Rag and Bone (7 page)

“Yes, I understand,” I said. He spoke English well, though with a heavy accent.

“They took us prisoner. It was terrible. At first, they put all of us in the basement of a building. They left us there for three days. No food, no bathroom. A little water, nothing else. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Three days, over one hundred cadets. In a dark basement. Do you understand?” He took the cup and saucer in his
hands. They trembled, and the china made a clattering, clinking sound as he spilled coffee into the saucer. Kaz took it from him gently and touched his arm.

“Then we spent two days and two nights in railcars. There was bread and water. It was bad, but not as bad as the basement. There was fresh air, and we had something to eat. Do you understand?” He raised his voice, the question insistent.

“Yes, I do. It wasn’t as bad.”

“No, and then they marched us to the camp. There were showers, and barracks. Soup for dinner. We thought the worst of it was over. They let us write home. They questioned us, each of us, alone. They seemed to know a great deal about us, what our parents did, what youth groups we belonged to. There were many rumors, always about going to Romania. They were going to send us there any day. But that day never came.”

“What happened next?” Kaz prompted him.

“They came for me one morning. I thought it would be more of the same. More questions about school, the other cadets, and about Marxism. They wanted us to believe in Marx and Stalin, but no one listened. I thought it was going to be more of the same. But they beat me. A big NKVD sergeant, he started beating me while an officer sat in a chair and watched. No one said anything. Then they threw me out into the snow. The next day, they came for me again. This time the officer sat at a table. He had a confession for me to sign. It was in Russian, and he told me it was my confession about spying for the Germans.”

“But you were just a kid,” I said.

“They said my father was a spy. He had been to Berlin, for business meetings. He was an architect, so it was normal for him to travel. I tried to explain, but they said we were all spies, all capitalists, my father, mother, and little sister, we were all enemies of the people. He told me my father had confessed, and showed me a piece of paper with his signature. It was his, I recognized it. I knew they had forced him, I knew he was not a spy, not an enemy of anyone. He was an architect, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. They told me it was important for you to understand. I wouldn’t talk about it otherwise. It’s too painful.”

“You don’t have to, you know.”

“Yes, I must, it is my duty. I did not sign. They told me they would be lenient with my mother and sister if I signed. But I was smarter than that. I knew that if my mother and sister had confessed, they would have shown me their signatures. But they hadn’t. They beat me. They put me in solitary confinement. But I didn’t sign.”

“Good for you.”

“Perhaps, but I am not sure. One day the officer who interrogated me was gone. They stopped coming for me. Spring came, and then one day they announced we would be leaving the camp. Romania, we thought. Finally. They took us out in small groups, marching out the main gate, everyone in good spirits. The most senior officers went first. I was in one of the last groups. We marched to a train. NKVD guards stood along the road and prodded us with bayonets, forcing us into railcars, like the ones that had brought us to the camp. It was springtime, but it was cold, very cold. We wore everything we owned.” Tadeusz shivered and rubbed his hands together. “Someone realized we were not traveling south toward Romania. I didn’t know what to think. The train stopped and they had buses and trucks back right up to the cars. They shoved us in, packed us in tight, so we almost couldn’t breathe. When the truck finally stopped, they hauled us out and tied our hands behind our backs. No one knew what was going on, and the guards cursed at us, kicked us, hit men with their rifle butts. They marched us into the woods, on a muddy road, still screaming at us to hurry, hurry. I began to hear popping noises, like firecrackers, lots of firecrackers. The noise would start up and then stop, start and stop. More guards came, with pistols in their hands. One had blood on his sleeve. I was scared, but there was no time to do anything, nowhere to go, it was all shouts and
pop pop pop
, I
couldn’t think. There were NKVD officers standing around with clipboards and lists of names. They took a group of ten men in front of me and pushed them up and over a hill. I heard the shots, and then they came for us, bayonets sticking into our backs. They were calling us Polish pigs, telling us to hurry, hurry, or they’d shoot us right there. I fell at the top of the hill when I saw what was there. A huge pit, and it was full of bodies. I remember thinking it was astounding that so many of us had run to our deaths like that. I saw four men kneeling and a Russian walk behind them, bang, bang, bang, bang, and they all tumbled into the pit. There were men in the pit—Russian prisoners, they looked like, not Poles—stacking the bodies. One row of heads in one direction, the next row feet in that direction. It was so unbelievable that I was no longer afraid. I sat on the ground while madness went on around me. I don’t know why they left me there, although it was only a minute or so. I saw men pushed up the hill, saw pistols being reloaded, saw more bodies fall. It was mechanical, like a killing factory, except we were in the woods, on a beautiful, clear spring day. I see every moment of that minute, over and over again, every day. Every hour. Every night. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “How …” I didn’t have to finish, the question was obvious.

