Warsaw Requiem

by Bodie Thoene

  The voice was that of a young woman. She replied with polite dignity, but just before the receiver clattered into its cradle, he heard her shouting, “MAMA! He’s here in Warsaw!”

  ***

  Warsaw is lousy with Jews, thought Wolf as the taxi rolled to a stop in front of the Niska Street apartment building where Lucy imagined she was safe.

  “Wait here,” Wolf ordered in clear, unaccented Polish. His dialect was that of an aristocratic Pole. He managed to fit in quite well in Gentile Warsaw. But here in the Jewish district heads turned as he walked into the shabby foyer of the building.

  He did not give the concierge time to ask his business or call ahead to warn the occupants of apartment 3A. Taking the steps two at a time, he reached the third floor before the antique elevator would have made it up one level.

  Wolf fingered the gun in his pocket and fixed a smile on his face as he knocked on the chipped blue paint of the door.

  “Who is it?” a woman’s voice called through the thin wood panel.

  “A friend,” Wolf replied. He did not ask himself if the Jewess within would wonder who among their friends spoke with such a refined accent.

  Indeed her curiosity got the better of her. After a few seconds of hesitation, the door opened slightly. A chain was in place, intended to keep strangers out. She was not worried as she peered out at him.

  “Who are you?” Her thin, serious face was still unafraid.

  “I told you,” Wolf lied. “I was a friend of Rudy Dorbransky in Vienna. The younger Dorbransky, I mean. Rudy was a great violinist. He spoke often of his family here in Warsaw. I thought I should look you up and—”

  “They don’t live here anymore,” the woman replied quietly, but she did not slam the door on the handsome face of Wolf. She continued to look at him as if she hated to disappoint him.

  “Oh yes.” Wolf read the address aloud. He checked the number on the door. “This is the address.”

  “I am sorry.” And she was. “But the Dorbransky family left some months ago.”

  “They are surely still in Warsaw?” Should he believe her? Behind her two small children chattered and played house.

  “No. Not Warsaw.” She looked skyward as though she could not remember. One of the children knocked something over with a clatter. She scolded in Yiddish, then turned back to Wolf in an embarrassed manner.

  His smile was frozen on his face. He felt she was lying. However, he was not yet ready to force the issue or the door. “You have a forwarding address?”

  She shrugged. “No. Nothing. Some letters have come for them, but we send them back.” She was reluctant to end the conversation, and yet . . . was there something behind that gaunt, mousy face?

  “Why don’t you open the door?” Wolf asked. “Maybe we can think of who might know how I can find my friends. I have come a long way.”

  The woman blushed. “My husband is not at home. I cannot . . . and I cannot help you in any way. We are from Cracow ourselves, you see. We were just very lucky to find this flat empty. They were just leaving. They sold us the furniture.” She gestured at the furniture that Wolf could not see and shrugged. The children shouted and laughed, and at that moment, when she decided she was quite through, Wolf decided he was just beginning.

  He braced his foot in the door as she attempted to close it. “Who was with Rudy’s family?” He retained a pretense of friendliness even as he forced the door to remain open against the woman’s wishes.

  “I . . . please . . . don’t remember. They were just leaving.”

  “A red-haired woman was with them, perhaps?” He remembered Peter Wallich’s desperate note about his mother. This was the very place where Karin Wallich had fled from Vienna, Wolf sensed. And why not? It was Lucy’s last refuge as well.

  “Yes! A red-haired woman! A little girl! Also Viennese.” The woman repeated this news with the hope that he would now go away.

  Instead, powered by the awareness that Lucy also had this address, he shoved hard against the door, pulling the chain loose with a snap. The woman opened her mouth as if to scream. Wolf waved his weapon in front of her face and shook his head in a warning that she must remain silent.

  The place was as thin on charm as the woman trembling before him. One severe square table and four chairs sat in the center of the room. A bookshelf stood against the wall. A few elegant pieces of porcelain sat upon the shelves as a stark reminder of how far these people must have fallen in society. The children played on, oblivious that anything was wrong.

