Warsaw (25 page)

22.

Duritz had not long finished eating but his stomach still
grumbled as he sat in the apartment, staring out of the window. The aroma of
the pea soup which suffused the air was stronger than its flavour. Woollen
clouds hung heavy and low in the evening sky. At least it would be warmish
compared to other recent nights. Kolya was currently out for the evening.
Duritz had given the boy the last of his money - and a spare saucepan - to see
what he could buy or barter in the way of food with the rest of the similarly
desperate occupants of their building.

He could not have told you how he had arrived there in terms
of his train of thought but Adam found himself thinking upon Anna. A glow,
seasoned a little with regret, filled his heart upon remembering the time they
had spent together. The memory of her naked body still coursed through his veins
occasionally. Why had it ended? Did he, or her, end it? Ultimately he just
hoped she was safe.

"What are you thinking about?" Jessica asked
kindly, cautiously. Interested.

"Nothing."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you."

"No, I should be the one apologising. I was thinking
about my brother. It's the not knowing that's so frustrating, depressing,"
Duritz replied, lying.

"For me, it's the not knowing that still gives me
hope," Jessica replied with an attempt of a consoling smile upon her
weathered face, trying to reassure herself as well as her fellow sufferer.

Looking troubled, grave, Adam walked over to the dining
table and sat down. Jessica had been on her feet ever since she had returned in
the late afternoon - cooking, cleaning, sewing - but Duritz now asked her to
sit.

"I will not lie to you Jessica. In a way I suspect that
you already know it anyway - but we haven't got long left. If we do not do
something we are going to be evacuated. It could even be a matter of days
rather than weeks."

"I know," the pensive woman replied after a
moment's pause.

"Nobody can believe the deceptions anymore. Some people
might imagine that if they don't talk about the inevitable it might not happen,
or at least it might be postponed. But they will - or have already begun - to
liquidate the ghetto. I understand that Hoffman's factory has even closed down.
It's been moved to Lubin. No one believes the lies anymore that there will be
food distributed to people if they turn up at the station but still the
transports are full. They will try and squeeze every single soul out of this
ghetto. As methodical and modern as their means are, it's like a Holy War to
some of them. Perhaps we should've treated it as the same."

Jessica just listened, lost in Duritz's brooding features
and persuasive argument. He sat with his arms upon the table with one hand
clenched into a fist, the other hand covering it - in a gesture half towards
aggression, half towards a prayer.

"I promised Thomas that I wouldn't say anything but I
believe that we should be ready if and when the time comes. He is going to
attempt to get us out of the ghetto, pay for someone to put us into hiding. I'm
not going to say that it won't be dangerous, but it is the right thing to do.
We also shouldn't be too proud to accept. It's going to be better to try than
not try at all. I know that now. Someone asked me to go with them and try to
escape before. Sometimes I regret it. But there's a reason why, ultimately, I
don't." It was perhaps only just after when the confession came out of his
mouth that Duritz realised how much truth was in it.

"If you think that we should try to get out then I
think we should. We should not leave though unless we all leave - and stay –
together," Jessica pronounced with a determination equal to Adam's. She
smiled appreciatively at him. Her soft expression helped break the gravity of
the atmosphere. Duritz couldn't help but soften his features too, bathing in
the sight and favour of a changed Jessica. Had she changed just in relation to
him, or to everything, over the past few weeks or so? - Duritz would later
wonder that evening.

Pause.

"What was the reason, if you do not mind me asking, for
you not regretting leaving?"

Pause.

Duritz swallowed and, for the first time since sitting down,
he couldn't look Jessica in the eye.

