The Children's War (76 page)

4

“Y
OU’VE BEEN THERE?”
Peter asked. “I never have. Tell me about it.”

“Of course, I’ll bore you senseless!” Marysia laughed. “But perhaps you’d prefer-to go there yourself someday?”

“America? Of course, I’d love to see it, but who the hell would pay to send me there?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you could do a speaking tour. You know, talk about what it’s like in the Reich.”

He shook his head emphatically. “Never.”

“Never?”

“One of you could talk—that’d be interesting. But for me to talk about my past? No, I’d never do that. I have trouble enough with it as it is.”

“You seem to be doing okay.”

“I get a lot of help from you all, from my friends,” Peter admitted shyly.

Marysia smiled weakly at him, then raising her glass, suggested, “Here’s to friendship.”

He raised his in agreement. “To friendship, and to your kind generosity in taking me in.”

“How could I ignore a poor, starving stray like you on my doorstep? Sleeping in that lousy dorm room, eating in our, er, ‘restaurant,’ poor thing . . .”

He laughed at her pathetic description of what was, to him, a wonderful life. It was true that after a short while he had been moved from the one rather comfortable guest room to one of the more spartan dormitory-like rooms that were reserved for the transient staff, but that had only increased his sense of security and belonging. The rooms had no kitchen and he was used to taking his meals in the mess hall, where the much despised menu was, to him, luxurious. Even better, though, was that Marysia apparently had taken him under her wing and frequently offered him meals, often with other guests, or occasionally, such as tonight, alone.

“And speaking of friends,” Marysia continued, “I want to tell you about yours.”

He lowered his glass. “What do you know?” he forced himself to ask.

“Don’t worry.” She then told him that, according to the records, every member-of his group had indeed been arrested and all of them had perished, but beyond that, the records were removed from access. Too long ago and unimportant or too sensitive and vital? Who knew. Their fates made it clear that if any one of them had betrayed the group, then he or she had been double-crossed or the records had been appropriately adjusted to hide his or her involvement.

“But I always knew it didn’t come from within.”

“How so? Were they all that trustworthy?” Marysia asked with obvious, but controlled, cynicism.

He shook his head. “No, it’s not naÔvetó on my part.” He paused a moment, then came to a decision. “On my first night here, I didn’t explain everything as clearly as I could have to Zosia.”

Marysia raised an eyebrow. “Then you should clear the air.”

“I suppose so,” he agreed reluctantly. “All right. The detail I left out was that our research group was large so that we could have a lot of expertise available, but we subdivided it for reasons of safety. There were six separate cells of three or four people each, depending on their discipline. A member of a cell only knew the other
members of their cell, and even then they were only supposed to have the most minimal information on their coworkers. So, unless things had really got corrupted, no internal member could betray the entire collaboration. With one exception.”

“You?”

“Yes. Me. I was the point of contact with the rest of the hierarchy. I not only belonged to a cell, but I organized the work for all our other researchers.”

“Ah, no wonder you were scared!”

Peter nodded. “I was the only one who knew how to contact everyone, and therefore, I was the only one who could have betrayed them all. After my narrow escape, I tracked down what had happened to the rest, and when I realized how widespread the betrayal was . . .”

“You knew they were certain to blame you.”

“Especially since I wasn’t picked up.”

“Ah, but you were working. The higher-ups would have known that, and that at least would explain why you weren’t at home that morning.”

He shook his head miserably. “We weren’t working,” he whispered.

“What?”

“We weren’t working,” he repeated slightly louder.

“I thought you said—”

“I did. The truth is, we were warned off making that night’s contact. Allison’s husband wouldn’t have known the difference, but anyone higher up, after the fact, would have known there was nothing going on. I had absolutely no reason to be missing from my flat that night, none except an affair I had tried very hard to keep secret. Allison would have been the only one who knew that I had been walking her home, and she was dead, so I had no alibi. It would have been obvious I was the traitor.”

“What about your contact, I mean, your boss? He’d know everyone.”

“He worked through me. He was from another cell and leapfrogged me for a promotion. So, he knew his old comrades and he knew me and the people I worked with, but that was it.”

“They promoted him over you? Did that make you bitter?” Marysia asked with something like suspicion.

“No. I didn’t want his job, I wanted to stay with Allison, but unfortunately that wasn’t the reason for my being overlooked.”

“What was?”

“I don’t really know. Probably insubordination. In any case, they may well have thought I felt snubbed, and so my bosses may have thought I was bitter.”

“And vengeful?”

