Lumen (19 page)

“Well, then give it to me, for old times’ sake.”

Water splashed in the tub as Retz sat up in it. “I couldn’t do that, Ewusia. What am I going to tell my wife if I don’t bring it back?”

“Who cares?” Vigorously, Ewa brushed through her hair. “She’s a sow.”

Retz tried to laugh. “Ewa…”

“Tell me she’s a sow.”

“She’s just an old girl.”

“You know she’s a sow. Tell me.”

Retz sank back into the water, this time nearly to his chin. “She’s a sow. All women are sows compared to you.” His head went under for a moment, and emerged again. “Is that all right?”

Ewa laughed. She grabbed the wide bath towel and tossed it at him. “That’s better.” When he began to stand up, the water-soaked heavy cloth clung around him and he fell back in the tub, laughing also. He struggled to get free from the towel, hands and feet splashing soapy water around the bathroom.

Ewa was sitting on the side of the tub when his head came out of the dripping cloth.

“Does being married to a sow make me a swine?” He stepped out of the water and reached for her.

She pulled away, slapping his hand. “You know it does.”

The woods started just off the road. From where Bora stood at Schenck’s side, the darkness of firs ate some of the luminosity of the sky. For two hours officers of the Russian 17th Rifle Corps had shown them more equipment taken from the defeated Polish army, bicycles and horse-drawn vehicles, heaps of cavalry harnesses. Among the other vehicles Bora noticed two convertible Polski-Fiat staff cars. He remembered the Polish cavalry officer had told him some of his colleagues had been dragged off to be shot after riding in their cars to surrender.

Schenck was anxious to read the Russian proposal for collaboration in Intelligence matters, especially as related to partisan activity. He champed at the bit while viewing more trophies. Where the woods opened into a snow-patched dirt expanse, a camp was set up, complete with table, chairs and bottles of liquor.

With the commissar constantly keeping pace with him, Bora found it difficult to have a private word with the colonel, and gave up the attempt of using the field latrine for the purpose when the commissar showed that he was headed in the same direction.

Colonel Schenck did not show half the anger Bora knew him to feel. Still, “Go ahead,” he said after a time, “tell these shit-headed Ivans that we have no reports that Polish nationals manhandled Ukrainian settlers in our sector. Make them understand that if we had such reports we would have followed up on them. Tell them I reject the insinuation that we have ignored reports.”

The discussion had been degenerating for the past quarter-hour, primarily on issues of communiqué-sharing and joint anti-partisan activities. The thin veneer of the occasional alliance began to wear down as soon as generalities were forsaken in favour of details. Schenck
and the Red Army colonel made as unlikely a pair of bedfellows as Bora could envision, saving perhaps himself and the commissar. He translated accurately, feeling the tension of the job every time a word lent itself to misunderstanding or multiple meanings.

They were sitting at a long dining-room table incongruously placed in the middle of a clearing, fringed with fir trees and lined with Russian army tents. Everyday vodka, straw-coloured vodka from Georgia, the overwhelming dark one they called “huntsman’s vodka” sat before him. Bora decided he would not drink past the fourth glass, and chose his words, certain that he would ever more associate the resinous scent of firs with a sense of unease. Matters grew worse when a veiled accusation was brought up that German troops had fired on Red Army units, not only during the confusion of the first days, but as late as a week past. Schenck demanded a clarification, which came back as a naked indictment. In a rigid fury, he ordered Bora to counter with accusations of the opposite. “Give them dates, places, the whole of it. Show them pictures of damage to our equipment.”

Bora complied. The photographs were at once snatched from his hands by the commissar, before the Russian colonel had a chance to view them. An animated exchange ensued, during which Schenck grew irate enough to charge the Red Army with wholesale execution of Polish prisoners of war.

“Get to the point, Bora. Ask them how they would like for us to make an international issue out of
that.
”

Brusquely, the Russian colonel left the table in a flash of steel-grey cloth. Vodka danced in the bottle and the glasses tinkled at his hasty departure. The commissar at first engaged in a silent staring match with Bora, and then rose from his chair and went to retrieve the colonel.

“Shit.” Schenck let himself go to frustration. “I didn’t mean to bring up the damn story of the Polack prisoners. What did you exactly tell him?”

“I kept it vague, but they still took it badly.”

“I can see that.” Schenck looked beyond Bora, at the tent in front of which their counterparts thickly discussed this turn of events among themselves. He reached for the bottle and poured himself a dose of dark vodka, which he swallowed in a gulp. “When they come back, let’s pay some lip-service. Tell them you didn’t translate correctly, that it was your mistake.”

“They’ll know it isn’t true, Colonel.”

“Make it credible. You’re young enough and low-ranking enough to take the blame.”

The afternoon was sunny and cold in Cracow. Helenka’s voice through the telephone made Retz lusty and hopeful at first.

“No, Richard. I can’t. I’m not even done preparing the part, and dress rehearsals begin pretty soon. It’s my first important role, and I can’t foul it up. We can see one another again after the first night, depending on how it goes.”

Retz groaned. “Do you mean we don’t get to spend any time together between now and then?”

“We can see each other for lunch or something like that. I just don’t feel I should be using time at night this way, that’s when I study the part best.”

“Well, people don’t make love only at night.”

“I don’t like hotels-I mean, for that kind of thing.”

“I’ll tell you what,
luby.
I’ll compromise. I’ll leave you alone for three days, and then I’ll call you and see if
you want to get away for a couple of hours. Study hard those three days.” Retz flipped through the pages of his appointment book on the desk, looking for Ewa’s number. “I love you, too.”

