The Day of the Lie (4 page)

‘We’re not that far
apart,’ said Sebastian, opening wide the door. ‘Which is why I have the courage
to bring you here and the cheek to ask you to have the last word.’

‘What on?’ snapped Róża.
She wasn’t beaten but she felt a reluctant attachment to Sebastian, to his
starched shirt, the wrinkled suit and his scuffed expensive shoes. She was
drawn to his relentless, tousled energy. ‘There’s nothing I can say.

‘Yes, there is,’
insisted Sebastian. ‘We keep a voice archive. Recordings of interviews with
those who fought the fight. I just want you to relate everything that Otto
Brack didn’t contaminate.

Afterwards, you’ll get a
transcript and you can change anything you like.’

Róża felt herself surrendering
again. ‘But there’s nothing … nothing at all.’

‘Are you so sure?’ asked
Sebastian, coming back into the room and, by default, edging Róża towards
the table. He was smiling hope and fascination. ‘You had a childhood. You
survived the Occupation; you were there when Warsaw was razed to the ground. You
saw the Nazis leave and the Communists arrive. Tell us what you saw and heard.
Don’t you understand, Róża, there’s so much to say? And no mention of the
Shoemaker, Mokotów prison and Otto Brack’s hold on your life … his reach from
then to now I’m also looking towards a kind of desert, Róża. A part of
your life that escaped his touch … the thirty years you spent between leaving
Mokotów and coming back. Three decades of experience that wasn’t chewed up and
spat into a file. Tell us what happened out of his sight. What were you doing?
Why did you go back to the Shoemaker? How did you put
Freedom and
Independence
on to the street? Give us a taste of the time untouched by
Otto Brack. If you want, I’ll open some Bison Grass:

Sebastian slipped his
hands into his pockets. The appeal was over. He was waiting for Róża to
reconsider her decision.

‘Sebastian,’ said Róża,
not wanting to disappoint him, ‘you have to understand …’

Her voice trailed off.
She couldn’t help noticing the two perpendicular creases to the front of his
shirt. She was right: he’d put it straight on, probably leaving a few pins in
the shoulder or cuff. Had he bought it for her or was shopping a desperate
measure to avoid the ironing board? Either way Róża was moved. If he’d
been her grandson, she’d have told him what she could about her life, within
the limits that remained available; she would not have allowed the shadow of
Otto Brack to fall so heavily between them. She’d have told of small glories
and some vanquished pain. Róża took off her coat and hooked it on the
nearby stand.

‘You have to understand,’
she repeated. ‘I only drink on Sundays.’

Chapter Four

A ventilator purred in the corner. House
plants rose from mulch in plastic pots. There were various pictures on the
walls — grainy shots from the forties and fifties, images of party leaders
proclaiming change from a balcony, and then colour photographs of mass
demonstrations, portraits of jubilant unionists: the whole a symbolic litany of
the last sixty years. The snaps and clips took the place of the windows. It was
as though Róża had an elevated view on to history. Wherever she looked she
saw landmarks from her own passage to this basement deep beneath the city.

‘Speak as and when you
like,’ said Sebastian, standing behind the facing chair. ‘The machine’s
running.’

Where do I begin? thought Róża.

One of the pictures on
the wall showed Warsaw in ruins: gable walls teetering over bent and twisted
iron, smoke rising from open pits. But Róża recalled the elements that no
image could capture: the terrible grunt of a building just before it collapsed;
the moaning from heaps of rubble; the smell of burning flesh. Explosions
thundered in her memory, shaking the ground and her teeth. Dead horses on the
pavement had been stripped of their meat. Five years later she’d joined an
Uprising with Otto. He’d been angry then, too. And unquiet; remote with his
grievances. She’d finally held his hand and he’d wept: they were child soldiers
facing annihilation. But they’d escaped through the sewers, each taking a
different tunnel, each finding, eventually a sudden peace and the Communists.
No, Róża couldn’t speak of her childhood or the war. They’d been
incinerated. And Brack was there, as a friend. Oddly she thought it something
worth keeping. He’d been Otto back then.

