Her voice was drowned out by a thunderous roar from across the street as the wall of flames engulfed the lower two floors of the eight-story PAST tower, climbing rapidly, blowing out windows in a relentless upward thrust. Dozens of shrieking German soldiers, their clothes ablaze, stumbled out through the main entrance or tumbled out first floor windows. The flames rocketed upward, engulfing floor after floor until they reached the top where dozens of men were trapped in the tower.
Natalia watched, dumbstruck with horror, as German soldiers leaped to their deaths, dark silhouettes flailing against the fire-lit sky.
Nine
21 AUGUST
NATALIA DIPPED A CLOTH in a pan of cool water, wrung it out and laid it gently across Berta’s forehead. She placed the back of her hand against her friend’s cheek. It was warm, but not hot, and that was good. Though it had been more than twelve hours, she knew Berta was still in danger. The few remaining doctors in Warsaw were all working round-the-clock in makeshift hospitals. But Zeeka had somehow managed to dig up a stretcher and then find a medic, as the others carried Berta from what was left of the PAST building to the women commando’s quarters on Trebacka Street. It had taken almost two hours and fifty stitches to close Berta’s leg wound, but there were no antibiotics and Natalia knew that the greatest danger over the next few days would be infection.
Fortunately the medic did have morphine. He’d given Berta two shots to get her through the procedure, and she had slept fitfully through the rest of the night and most of the next day. Natalia stayed with her, dozing on and off, and holding Berta’s hand whenever her friend woke up. By evening the morphine had worn off, and Berta was awake, groaning whenever she moved her leg. “God . . . damn it,” she muttered in a mushy, slurred voice, “of all . . . the . . . rotten luck.”
Natalia set the cloth aside, brought over a bowl of weak vegetable soup and fed her a spoonful.
Berta grimaced. “Ach, that’s . . . horrible.”
Natalia nodded, “Yep, same as always. But it’s all we’ve got, and you’ve got to keep up your strength.” She lifted the sheet and examined Berta’s leg, which was elevated with her left foot resting on a wooden crate. The jagged line of stitches ran up the back of her thigh, ending just under the buttocks. The medic had done an adequate job, but her leg was badly swollen. The skin on either side of the stitches was taut and deep red with a yellowish puss oozing from the wound.
Berta looked at her with bloodshot eyes. “So, former medical student . . . how does it look?”
“You’re lucky it didn’t get your knee,” Natalia said half-heartedly, knowing that wasn’t Berta’s real problem. More than half the deaths among the AK commandos were the result of infections from the unsanitary conditions and lack of medicines.
Berta gripped Natalia’s hand. “Listen to me,” she said, her voice dropping to a raspy whisper. “You can’t . . . stay here . . . and nursemaid me. Go get some rest. I’ll be fine.”
Natalia smiled at her, wiped her brow again and picked up the spoon. “Shut up and eat some of this delicious soup.”
Ula and Zeeka arrived a little after ten o’clock that evening. Ula was carrying a white cotton shirt that she handed to Natalia.
“My God, where did you get this?” Natalia exclaimed, taking off her coat and slipping on the shirt.
Ula shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
Natalia nodded. “OK, I understand.” She buttoned it up and tugged at the bottoms of the sleeves. “It even fits . . . sort of.” Then she noticed that Zeeka had something in her hand. It was wrapped in brown paper, and she held it gently as though it were a precious gem. “What is that?”
Zeeka glanced at Berta, who had fallen asleep again, then passed the mysterious package under Natalia’s nose and, with a conspiratorial wink, began to unwrap it.
The aroma hit Natalia, and she grabbed the package out of Zeeka’s hand and peeled back the rest of the paper revealing two golden brown, plump pierogi. She picked one of the small, semi-circular dumplings off the paper and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. “Onions and mushrooms! Wherever did you get it?”
“Rabbit brought them into the pub about a half hour ago,” Ula said. “An elderly man handed him the package outside. He said it was for the women who killed all those Germans at the telephone company. His wife used the last of their flour and what was left in the garden to make them.”