There was only one telephone in the tenement where Ewa lived, so he had to wait until the porter went to check if
Pana
Kowalska was home, four storeys worth of slow climbing and descending steps again. It was one more disappointment to hear that Ewa was out. Pages flipped forwards in the appointment book.

“Yes, hello? I’m looking for
Panienka
Basia Plutinska - Yes, please put her on.”

 

After liberally partaking of vodka over a satisfactory agreement in the woods, the appeased Russian and German representatives had adjourned with the prospect of more sight-seeing and dinner at Lvov. By mid-afternoon on the 13th, though, Schenck had had enough of the meeting. He waited until he and Bora sat alone in the car, while their Russian driver filled the tank from an aluminium can. Then, “Screw them all,” he spat out. “I’m going back tomorrow, Bora. Stay behind to supervise details, and meet me at the border. From there we travel to Tarnów and there we part ways. I expect you to resume your routine interrogation of Polacks before you return to headquarters.”

But neither Schenck nor Bora could avoid one more dinner with the Russians. Fish served raw, salted, in vinegar, opened the way to grouse swimming in cream, and to thick ham slices lying on beds of caviar and boiled eggs. Watching him eat, from the moment he sat down beside him, the commissar seemed to take perverse pleasure in challenging Bora with complex sentences and verb forms. Bora did well but was troubled, and he didn’t know why. Over a dessert of
mazurek
he finally understood.

“Tell me,” the commissar was saying, “how could a fluent speaker as yourself make such a patent mistake during our talks? I don’t believe there was a mistake at all, Captain.”

Bora took a discreet belly breath. Sedately, he put down the fork on his plate. From a bowl in front of him, he selected a small cake, whose thin paper wrapping he undid. “You call these ‘chocolate bears’, do you not?” He smiled. “I hope you’re not accusing me of lying.”

“No. Mistakes are more acceptable.”

 

Cracow was frigid, but the temperature in the Curia was drowsily pleasant, and it wasn’t easy to rouse the archbishop’s attention. If Father Malecki hadn’t felt compelled by the need to discuss Sister Barbara before Bora’s return, he’d have given up the effort. As it was, he allowed himself to insist.

“Your Eminence, she runs a high risk,” he said. “Her family has repudiated her since she converted. After all, her father was
shochet
in their hometown. From his perspective, it was a terrible humiliation for him that his only daughter should forsake her people’s ways. One of the requirements for the position of ritual animal slaughterer is that the man be of unsullied character, and he voluntarily resigned after the scandal broke.”

“What did you say the community was?”

“Biała.”

“Hm.” The archbishop frowned as he controlled a yawn. “I know the town. The Jews account for less than twenty per cent of the population there.”

Malecki fixed his eyes on the window behind the archbishop’s head. Snow twirled furiously beyond the panes, a wet snow that wouldn’t last. He found it odd that the number of Jews in Biała should concern the archbishop more than his story.

“Not that her family could help her now, Your Eminence. I hear that the Biała Jews are being resettled.”

Obliviously the archbishop folded his elegant hands in his lap. “It is a glory for the Church that someone from such a background would be called into the fold.”

“Well, the Germans are requiring that all Jewish women attach the name ‘Sarah’ to their given name. I don’t think I should be telling Captain Bora about her, just in case.”

“Will you keep the dream from him also?”

“Yes.” Malecki blew his nose moderately. “Making the Germans aware of Sister Barbara’s presence would be a worse sin than withholding information about a dream. I doubt Captain Bora could do much with it anyway.”

The archbishop read through Malecki’s intentions plainly enough. Still, he asked, “Have you come to share with me the meaningless recurrent dream of a distressed nun, or is there another motive?”

“I was hoping we could devise a way to protect Sister Barbara, in case her background were investigated.”

“Father Malecki, the superior of that religious community has been assassinated in the seclusion of the cloister. What makes you think that any measure we might take would protect any of her nuns? Jews have the unfortunate inheritance of their guilt for condemning Our Lord to the cross. Converted or not, I’m afraid the blood price follows them wherever they are.”

Malecki found the argument sickening, although out of respect he kept silent while the archbishop dismissed him.

 

Bora’s room at the Hotel
Patria
in Lvov was old-fashioned but comfortable. Through a door that was now open, it communicated with Colonel Schenck’s room. Schenck
was in his pyjamas, but hadn’t relinquished the starchiness of his demeanour. Bora stood up from his chair when the colonel appeared on the threshold.

“Do you have anything to read, Bora? I find it hard to fall asleep in a new bed if I don’t have something to read.”

“I doubt that the colonel would want to read the Latin dictionary. It’s quite dreary.”

Schenck stepped into the room. “You’re still reading that silly thing? How many more meanings do you think you’ll dredge out? No, I don’t want to read the dictionary, and as sure as hell I don’t want to reread the documents we worked on. You don’t happen to have brought along a magazine or something, do you?”

He watched Bora swing the overnight bag onto his bed and open it. There was a change of clothing in it, neatly rolled socks and linen underwear. From an inner pocket he pulled out a middle-sized black book. “I’m embarrassed to say this is all I have, Colonel. I had been doing some research on the word
Lumen
in it.”

Schenck took the book in hand. “
The New Testament?
” He opened it with a sneer, leafing through the Latin-German text. “Oh, well.” He started back for his room. “It’s the last kind of reading I’d do, but it beats army documents and the dictionary. Good night.”

Less than a minute later he opened the door again. “Are you a very religious man, Captain?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Good. One never knows with Catholics.”

While Father Malecki did his morning weight-lifting in front of a prudently closed window, Richard Retz accompanied the woman home.