But neither could she
speak of Pavel and the brief time they’d spent together rebuilding their
shattered city. Anything she might say led inexorably to the Shoemaker: for
while her war had ended, Pavel had begun another. She hadn’t known at first,
but then he’d told her a secret, the keeping of which had eventually brought
her to Mokotów.

All that remained was
what Sebastian had called a desert: the thirty years that joined two shattering
periods of imprisonment. And, in truth, it had indeed been a wilderness — a
period of wandering and dryness in exile, striking rocks for water and begging
for bread. But the barren ground had flowered, suddenly and unexpectedly Even Róża
had been stunned. She’d gone back to the Shoemaker immediately Yes, Sebastian
was right: Otto Brack hadn’t followed her into the wasteland on the other side
of prison. It was hers alone …

Sebastian hadn’t
followed her either. The blue sheet of paper had been the one clue to the
meaning of her exile — and that was now in her pocket, its significance having
escaped Sebastian’s attention. Throughout his pleading, he’d shown no inkling
of the true scope of Róża’s journey.

‘In May nineteen
fifty-three a guard opened the cell door,’ she said, knowing she was in
control. ‘He called my name. I followed him out of the building with another
guard walking behind. The sun was full and the sky that deep blue you find on
old plates and teapots. It was a glorious moment … a moment of exhilaration
and joy I thought, “At last they’re going to shoot me.” My heart raced with
anticipation and a sort of bubbling gratitude but he led me across the yard
towards the gate that fronted Rakowiecka Street. The next thing I knew the
thing swung open and there was Otto Brack, standing on the pavement — he’d come
to say goodbye. The guard behind shoved me out … but I didn’t want to leave.
I’d forgotten how to live and I didn’t know what to do out there, on an
ordinary street. For years I’d been in a cell with a tiny window so high that I
had to strain my neck to see the clouds. I turned round and banged on the gate,
I kicked it and screamed but they wouldn’t let me back in. Brack just watched
me and, when I finished beating on the gate, he watched me wander to a junction
a few hundred yards up the road. That’s when I thought of a friend … I can’t
use names, you appreciate that, don’t you?’

Nearly five hours later Róża’s
testament drew to its close. Her story was ending where it had begun, in
Mokotów prison.

She’d described her
meandering journey but now she rehearsed that last encounter with Otto Brack
following her second arrest: when he’d told her the price of any future
justice.

‘Róża … are you
all right?’

She could still see
Brack’s death mask face.

‘Do you want a glass of
water?’ Sebastian’s hand was reaching for the jug.

‘Yes.’

Brack was in a posh grey
suit and a business man’s camel-coloured overcoat. The cut was too big, like
the trousers, their hems slumped on his brown leather shoes. When they’d last
met he’d been writhing in a drab uniform. His head had been shaved.

‘Róża, drink this.’
Sebastian was at her side, holding out the glass.

‘Thank you.’

She sipped the water,
waiting for Brack’s presence to fade. He was sauntering towards the prison
door, confident they’d never meet again.

‘I’m sorry, Róża. I
should have known … I did know’

‘Forget it. You may have
lured me here but I chose to speak.’

The ventilator purred in
the corner; the plants seemed to watch from their pots. After a while Sebastian
coughed and laid a hand on each of the two files. ‘Do you want to read them?’

Róża didn’t even
look at the covers.

‘No thanks,’ she said,
putting on her coat, ‘I was there.’

They walked down the alley of files,
closely followed by the man from the Internal Security Agency The lift had been
fixed so they rose to ground level, John discreetly checking his pockets for
his electronic card, the Special Forces officer standing at ease. When the
doors opened, Róża walked straight towards a chrome waste bin situated at
the main entrance, into which she ponderously divested her coat pockets of two
bus tickets, some sweet wrappers, a ball of crumpled blue paper and a used
tissue. Sebastian watched patiently, touched by the strange rituals of the old.

Outside on the pavement
they huddled awkwardly as if wondering where to go next. It was evening now and
an autumn chill made them both shiver.