  “Where is Lucy?” Wolf asked with a smile, as if this was some sort of elaborate joke. Her joke on him? Or his on her?

  Confusion mingled with terror in her eyes. ”Lucy?”

  Again he waved the gun beneath her nose. “You think I will not use this?”

  “Please! Sir! I don’t know anyone by that name! We are from Cracow! From Cracow, you see? They sold us the furniture and went away. I don’t know where they went! No one named Lucy has come here!”

  The fear was genuine. Wolf backed up a step in the tiny space that passed for the main room. He nudged open the bedroom door with the heel of his hand and then looked from the empty bed toward the rack that served as a closet. The bed was made up. From this one fact, he was satisfied that perhaps this living broomstick was telling him the truth.

  At that he pocketed the weapon, looked once more around the shabbiness of the flat, and straightened his fingers for an unspoken Nazi salute. The woman did not recognize the gesture, Wolf knew, but soon enough it would be common in Warsaw. Perhaps then she would remember the man who entered her flat uninvited and know that the visit had been only a small foretaste of what was about to come upon the Jews of Warsaw.

  Wolf could hear her crying as he descended the steps of the flat. He imagined what she would tell her husband when the man got home. Then he hurried to his hotel room to telephone Heinrich Himmler at Gestapo headquarters in Berlin with the news that the London agent had sent inaccurate information. Lucy was not there. But sooner or later, he knew she would contact the people in London who had the child. It was a matter of patience, Wolf told them. Of course, patience was not a virtue he possessed himself. He only asked that it be extended to him in this difficult situation.

  Wolf apprised Berlin of his plans. He had Peter Wallich’s address. He did not doubt that Lucy would eventually be in contact with the boy, he assured Himmler. When that moment came, Wolf would be on hand to arrest them both and bring them back to the Reich for the trial that the Führer desired so urgently.

  The fact that Lucy Strasburg was not where the London agent said she would be was not Wolf’s fault, was it? It certainly did not mean that she was not in Warsaw and within the reach of Nazi justice.

  Wolf sensed that the impatience of Himmler was placated by his assurances. He only hoped that the Führer could also be soothed in the meantime.

  ***

  “Six months’ rent in advance,” said the Polish landlord as Wolfgang von Fritschauer counted out the bills without argument. “And if you would like to pay for twelve months, of course there will be an additional discount.”

  “Six months will be sufficient,” Wolf replied. The discount did not interest him as much as the location of the apartment.

  Kowalski was a typical Polish landlord. Physically fat and soft, the man was nonetheless hard and shrewd in his dealings. He did not care what reason Wolf had for renting an upstairs flat on the corner of Niska Street and Muranow Square. The affairs of the tall, iron-jawed young man did not matter as long as the rent was paid. But Kowalski was curious!

  Why should a well-groomed, well-educated businessman like this wish to rent a flat in the Jewish district of Warsaw? Certainly it was possible that the fellow had some business transactions with the Jews. Such a thing was quite common in Warsaw. After all, Kowalski conducted matters of a financial nature with the Jews on a daily basis. He owned several buildings in the Jewish district that were leased to the Jews. But Kowalski made the Jews come to hi
s office in downtown Warsaw. He did not have an office anywhere near the noisy, medieval world in which they lived.

  Well, then, was the business of this gentleman of a personal nature, perhaps? A Jewish mistress? At first Kowalski thought this was a logical explanation. Jewish women were known for their beauty. Polish wives were jealous. Polish men often discussed the desirability of the Jewesses. It was well known that certain members of the Polish nobility kept Jewish mistresses. Their fiery temperaments and lack of care for the proprieties of the church, it was said, made them excellent distractions for wealth Poles. The joke was that a gentlemen did not have to worry about his mistress making confession to his personal parish priest if she was Jewish. Such reasoning made sense, did it not?

