Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  Henryk’s thick, stubby fingers drummed the steering wheel and his black, walrus-like mustache twitched impatiently as he leaned out the window, looking for a chance to pass. Anna leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, wondering what she would have done if he hadn’t found them.

  An hour later, the car bounced and Anna’s head banged against the window. She opened her eyes, realizing she had fallen asleep.

  “Sorry. Pothole,” Henryk said.

  Anna sat up and stretched, trying to get the kink out of her neck. They were on a narrow, gravel road and had just passed a family walking along the side. The man was pushing a cart covered with a canvas tarp. She didn’t see anyone else. “Looks like you found the back road,” Anna said. “Where are we?”

  “Hopefully, on the road to Garwolin.”

  “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  Anna glanced into the rear of the car. Irene and Justyn were curled up on the seat, sound asleep. She turned back to the front. It was a clear, moonlit night, and on both sides of the road, the vast expanse of farmland extended as far as she could see. Other than a pale orange glow in the dark sky behind them, the countryside appeared completely normal, as if nothing had happened.

  Another hour passed, and they descended a hill, entering a small village that wasn’t on the map. It was dark and quiet. They passed a blacksmith shop, a butcher shop, and a store with pots and pans hanging in the window and burlap bags filled with potatoes piled on the wooden porch. In the central square stood a water-well and a brick church with a red tile roof. Neat stucco homes with wood shutters lined the narrow, cobblestone street, some with lace curtains in the windows and flower boxes filled with geraniums. There were no lights and no signs of activity except the sound of a barking dog as they drove past.

  Anna glanced at Henryk and shook her head. The tiny, peaceful town was asleep, untouched by the violence of Warsaw. She wondered if they even knew their country was at war.

  As they drove on, Anna stared out the window, mesmerized by the steady rumble of the engine and the hum of the tires on the uneven road. Jan is out there…somewhere, she thought, closing her eyes, imagining that he was next to her, holding her hand. She smiled. They always held hands when they walked. They had been married only two years yet she could barely remember what her life had been like before they met. At thirty-four years old, she had finally found love and happiness. But now, in the space of one unimaginable day, it could all be gone. Was this really happening? Or had she descended into some bizarre dream? Perhaps when she opened her eyes—

  Henryk cursed and hit the brakes, throwing Anna against the dashboard. Irene and Justyn tumbled off the backseat onto the floor as the car screeched to a halt. Anna sat up, gingerly fingering a welt on her forehead.

  A mule pulling a rickety cart, laden with tools and household goods, had lurched across the road right in their path. The man leading the mule stared wide-eyed at the car and waved apologetically as he struggled to pull the animal out of the way. A woman, holding the hands of two small boys, scrambled across the road. The man yelled something that Anna couldn’t make out, and she rolled down the window.

  “Stay out of Garwolin! It’s a mess!” the man shouted, jerking on the reins of the stubborn animal. “There are fires everywhere…the main road is blocked.”

  He finally got the mule under control and off to the side of the road. “Where are you going?” he asked, breathlessly.

  “Krakow,” Anna said.

  The man was silent for a moment, then turned to the woman, who just shrugged. She seemed impatient to keep moving. The man looked back at Anna and said, “There’s a dirt road just ahead that goes off to the west. It will take you along the river, all the way to Deblin.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said and waved at the man as Henryk put the car in gear.

  They found the turnoff and headed down the dirt road, which soon degenerated into little more than wagon ruts as it meandered through farm fields and orchards. Eventually, they came to a crossroads, and Henryk pulled out the flashlight, aiming it at a battered wooden sign nailed to a tree. It said Deblin, with a faded arrow pointing south. The road improved to a relatively flat, gravel path, but the moon had disappeared behind the clouds. It was pitch black and eerily quiet, as though they had been swallowed up by the night.

  When they arrived in Deblin, the town was just coming awake. They followed an ancient truck as it rumbled slowly along the main street, passing shopkeepers sweeping the walks in front of their stores. Two old men in work clothes sat on a bench in front of the post office. They returned Justyn’s wave as the car drove by.

  “They just seem to be going about their business like nothing is happening,” Anna said.

  Henryk glanced at her and shrugged. “What else would they do? It hasn’t affected them yet.”

  “They could be next,” Irene said from the backseat.

  Henryk nodded. “That’s true, but my guess is that until it happens most of them will just go on doing what they’ve always done.”

  Just past the center of the town they spotted a faded metal sign with the word Bensyna in peeling yellow paint. Henryk pulled the car up to a single fuel pump in front of a shabby brick building. A thin, middle-aged man wearing grease-stained coveralls pulled open a creaking, wooden door revealing an old tractor up on blocks inside the building. He kicked a couple of bricks in front of the door to keep it open and shuffled over to their car.

