by Alan Furst
In a leather passport case he had two pairs of railroad tickets—for himself and Krewinski—along with the necessary documents for travel from the Rovno area to Biala, and from there on to Warsaw. His papers were good, and he had money in various forms. But he had no water, no food, and no gasoline. He had a pistol with three rounds, and no idea what he was going to do with the woman sitting next to him. He stared at her a moment. Wrapped in a long black coat and a black shawl, she sat up properly, back straight, bounced around by the motion of the truck.
Even wearing the shawl like a Ukrainian peasant—drawn across the brow so that it hid the hairline—she had a certain look; curved nose, dark eyes, thick eyebrows, and shadowy, somber skin. Someone who could have blended into the Byelorussian or Ukrainian population would not have been a problem, but Shura looked exactly like what she was, a Jew. And in that part of the world, people would see it. The forest bands preyed on Jews, especially on Jewish women. And the only alternative to the forest was a railway system crawling with SS guards and Gestapo. De Milja knew they would demand papers at every stop.
“Shura,” he said.
“Yes?” Her voice seemed resigned, she knew what this was about.
“What am I to do with you?”
“I do not know,” she said.
“Do you have identity papers?”
“I burned them. Better to be a phantom than a Jew.”
“A family?”
“They were forced into the ghetto, in Tarnopol. After that, I don’t know. By accident I wasn’t there the day the Germans came, and I fled to the forest with my cousin—he was seventeen. Razakavia agreed to take us in. I cooked, carried water, made myself useful any way I could. My cousin was killed a few weeks later, during an attack on a German train.”
“I’m sorry,” de Milja said. “And were you married, in Tarnopol?”
“No. And no prospects—though I suppose eventually something would have been arranged. They sent me away to study music when I was twelve years old. They thought I was a prodigy. But I wasn’t. So then, I had to do something respectable, and I became a piano teacher. A bad piano teacher, I should add. Children mostly didn’t like me, and I mostly didn’t like them.” They rode in silence for a time. “See?” she said. “I am everything you ever dreamed of.”
She let him know, without saying it directly, that he could have her if he liked, she would not resist. But that wasn’t what he wanted—a woman taken by some right of sanctuary. Still, by the time it was dark that night it was evident they they would have to sleep holding each other or die. They lay on the seat of the truck in each other’s arms, the blanket wrapped around them, the windows closed tight and clouded over with their breath. Outside, the November moon—the hunter’s moon—was full, a cold, pale light on the frozen river.
A clear night, the million stars were silver. She was warm to hold, her breath on his temple. When she dreamed, her hands moved. It brought him memories, the embrace with Shura. Long ago. The girls of his twenties. His wife. He missed love, he wondered if war had made it impossible for him. In the drift of his mind he paused on what it would be like to slide her skirt up to her waist. He sighed, shifted his weight, the springs creaked. Where the cold, sharp air touched his skin it actually hurt, and he pressed his face against her shoulder. Sometimes she slept, and sometimes he did.
The road ended.
They let the truck roll down the hill—a foot at a time, it took forever—and out onto the gray ice of the river. They managed five or six miles an hour that way, headed east of north by his calculations. They discovered a tiny settlement on the shore, pole-built docks coated with ice in the morning sun. They bought some black bread and salt from a woman who came down to the river to stare at them. From an old ferryman they bought a jar to melt ice in so they could have water. “Brzesc nad Bugiem” he said, pointing north. Brest Litovsk. He smiled and rubbed his whiskers. They were on, he told them, a tributary of the river Bug.
The gray clouds came in that afternoon and a white fog rose off the ice. Now they drove even slower, because it was hard to see. He worried about fuel, but the truck had a large tank, and a hundred miles wasn’t too much to ask of it when they could only go a few miles an hour.
