The National Treasure

by William P Wood

  “Take it easy, doc,” Peszek said, eyeing Sakovich.

  All the time as the doctor manipulated and poked and re-bandaged, Janusz kept hearing his new music demandingly battering to get out. Lidia whispered, “Don’t antagonise him. Please.”

  “He makes me sick.”

  “I’ll make you sick if you keep acting this way.”

  Janusz folded his arms. Ignore Sakovich. Ignore Lidia. You’re doing something more important even now.

  Finally, Dr Sakovich nimbly covered Peszek, snapped the medical bag shut. “Sergeant, you are amazing. Perhaps I flatter myself. I’m amazing. Your recovery is going splendidly! What do you say?”

  “Next time I get the drip, I’ll come to you. I’ll tell my friends, too. ” Peszek pulled the covers up to his darting eyes like a child facing an ogre.

  “Next time? Very funny. A man with a sense of humour is a man who will live to see another sunrise!” Dr Sakovich, acting as if he were the master of the house, bustled Janusz and Lidia from the room. “Tomorrow, sergeant! You’ve raised my hopes. I expect to see you marching up and down outside.”

  Janusz found this jollity grating beyond endurance as he followed Lidia to the landing. Dr Sakovich, sweating and very pleased, fumbled for one of the cigars in his coat pocket. “I could do with a whisky, Lidia.”

  “Of course,” she said, as they went down the stairs. “How is he really?”

  “Really? Very well. He’s proving a longstanding theory of mine about the amazing regenerative powers of the lower classes. They’re like certain worms and the potato. Cut them into pieces and they stubbornly insist on growing back. Do the same thing to civilised people like us, we’re goners!”

  Janusz stood, hands in his pockets, fidgeting with anger. “That’s an absurdly moronic idea. He’s a brave man not a worm or a vegetable,” he said to Dr Sakovich. “Thank you for coming. I have to go,” and he started back to the studio.

  “Daniel, what Janusz means…” Lidia began but Dr Sakovich held up a fleshy white hand, his black-rimmed glasses like two portholes, his mouth drawn into a great smile. He pointed at each of them with the unlit cigar.

  “Don’t go, Maestro. Lidia. We three must convene and talk. I have something that affects us and your friend.”

  Janusz felt cold suddenly and braced himself for bad news about Karol Peszek.

  Twenty-Eight

  But it wasn’t bad news about Peszek that Dr Sakovich wanted to lay out, cigar lit and producing a cloud of acrid smoke in Lidia’s living room. It became very clear, very soon what was on his mind. When it did, Janusz wanted to kill him.

  “Lidia. Maestro,” he said, exhaling a grey cloud expansively as he stood in front of the stonework fireplace. “Our situation immediately presented me with an opportunity, I concluded last evening after much thought,” he chuckled, fat face lowering so the double chins squashed into each other, “that required a cold bath afterward!”

  Lidia sat still on the sofa, just as she had with Janusz earlier that morning. She crossed her long legs slowly and precisely smoothed the lines of her nickel-coloured silk skirt. Janusz was sitting beside her, but when the smug physician began blabbering he bounced to his feet. “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

  The demonstration of anger didn’t startle or alarm Dr Sakovich, any more than Lidia’s blank, adamantine expression encouraged him. She was poised, like a deadly snake that freezes as it waits and watches. At least that’s what Janusz read into her neutral attitude.

  “Yesterday, Lidia,” Dr Sakovich went on contentedly, “when you called, I was frankly perplexed. You obviously wanted a very dangerous favour from me. Should I grant it? What if I didn’t? But, what if I did,” and he took a deep satisfied pull on the cigar sending a jet of smoke into the air. Janusz thought this performance was from a mediocre detective play, when the sleuth reveals all.

  “I appreciate the risk you took, Daniel,” Lidia said calmly.

  “You will, you will,” he nodded. “As often as I like, whenever I like.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Dr Sakovich’s expression tightened. “I’m a simple country doctor, yet a cultured, educated, I could even say cosmopolitan man, so a man out of his proper milieu if you will, but unable to do anything about it. Then, several years ago, what miraculously swims into my view but the glamorous wife of a famous composer,” he bowed toward Janusz who waved it away, “the very beautiful former wife of this well-known man. She’s unfortunately attached to another man, but no matter. This woman, this incredibly desirable emissary from a world of beauty, power and wealth, she is now in my world. Can you imagine how this made me feel?”