Natalia held the vegetable-filled dumpling in her hand, almost reluctant to eat it because then it would be gone. But, with her stomach growling and her mouth watering, she finally gave in, eating it slowly with baby bites to make it last. “My God, I’d forgotten what they taste like. It’s heaven.”
Zeeka re-wrapped the last one in the brown paper and set it on the table. “We’ll give it to Berta when she wakes up.” Then she pointed at the door. “Now you get out of here.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t just leave her.”
“So, you don’t think we can take care of her? It’s your birthday, for God’s sake, and you need a break. Go over to the pub and have a drink.”
The Bomb Shelter Pub was located in the cellar of an abandoned warehouse on a narrow, twisting street behind St. John’s Cathedral in Old Town. It was a makeshift operation, born during the first week of the Rising when euphoric AK commandos hauled in an eclectic mix of tables and chairs from deserted homes in the neighborhood, cleared away the dust and cobwebs, and opened for business. Red-and-white Polish flags hung from the ceiling and, when the electricity was on, a phonograph played the beloved melodies of Chopin, heard in Warsaw for the first time in five years. AK banners were tacked to the posts. A painted caricature of a death’s-head wearing a Nazi helmet, along with the words One Bullet – One German, adorned the wall directly opposite the stairway.
As the fighting dragged into the third week, Warsaw’s western districts were being pounded into oblivion. But Old Town and much of the City Center remained in the hands of the AK, and the pub was bustling with activity twenty-four hours a day. It was alternately a soup kitchen, a medical clinic, a meeting hall, a wedding chapel and, during long tension-filled nights, a tavern where beleaguered AK commandos roused each other on to a victory that seemed less likely with each passing day. As in the rest of the city, food and water were scarce, but vodka plentiful. So they gathered, glasses in hand, sometimes mourning losses, other times celebrating victories, turning up the volume of the phonograph to drown out the shelling.
Despite the desperate struggle, the night of 21 August was an occasion for cheer, and the revelry in the sweaty, smoke-filled cellar was more boisterous than ever, celebrating the destruction of the PAST building the night before. More than a hundred German soldiers had been taken prisoner and dozens more had jumped to their deaths as a vital link in Germany’s battle communications had been severed.
The vodka flowed freely. Glasses were raised in toasts to the Minerki team amidst raucous cheers and shouts of “Poland Fights! Poland Fights!”
And the loudest voice in the group belonged to Falcon, who had started drinking early and now stood unsteadily atop a table, waving a bottle in the air.
“It’s all over for the fuckin’ Nazis!” he bellowed hoarsely. “They’ll tuck their tails between their legs and run back to their sniveling, knob-kneed Fuhrer!”
Someone shouted from the center of the room, “Give the bastards hell, Falcon! And the same to the Russians!”
Falcon spun around and threw both hands in the air, responding with a mighty roar. “The Russians? Fuck the Russians! Let them sit on their sorry asses. We don’t—”
He lost his balance. The vodka bottle flew from his hand, soared across the room and shattered against the phonograph, sending the needle screeching across the record. Falcon staggered once, then fell backward off the table on top of a half dozen men, who all toppled to the floor with loud bursts of profanity and uproarious laughter. Falcon’s friend Pierre helped him to his feet and tried in vain to boost him back on the ta
ble.
Natalia stood in a corner of the room watching the uncouth display, growing more disgusted by the moment. She’d never considered her affair with Falcon anything more than casual. And she’d been losing interest rapidly over the last few weeks as he’d become increasingly possessive. She could still tolerate him when he was sober. But not when he was like this, which was becoming more frequent all the time.
Some break her friends had given her, Natalia thought. When the table split down the middle and collapsed, she had seen enough. She forced her way through the sweaty mob, climbed the stairs two at a time and pushed open the door.
Outside, she stood on the cobblestone walkway and took a deep breath, inhaling the cool night air. It was her birthday, but she didn’t feel like celebrating. Her best friend had been badly wounded and, as much as she loathed the Nazis, the sight of desperate men leaping from a burning tower was another in a long list of horrendous images she knew she would carry forever.