“The NKVD officer, the one who had questioned me. He was there, and he had a list of names. There were six of us. You see, he’d had appendicitis. He was in hospital, and hadn’t finished his interrogations. He was angry that we’d been sent to the forest with the others, since he needed to produce confessions. Well, a dead man can’t confess, can he? He had a guard detail, and they beat us, but that was nothing. They put us into a Tshorni Voron and drove us to the NKVD prison in Smolensk.”

“A what?”

“Tshorni Voron, Black Raven in Russian. A special NKVD bus for transporting prisoners. Locked compartments on either
side, just big enough for one person to squat. You can’t stand, can’t sit. When you see the Black Raven, you see death itself.”

“But you didn’t die.”

“No, I didn’t,” Tadeusz said mournfully. “They sent four of us to Lubyanka, the main NKVD prison in Moscow. I never saw any of the others again. I never saw the NKVD officer again. Nobody came for me; they just fed me and kept me in a cell. They didn’t even beat me. I think they forgot about me, or lost my file, or perhaps the NKVD man was denounced and he was in the cell next to mine, I have no idea. One day, a guard came and gave me extra food and clean clothes. The next day, they put me in a truck with ten other Poles. I don’t talk to anyone, I don’t trust them. But they put us on a train, a real train, not in a railcar, but in a car with real seats. We got off in Buzul’uk, and there were Poles everywhere. They tell us the Nazis invaded Russia, and now the Russians want us to fight the Germans. But I trust no one. They send us through Persia, to Palestine, and the British give us uniforms, and food, and everyone asks about the camps. But I say nothing. Do you understand?”

“You don’t speak, because if you did, you’d have to tell the story,” I said.

“Yes! Yes, you do understand. I did not speak at all, not one word, not in Buzul’uk, not in Persia, or Palestine, or Egypt. Not on the ship, not in London, until I came here. Not until I met Piotr and got to know him. He is a good man. Then I decided to speak, for Piotr. But it is not easy, you understand. Can I go now?”

“Yes,” Kaz said. “That was very helpful. I will take you back to your room now.”

“Thank you, Piotr.” He held on to Kaz’s arm and didn’t look back.

“A drink, Lieutenant Boyle?” Major Horak asked.

“No, no thanks. Tell Kaz I’ll see him later, OK?”

“Certainly.” Horak made no effort to persuade me to do or say anything. He knew that Tadeusz’s story would either work
or it wouldn’t, and if that poor boy couldn’t convince me to take action, nothing would.

I left the room. It wasn’t that I didn’t want another drink. It was that I wanted to drink alone, and wash away the image of that pit, and what men could so willingly do to each other. That, and the thought of what somebody had done to one Russian right here in London.

I felt a little tipsy as I walked down the stairs and out into the street. I wasn’t exactly drunk from all the wine and vodka, but I took care of that as fast as I could when I got to the bar at the Dorchester.

CHAPTER • FIVE

I
COULDN’T TELL
if we were walking through heavy fog or light rain, and I didn’t much care. Kaz had shaken me conscious a half hour ago, presenting me with aspirin and hot coffee, the only things I wanted more than to be left alone. I knew we had to talk, and I also knew fresh air would be good for my hangover. I pulled on a wool cap, grabbed my Parsons jacket, and followed Kaz into Hyde Park. It was just after dawn, not that there was a trace of sun.

“Can you walk a little faster, Billy?”

“Sure, no problem,” I said, picking up the pace as we double-timed along Rotten Row, the now seldom-used horse track that ran along the south edge of the park. I felt like my head might burst, but I didn’t want Kaz to think I wasn’t up to it.