"All I've ever wanted from life is to care for someone
and to have that someone care for me. Half of my wish has now come true."
The confession appeared to be infused with elements of both discomfort and
relief, so inexplicably bound as to be inseparable. He noticed how black his
fingernails were. His hair was greasy but, thanks to the sisterly care of
Jessica, free from lice. His face often took on a hard or mocking expression -
lean and sallow as it had become through malnutrition - but it expressed
something far finer now. A trembling silence hung in the air for a moment or
two. Raindrops, like fingers being drummed upon a table, sounded upon the
window pane. Then the heavens opened. A bolt of lightning, forked like a
serpent's tongue, suddenly tasted the air of the night sky. For a fleeting
second the white light illuminated both the apartment and a look of devotion.
The man had creepily been obsessed with her in her youth. He was a policeman
and collaborator. He had blackmailed and assaulted her. So much had changed.

Jessica only saw the beautiful, sorrowful soul before her in
the erbium-tinged light. The past was the past. They had once stayed up half
the night talking, or rather Duritz poured out his soul and confessions. His
face was twisted in horror as he recounted how, when accompanying some soldiers
on an aktion one morning, he had unwittingly condemned two children to their
deaths. Upon searching the small room for any valuables, as the SS were
ushering a young couple out of their home by gunpoint, Duritz opened up a chest
of drawers to find two children - no older than six - hiding out in the special
hollowed out piece of furniture. As one of the children, the boy, was about to
scream his older sister put her hand over his mouth. She looked up at the
policeman, pleadingly. Adam could hear one of the soldiers approaching. Should
he shut the draw and pretend they had nothing of worth? But the soldier was
coming over because Duritz had stood gawping at the false draw for a suspicious
amount of time. He would be in trouble himself if found out. They would all
then be selected. All this occurred in an instant. The policeman's mind was
made up for him by the mother screaming and running across the room - placing
herself in front of the chest of draws and imploring Duritz and the soldiers
not to take her children. Hysterical. A Ukrainian soldier - drunk and seething
with rage for being lied to by the Jews - ended the woman's supplications by
shooting her in the head. He then emptied his rifle into the whimpering chest
of draws. Duritz felt like wrestling the rifle from him and turning it upon the
sadistic soldier, but didn't. From that moment on the policeman refrained from
searching through wardrobes and furniture during aktions. Two weeks later
Thomas obtained his leave of absence from the force.

Jessica would give him the same second-chance that Adam was
so desperately trying to give himself. Thunder rumbled in the background,
rippling through the air all across Poland, from Lodz to Pinsk. But Jessica
could only hear the powerful beating of her better heart

"Maybe more than half of your wish has come true,"
Jessica replied. "You're not the only one who doesn't regret you leaving
when you had the chance."

From gazing down at his cold hands upon the table Duritz
suddenly glanced up at a Jessica, as if he had somehow been jolted back to
life. His eyes shone with prosperity. They had to express his thoughts, for his
heart was in his mouth and Adam was momentarily incapable of speech. Love exists.

The magnetism of the telling moment was soon interrupted
however as the door noisily clunked open. Kolya had returned. If the boy had
been sober and alert he might have noticed the strange looks Jessica and Adam
exchanged, but his wits and mobility had been dulled by the pint of spirits he
had drunk during the evening, albeit he came back with some food also (bread,
some butter and a couple of turnips). Both were unhappy with the boy for his
inebriated state and also the prodigious waste of their valuables. Jessica
especially pursed her lips and glared at her young brother. Yet she bit her
tongue and did not say anything. She did not want to cause any friction in the
household, especially since they would all need each other soon. The last
vestiges of any determination Jessica had to castigate Kolya for his selfish
behaviour were dispelled by a knowing shake of the head by Adam. Disappointment
more than disapproval sat upon Duritz's countenance. He promised himself he
would say something to Kolya on the quiet. Duritz more than most knew what the
youth was going through; he could sympathise with how the youth was
increasingly craving alcohol to forget about his bleak present and black
future.

