While Still We Live (70 page)

“Aye,” Veronika agreed. “They’ll be needing a lot of cloth this spring when they come up to the mountains. There won’t be much painting or woodcarving done in this or any other village from now on.” She paused, and listened to the footsteps in the corridor. A door closed.

“I wonder what she’s doing here with him,” said Veronika. Her lips closed tightly and she shook her head.

Madame Olszak smiled slightly, but didn’t answer.

“Married! She hasn’t a wedding ring, even. I wouldn’t feel married unless I had a ring on my right hand.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Madame Olszak smiled gently. She sat quite still, letting her thoughts wander back sixty years. Sixty years ago... Veronika’s voice kept insisting, kept pulling her back into the present. Madame Olszak frowned in annoyance.

“Is she going to stay here? That’s what I want to know. When this storm ends, he’s got work to do. He’s leaving here, isn’t he? He’s got other villages to visit, hasn’t he? And if she stays here alone, what will happen if German skiers come to the door at any time? They always notice the pretty ones. And even if she had papers, she’s still a foreigner, by her accent.”

“It is none of our business,” said Madame Olszak sharply. She too had been worrying about that all evening, but somehow she felt irritated when these worries were put into words. Then, more gently, she said, “What’s wrong with you tonight, Veronika? Come, we’ll have a last half hour at the fire before
we go to bed.” She rose wearily from the hard bench. “Perhaps I am getting old, Veronika. The beginning of winter now makes me sad.”

Veronika followed her into the other room. “It’s the snow,” she said slowly. “It makes you feel old. It makes you feel alone.”

They sat close to the fire, and watched the dying log.

THE LAST DAYS

A firm, crisp surface formed on the deep snow. You could walk on it as you could on icy ground, carefully and slowly, with each step judged and balanced. The white-grey skies changed to a clear pale blue. The sun set this clean, unmarked world glittering. The very air seemed to dance with light. Only the leeward trunks of the trees with their long winter shadows, and the walls of the houses which had sheltered under broad roofs kept their dark colour in defiance of so much change. But even in the expanse of white loneliness, the feeling of being lost in space had ended with the falling snow. Sound and sight had come back to the world.

You could see once more the wisps of whitish smoke from the village chimneys; you could hear the light sound of sleigh bells. And along the lower slopes of the mountain’s side were scattered small brown patches, each with their column of smoke above them, which meant other houses. In the morning there
were blue shadows on the snow, the sound of men’s voices as they cleared paths to their doors, the echo of children’s high laughter as they played, the occasional long-drawn call shouted from one neighbour to another. In the evening, the snow was streaked with gold and orange furrows from the large round sun sinking so swiftly behind the jagged edge of mountains. The shadows deepened to violet, the columns of smoke thickened and darkened, and the day’s sounds (so small and simple, yet so magnified by the intensity of the silence) died gradually away. The people in the houses down in the village, or in the houses sparsely scattered along the hillsides or in the valleys, rested from their day’s work. The cows and goats, brought down for the winter months from the high pastures, were fed; the baking and weaving and sewing and cobbling and carving and making and mending were over. There was time for talk in the kitchens and lamp-lit rooms. There were tales from the past, and stories, bloodier still, of the present. There were songs which brought tears and laughter, and whispered plans which brought hope for the spring. Night walked over the mountains, sweeping its train of stars, their brightness sharpened by the keen air. The carpet of snow became a cloth of silver. The shadows were as black as the windows where the lights died, one by one.

Wenceslas came on the first day after the storm had ended. But his mixture of news and gossip and information lost all importance to him when he saw Wisniewski. The warmth of his welcome was so infectious that Sheila, her face taut and fearful when she saw this man arrive, found herself smiling along with Madame Olszak as they watched his delight and relief. It was almost as if he were greeting his son.

“Used to hunt with Adam. Best guide in these parts. Best
hunter too,” Madame Olszak explained to Sheila in a low voice. “Come, we’ll sit over at the window and let them talk. We’ll keep an eye on the path to the village.”

Sheila followed the old woman obediently. She looked back at the two men now facing each other across the table—Wenceslas red-haired, round-faced, broad-shouldered, slow-speaking; Adam silently listening, his large dark eyes narrowing as his mind played with an idea, a smile glancing over the determined mouth as the idea developed possibilities. He had pulled a sheet of paper in front of him, spread out a map. Wenceslas leaned over the table on his powerful forearms, marking his points, with an upraised forefinger.

