While Still We Live

by Helen Macinnes

  “Time to be going,” Sheila said in a low voice to Henryk. She was surprised when he obeyed.

  “Just routine check-up, ma’am,” he said in Polish loud enough for Casimir to hear. And then he added out of the side of his mouth, “Quite the friend of the Poles, aren’t you?”

  “Those were my instructions.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “Waiting further instructions.”

  He looked, down at her, his eyes so impenetrable that Sheila wondered in alarm if she had betrayed herself. She was left with the unsatisfactory question unanswered, for Henryk was already moving into the hall. He was whistling. She remembered that early morning in Uncle Edward’s flat and the sound of water as the hot dust was hosed off the pavement under her window. Again she echoed her thoughts of that morning; what has he to be happy about? But this time she knew the answer.

  She stood at the window until she saw Henryk enter the street. Another workman, loitering in a near-by doorway, joined him. Together, they strode away, their feet keeping perfect rhythm. If she had called the policemen, she might have caught Henryk, but she would have endangered Hofmeyer. She took a deep breath. Now that she was safely alone, without a phrase or expression to betray her and threaten her friends, she suddenly felt terribly afraid.

  From the kitchen, Casimir’s voice called cheerily.

  She roused herself. “Coming, Casimir,” she said, and placed the magazine slowly back in place. She wished this man Henryk weren’t so ambitious. She wished he weren’t jealous of Hofmeyer. She knew she had good reason to be afraid.

  20

  MR. HOFMEYER’S APPRENTICE

  The first Germans entered Warsaw. The human-length mounds along the streets and gardens welcomed them. Rough wooden crosses were the banners which the city raised. The withering flowers on the unknown graves were the petals strewn in the conqueror’s path.

  The people, too busy with their search for food and water and jobs, for scattered families and rooms where they could live now that the Germans occupied so many houses, hardly seemed to notice the green-grey uniforms crowding their streets. Ignore them was the unconscious reaction. The Germans offered chocolate bars to children and took photographs. They offered bread and soup to the less proud and took more photographs. (Later, the bill for soup and bread was charged to the city; no photographs were taken of that event!) But the people seemed coldly oblivious: they were like men who have been sharply awakened from an evil dream, who moved and talked with the dream still haunting them. If there was bitterness in their hearts for their failure, bitterness on their tongues for those they blamed, still more bitter were their eyes as they ignored the Germans doling out little benefits with so much fanfare. The Nazis gave so little compared to what they had destroyed. The chocolate offered to a starving Polish child, even without the newsreel cameras cranking in the background, was merely added insult to his mother’s sufferings. The smiling, confident Germans would have been amazed, even indignant, if that had been pointed out to them. Sometimes, Sheila wished she could enjoy that luxury.

  But it was luxury to be alive at all. Even after a week of silent guns, she was still amazed that any people should still be left. She was still more amazed that she should be counted among them. As she walked along the partly cleared streets towards Central Station she could only think, “In spite of all of this, some of us still live. Some of us still have homes. And some,” as she noted a man and woman hawking a tray of stockings outside a boarded-up shop, “some are beginning to plan their lives again.” The extraordinary thing about human beings was their resilience.

  * * *

  She attempted a short cut to the station, and entered a quiet thoroughfare to reach Marszalkowska Avenue. But its end which joined the larger street was still blocked by an immense barricade. Men were even working now to tear it down. They worked grimly. No doubt they were thinking of how they had planned to retreat and fight behind these barricades. They had built them strong. But the failing supply of ammunition, the lack of water, had beaten them. And now the order had been given that Polish hands must tear the barricades down, so that the Nazis could stroll through the street.

  One of the men straightened his back, pulled on his well-cut jacket with grimy hands. Another man had stepped forward to take his place: each citizen gave so much of his time as he passed by the barricades which ringed the centre of the city; each stepped forward, worked for the same period of time, and then relinquished his place to another. The man in the well-cut suit was trying to wipe off the dust on his hands. He noticed Sheila’s hesitation as she calculated what would now be the quickest way of reaching Central Station. She must not be late, not for her very first meeting with Mr. Hofmeyer.

