While Still We Live (58 page)

The camp had finished its preparations: the surplus food had been eaten, the wounded men and Franziska had gone to wait at the forest’s edge, the Lodge was once more alive. For tonight, those who had been left in the camp were going to sleep here. Outside, the air had the edge of fine steel. Inside the Lodge, the waiting men, closely grouped as if from habit before the unlit fire, were at least sheltered from the wind. Their coats—roughly mended, now, but still carrying the dark stains of battle—or blankets neatly folded and belted, were round their shoulders. Their rifles were stacked at the door. Rations were in their pockets. Ammunition. They were ready to move. The feeling of tension slackened as their tired bodies rested, as the food they had eaten and their close grouping warmed them. There was the beginning of talk and laughter, of tall stories, of
long discussions over the best routes to reach the mountains, over the best methods of dealing with German patrols. But on the subject of the unnecessary dangers which would face them, if they were forced to move to the mountains before spring, everyone was silent; and by their silence the admission of danger was complete. Volterscot helped all of them. Whenever the voices lagged, whenever an unguarded face became moody or morose, there was always Volterscot. Obligingly and with his delighted good humour, the little dog went through his tricks. And a dark face would lighten, an unexpected laugh would be forced onto grim mouths. Even the tricks that failed brought applause. And Sheila, watching Casimir’s pleasure and Volterscot’s antics, could sit as quietly as if she were alone in this room.

Jan Reska, equally silent, sat beside her. He had chosen the seat purposely, so purposely that Marian had nudged Antoni and raised her eyebrows with deliberately comic emphasis. But Reska, after the first halting, undecided phrases, had said nothing more. Either he wouldn’t, or he couldn’t, mention Barbara. And if they talked, they would talk about Barbara. It seemed as though Reska and Sheila each took comfort from the other, just sitting side by side, just saying nothing.

Stefan was asleep on the floor. He had brought back an encouraging report from the village. There were no Germans at the north edge of the forest at the time of the shot: a platoon had passed through there on the day before, but today there had been no Germans. Two of the villagers, out gathering wood, had heard the shot. So had a man who had taken refuge in the village. Jadwiga hadn’t sent him on to the camp, because he hadn’t known about it, didn’t ask for it, didn’t give any signs
of knowing names or password. (“We are a very exclusive club, you see,” Sierakowski had said to Sheila with a smile. “No one becomes a member unless he is proposed and seconded.”) The man was still hiding in the village. He was looking for his wife and her young brother, who had gone to the southeast when they fled from Warsaw. He had traced them to this district. He had heard the shot and at first had been curious. But when Jadwiga gave him Stefan’s explanation, he had accepted it. He seemed a dull, stupid kind of person. He was too worried, looking for his wife, to pay much attention to anything else. That was what Stefan thought after watching him in the inn kitchen. Anyway, even if the man were still curious about the shot, he would keep silent. He was a Pole.

Sierakowski had been pleased with Stefan, and his grip on the boy’s shoulder had made Stefan happier. At any rate, the strained look on Stefan’s face had gone. He had eaten the food Sheila saved for him, had sat on the floor at her feet, and then the weight of his head had fallen against her knees, and he was deeply asleep. It was just as well for him to rest like that until Sierakowski, sitting near the shadows of the door beyond the small circle of candlelight, along with the little thin man in rough peasant clothes, gave the signal for them to leave.

Volterscot abandoned his audience and came over to Sheila. He still had the same little habit of holding her fingers gently in his teeth, while he paraded up and down before her at arm’s length. “See,” Casimir was saying, “he remembers you.” He watched Sheila’s face anxiously; and his wide grin was fading. “You’ve never noticed,” he challenged. He couldn’t conceal his disappointment.

“We washed him!” Marian called across to Sheila. With
more heartiness than was necessary, she added, “Alone we did it. Looks a real dog now, doesn’t he?” She pretended she hadn’t been watching Sheila’s face. She was joking now with Casimir, drawing the boy back to her and to Antoni, diverting his embarrassing attention. She had obviously taken a liking to Casimir, and Casimir, with the disarming confidence of a child, considered Marian already his friend. Sheila felt a gladness in her heart as she watched his face, old no longer. He was excited by everyone, by everything. He was so happy he could scarcely sit still. Here, Sheila thought, he could begin to live again. Danger or discomfort didn’t matter to him now. Even they seemed fairly wonderful.