“They may have thought so. I didn’t tell the Council all this because it only complicated the picture and I felt the cards were stacked against me sufficiently as it was.”

Marysia tilted her head with curiosity. “Tell me, is there anything else you kept from us?”

Peter’s eyes strayed from Marysia’s face to the photographs she had mounted on
her wall over a bookshelf. He rubbed his chin as he surveyed them: a picture of Marysia and her husband; another of her daughter, Olek’s mother; and another of her son, Adam. A phantom family, just like his, except that he did not even have photographs. He pulled his gaze away to look down at the table. After a long moment he answered her question: “Just some humiliations that I had no desire to relive.”

Marysia blinked slowly as if carefully considering her next question, then she seemed to change her mind and said, “Well, if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t anybody on the inside, then it must have been a leak from HQ.”

“I guess so. I don’t know,” he replied quietly, glad that she had not probed further in the other direction.

“Or possibly you made a mistake . . . but I am sure you’ve already considered that possibility.”

“I certainly did. I spent weeks examining every detail of what I had done or said. As you know, with hindsight, mistakes are usually quite obvious—but I could find none.”

“So, as I thought, you had nothing to fear.”

He nodded though he did not agree. Nothing to fear? No, he had lots to fear; all she had done was let him know that they had nothing to tell him. But that
was
a mercy and he appreciated her gentleness. He smiled and said, “Thanks for telling me. I really appreciate it.”

“There is one minor disconcerting thing.”

He tensed. “What?”

“Yardley is listed as arrested, convicted, and executed.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“That makes it look like I did it! Like they were covering my trail for me!” he exclaimed, horrified.

“To some.”

“Why would they do that?”

“The records may have been amended years later; perhaps when they were computerized. Either someone was covering up their mistakes or they had given up on finding you and hoped that that little entry would be discovered by your own people. If it were, you would then be rendered ineffective.”

“Or killed.”

“That
is
one way of being made ineffective. It’s not unusual for them to do something like that.”

“Is that why the Council did not weigh it against me?”

Marysia nodded noncommittally, then refilling their glasses, asked,“Do you want to stop by for dinner tomorrow? I’m just making some soup, but there’ll be plenty.”

“Ah, thanks, that sounds wonderful, but I already have an engagement!”

“You? Who?”

“Zosia’s invited me over for dinner.”

“Zosia?” Marysia repeated with something like alarm.

“Yes. Why?”

Marysia shook her head and broke into laughter. “Could you please tell me what is so funny?”

Marysia could not bring her laughter under control. She was giggling so hard her face had turned beet red and she was obviously having trouble gasping for enough breath.

“Marysia! What’s so funny about a dinner invitation?”

“How often have you visited her?” she finally managed to ask.

“Oh, you know, I’m always stopping by. She was especially helpful after my talks with that idiotic psychiatrist.”

“And did you ever eat anything there?”

He shook his head. “She’d put out bread and cheese sometimes, with our wine or vodka. It was freshly made so I know she can bake.”

“You mean like that loaf there?” Marysia pointed to a loaf of bread cooling on her counter.

“Well, yes. Exactly like that,” he answered, his face growing slowly warmer.

Marysia burst into laughter again. She spent a moment dabbing at the tears that ran down her cheeks, swallowing her giggles into her throat so that all he heard were strangled little squeaks as he watched her body shaking with mirth.

So, he was not altogether unprepared for the mess he found in Zosia’s kitchen the following evening. “It’s a nice assortment of ingredients you have here,” he said, prodding the rabbit meat with a fork. “What do you plan to do with it?”

Zosia shrugged. “I was hoping maybe you had an idea?”

After they had finished the meal that he had prepared, Zosia carefully wiped her mouth with her napkin, sipped some wine, and then said, “Excellent! Now, I have a proposition for you.”

He looked up with alarmed delight.

“I was thinking that maybe you could move in here.”

“Move in?” he asked, looking around the apartment in confusion. Though Zosia’s two rooms were considered to be quite luxurious, there was only one bedroom.

“Yes, this place is for a family, and with just me and Joanna here, I’m afraid I’ll get reassigned unless I move someone in.”

“Where would I sleep?” he asked, still glancing around.

“Well, you know, Joanna shares the bed with me, so you could have the foldout couch. Look, there’s even a partition we could put up when you want privacy.” Zosia gestured toward a series of panels that lay on the floor under the couch.“Hey, I’ll even dig out Adam’s clothes—you’re about his size and it would do for you to have something more to wear. I should have given all that stuff away long ago, but somehow it didn’t seem right.”

“And it does now?”