Madame Olszak watched Sheila’s face. She touched her arm gently. “I know,” she said half sadly. “A man has two things: his work and his wife. A woman when she’s in love has only one. I know.”

Sheila looked at her in alarm.

“It’s all right: they’ll never hear us,” Madame Olszak smiled as she looked across at the two men. “They are in another world. I know.” She nodded philosophically over the patchwork quilt.

At the end of the hour, Wenceslas rose to leave. He seemed to notice Sheila for the first time. “There was a message two days ago about her,” he said to Adam. Sheila’s heart missed a beat.

Wenceslas’ tantalisingly slow voice went on: “Person accompanying Captain X to await further instructions. Full plan to follow.”

Adam’s arm rested round Sheila’s shoulders. “Bring the message when it comes. As it stands. I’ll decode it, Wenceslas.” His voice was harsh.

Wenceslas looked at them in surprise. “Right,” he said.

“You’ve never told me your news, Wenceslas,” Madame Olszak said quickly, and led the red-haired man towards the door, listening gravely to the strange mixture of information: old Stefan was ill, badly this time; Maria’s cow had stopped giving milk; more shooting of hostages in Warsaw; Ladislaw’s younger daughter had a son, a ten-pound boy; Cracow professors had all been arrested and sent to concentration camps; five Germans at Zakopane had been caught in the snowstorm and frozen to death; the wolves were already prowling round the villages to the east—it was going to be a bad winter, more snow and bitter cold.

Wenceslas halted in the doorway. “The captain may have a chance to hunt wolves when he goes east,” he said. “Think I’ll have to come with you as your guide, Captain. Ladislaw can look after the radio for a while. He’s always sticking his nose into it, anyway.”

Adam smiled. “Wolf-shooting is out for the present, Wenceslas. German-shooting now.”

“There’s no law against doing both,” Wenceslas suggested hopefully, but without success. “Well, I suppose when I took on this radio job I gave up hunting,” he added sadly, and concentrated on fixing his skis.

“Plenty of hunting next summer when the camp has got to be fed, Wenceslas.”

The grin came slowly back to Wenceslas’ red, round face. “I’ll be back in a day or two, no doubt,” he said and looked at Sheila.

“Yes. I’ll have further instructions ready for the district, then,” Adam replied. His voice was business-like, but his grip on Sheila’s shoulders had tightened.

The door closed. Sheila felt that it had shut out all her hopes.

Madame Olszak picked up her needle once more.

Neither Sheila nor Adam had moved.

“She could stay with me,” Madame Olszak said softly. “Must she go?”

Sheila felt her shoulder crushed. She knew the answer before he had spoken.

“Yes.”

Madame Olszak’s keen blue eyes looked at them sadly, but she nodded slowly as if in agreement. She rose and went slowly into the kitchen. “Must tell Veronika about the news from the village,” she said.

Adam pulled Sheila round to face him.

“It would have been easier to say ‘No’. That’s what I wanted to say...” He watched her eyes anxiously. The lines on his face had deepened.

“I know,” she said. “It seems strange...but I love you all the more,” and the truth of her words was in her eyes.

She ended the long silence with “When will the instructions come?”

A shadow crossed Adam’s face. His voice was quiet, expressionless, almost as if he were talking to himself, getting his own thoughts into order. “A few days, perhaps. Perhaps a week. There’s a clever man at Zakopane who has helped us before. He would be the safest way. It depends if they can contact him and he is available. They must wait until he is. He’s safe.”

Sheila’s body stiffened. She looked up at him. “That isn’t why you are sending me away? Because of safety?” There was a rebellious line to her mouth.

Adam pretended to smile. He lied most innocently. “Of course not.” He silenced her with a long kiss. “Darling...”

She said softly when she had enough breath to speak with, “I wish sometimes I were a man.”

“Thank God you aren’t,” he replied with such fervour that she was forced to smile.

“That’s better,” he said. “That’s how I like to see you. With a laugh on your lips... That’s how I first saw you. Remember?”

“So long ago it seems. Before the war...”

“Scarcely three months ago.”