‘My grandmother was
arrested during the Terror,’ said Sebastian, blowing mist at the cold. He
seemed to be confiding to the passing cars on Towarowa Avenue. ‘She never spoke
about it. All she’d say was that the cell was damp. I tried to find out more
but she wouldn’t be drawn. So I turned to my parents — and even they knew
nothing. We all knew nothing — and yet whatever happened remained part of the
family structure, like a locked room in the house. I grew up trying the handle,
never putting a direct question. Now I make a living picking the locks to rooms
a lot of people would rather leave closed.’

This time it was Róża’s
turn to talk at the passing cars. She watched them chase one another’s lights,
feeling cut loose from the rush of ordinary life.

‘What about your
grandfather?’

‘The Terror tracked him
down.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

Róża felt close to
the young man, wanting to better understand him. At the same time she felt a
kind of heat coming from his memory She said, anxiously, ‘Why are you
interested in Otto Brack?’

His eyes followed the
roar of a motorbike and he smiled, as if he’d just hitched a ride to make a getaway
‘I’ll tell you on the day he’s convicted.’

But Róża gently
shook her head, knowing there would be no trial, suddenly and acutely sad that
she wouldn’t meet Sebastian again; that there’d been no more letters, messages,
or trailing; no final ambush A siren wailed far off as if to say the raids were
over. But Sebastian hadn’t finished.

‘Róża … find a
way, if you can.’

‘A way?’

‘Yes. Find a way out of
your silence.’

‘There is none.

‘Think again.’ He looked
at her with an expression of intimidating seriousness, no longer just a lawyer
but something of a renegade, a young man who would never accept that his
investigation was over.

‘Do the one thing Brack
would never expect.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Speak to the informer.’

Róża visibly
recoiled but Sebastian wouldn’t listen to any more objections. ‘You might as well,
because one day someone else will do just that … a journalist, a scholar,
another lawyer, someone with an interest in the Shoemaker. The file might be
half empty, but now these papers have come to light, someone cleverer than me
will start poring over the holes. If they ever find your informer, they won’t
be chary, like you. There won’t even be a warning. Their name will appear on
the front page of every newspaper. Capitalised. Why not beat them to it, while
Brack’s still alive? Do it
your
way with decency Lower case.

‘What others do is their
affair,’ replied Róża, fidgeting.

‘And what you do is
yours,’ he barked, aggression getting the better of him. ‘You know their name
already You’re half way there. Speak to them. If Brack thinks you’d never
confront them, then speak without confrontation. If you’re scared they’ll end
their life, give them another reason for living. Do anything, Róża, only
do something beyond his imagination. Use Brack against himself. Make up with
his informer. Become friends once more.

Bewildered by the
challenge, Róża wavered; she felt her knees slacken. Sebastian was walking
to the kerb, one arm waving in the air. A taxi swung out of the stream. She
found herself seated by an open window with Sebastian stooped on the pavement,
his face pale with cold, his lips blue.

‘Find your way back
here, Róża,’ he urged without a trace of parting in his voice. ‘Don’t
leave us with his story.’

Chapter Five

As the taxi pulled away Róża muttered,
‘Powązki.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘The cemetery.’

The driver nodded and
took her to the one place that haunted Róża more than the prison. She hadn’t
passed through its gates since the evening of her arrest in 1982.

Róża faltered down a darkening lane.

On either side carved
figures with bent heads grieved eternally A few candles flickered behind
coloured glass. Vases with flowers stood propped by inscriptions. Róża’s
hand slipped into her pocket and reached for the ball of crumpled blue paper
… but then she remembered: she’d got rid of it, just like the guards got rid
of Pavel’s body.

Her husband had no
grave. Róża didn’t know what had happened to his corpse. Rumour had it
that some of those who’d been shot in Mokotów were thrown into the back of a
truck and taken to building sites or the main rubbish dump in Służewiec;
others were tipped into empty cement sacks and buried without markers in an
open field. In her waking dreams, Róża had stormed into a Ministerial
office or she’d knocked timidly at the door of some underling. She’d screamed
and begged and whimpered and pleaded. Where is he? Where have you put him? All
to the air; no one listening, save her conscience.