and her
brother share the same end as Greta and little Joshua? Warm tears seeped from
her puffy eyes - tears salted with injustice, pity, confusion, abandonment. But
not helpless resignation. If it was not that end it would be another, similarly
doom-laden. But no. Thomas. Jessica would see him again. He would save them
all. Or she would.

Christian Kleist stared intently at the board, populated now
with only a dozen or so pieces. He believed, from the way that his opponent's
pieces were grouped together, that he had the Corporal on the back foot. The
Lieutenant needed to deliver one more attack, take one more significant piece,
to seal a gratifying victory. Although no one openly mentioned the fact but as
well as being a match between Thomas and Kleist the game was also an unspoken
contest between the SS and Wehrmacht. The match throughout had been close. For
a time, after occupying the centre of the board and picking off some of his
opponent's pieces with some aggressive play from his queen, it had looked like
the game might be getting away from the Wehrmacht Corporal. But Thomas,
sacrificing his own queen, took the Lieutenant's own most potent attacking
piece and evened the odds. Yet still the officer seemed to possess the upper
hand with his numerical superiority. Such was his concentration that Christian
even cessated his gamesmanship by refraining from questioning and trying to
distract his opponent. Kleist then saw it. In ten moves, he could win.

Believing victory to be comfortably in his sights Christian
again began to chat to his opponent.

"Do you still fence? You're in a rare position, having
been a poet also, as to judge which is the mightier, the pen or the
sword?"

"Unfortunately we've now designed far greater weapons
as to make the argument appear redundant."

"I dare say you could be a politician Thomas. You have
a natural talent for never giving a straight answer."

"Politicians pretend to have all the answers, I'm afraid
I don't have a single one."

During this brief exchange each player traded three moves
apiece, with neither of them even glancing at the board. Christian was
confident and quickly played out the moves which would bring him checkmate.
Thomas kept his attention, and that of his opponent's, away from the board as
he knew the placement of every piece upon it - and the strategies of the
players. It was too late, for Christian. The Corporal's pawn, insignificant and
dormant for most of the game, would inch its way across a couple more squares
and become a queen. The game could then be over in ten moves or so in the
Corporal's favour. Thomas afforded himself a smile upon witnessing his arrogant
opponent's reaction when he realised that he had all but been defeated. The
Lieutenant's handsome features tightened in sourness, yet his nostrils flared
as if he were about to snort fire. He felt sick, cheated. The self-disciplined
officer reined himself in however.