Zygmunt rose from the tight circle of men. His limp was controlled now, as though he were determined to prove his leg was fit once more. He was coming over to her. Specially. She saw that in his eyes, in the stiff way he held his usually fluent hands. She saw the group of men behind him watching him intently as though they were coming over to speak to her, too. They were a background of shadowy faces, strong, sad, violent faces. And then Zygmunt, standing before her, blotted out the watching heads. His voice was very quiet for such a large man.

“Wish I had lost that bet,” he began awkwardly. His gaunt face, looking more like a death’s-head than ever in the feeble candlelight, lost its hardness. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The priest went down to be with the body. We’ll give him a Christian burial as soon as this alarm’s over.”

She watched him rejoin his group of friends before she realised he was thinking of the dead Jan. After that, she had a feeling of guilt whenever one of the men looked at her. They were giving her more credit than she deserved; they were thinking she was
sitting quietly like this because of Jan. Even Marian thought that. Antoni’s friendly, comforting smile proved it.

She glanced at Olszak and Sierakowski, still talking as they waited. They had kept the secret of her leaving. Sheila thought bitterly, tomorrow some will guess why I went away, but none will know the right answer. I will be the English girl who deserted, just as Stefan will be the boy who put his family before his country. She looked at the sleeping boy, at the tired white face and the wild black hair and the large brown eyes hidden by the still eyelids. Sierakowski couldn’t have had the heart to tell him. Stefan wouldn’t be sleeping so deeply, so peacefully, if he had known he was to leave the camp. We shall be called the deserters, she thought. It wasn’t a pleasant idea. Reska had noticed her expression, for suddenly and unexpectedly he began to talk of his journey with Casimir. They had left Warsaw secretly and travelled some fifty miles southeast to Nowe Miasto. There they had met Madame Aleksander, who had made a less direct journey. After the Nazis had questioned her in Warsaw, she had been released. Surprisingly, there was no more interference. The Germans even gave her the necessary permission to leave the city for Cracow, where she wanted to see some relatives. She had travelled quite openly, third class of course, as all Poles had to do now, by a local train as far south as Radom, with the dog in her arms. She wasn’t going to abandon him in Warsaw. Then she had left the train quietly at Radom, where a “friend” waited for her. She had then travelled back the thirty-odd miles northwest to meet Casimir and Reska, walking, riding in farm carts, guided by a succession of “friends.” She and the dog had arrived at Nowe Miasto just before Olszak appeared. Olszak had been as angry about the dog as Casimir had been delighted.

Then they had made their way towards the forest. It had been a journey much like Sheila’s—the same pattern of effort and pretence and exhaustion. Near the small village of Dwór, Madame Aleksander’s strength had suddenly given out. They had left her there, at the little village inn, with Dwór’s Jadwiga keeping a close watch over her. “Madame Aleksander’s an extraordinary woman,” Reska finished. “Yet I used to be pretty scornful about her. Lady Bountiful, I used to call her. Then I saw her as a nurse when I was in hospital. Either people were different in times of peace, or we were all blind to one another’s possibilities.” He was silent for a moment. “Take Wisniewski, for instance—” He broke off suddenly. Perhaps he had remembered some camp gossip. Perhaps Sheila’s face was too polite.

She said, “In times of peace... What was peace anyway but a state of being left alone to use our own energies in our own way? Probably that was its weakness as well as its charm. We didn’t all choose to use our energies in unselfish, impersonal ways. People weren’t really different in peacetime. Now, it is only the different ways in which they use their energies that make them seem changed.”

Reska nodded. He leaned his square-shaped chin on the strong hand with its red mouth of a wound scarring up into the frayed cuff of his army tunic. “The problem is to keep people using their natural energy in the right direction in times of peace, when there is no compulsion to use it in any direction except in their own way. The compulsion in war is one’s country. In peace it should be the State.”

“A confession of failure,” a man beside Reska said unexpectedly. “When one’s country, or the State, arranges what
the individual citizen can’t or won’t do for himself, then it’s a confession of moral bankruptcy. Totalitarianism is an admission that the individual must be regulated and conditioned to be a good citizen. And that’s a confession of failure on the part of the citizens. They should be able to do it for themselves, without the State stepping in.”