The loud hiss of the wind, as well as his turbulent
thoughts, kept Thomas awake. He clutched the envelope beneath his blanket.
Maria had written a long letter, fraught with questions and veiled accusations,
to accompany the money that she had sent. Thomas had read over it once but then
discarded the note. In his mind he formed the resolution and practical steps to
carry out his plan. He would visit Adam in the morning. He would give him the
money. Adam would then see his contact and arrange for their escape and
sanctuary on the other side. Thomas would meet Adam afterwards and they would
go together to discuss things with Jessica in the evening. The German here
began to think of Jessica, discomfort mixed with attraction mixed with conceit
mixed with alcohol. Thomas was soon disturbed though in his fanciful reverie.
Voices sounded from behind the curtains which made up the walls of his billet.

"I'm not going to have a go at you for what you've just
done. All I'm going to say is don't do it again. I don't believe you're like
them so don't act like it. Do you know the most common enemy you're going to
face during your posting lads?" Oscar Hummel asked the two new recruits
who had joined the platoon the day before.

"No sir," a callow Private diffidently replied.
The youth found his new senior Private imposing, both in his experience and
physical presence. The veteran soldier had caught them firing shots from their
rifles into windows of the tenement blocks on the other side of the walls,
imitating a couple of SS Lance-Corporals.

"Your enemy will be boredom. You lost to him this
evening - and he'll whisper in your ear like the devil again - but although
boredom is a common enemy he's also one that's easily bested. Do you know what
is your best defence against boredom is lad?" Oscar said to the other raw
Wehrmacht recruit, who was timidly standing next to his co-penitent. Before he
could garner a reply the Private answered his own question.

"You may think that routine is the comrade of boredom,
or its spur, but routine will save you from boredom, not make you its victim.
Practise your drills, do your job, find an interest. Find a routine. I don't
enjoy disciplining you - which is partly why I'll come down even harder on you
when I do - so self-discipline yourselves. You should count yourselves
unbelievably lucky not to have been posted to the Front. Don't piss away your
good fortune and honour over one reckless act."
    

A hint of a smile coloured the Corporal's expression as he
lay in bed, listening to the exchange. Thomas pictured each chiselled and sage
expression on Oscar's face as he delivered again his induction speech. Thomas
knew the Private's words by heart; he could also amuse himself by mimicking his
gruff voice. It was not only a sense of fondness for his reliable Private
though which warmed the Corporal's innards this raw evening. A sense of sturdy
relief coursed through his veins, in that should he be compromised or worse in
his attempt to help Jessica he knew that the unit would be in good hands. They
would still retain their shape and character under Oscar's unofficial
authority. His resolve was stiffened all the more by the consoling thought.

Jessica tip-toed back into her room and bed and wrapped her
blankets around her to form a chrysalis to trap the warmth in. A virile
expression shone forth in the girl's pretty features - indeed it was the
expression which made her pretty. She could not sleep - dreaming about the
possibilities of freedom and being with Adam. She ventured out for a small cup
of water. Duritz was awake also, drowsy upon the same thoughts which were flowering
inside of Jessica. The happy couple spied each other.

"Sorry, I didn't wake you did I?" Jessica said
quietly and sweetly, delighted in a way to have woken Adam even if he had been
asleep.

"No," Duritz replied, or rather mouthed,
smilingly.

"I just need a glass of water. Do you want
anything?"

"Earplugs would be nice," Adam dryly said whilst
rolling his eyes in the direction of a snoring Kolya.

Jessica tried to bite her lip and suppress a slight giggle
but she couldn't. She did however quickly and apologetically put her hand over
her mouth afterwards as if she had hiccupped after drinking a glass of
champagne. Adam coughed out a laugh himself in reply to Jessica's adorable and
infectious amusement. It was then as if the past hour or so had not occurred.
They suddenly re-forged that same intent and sentimental look they had shared
previously - before Kolya had interrupted the moment with his return. Although
Jessica didn't actually say anything Adam responded.

"Let's just take it one day at a time though. In a way
we have to," he said sweetly, meaningfully, all the while however somewhat
comically speaking from the position of lying upon the floor, his face poking
out above his clay-coloured blankets.