  But why would this fellow set his mistress up in the most religious sector of Jewish Warsaw? The Orthodox Jews had their own standards of moral behavior. They did not like their women running around with Polish men. In such an area, a Jewish mistress would have difficulty walking down the street without being reviled. Shops would be closed to her. Life would be unbearable.

  This fellow could not have rented the flat for the keeping of a courtesan.

  What was left then?

  Kowalski leaped to the only conclusion. Everyone knew that the Jewish district was a nest of Bolshevik dissension. The Polish government always worried about the Jews making plans with the Russians. Kowalski himself worried about such things. After all, if Poland was taken over by the Communists, he would lose his apartment buildings. The Jews would form collectives and take over everything Kowalski owned. They would not pay him rent anymore. He would be poor—as poor as the people who now rented from him.

  “You are a government man, are you not?” Kowalski asked.

  Wolf looked up sharply. “I would not tell you if I was.”

  That reply was as good as a yes. “You are going to be keeping an eye on the Jews?”

  A slight smile. “That is not your business, as long as I pay the rent.”

  Kowalski felt pleased. He had figured it out. “As I told you. A very prominent apartment. You can see the whole of Muranow Square all the way to the Community Center. There are so many Jews coming and going these days. Terrible times. We must be careful of the Jews or they will feed Poland to the Russian bear, eh, my friend?”

  Wolf shrugged. He did not reply. But that was as good as a yes, was it not? Kowalski felt honored that his building was somehow in a very small way being used for the defense of Poland against the intrigues of the Jews. Everyone knew the Jews were plotting with the Communists. And now this government fellow was going to be right in Kowalski’s own building, protecting the Polish state and Kowalski’s property in the bargain.

  For a moment, Kowalski considered giving this government agent a discount. He thought better of it. After all, Kowalski’s taxes paid this fellow’s salary and also paid the rent on the flat on Muranow Square.

  Kowalski gave him the keys with a knowing smile. “Good luck then. You will enjoy the view very much.”

  ***

  The letter Elisa had sent to the Warsaw address of Lucy Strasburg returned to the London TENS office covered with large, angry-looking Polish words indicating that there was no one there by that name.

  It lay open on Murphy’s desk with the rest of the mail. The photograph of tiny baby Alfie at his christening poked out sadly from the torn envelope.

  Murphy reread the letter Elisa and Lori had written. It was long and newsy, in the warm, friendly tones of someone who had lived among the outgoing people of Austria.

  Harvey Terrill was just on his way home after what had been a very newsy night but without any warmth of friendliness at all. Exhaustion reflected in Terrill’s face.

  “Thanks, Harvey,” Murphy encouraged. Then he held up the letter. “When did this come in?”

  “Yesterday,” Harvey answered in a flat tone. “I opened it by mistake. Took me awhile before I translated it and figured out it was talking about the baby.” He frowned as if something just struck him. “I thought the baby was Lori Ibsen’s kid.”

  “Long story.” Murphy waved him off. “Go home and get some rest. The Nazis and Russians are having a powwow tonight in Moscow. You’ll have to be awake for that one.”

  Murphy waited until Harvey left the office before he picked up the letter again. He called Elisa and told her that the letter had been returned, and then he slipped it into the outgoing mail packet back to the Warsaw TENS office and Samuel Orde.

  ***

  David and Samuel had blabbed the day and the time of Captain Samuel Orde’s planned visit to the Lubetkin home.

  Apparently this time no one doubted their veracity. At 6:30 am, the first of the young men began to gather on the sidewalk outside the Muranow Square house. They chose their places along the curb, dusted off the pavement, and sat down to wait for the arrival of the great Hayedid!

  After breakfast, Rachel looked out the window. The little knot of young men had grown to a crowd. Black coats mingled with the white, short-sleeved shirts of the nonreligious. The curb-sitters had multiplied to at least two hundred, with more coming from every direction like lines of ants on the march to the anthill!

  “Mama!” Rachel shouted in alarm. “Hurry! Come look!”