“How many more months before it all ends?”

He was silent.

“How long, Adam? Next year?”

His arms tightened round her waist. He kissed her throat.

“That’s my favourite corner, just there,” he said with a pretence of a smile. He kissed the soft curve where her neck and shoulder met. “One of my favourites,” he added.

“How long, Adam? Surely next year.”

“God knows.” He shook his head as if he were trying to free himself from his bitter thoughts. “But never too long, Sheila. Never too long for us to wait.”

Never too long... It might be years, then. Years, her heart echoed despairingly. But her eyes met his, as he wanted them to do, and accepted that fact.

* * *

Four days later, Wenceslas returned.

“Things are shaping up,” he announced. He handed the message which he had brought to Wisniewski with evident relief. “The priest made sure I got it down all correct,” he went on. “He’s been waiting with me each night at eight o’clock for it
to come. I told him it was important. And last night it came. But I thought I’d wait until this morning before I brought it along. Time enough, I said to myself, to bring it in the morning.”

Veronika finished her pretence of dusting the room. In the last four days she had dropped her hostility to Sheila. The foreign girl was going away. She wasn’t going to stay here and keep good men off their job. Much work any man would get done with her about the place.

“Come into the kitchen,” she said with a sudden burst of tact. “I’ve got a nice bowl of hot soup ready to warm you, Wenceslas.”

Madame Olszak had risen from her chair near the window. “I’ll come and hear all the news, Wenceslas,” she said.

Sheila crossed over to the table where Adam, his forehead resting on his hands and his elbows on the table, was reading the coded message. She sat down quietly beside him. Without looking up, he reached for one of her hands and held it.

“When?” she asked at last, certain he had finished reading the passage.

He still didn’t look up. “Soon,” he answered. “Very soon.”

She looked at the scrap of paper. It was a very innocent letter to a niece. Weather...family health...affectionate greetings...
Your loving Aunt, Valeria.

“And what does Aunt Valeria say?”

“Your clothes are already waiting for you. Your papers and story will be given to you any day after tomorrow, when Aunt Valeria arrives with them.”

“Here?”

“No. At a small inn outside Zakopane.”

She said slowly, “I should be there, ready to welcome Aunt
Valeria when she does arrive.” She was trying desperately to keep her voice calm.

“Yes... I’ll take you to the inn. We’ll have to go carefully.” He gave her a twisted smile. “Strangely enough, that may be the most difficult part of the journey. After that, with the right clothes and papers, it will be safe—easier.”

“I feel safer with you than with any papers, Adam, no matter how clever your Aunt Valeria is.”

“He hasn’t made a mistake yet.” Adam’s voice was grim. He was convincing himself that this way would be safe.

“
He
?”

“Yes. Aunt Valeria is one of Number Fourteen’s best men. Thank God he’s on this job.”

Her voice faltered. “Tonight we leave, then?”

“Tonight.” Adam rose abruptly. He didn’t look at her again. He opened the door, slowly climbed the path they had cut in the deep snow. If I had wept, she thought, as she stared at the pool of pale gold at the threshold where the sun’s weak rays spread over the floor, if I had wept we never would have left for Zakopane. It was a relief that she could allow herself to weep now.

* * *

Madame Olszak came back into the room.

“I knew someone had left a door open,” she grumbled. “Such a draught. This place is like ice.” She moved about, closing the door, jabbing at the fire with a poker, talking incessantly as she moved. Sheila was in control of herself by the time that Veronika and Wenceslas entered.

“When?” Madame Olszak demanded suddenly.

“Tonight.”

“That’s what I expected.” Her voice was almost bad-tempered. She was angry with everyone, herself most of all.

“Where are you going?” Veronika asked pityingly. Her hard face had softened.

Sheila saw Wenceslas, behind Veronika, shake his head warningly.

Madame Olszak had seen his advice, too.

“None of our business, Veronika,” she said sharply. “Now you and I will start some cooking. We want a special supper this evening.” She followed the slow-moving Veronika towards the kitchen. “Wars, wars,” she was saying savagely. “People who should be together, bringing up the children God meant them to have, kept apart...separated... I’ve always cursed the men who started wars. I must die cursing them...never an end... never...” It was strange to hear Veronika suddenly burst into wailing tears. And then the kitchen door closed.