“But there isn’t a country in the world that has such citizens.”

“No, but when a country has such citizens, we shall at last see the perfect state. How to produce them? Education. Have teachers who are truly wise as well as clever, teachers who know all politics, possess no party beliefs, know and respect all great religions...”

The man’s voice continued, but Sheila’s eyes were on Sierakowski. He had been looking constantly at his watch. She felt his tension. Now he was rising to his feet. Now he was coming over towards Sheila and Stefan. Well, this was it, at last.

Sheila bent down and wakened Stefan gently. The boy was still yawning when Sierakowski stood before them. Looking up at the thin worried face, Sheila suddenly felt sorry for him. He wasn’t enjoying this, either. He was saying “Stefan, you are to go down and meet your mother at Dwór. That’s where she is now. Miss Matthews will go too.”

Stefan looked startled. “Dwór?” he asked. “Why, I was only seven miles from there this afternoon.” And then he was following the colonel out of the Lodge with his questions. His mother, was she all right, when did she come, why hadn’t she finished the journey to the camp...? Olszak had already disappeared. Zygmunt was walking to the door. Surely Zygmunt wasn’t going to be their guide down through the forest? Sheila, remembering his attempt to walk naturally,
remembering his determination to visit Dwór, almost smiled. Suddenly she wanted to laugh. Hysterical, that’s what you are, she told herself angrily. She touched Reska’s arm—Reska still enlarging on education and a teacher’s qualifications—and said, “I have to go too. Madame Aleksander.” Reska interrupted himself to look at her with surprise. Perhaps her explanations didn’t ring so very true, perhaps he was wondering why her lips were smiling while her eyes were all blurred with tears. She couldn’t see the others very clearly either, now. She walked quickly away. Here it was, at last.

Sierakowski waited for her at the door. “Zygmunt takes you as far as Dwór,” he said quietly. “Olszak will then travel on to Warsaw while you and Stefan and Madame Aleksander will be taken towards Cracow by easy stages. Outside Cracow you will be given your papers and suitable clothes. You will then find the journey easier. In three weeks’ time you will be in Switzerland.”

He followed her outside. The door was closed on Reska, on Marian, on Volterscot and Casimir, on all the friendly faces whose names she hadn’t learned to pronounce, yet.

“Zygmunt’s leg—” she began, to end the awkward silence.

“He can walk. If the Germans attack, he might not manage a running fight. He’s safer in the village for a couple of nights. Anyway, he’s the one man here who knows every blade of grass on the way to Dwór.”

Sierakowski pushed a small revolver into her hand. “There are two schools of thought about this. Personally, I never go unarmed. You can always get rid of this in an emergency. It’s reliable for twenty yards, anyway. Six bullets.”

Sheila slipped the gun inside her blouse, tightened the skirt
band over it to hold it firm. Its cold weight at her waist reassured her. It was extraordinary how one small weapon gave you so much comfort. It was extraordinary how at this moment six bullets sounded so much more reassuring than Switzerland.

“Take no risks,” Sierakowski said. “We shall hear when you reach safety. I’ll depend on you for that news.”

Sheila pulled the heavy coarse black shawl more tightly round her shoulders. The night wind cut through the kerchief over her head. They were two pale ghosts walking under the moon’s blue light towards the forest path. She was still unable to give that last message. The wind, or something, had frozen her tongue.

“
Dowidzenia!
” Sierakowski lifted her cold hand and kissed it.

“Goodbye.” She hesitated.

She said, with painful inadequacy, “Take care of him. Please.”

“Yes,” Sierakowski said. She saw him smile. “Any other message?” he asked gently.

His eyes were on her face, as though they were photographing not its clearly moulded lines, not its smooth softness, but its intensity and honesty. Her face gave the message which her voice couldn’t.

“I’ll tell him,” he said slowly. He let her hand drop, and she was walking quickly towards the beginning of the forest path. She turned around once, just as she reached it. Sierakowski saluted her. He had forgotten the others until he heard Zygmunt say in amazement “
Psia krew!
Is she coming too?” and Olszak say, not unkindly, “We must hurry now,” and Stefan say in a hurt bewildered voice, “Sheila, we aren’t coming back. Did you know?” And then there was only the vast silence of the forest
and the repeated coughing of the sentry outside the Lodge.