While Still We Live (17 page)

Eugenia, her furs and jewels quite forgotten in her misery, watched the earnest, angry face of the young Commissar as he berated the peasants who had dismantled the Aleksander house, who had dressed in their best clothes to celebrate the day when every man was his own master and need not work. They were as bewildered as Eugenia was unhappy. The big house was not theirs to plunder; it belonged to the State. Their gay clothes were useless: the State wanted workers soberly dressed, soberly thinking. Her face was a proud mask as she set off on the nightmare journey into an unknown country. Furs and jewels were useless to staunch the blood which oozed through the cracks in her hand-sewn shoes.

In Kawka’s kitchen at Korytów, Aunt Marta lay in bed with Teresa and Kawka’s two little girls. The German officers in the Korytowski house grumbled at the lack of linen and silver, at the empty pantry shelves, at the kitchen’s disorder. Aunt Marta smiled grimly to herself, and listened to Teresa’s breathing. She would be all right, now, although her right hand would never play on a piano again. Stefan lay awake in Kawka’s room. He couldn’t sleep because he had so much thinking to do. What could he do to hurt
Them
most? He had seen what
They
had done to the village and to Wanda and Teresa. What could he do to
Them?

Andrew Aleksander lay in a cattle truck, his right leg shattered at the thigh. He listened to the moaning of the wounded men jammed into this evil-smelling box as the train lumbered slowly into Germany. It was strange how he persisted in living when he wanted to die. He had seen so many men, who wanted to live, die. If this truck was left unattended in sidings for eight hours, as it had been yesterday, perhaps he would. The body, crushed
against his, twitched in a violent spasm and then lay still. The dead man’s arm was across Andrew’s mouth. He hadn’t the strength left to shake himself free.

Madame Aleksander was attempting to rescue the few scraps of equipment still recognisable from the ruins of the operating theatre. She worked silently, trying not to think of the flames leaping greedily on the other side of the small courtyard where the western wing of the hospital had been set on fire. For one moment, the hot red light disappeared; the crackling and hissing and guns and roaring planes were silent. In the cool darkness, the family were around her. Teresa’s nose was crinkled over its freckles as she laughed; Stefan, large-eyed and silent and smiling; Andrew waiting for her to speak with one eyebrow slightly raised; Stanislaw, serious, worried, bitter, gentle; Barbara, her head thrown back, her eyes seeing some pleasant secret of her own... The fainting spell could only have lasted a moment, for when the faces had gone with the cool velvety darkness, the flames had come only a little nearer. Madame Aleksander looked up at the young Sister who had taken three steps to reach her where she had fallen on her knees. The girl moved over the rubble and dust with the grace that her training had made natural for her. Did she ever think of ballet, now? Madame Aleksander wondered. But then, there was so little time for thinking these days. So little time for sleep, and escape into dreams.

The Sister’s graceful arm helped her to her feet.

“Perhaps we should rest,” she said, looking at Madame Aleksander’s driven face.

“Perhaps.”

They worked on.

BARBARA

Sometimes Sheila, when she had an interval free for thinking, would imagine that the last days of Warsaw were the very essence of Greek tragedy. You knew there could be no hope, no happy ending. Yet this knowledge did not end the suspense. The drama mounted steadily, intensely, until you felt that the human mind and body could bear no more; until the last scene reached the final anguish. For the very character of these people of Warsaw would not let them end their miseries. If they had been made of more selfish, worldly stuff, then they would have found an excuse long before the end to save themselves from the full course of the tragedy. Their pride, their nationalism, their courage, their fatalism made their actions inevitable. Even their individualism, which had served them so ill in the past, now strengthened their resistance. Their strong historical ties bound them to their decision. Above all, the vision of another captivity made life seem something not to be hoarded.