Then there were no more settlements. The rise of the hills above them grew steep, the woods thicker, no trails to be seen. And the river narrowed with every mile. Finally, when it was only ten feet wide, the ice changed. The truck wouldn’t go anymore. The tires spun, the engine roared, and the back slid sideways, but that was all. Slipping on the ice, they tried to pile sticks beneath the back wheels. But the truck would not go forward. “So,” Shura said. She meant it was finished, but she was glad they had tried it. What awaited them was at least peaceful, no more than going to sleep. He agreed. For him it was enough that somebody was there, that he would not have to be alone.
He turned off the ignition. The sky was fading above the hills, night was an hour away. It was colder now, much colder. They lay down on the seat and held each other beneath the worn blanket. “I am so cold,” she said. The wind that night made it even colder, but the fog blew away, and a vast white moon rose above the hillside. A field of reeds sparkled with frost, and they saw a wolf, a gray shadow trotting along the river. It stopped and looked at them, then went on, pads silent on the ice. At last the world has frozen, he thought. A winter that would never end.
They tried in every way not to go to sleep, but they were very tired, and there was nothing more they could do. She fell asleep first, then him.
The truck stood silent on the ice. A few flakes of snow drifted down, then more. The cloud began to gather and the moon faded away until there was hardly any light at all. The snow fell heavier now, hissed down, a white blanket on the river, and the hills, and the truck.
He woke up suddenly. The window of the truck was opaque, and it was not so cold as it had been. He touched her, but she did not move. Then he held his hand against her face, and she stirred, actually managed a smile, putting her hand on top of his.
“We’re going,” he said.
She opened one eye.
He didn’t move his hand. “Shura, look at the window,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t drive on ice. But you can drive on snow.”
They drove through the war that night, but it didn’t want them just then.
They saw panzer tanks and armored cars positioned on a bridge. An SS officer, a dark silhouette leaning on the railing, watched the truck as it passed beneath him, but nothing happened. A few miles north of there a village had been burned down, smoke still rising from the charred beams. And twice they heard gunfire, machine gun answering machine gun, tracer rounds in the darkness like sparks blown across the sky.
Sometimes the snow fell in squalls; swirling, windblown. Then it cleared, the clouds rolling east, the frozen river shimmering in the moonlight. De Milja drove with both hands gripping the wheel, coaxing the truck along the ice, riding the snow that gave them traction. Shura pointed out a small road that led up a hill from the river; perhaps an abandoned ferry crossing. De Milja stopped the truck and climbed the hill. He found a well-used dirt road and an ancient milestone that pointed the way to Biala.
It took a long time to get the truck off the river. De Milja and Shura knelt by the tires and studied the surface like engineers, finally building a track of branches to the edge of the shore. It worked. Engine whining, wheels spinning, the truck lurched, swayed sideways, then climbed.
Once on the upper road, de Milja let the engine idle while he got his breath back. “Where are we?” Shura asked.
“Not far from Biala. A few hours, if nothing goes wrong.” He eased the clutch into first gear, moved off slowly on the rutted road.
Midnight passed, then 1:00 a.m. They drove through snow-covered forest, boughs heavy and white bent almost to the ground. Shura fell into an exhausted sleep, then woke suddenly as they bounced over a rock. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
“I’m a
ll right,” de Milja said.
“I should have helped to keep you awake. I can sing something, if you like.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I can discuss—oh, well certainly music. Chopin. Or Rachmaninoff.”
The engine steamed as the truck climbed a long hill. At the crest, de Milja braked gently to a stop. They were on a wooded height above Biala. Directly below, a poor neighborhood at the edge of town. Crooked one-story houses, crooked dirt streets, white with frost. Wisps of wood smoke hung above the chimneys in the still air. De Milja drove the truck to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. “Now we wait for dawn, for the end of the curfew. Then we can go into the open-air market with the produce trucks from the countryside. Once we get there we can make contact with the local ZWZ unit—our luck, it’s a good one. Very good. They’ll move us the rest of the way, into Warsaw. In a freight train, maybe. Or hidden in a vegetable wagon.”