  “Trying to get to Marszalkowska?” he asked. “You’ll have to make a detour. I’m going there. I’ll show you the quickest way.”

  “Thank you,” Sheila said in relief.

  “Stranger?” the man said. He finished rubbing his hands. He wore the neat black jacket and striped trousers of a once prosperous business-man.

  “Yes. British.”

  “Hm.” The man looked sourly at her. After that he didn’t speak until they had reached Marszalkowska Avenue. “There you are,” he said abruptly.

  “Thank you again.” Her smile hesitated: this man didn’t want any smiles from foreigners. But he had noticed the expression in her eyes and halted unexpectedly.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I stayed. I thought I could help.”

  “Hm. You’re one of the few foreigners who did, then.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sheila said miserably.

  The man stared at her. He noticed the bloodstains still smudging her coat, its singed cuff, the red skinless flesh on her left hand, her bare legs, her worn shoes.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said gruffly. “Good day.” But his voice had lost its hard edge, and the bitterness in his face eased for a moment. “Please forgive me,” he said wearily, and then he left her.

  * * *

  It was a subdued Sheila who crossed the street and reached Central Station. Its twisted, blackened ruins increased her depression.

  Hofmeyer was already there. He was walking with his light step quickly towards her.

  “Good day, Anna,” he said in German, “I was beginning to think that you didn’t get my message this morning.” He caught her arm to turn her round so that she faced the way she had come. “This way. I am taking you to my new office. I realised you might not be able to find it easily, but you would certainly know the way to the station, at least. Besides I wanted to have a little talk.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I took a short cut which was like most short cuts.”

  Hofmeyer’s grip tightened on her arm warningly. “Look happier,” he said in a low voice, his face still looking straight ahead of him. “Our friends are everywhere now.”

  He spoke the truth. Apart from the uniforms, the Germans who had hidden themselves in Warsaw had come forth to enjoy their triumph. They were dressed like Poles. They were trying to look like Poles, for now their job would be to mix with Poles and spy on them. But today there was that certain exultation in their faces, which men find difficult to hide.

  “They’ve won,” Hofmeyer said in that very low voice, his lips scarcely moving. “Take a good look, Anna. That’s how you feel when you win.”

  “It must be a pleasant feeling,” Sheila said bitterly, speaking as secretly as her companion had done.

  “And that’s why you must look happier. You’re one of them now.”

  “You depress me still more.”

  “Fortunately this walk to my new office isn’t so very long. You can let you face relax there. Only you must guard your tongue once you are inside. Speak German at all times. If we have any private talking to do, then we shall take a little walk through the streets. And whenever we are taking such a walk, you are to talk about the weather as soon as you feel my hand knock against yours.”

  Sheila
looked surprised.

  “Just as the walls have ears in a German office, so the streets have ears in a German-controlled town. Now is there anything to report before we reach the office?”

  “The man Henryk has been to see me.”

  “Henryk? You mean Heinrich Dittmar? The devil he did.” He was silent for some paces. “Well, I won’t deny that was a surprise. What did he want?”

  “He called it a ‘social call’. But I got the feeling that he disliked you, and—please don’t think I’m exaggerating—I thought he would like to do you some harm.”

  Hofmeyer didn’t laugh. He nodded grimly, and said, “You are not far wrong, there. Any further—feelings?”

  “He was more interested in me than was necessary. I’ve worried ever since. What could have given him a suspicion?”

  “Not a suspicion. At least, we must hope not. Heinrich Dittmar is well known. If he must work with women, he likes them young and pretty. Elzbieta was very pretty once, you know.”

  “But I am under your orders.”