She glanced down the street where a family huddled around a small fire. The father held a stick with a clump of something on the end while two little boys, one wrapped in a blanket on his mother’s lap, stared listlessly at the flames. Smoke wafted up, drifting toward Natalia in the breeze, carrying the pungent odor of horsemeat.
She turned away and looked in the other direction, then froze as a figure emerged from the shadows of a building across the street. She took a step backward, instinctively reaching into her jacket pocket and gripping her pistol. From inside the pub she heard Falcon’s voice, hoarsely bellowing another curse.
The figure stepped into the street and came toward her. “Sounds like things are getting pretty wild in there.”
In the moonlight, Natalia could now make him out: a thin man wearing glasses. “Wolf?” she asked.
The man motioned toward the raucous party inside the pub. “That sounds like Falcon. Is he always like that?”
“Only when he drinks . . . He’s . . .” She stopped, conscious of her hand still in her jacket pocket, clutching the pistol. “He’s just someone I . . .” She stopped again, realizing she couldn’t tell him any more. Falcon had been her contact for the documents she smuggled from Krakow. “You and I met once before,” she said, changing the subject, “that day at the hospital square.”
The man called Wolf took a step closer. “Yes, I know. Are you always that impulsive?”
“That bastard just shot her . . . like she was . . .” Natalia shuddered as the hideous scene of women being dragged beneath the tank flashed through her mind. “I guess I should thank you. You probably saved my life.”
Wolf shook his head. “I think Rabbit did that. Besides, the woman would’ve died anyway.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t try!”
“You were doing what you had to do. Except that pistol you carry around in your pocket probably wouldn’t have stopped the tank.”
Natalia felt her face flush. She let go of the pistol and removed her hand from her pocket. “Well, thank you anyway.”
“You were part of the Minerki team?”
“Yes, I was.”
“That was good work.”
She nodded, but a shiver ran down her spine as the images flashed back: German soldiers leaping from the tower, dark silhouettes against the flames.
“They go away eventually,” he said. “The memories . . . they eventually go away if you put them out of your mind.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Yes, I do.” He seemed to be studying her uniform jacket. “They call you the Conductor?”
Natalia brushed some of the dust from the jacket, though it was a futile gesture after weeks of fighting in the streets. “That’s what I was, before all this started. I worked the run from Krakow to Warsaw.”
“So, you’re from Krakow?”
“Not originally. I’m from a small village in eastern Poland, but I moved to Krakow when I got the job on the railway.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the quiet broken only by sporadic laughter from the pub and the constant echo of artillery shelling in the distance. Wolf was thin and wiry, and standing in the shadowy moonlight, Natalia thought he looked far less formidable than he had that day in the hospital square. “They say you’re an American,” she said, though the instant she said it she knew he probably wouldn’t tell her if he was.
“Do I sound like an American?” His Polish was without any trace of accent, but cultured and refined, like he’d been raised in the city. “No, you don’t. Do you live here, in Warsaw?” He shook his head.
“Then I’ll bet you’re also from Krakow. You were, let’s see . . . a banker, perhaps?”
He laughed but stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “A banker? Good Lord, I couldn’t stand to be around all that money. I’d probably steal it.”
He seemed a bit restless. Natalia had the impression that he wanted to talk but was uncomfortable about it, as though he wasn’t used to being around people. “So, if you’re not a banker, then . . . a doctor?”
“No, not even close.”
“A schoolteacher?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“I know. It’s my worst quality. I guess I’m just naturally curious. So, are you a schoolteacher?”
“If I were, what would I teach?”
“Well, now we’re getting someplace. Let’s see . . . maybe, economics?”
“Economics? Banking? What is it with you and money?”
Now they both laughed. “I have no idea,” she said, catching her breath, “I’ve certainly never had—”
The door of the pub banged open, and Falcon lurched out, followed by Pierre and another commando, who stumbled into him when he stopped abruptly. Falcon swayed back and forth, clutching a bottle in his hand and staring at Natalia. “There ya . . . there y’are,” he slurred and took a wobbly step closer.