They sat and stared out the window. It seemed very quiet with the engine off.
“Perhaps it would be best if I stayed here,” Shura said.
“You know somebody here?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t last long.”
“No, probably not. But at least . . .”
“You’d have it over with?” De Milja shook his head angrily. “No, no. That isn’t right. We’ll hide you,” he said. “Not in the ghetto— somewhere in Warsaw, one of the working-class neighborhoods. With friends of ours. It won’t be easy, but if you’re able to stay in the apartment, if you avoid people, in other words if you can live in hiding, you’ll survive. You’ll need some luck, but you’ll see the end of the war.”
“And you?”
“Me?” De Milja shrugged. “I have to keep fighting,” he said. “The Germans, the Russians. Perhaps both. Perhaps for years and years. But I might live through it, you never know. Somebody always seems to survive, no matter what happens. Perhaps it will be me.”
He was silent for a time, staring at the sleeping town. “There was a moment, about a year ago. Someone I knew in Paris, ‘Let’s just go to Switzerland,’ she said. I could have, maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I missed my chance, but I don’t really know why. I had a friend, a Russian, he had theories about these things—a world of bad people and good people, a war that never seems to end, you have to take sides. I don’t know, maybe that’s the way it is.”
He paused, then smiled to himself. “Honestly, Shura, right now I will be happy when the sun comes up. The marketplace will be full of people—there’ll be a fire in a barrel, a way to get a hot cup of coffee. It’s possible!” he laughed.
“Hot coffee,” Shura said.
“And some bread. Why not?”
They sat close together in the truck, trying to stay warm. He held her tightly, she pressed against his side. In time the darkness faded and the first sunlight hit the rooftops, a flock of pigeons flew up in the air, a dog barked, another answered.
A Reader’s Guide
The Research of Alan Furst’s Novels
Alan Furst describes the area of his interest as “near history.” His novels are set between 1933—the date of Adolf Hitler’s ascent, with the first Stalinist purges in Moscow coming a year later—to 1945, which saw the end of the war in Europe. The history of this period is well documented. Furst uses books by journalists of the time, personal memoirs—some privately published—autobiographies (many of the prominent individuals of the period wrote them), war and political histories, and characteristic novels written during those years.
“But,” he says, “there is a lot more”—for example, period newsreels, magazines, and newspapers, as well as films and music, especially swing and jazz. “I buy old books,” Furst says, “and old maps, and I once bought, while living in Paris, the photo archive of a French stock house that served the newspapers of Paris during the Occupation, all the prints marked as cleared by the German censorship.” In addition, Furst uses intelligence histories of the time, many of them by British writers.
Alan Furst has lived for long periods in Paris and in the south of France. “In Europe,” he says, “the past is still available. I remember a blue neon sign, in the eleventh arrondissement in Paris, that had possibly been there since the 1930s.” He recalls that on the French holiday le jour des morts (All Saints’ Day, November 1) it is customary for Parisians to go to the Père Lachaise Cemetery. “Before the collapse of Polish communism, the Polish émigrés used to gather at the tomb of
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Maria Walewska. They would burn rows of votive candles and play Chopin on a portable stereo. It was always raining on that day, and a dozen or so Poles would stand there, under black umbrellas, with the music playing, as a kind of silent protest against the communist regime. The spirit of this action was history alive—as though the entire past of that country, conquered again and again, was being brought back to life.”
The heroes of Alan Furst’s novels include a Bulgarian defector from the Soviet intelligence service, a foreign correspondent for Pravda, a Polish cartographer who works for the army general staff, a French producer of gangster films, and a Hungarian émigré who works with a diplomat at the Hungarian legation in Paris. “These are characters in novels,” Furst says, “but people like them existed; people like them were courageous people with ordinary lives and, when the moment came, they acted with bravery and determination. I simply make it possible for them to tell their stories.”