  “What’s that to Dittmar? My dear Anna, if you could see the energy and tempers that are wasted on little jealousies in the Party, you’d never criticise the democracies again. I have just been through a particularly tiresome session. About offices. Yes, you may laugh, but it’s true. We squabble over offices—which are the most comfortable and the most impressive. It is a point of honour with small minds to put such emphasis on material display of importance. We are now fighting over the housing of our staffs and even about the staffs themselves. We all want the best, to show how much authority we have. We are jockeying for our future positions and power.”

  “It sounds fantastic. Then their supposedly united front is...?”

  “No. It’s united in the main things. They know that if they aren’t united, then the little butcher or grocer of a Saxon village would cease being the Gaulieter of hundreds of square miles. The debt-haunted Berlin clerk would stop travelling first-class, staying at the best hotels, wouldn’t have all the women and expensive dinners he likes to enjoy. The dull schoolteacher from Bavaria would no longer be able to have a mansion and motor car and servants. The—” His hand crushed heavily against her arm.

  Sheila hesitated and then the words rushed out on top of each other. “It is getting so cold, and the rain is miserable now that it has come.”

  “Good,” said Hofmeyer after a pause, and the man who had walked so closely beside them had passed by. “But there’s no need for such zest. A bored remark will do.”

  Sheila said nothing.

  “Oh, it was quite good for a first try,” Hofmeyer added encouragingly. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes—the little jealousies behind the scenes. No, don’t hope that a miracle will come of them. Remember that this is the end of one campaign and that many of them believe it is all they need to fight. Many think that England and France will ask for peace, and that they will then have plenty of time to plan for the next phase. They want to immobilise the biggest countries, make them disgusted with their leaders, play on their peoples’ natural tendencies to reproach and criticise each other. Then they’ll take over the small countries one by one, and the bigger countries will be in such a state of uncertainty that they will be unable to fight any war. So, thinking these things, the Nazis can relax and be their own nasty little selves. Before the campaign, everything was forgotten except the need to win. Or else, as I said, the butcher and grocer and clerk and schoolteacher would all be back where they started.”

  “But all Nazis can’t have power.”

  “No. But they all think they share in the loot. They all see personal prosperity ahead of them at other nations’ expense. Meanwhile, during this lull in action, they are flown with insolence and wine. They are confident enough to indulge in petty quarrelling. Recently, I’ve felt that I have missed my true vocation. I should have been a tightrope walker.”

  “Have you never felt like that before?”

  “Not quite so constantly.” Hofmeyer smiled suddenly and said, “If this weather continues we must have glass on our windows.”

  Sheila looked at the gaping holes around them and said, in what she hoped was a bored enough voice, “Yes, indeed.”

  There was a pause for safety. And then Hofmeyer said half-amusedly, “Dittmar’s interest in you is most annoying. It changes my plans for you entirely. I can’t ship you back to England now.”

  “No. I suppose either I would have to go on pretending to be a German agent in London, or you would all be in danger here. I’m your discovery; if I behave suspiciously, then you’ll be suspected too.”

  “Don’t worry. Now that you’ve given us warning about Dittmar, Olszak and I can make our plans.” He looked at her and smiled. “You might have the makings of an agent, after all. Perhaps Olszak was right about hereditary traits.” Sheila smiled happily at the oblique mention of her father. Hofmeyer had paid her a high compliment.

  “Of course, if you did go back to England,” Hofmeyer went on, “you could always disappear as effectively as Margareta Koch. In your case, it would mean complete change of identity for the duration of the war.”

  “In her case it was...?”

  Herr Hofmeyer’s square white face looked blandly at a group of German soldiers. “Exactly,” he said. Then, “She found out too much about us. Dear me, what a lot of cameras the German Army has!”

  They had now left Marszalkowska for a quieter side street of balconies and three-storied houses. The architecture had been noble. No expense had been spared in workmanship. Hofmeyer halted before one of the large double-doors.