The American, grey-faced and taciturn, had looked at her curiously for a moment when, under the influences of a plate of hot food, she had told him these thoughts. They had met for that promised dinner in the restaurant of the Hotel Europejski. Barbara, at the last moment, had been unable to come. One of the other nurses had sprained an ankle, and Barbara insisted on doing extra night duty with her children. She had also insisted that Sheila should go to the restaurant. Sheila, she had said with much truth, was still not completely well, was working too hard, was in need of a warm meal and a two-hour rest; and Russell Stevens would just be the right person to cheer her up. So Barbara had insisted. So had Stevens. And here Sheila was, trying to concentrate on a kind of soup made with boiled meat and rice which was the regulated and only choice in all the restaurants, trying to think of something to say which wouldn’t deal with the war. It was difficult.

Stevens must have felt that too. He looked at his plate speculatively. “Ever eaten here, before?”

“No. In June, Barbara and I ate at the smaller places.” She smiled. “We didn’t have any expense accounts, you know.”

He laughed in spite of himself. “It’s a pity you didn’t see some of their chief places. Good food and wise. Boy, I lie awake and dream of them, now.”

“This food is better than I’ve tasted in a long time.”

“Which proves one of my theories. Good cooking is only the daughter of invention. The more disguises you have for food, the bigger chef you are. Now this stuff—” He jabbed at his plate with his fork. “Well, we all know just what kind of meat is left in Warsaw. I believe even cardboard would taste good if it had the proper seasoning and sauces.”

“I’m too hungry to be disillusioned,” Sheila said. She tried not to think of the horse which had been machine-gunned today on the street near the children’s hostel. Nor to think of its skeleton, stripped bare, only an hour later.

She tried very hard to look round the large room nonchalantly. “Not so many people here tonight,” she began, but the American’s amused smile stopped her.

“I guess that was what you might call a light conversational gambit.”

“There’s enough heavy conversation from those guns.” Sheila now gave up all pretence of not appearing to listen to the constant methodically timed shells. “Twenty hours, now,” she said. “Twenty hours without pausing for five minutes.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still counting them?”

“Why do I amuse you so much?” she demanded frankly and suddenly.

He looked as guilty as a small boy caught inside a jam cupboard. “Not
amuse
,” he said. “There’s the wrong sound to that word.”

“But you laugh at me. Half the time, you are laughing inside yourself. What’s so funny about me?”

Stevens was taken aback. “You’ve got me all wrong,” he protested too vehemently. Amused? He wondered. Surprised would be nearer it. She surprised him into smiling. He was feeling cheerier than he had felt for almost a week now.

“What have you been doing since you left the apartment?” he asked.

“Reading simple Polish stories to the younger children. Drawing funny pictures. Making rabbits out of handkerchiefs. Barbara won’t let me do much of the heavier work, yet. Sort
of funny, isn’t it, to spend the last six days since I’ve seen you doing nothing but thinking up things so that the children won’t think of other things? And what have you been doing?”

“The usual.”

“The last of the diplomats and the journalists left four days ago.”

“Meaning, what am I still doing here? Much the same as you are. Probably less.” He smiled and added, “How’s friend Olszak?”

Sheila was smiling too, but her eyes were watchful. “Tell me, Russell, did you ask me to dinner tonight because you were being polite, or because you wanted to keep track of Sheila Matthews?”

He wasn’t smiling now, although this was the biggest surprise she had yet given him. “I had a much more natural reason than either of those,” he answered, and saw he had routed her. She was still watching him, but this time she wasn’t quite sure whether to be pleased at the implied compliment or to be afraid that she had seen a compliment where none was intended. She shifted her ground and got back onto a safer level of conversation.

“What about your job?”

“That’s over, meanwhile. I think that I’ll get it back once I do get out of Poland. The New York office will come round to seeing it my way. If ever they wanted a big story, then this is the place to get it and not on the road to Rumania.” He was being casual about it, but Sheila guessed he was more worried than he sounded. He had been enthusiastic about his job; now, perhaps, he had ended the career he had chosen by his decision to stay here. He went on talking as if to persuade himself that
all was well. “There’s one other American reporter left. He has the same idea as I have. And my Swedish friend and several others on the staff of the American Bank are still here. The bank is going to keep open even if the Germans do take over. Then there are skeletons staffs at all the neutral embassies. So we aren’t the only foreigners left in Warsaw.”