“I wanted to tell you I was sorry about yesterday. I had only mentioned to Major Horak that morning that we would be meeting for lunch. He insisted, and you know senior officers like to get their way.” Kaz pumped his arms energetically, like a chicken trying to take flight. He might’ve looked funny, but he wasn’t out of breath.

“But you’d told them about me,” I said, huffing and blowing air. “About … Uncle Ike … and all that.”

“Yes, it was only natural to tell them. We’ve been working together for some time, Billy. Of course I would tell them about my friend. Are you all right?”

“Maybe … Slow down … a bit, OK?” I stopped, leaned over, and rested my hands on my knees, praying I wouldn’t throw up.
The moment passed, and we moved on, a quick pace, but nothing torrid. Jesse Owens had nothing to worry about.

“How long has Tadeusz been with you?” I asked, as soon as I could get a full sentence out.

“About six weeks. He had been in and out of hospitals and clinics. At first they believed he was mute, but one of his doctors thought otherwise. We knew he was Polish, and that he had come from Buzul’uk, but that was all. I was asked to speak with him because I can speak Russian, Ukrainian, and a little Romanian.”

“Of course,” I said. Kaz had been a student of languages at Oxford before the war and a translator at Uncle Ike’s first headquarters when I met him. “He responded to you?”

“Not at first. When I spoke Russian he became agitated, and would not look at me. From that point on, I spoke only Polish, telling him about myself, and where I was from, just making conversation, to put him at ease. Once I mentioned Radymno, a small town in the Carpathian Mountains I had visited. He spoke, in a clear voice, telling me he had lived there.”

“And then he told you about Katyn?”

“Not right away. It was clear there was something he was afraid of, and Major Horak thought he might know something. We took him to the hotel to help him feel safe, but he did not react well to Captain Radecki.”

“I imagine few people do.”

“He does his job in the best way he can. And he and Tadeusz seem to get along better now. When Tadeusz first came to us, he was quite agitated, and it was some time before he calmed down and let everything out. He talked as he did with you, in a stream, a torrent of memory. He is quite helpless to stop once he starts. Then he goes into a depression. He will sleep most of the day today, and not speak to anyone, not even me, tomorrow.”

“It’s amazing he got this far.”

“I don’t know if he can survive,” Kaz said as we walked through Kensington Gardens. Fog shrouded the Round Pond,
the damp creeping into my bones. I picked up the pace as best I could, the throb in my head keeping beat with my steps.

“Was he wounded?” I asked, but I didn’t think Kaz was talking about a physical injury.

“He tried to kill himself last week. He kept a knife from his dinner tray and had it to his throat when I came into his room.”

“How did you stop him?”

“I told him someone very important was going to come and listen to what he had to say, and that he had to remain alive to tell what he had seen.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Yes, Billy. He took the knife from his throat in order to tell you his story.”

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like anyone putting off death just to meet me. I was bound to be a letdown. I didn’t like keeping a secret from Kaz, and I didn’t like being suspicious of him. I didn’t like how I knew I wasn’t going to tell a soul at Scotland Yard about Kaz and his pocket automatic, and I didn’t want to be responsible for carrying a Polish cause to Uncle Ike’s doorstep. I sure as hell didn’t like my head pounding and my stomach feeling like a rat had curled up and died in it. I felt cold sweat at the small of my back, my face went prickly, and I went to my knees, bowing to the pond, heaving coffee-flavored bile on the royal grass, as my head spun from the effect of last night’s alcohol and today’s guilt.

I felt Kaz’s hand on my back, patting it like you’d do with a crying baby. He helped me up as soon as I was sure I had nothing left to give, and steadied me as we walked, slowly now, around the pond, past the statue of Peter Pan that seemed oddly out of place and still timeless, in the midst of London at war.

“Do you feel better, Billy?” Kaz asked.

I didn’t, and I wanted to come clean with him, but a small voice whispered inside my head, telling me he was a suspect. I argued with the small voice, and finally we agreed he was a
potential
suspect, which was something different, but it still meant I should play my cards facedown.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Keep me away from vodka for a while, OK?”