  “Nothing private to be discussed,” he said so quietly that Sheila wondered if she had heard all his words. She hadn’t expected the journey to end so quickly; she still had questions to ask.

  “Madame Aleksander and Korytów?” she asked hurriedly.

  “Yes. But don’t be too sympathetic.”

  The hall was of marble, with a floor of great beauty. This house had suffered less than the others on the street, and that was why it had been chosen by the Germans. One of the reasons, at least. Another might be its wealth. The ground-floor rooms seemed empty except for workmen. On the broad curve of stairs, she noted the elaborate pattern of marble underfoot, the pieces of sculpture still standing in the wall-niches. Even in spite of traces of dust and water, the beauty of the house survived.

  “Who owned this house?” she asked as naturally as she could, as they reached the thick carpets of the first floor. Hofmeyer must have thought her question harmless, for he smiled and nodded approvingly.

  “A lawyer. He is an officer in the army, but if he comes back here to see his wife and daughter he will find that his property has been confiscated. He has been known to have expressed opinions against us in the past. The wife and daughter were told to leave two days ago. So the house is empty except for some workmen doing repairs, and some cleaners mopping up after them. In the next few weeks, the other rooms will all be occupied as office suites. Surplus furniture is being removed to Germany along with some of these paintings. They are too valuable for a private house. They belong in our museums or public buildings.”

  Sheila thought of the lawyer’s wife and daughter. Like the dispossessed in Western Poland, they had probably been allowed to take one small bag with them.

  Hofmeyer understood her silence. Perhaps he himself had also thought of the wife and daughter. “Plenty of pretty dresses and hats and furs still in the wardrobes,” he said. His smile was bitter. “Do you need some clothes? They’ll be removed soon.” His smile deepened as he saw the look of disgust on her face. He opened the door of his suite of rooms.

  They were in what must have been the library. Next to it was a large, extremely comfortable study, and the room beyond that was a bedroom. There was a feeling of great comfort and charm in the rooms’ arrangement. The lawyer had been proud of his home, and the happiness of the family still lingered inside the house.

  “You see, I shall live here. It makes my business mo
re efficient,” Hofmeyer said as they finished the tour of inspection, and returned to the library. “Now sit down, Fräulein Braun. We can talk at last. This room will be the outside office. You will work here with two typists who I am now choosing. Volksdeutsche, of course. But even so, they will be kept to deal with the problems of table delicacies only. My own office will be that study next door. Fortunately, I had copies of my files which were all destroyed by fire at the Old Square, so once they are installed here you can start work. These bookshelves will be cleared, of course, to make room for our records. The books will be shipped home with the contents of the Warsaw libraries and private collections. A defeated nation does not need valuable books.”

  Home... Home, in this office, now meant Germany. But something in Hofmeyer’s direct stare at the wall of books in front of him interrupted Sheila’s thoughts. “The walls have ears,” he had warned in the street. She followed his stare. The walls have ears. And he had drawn her attention particularly to the books. Yes, a dictaphone might very well be hidden somewhere behind these books. She wondered what a dictaphone looked like. It was slightly comic to be dominated by a little mechanical device which you had never seen. Comic? On second thoughts the joke turned sour. It must be quite a strain to live with it constantly.

  “Do you expect many Polish customers?” she asked. I hope to God none of them speak their minds in this room, she thought.

  “Why not? The Poles have known this firm for many years, and if they can’t pay me in money then they can pay in jewellery or valuables. Besides, I have my clients in Sweden and Switzerland to consider. We need their foreign money. As for my political position, the Polish police hadn’t time to publicise their search for me. Colonel Bolt was killed in the siege. No more than six others at his headquarters knew about me. Five of these have already been arrested by us. Kordus, alone, is unaccounted for. It won’t be long before we have him too. So, to the Poles, I am still a friend.”

  “I see.”

  “Now, here are two telephone numbers. One is for the ’phone in this office: 4-3210. One for the private ’phone in my own room: 4-6636.”