  “I don’t give a fuck how it made you feel,” Janusz snapped like Peszek. “Get out.”

  But, Lidia sat back on the sofa. “No, I think Daniel’s coming to the point.”

  Janusz restrained himself for the moment. Lidia was always surer of things like this than him, the coy introduction portending something significant at the end. Right now, he felt too insecure about the framework of their lives to do more to Dr Sakovich. That would come later, he promised.

  Dr Sakovich went on, as if talking to himself, which he was in many ways, gloating for his own pleasure. “I am coming to it, Lidia, thank you. Your presence here in town, every time you came to see me for the trivial ailments you or your current man had, was like my face was pressed against a four-star restaurant window and I could see the feast inside and I was starving. But, I couldn’t get in.”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Lidia said. “Until yesterday, isn’t that right?”

  “Exactly right. Even before the sergeant revealed who he is while I worked on him, I knew I now had a way to enter your world, Lidia. Not the one out there,” he waved the cigar, “but yours, you, you. The Maestro was of no concern because he was incognito. Afraid to be exposed. Why is that, Maestro? I haven’t worked it out.”

  “Shut up,” Janusz said. “You remind me of Peter Lorre.”

  Lidia couldn’t contain a strained giggle. Dr Sakovich smiled too. “I admire your sense of humour, Maestro. Yes, go ahead and laugh, Lidia. The other one, the engineer you’re currently married to, he’s lost somewhere in the wreck of our army. So, I understood that the situation leaves me and you, Lidia. The two of us.”

  “I’ve always valued your friendship, Daniel. It’s why I came to you yesterday.”

  Dr Sakovich savagely ground out the half-smoked cigar on the mantelpiece leaving an ashen flaw on the white tile as coarse as if he had spit there. “Well, none of that matters. I wanted the Maestro to hear what I have to say because he has to understand that he can’t do anything. I’m sure he wants to. He’d probably try something if it was just his neck. Not yours, Lidia. Not that lump upstairs. He won’t risk either of you.”

  “What would I try, doctor?” Janusz asked with all of the control he had. Like lecturing a rotten local orchestra you knew would never understand, and even if they did, couldn’t improve their playing in the slightest. So you spoke with great calm because you had to even if you couldn’t set things right.

  Dr Sakovich grinned. “I know your career, Maestro. I could recognise you even in that silly disguise. You’re a romantic. Lidia is your ideal woman. I think you, even you, would slaughter me quite cheerfully because of her. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Janusz said, sitting beside Lidia.

  “Yes,” Dr Sakovich continued, hands flapping in a lewd imitation of conducting an orchestra. “Making love to a beautiful woman must be like mastering an orchestra. So many parts to caress and control. So many sounds and responses.”

  Lidia smiled. “That’s very poetic.”

  “You’ll find out how poetic I am, Lidia. And I will discover what the Maestro has enjoyed for so many years. I will play you hard. Often. Encore. Encore. Encore.” He pointed at her like he was stabbing out with a conductor’s baton. “Whenever you left my office, I always walked you out, staying behind you so I could watch the way that magnifice
nt arse of yours moves. I am fascinated by its thrust and sway. I imagined what I would do to that arse if I had my hands on it. Very soon I will.”

  Janusz felt the same unearthly detachment he had experienced after the bloody sights on the main road and after the deaths of Walicki and Dunin, and even now, after the heroically stoic death of the apothecary. So as he held Lidia’s hand, he said simply and crisply to Dr Sakovich, “I will kill you.”

  The doctor blew out a raspberry and paced briefly as he said, “No, you won’t. He won’t, will he, Lidia? You’ll make sure of it. I’m the orchestra conductor here. I know about the Maestro. I know about the soldier upstairs. All I have to do is mention either of you to Major Henselt and he’ll wipe you out. He’s extremely agitated about partisans so he’s not very particular about killing right now.”