“But why doesn’t your head office see it your way now? Why did you have to lose your job?”

“I’ll get it back again, perhaps. That’s more than you can say for the guys in this country. And anyway, the New York office was probably right. It’s quite a chance that my big story will be cold news by the time I leave here.” Sheila’s face was such a study in horror that a smile was forced out of him.

“But people have
got
to listen,” she said. “If they don’t then all this sacrifice is useless.”

“People react in ways you don’t expect. Some will see the writing on the wall, and start taking action. Some will say it’s propaganda and warmongering. And some will say that it’s all too tragic—give us something with a tune in it. Why should they listen anyway? I agree with you, personally. But why should they? Why shouldn’t they just go on concentrating on pleasanter subjects?”

“Because it weakens them, because they are making themselves incomplete, because—” She floundered in her attempt to express what she felt: her emotions were racing far ahead of the words on her tongue. She took a deep breath. “Look. This evening I arrived here babbling about Greek tragedy. Now I know I really meant it. For why did the Greeks believe so much in tragedy? They must have, or they couldn’t have written such good ones. Didn’t they believe that men must
have a periodical housecleaning in their minds and emotions? Wasn’t that why they gave men drama which roused their pity and fear? Pity was for the characters in the tragedy; fear was for the audience’s own chance of having the same kind of experience. Pity and fear together make a powerful purge for any mind. A public which won’t look at or listen to tragedy develops a sluggish mind. That’s what the ancient Greek knew. And the richness of their minds has never been equalled.”

“Didn’t I hear some place that Athens once fell? And for good?”

“Yes, it fell when its people didn’t want to hear or believe unpleasant things.” Sheila relaxed again. “You see,” she said more quietly, “I really
feel
this. I really believe it I am worried for those people outside: not the people here—I pity and I admire
them
. And I feel so angry when I see what is happening to them that I could go out and kill fifty Germans with my own bare hands. I could... If I couldn’t I would be a callous wretch. But I worry... Poland is nailed to the cross. And the rest of humanity will not be warned in time. If what you say is true, that your news of the siege will be cold news in a month or two, then this whole sacrifice is in vain.”

“You speak like a Pole.”

“No,” Sheila said slowly, “like a Scot. If I were a Pole, then sacrifice in itself would be so noble that I wouldn’t worry about what it pays for. I can’t bear to see sacrifice wasted.”

The old waiter stood beside them. “Another alert has been sounded. The management offers the wine cellars as suitable shelter.” He had said it so often in the last three weeks that he might have been announcing that veal was off the menu today. “This way,” he added, and waited for them to rise.

Stevens looked at Sheila with an eyebrow raised.

“No one bothers, now,” she said, and Stevens shook his head at the waiter. The old man nodded and went slowly as if he had expected that. His shoulders were bent, his feet hardly lifted off the ground. He was very old. He went to the other tables. Only three people rose, and these hurried out of doors with the business-like look of some duty to be done. Air raid wardens, Sheila thought. They had probably come here to relax in an off-duty interval. But they had known there was no off-duty time for anyone when a big raid was announced.

“It must be a very big one,” Sheila. “They don’t bother to let us know about the average ones, now.”

The American nodded, lit another cigarette, and kept looking at her.

“The Greeks...” he said. “I believe we were talking about the Greeks. So you don’t believe in modern progress?”

“Bigger and better battles?” She flinched suddenly and caught the edge of the table. “Wish I wouldn’t do that,” she said shamefaced, after the explosion had died away.

“I was almost under the table, myself, at that moment.” They both laughed at that, rather too loudly, rather too vehemently.

“Let’s keep talking,” the American urged. I didn’t bring her here to have her talk, he thought and laughed again, this time at himself.

“I’m overtalking,” Sheila said. “I don’t know why... I don’t usually do this.”

“It’s the reaction to the bombs,” Stevens said gently. “Some people think of food all the time. Others want to sleep. Others want to make love. Others talk their heads off.”

Sheila smiled. “Unfortunate for you that I am the kind
that...” She paused, as if she had said more than she should have.