  There was no need for Etta to hurry. These men and boys were not going away. They had staked their claims on little parcels of pavement so they could see him! Like the Deliverer, he was! The one who had been in the newspapers and had trained the Special Night Squads, and so on and etcetera, until he was practically a legend. And so what if he was not a Jew? He probably really was a Jew, only nobody was telling it!

  Etta gasped in astonishment at the ever-spreading mass that began at her front door and moved outward into the square like an ink spill on a tablecloth! Among them near the front steps gleamed the red hair of Peter Wallich.

  “Have they come to see the captain?” Etta breathed. “But how did they know he would be here today?”

  At that, David and Samuel, dressed for Torah school, peeked their heads around the corner. If ever there were guilty faces, David and Samuel had them. Their eyes were wide with who-me? looks, their mouths clamped shut as if they had never opened to spill the news to friends and classmates.

  Etta turned and glared at them. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head to let them know that they had better not pretend they had said nothing!

  “Well? Nu? You should see what you have done! Next thing you know the Polish Secret Police will accuse us of hosting a riot!” She crooked her finger. They should come see.

  Guilt made them tiptoe to the window. They gazed solemnly at a thousand below. More were coming. Brooms were being set aside, and stoops were left dusty and untended. Now it was no longer just young men who flocked, but everyone was coming!

  “We didn’t tell,” Samuel said in his sweetest voice.

  Etta replied with a threatening look. “Samuel!”

  “We just said . . . that is . . . I told Mordechai that—”

  “Mordechai!” Rachel snarled the name. “You were showing off!”

  “I told Mordechai that if he did not believe, he should come here to our house at eleven o’clock,” Samuel finished indignantly. “So?” He gestured toward the thousand and some Mordechais who had all come to see.

  Etta’s face reflected her puzzlement. “You think this many will show up when the Messiah comes?”

  “If they do, then the Messiah will not be able to get through them all.” Rachel glared at the smirking face of David. “What are you so happy about?”

  “Mama?” David addressed his happy question to Etta and ignored his sister entirely. “How will Samuel and I get to Torah school this morning?”

  Etta looked from the angelic face of her son to the teeming mob of spectators. “David, it would have been easier if you had told me you had a stomachache.”

  “You only told Mordechai?” Rachel challenged. “They must have sent out printed invitations to everyone in Wars
aw so they would not have to go to school!”

  “Not true.” Samuel glared at her in a dangerous way.”I only told Mordechai.”

  David never said who he had mentioned the event to. But everyone out there had heard from someone who had heard from someone else that the great and mighty English Zionist soldier, Captain Samuel Orde, was coming to tea. Like the Messiah, he was coming. Like Gideon. Who in Jewish Warsaw could doubt such a marvelous tale? The Eternal always answered prayers during perilous times, did He not? Blessed be He! Was there even one Jewish male who was not in the square?

  Maybe Mordechai was not there. Everyone knew that Mordechai was a poor loser.

  28

  The Deliverer Comes

  Something was up with the Jews in Muranow Square. In all the days Wolf had been watching from his perch, he had never seen a gathering quite like this.

  The clatter of milk bottles announced the arrival of the grocery delivery boy outside Wolf’s door. He turned away from the window and fixed a smile on his face before he opened the door to the diffident youth who stood with his arms full of boxes.

  A Polish language newspaper was folded and wedged between a small bottle of cream and another of milk. The boy looked red-faced and harried today.

  “You are late,” Wolf scolded in a friendly fashion. The building was without an elevator. The delivery boy was always later than promised.

  “Did you see the mob in the square?” the boy blurted out, setting the boxes on the table and then going to peer out across the crowd.

  Wolf pretended that he had seen the demonstration but that it did not really interest him. “Did someone die?” he asked as he took the bottles of cream and milk to the old-fashioned icebox. Wolf always made the boy wait for his payment until the grocery boxes were empty. Jews talked too much for their own good, Wolf knew. This young fellow was like the others of his race in this way.