  Janusz knew that was the weapon, the universal weapon that pierced every defence: the ones you love. His hand gripped Lidia’s more tightly. “I’ll tell Henselt you fixed Sergeant Peszek. You aided the enemy. I think he’ll wipe you out.”

  Dr Sakovich raised his white fat face to the sunlight from the windows, stretching the neck so he looked like a mutation of a seal gulping for a fish. “Major Henselt and I have a very close bond. He’ll listen to me, not you, Maestro. He’s a very avid user of Pervitin. Sometimes his army supplies run low and he’s afraid he’ll be cut off.”

  Lidia said, “What are you talking about?”

  “The Major likes a popular drug in his country. His army supplies it, but in these chaotic times the supplies are sometimes haphazard. Pervitin’s the brand name for what amounts to methyl amphetamine. It keeps him frisky and brightens his day. He feels enormously efficient. He told me he once went without sleep for 72 hours thanks to his handy Pervitin tablets. He did say that near the end of the 72 hours he began to think his soldiers were made of sponge cake and he saw an alarming three-headed wolf running toward him.”

  “He’s insane,” Janusz said. “He’s hallucinating.”

  Dr Sakovich shrugged. “Undoubtedly. But he’s convinced he needs the kick from the drug to keep going in these demanding days. He intends to be a colonel soon. He had our town apothecary shot yesterday so I have to ensure he has a reliable supply of Pervitin or methyl amphetamine.”

  Janusz looked briefly at Lidia. It was obvious that Dr Sakovich had no idea his rival for her was Dieter Henselt.

  Outside, one of the cows lowed. A clock ticked on a table in the living room. Janusz felt Lidia’s hand moist with fear sweat in his hand. He had a pounding in his head, the music he had been listening to before they sat down, crashing together dissonantly.

  “Don’t,” Janusz said, appalled that he was pleading. “Please don’t.”

  Lidia nudged her cheek against his. “It’s all right, Janusz. I understand what Daniel is saying.”

  Dr Sakovich licked his upper lip as if a morsel of food had caught there. “Of course, you do. You’ll do what I tell you to do.”

  “Yes, I will, Daniel.”

  “No hesitation? No tricks?”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  Janusz could barely hear either of them over the cacophony that thundered in his head. “Turn me in,” he said, realising as he said it that the offer of a propitiatory sacrifice to the mad god Henselt was irrelevant. He couldn’t think of anything else. He had nothing else to bargain with. “I am famous. Henselt will be very happy. He’ll reward you.”

  But Dr Sakovich didn’t hear him. The doctor stared at Lidia, oddly tentative suddenly, as if he couldn’t grasp that he had won and achieved the otherwise impossible object of his lusts and dreams. Then he regained his gloating pose.

  “Yes,” he said to himself. “Yes. I’m going now. I have a lot to think about. I have to plan carefully. I’ll be back tomorrow, Lidia. I have to check on my patient. So, I should be here around lunchtime. I’ll spend the afternoon. Yes. The whole afternoon.”

  Lidia got up and she astounded Janusz by first touching Dr Sakovich on his coat, then letting her hand drift down his arm until her fingers twined briefly with his. It was intimate, a carnal invitation without any ambiguity. Janusz recognised it. “I’ll be ready, Daniel. You promise that you won’t say anything to Major Henselt about Janusz or the sergeant?”

  Dr Sakovich swallowed hard, the unattractive bright boy growing up who had yearned for local girls and always been rejected. “Of course I won’t say anything.”

  She stepped back. “I’ll be ready for you tomorrow afternoon.”

  Janusz felt as though he had walked in on a scandalous escapade and he was no more than a horrified interloper. Lidia had taken charge of the matter. But he was more than an accidental observer. He was intimately involved. The disgust and fury he felt was unmatched in his experience.

  She walked Dr Sakovich to the door and then came back and they both heard the doctor’s car as it left. Lidia wordlessly went out to the granite patio. Her expansive grounds spread out from there. Gabriela had the mare out for exercise among the fruit trees.

  Janusz took Lidia’s hand. “Forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  “I didn’t stop him.”

  “You couldn’t stop him. Well, if you did slaughter him, then yes.”