Questions for Discussion
It has been said that many of the heroes of World War II were ordinary men and women who responded to extraordinary times. Is this true of Captain de Milja? Do you think he would still be a remarkable person in peacetime? What about the young boy on the train to Pilava?
At the beginning of The Polish Officer, Captain de Milja is described as “a soldier” who “knew he didn’t have long to live.” At the very end of the book, he says he “might live through [the war], you never know.” Discuss this change in his outlook. Does his opinion of his chances of survival affect his actions?
From the outbreak of fighting until Germany’s surrender, Poland fought an all-out war against the German invasion. Warsaw and many other Polish cities were destroyed, and Poland lost eighteen percent of its population between 1939 and 1945—more than any other country in World War II. By contrast, France lost a much smaller percentage of its population and Paris was left nearly intact after the German occupation. What does this say about collaboration and sacrifice?
Critics praise Furst’s ability to re-create the atmosphere of World War II–era Europe with great accuracy. What elements of description make the setting come alive? How can you account for the fact that the settings seem authentic even though you probably have no firsthand knowledge of the times and places he writes about?
Furst’s novels have been described as “historical novels,” and as “spy novels.” He calls them “historical spy novels.” Some critics have insisted that they are, simply, novels. How does his work compare
with other spy novels you’ve read? What does he do that is the same? Different? If you owned a bookstore, in what section would you display his books?
Furst is often praised for his minor characters, which have been described as “sketched out in a few strokes.” Do you have a favorite in this book? Characters in Furst’s books often take part in the action for a few pages and then disappear. What do you think becomes of them? And, if you know, how do you know? What in the book is guiding you toward that opinion?
At the end of an Alan Furst novel, the hero is always still alive. What becomes of Furst’s heroes? Will they survive the war? Does Furst know what becomes of them? Would it be better if they were somewhere safe and sound, to live out the end of the war in comfort? If not, why not?
Love affairs are always prominent in Furst’s novels, and “love in a time of war” is a recurring theme. Do you think th
ese affairs might last, and lead to marriage and domesticity?
How do the notions of good and evil work in The Polish Officer? Would you prefer a confrontation between villain and hero at the end of the book? Do you like Furst’s use of realism in the novel?
Suggested Reading
There is an enormous body of literature, fiction and nonfiction, written about the period 1933–1945, so Alan Furst’s recommendations for reading in that era are very specific. He often uses characters who are idealistic intellectuals, particularly French and Russian, who become disillusioned with the Soviet Union but still find themselves caught up in the political warfare of the period. “Among the historical figures who wrote about that time,”Furst says, “Arthur Koestler may well be ‘first among equals.’”Furst suggests Koestler’s Darkness at Noon as a classic story of the European intellectual at midcentury.
Furst, as a novelist of historical espionage, is most often compared with the British authors Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. Asked about Ambler’s books, Furst replies that “the best one I know is A Coffin for Dimitrios.”Published in 1939, a month before the invasion of Poland, Ambler’s novel concentrates on clandestine operations in the Balkans and includes murder for money, political assassination, espionage, and drug smuggling. The plot, like that of an Alan Furst novel, weaves intrigue and conspiracy into the real politics of 1930s Europe.
For the reality of daily life in eastern Europe, Furst suggests the novelist Gregor von Rezzori, of Italian/Austro-Hungarian background, who grew up in a remote corner of southeastern Europe, between the wars, and writes about it brilliantly in Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, which takes place in the villages of Romania and the city of Bucharest in the years before the war.
To see life in that period from the German perspective, Furst says that Christopher Isherwood’s novels The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin are among the best possible choices. The sources for the stage plays I Am a Camera and Cabaret, these are novelized autobiographies of Isherwood’s time in Berlin; they are now published as The Berlin Stories. Furst calls them “perceptive and wonderfully written chronicles of bohemian life during the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.”