Natalia pointed at the door. “Go back inside,” she snapped.
Pierre grabbed Falcon’s arm and tried to pull him back into the pub. “You heard the lady. Let’s go.”
Falcon pushed him away. “Get the fuck off me!” The bottle dropped from Falcon’s hand and shattered on the cobblestones. He stood upright, shot a quick glance at Wolf, then glared at Natalia. “What the hell . . . what’s . . . going on?”
“Get him out of here,” Natalia said sharply to Pierre.
Falcon grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him.
She jerked away. “Goddamn it—”
But Falcon lurched forward again and grabbed both of her shoulders. His eyes were glazed, and his breath stank of alcohol. “Don’t get smart with me you—”
She pushed him hard. “Take your hands off me.”
Falcon stumbled back, then straightened up and looked beyond her. “Hah, he’s gone. Looks like your new friend doesn’t . . . want any trouble. Now, come over here.”
He reached for her hand again, but she turned away. The street was empty except for the family huddled by the fire.
Wolf was gone.
She stepped into the street, but Falcon was on her in a second. He grabbed her arm and jerked her back. “Goddamn it! You don’t walk away from me!”
She whirled around and slapped him across the face.
Falcon seemed stunned for a second, then punched her in the side of the head, a hammer blow that sent a searing bolt of pain like an electric shock all the way down her back. He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her to her knees. “You bitch! Now I’m not good enough?”
“Falcon!” Pierre shouted. “That’s enough!”
Without taking his eyes off Natalia, Falcon roared, “Shut up and get out of here or you’re next!” He squeezed hard on her throat. “We’ll see who’s not good enough.”
Natalia reached into her pocket, fumbling for the pistol. Her head felt like it was split in half, and she could barely breathe. She tried to break loose, but he was too strong, his fingers digging into her throat. Her vision began to blur when she saw a flash of movement out
of the corner of her eye.
Falcon’s grip abruptly fell away.
Natalia tumbled backward, coughing and gagging, trying to catch her breath. She saw Wolf, his hands clutching Falcon’s shirt, driving the larger man backward toward the building.
Falcon’s arms flailed wildly as Wolf shoved him to the ground, then kicked him hard in the groin.
Falcon howled and rolled onto his side.
Wolf grabbed him by the hair, lifted the big man off the ground and drove his fist into his stomach.
Falcon coiled up into a ball.
Wolf turned toward Pierre. “Pick him up and get him out of here,” he said with an unmistakable tone of menace.
Pierre motioned toward the other commando, who grabbed Falcon under the arms and dragged him into the building.
“I’m sorry,” Pierre said. “I should have stopped him sooner. Once he gets worked up he just—”
“Forget it,” Wolf said. “Just keep him away from her.”
Pierre nodded, then put a hand on Wolf’s shoulder. “I’ve been meaning to thank you . . . for taking care of that bastard, Heisenberg.”
Wolf lifted Pierre’s hand off his shoulder and turned him back toward the pub. “I was just doing my job. Now take Falcon back inside and keep him there.”
Natalia got to her feet, blinking away the stars that danced in her vision, and gently touched the side of her face. She opened and closed her mouth, relieved that her jaw wasn’t broken.
Wolf stepped up and took her elbow. “I think we’d better go.”
Ten
21 AUGUST
THEY WALKED QUICKLY away from the pub and across Old Town’s central market square. In the last five days the enemy shelling had advanced eastward, and now more than half of the Medieval buildings lay in ruins—three centuries of history reduced to rubble piles of multi-colored stucco, shattered leaded-glass windows and broken roof tiles. Flames flickered up through the wreckage, lighting the night street. The acrid odor of smoke hung heavily in the air as groups of AK commandos huddled around their bonfires and pots of soup with rifles slung over their shoulders. They passed around bottles of vodka and cigarettes, glancing up occasionally when a particularly loud artillery burst echoed through the square.
The Katyn Order Page 6