  They watched Gabriela and the mare, like a detail from the garden of earthly delights, innocent, perfect and ideal.

  “I won’t let him do anything to you,” Janusz said to Lidia with utter conviction. “I won’t.”

  “Which leaves Dieter. I feel like a bone two dogs are fighting over.”

  For the first time since the bitter afternoon convened, Janusz smiled and ran his hand down her side, stopping at her hip. “Some bone.”

  Gabriela waved at them and they both waved back. The sky above was clear, weakly blue, the awful future just beyond its fraudulent pastel.

  Lidia sighed. “A drink?”

  “At least,” and he turned with her. His hand on her body conveyed the tension and suppressed emotion she felt. “Tomorrow isn’t that far off,” he reminded her gently.

  “But it is tomorrow. You and I are devious, Janusz. We’ll come up with something.”

  “I can always kill that fat slug.”

  Lidia nodded. “Absolutely. First, let’s get drunk.”

  Twenty-Nine

  They didn’t get drunk in the way they had when they were younger and married. Then it was spontaneous, bottomless, ecstatic drinking. It was pleasure for its own sake. There was a measure to this drinking through the afternoon, stages and calculation, as Janusz and Lidia sat in the airy living room, then moved to her studio where he showed her what he had written so far, and finally, out to the patio again. By that time they had gone through champagne and brandy, sampled whisky. The aim was to step off the stage. The performance was too violent and revolting. Janusz thought they achieved their purpose finally. The mild pastel day actually seemed benign when seen through that liquored prism rather than the cruel masquerade they both knew it to be.

  Lidia was genuinely bewildered that she was the object of such feral lust. As they sat on the patio, glasses in hand, suspended between what had just happened and what was hurtling toward them, he said that it was the new world that had unleashed the animals. In a million years, under a million ordinary circumstances, neither bumptious, pretentious Dr Sakovich nor idealistic seeker Dieter Henselt would act the way they were both doing now. But now they could. Now the ravening beasts were ascendant.

  “You could get away, Janusz. Just like you were planning. You can take Gabriela.”

  “It wasn’t my plan to get away. My plan was to do what I did, come here to you.”

  Lidia sipped from her tumbler of whisky. She retained her youthful talent of never really appearing drunk or even much affected by liquor. When they were first married, she had won every challenge at every party, drink for drink. Janusz, on the other hand, lost focus and became quite sentimental. Or loud. He didn’t have her intermediacy. Now she was tense, but very clear. “You should go
. Gabriela should get away, too.”

  “What about you? What about Peszek? He’s not up to the kind of travel you’re talking about.” Her insistence was making him angry. “What would you do? Wait around for Henselt to show up? Then the fat doctor? Give them numbers? Make them stand in line?”

  She laughed the way he remembered and it was wonderfully annoying.

  “I’m not joking,” he said, slamming his tumbler down so it cracked.

  “I had a picture of myself in a white smock, like at the bakery, and the two of them impatiently at the counter trying to get my attention, demanding the same loaf.”

  Then he laughed too. A stray light breeze rustled the fruit trees, the forest past them, and stirred Lidia’s blonde hair, neatly arranged around her forehead. “I can’t leave you,” he said.

  “You know you should. The child deserves a chance. Things aren’t going to go well here.”

  “You said we’re devious,” he leaned in to kiss her carefully, masking his fear, “we’ll figure out something.”

  “Like the time in Monte Carlo when you took me to …” she frowned, “… what was the name of that place? It had the high arch doorway and three or four doormen.”

  “Oh, no. Les Petits Coquillages,” he said, remembering. “I left my wallet at the hotel, the First Symphony was in rehearsal, I was nobody, I wanted to impress you …” he trailed off. “I wanted to be famous so you would be impressed.”

  “You wanted to be famous,” she said with a trace of chiding. “But it was so flattering you took me along. I was impressed that night,” and she started to laugh again. “When the bill came, that enormous bill for all that food and the champagne, and you started to turn your pockets out with that look on your face.”

  “And you started crying, real tears. The maître d’ forgot about me. ‘My husband’s been robbed’ you stammered. ‘I’m afraid what he’ll do because of the shame here tonight’.”