  “Could you fill the tank for us?” Henryk asked, getting out of the car.

  The man grunted and shuffled over to the pump, spun the crank and removed the hose. As he pumped the gas he looked over the car and bent down, peering inside. “Nice car,” he muttered. “Where you goin’?”

  “We’re heading to Krakow,” Henryk said.

  “Krakow? What for?”

  “We live there. We’re heading home.”

  “Shouldn’t be headin’ west.” The man spat tobacco juice on the ground and wiped his chin with his hand. “The fuckin’ Germans are comin’. Probably get to Krakow before you do.”

  “Well, that’s where we’re going,” Henryk said. “Is there a café nearby where we could get some breakfast?”

  Anna had rolled down her window and was listening to the exchange. The man put the cap back on the car’s gas tank and hung the hose on the pump. “If I had a nice car like that I wouldn’t let the Krauts get it. I’d be headin’ east.” He leaned against the pump and spat on the ground again.

  Anna could tell that Henryk was getting annoyed. He opened his wallet and pulled out a few zlotys. “Well, you may be right, but we’re heading to Krakow all the same. How much do I owe you?”

  The man reached out, took the money and started back toward the shed, shoving the money in his pocket. Without looking back, he waved his hand to the left. “The next street over, there’s a café. Don’t know if they’re open, though.”

  The small café was empty except for a heavyset woman of about sixty wiping off the top of one of the round wooden tables. A bell jingled as they walked through the door, and the woman looked up at them with a smile, wiping her hands on her apron. “Come in,” she said, rushing to one of the tables and pulling out the chairs. “Please, come in and sit. I’ll bring some coffee.”

  They sat at the table, and the woman produced a pot of steaming hot coffee and three well-used mugs. She disappeared behind a swinging door and returned with a pitcher of milk and a glass, which she set in front of Justyn. Without asking what they wanted, she disappeared again. From behind the swinging door came the sounds of clanging pots and the woman’s husky voice barking orders at another person.

  Anna took a sip of the strong coffee and looked across the table at Henryk and Irene. “I don’t care what she brings. At this point, I’ll eat anything.”

  “I’m starving,” Justyn said, finishing off the glass of milk and pouring another.

  The woman reappeared, set the table with simple white plates
and mismatched silverware and disappeared again.

  Henryk took a sip of the coffee and set the cup down, rubbing his eyes. “This came along just in time,” he said.

  “You’ve got to be very tired,” Irene said. “Perhaps we should find a place to get some rest.”

  He looked at her and smiled, taking another sip of coffee. “The coffee helps. I’ll be fine after some food. We need to keep moving.”

  When the woman emerged from the kitchen again she was trailed by a slender gray-haired man in coveralls carrying a large tray. The woman removed two platters from the tray and set them in the center of the table. One was heaped with sliced ham and boiled sausages, the other with thick slices of coarse, dark bread, a bowl of jam and a plate of sliced cucumbers. “Please, eat,” she said. “I can bring more if you’re still hungry.” Pushing the man ahead of her, she disappeared again behind the door.

  The food tasted marvelous, at this moment as wonderful as in any restaurant in Krakow, Anna thought. She helped herself to a second boiled sausage and slice of bread, glancing at the others. Their heads were down, concentrating on the food, too hungry for conversation.

  When they were finished the woman set about clearing the table, and the gray-haired man reappeared with a cup of coffee in his hand. He pulled over a chair from one of the other tables. “Where you folks from?” he asked, striking a match to a pipe.

  “We’ve just come from Warsaw,” Henryk said. “We’re heading to Krakow.”

  “Warsaw?” exclaimed the woman, removing the last of the empty plates. She backed into a chair and sat down heavily, holding the plates in her hands. “God in heaven, what will become of us? We heard more of those awful airplanes again this morning. I don’t know what to do.”

  The man got up and went into the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a map, which he spread out on the table. “I’ve been around here all my life. I know the back roads. I’ll show you how to keep off the main highways.”

  They stayed at the café awhile before continuing on. The couple had a telephone, and they made several attempts to call Anna’s father in Krakow, all unsuccessful. They listened to news broadcasts on the radio, but the information was confusing and contradictory. Some reports said the Germans were advancing rapidly while others said the Polish army was mounting fierce resistance. But one thing seemed clear: Luftwaffe bombers were striking all over Poland with little or no resistance from the Polish Air Force.

  They left Deblin a little before eight, and by midday it was hot. The roads were abominable, and the jarring motion of the car gave Anna a headache. Their progress had been agonizingly slow all morning and now slowed to a crawl as they bumped along, choking on dust from two farm wagons ahead of them. The horse-drawn wagons, heavily laden with potatoes, creaked and lurched over every bump and rut.

  With her hand over her mouth to keep out the dust, Anna stared out the open window at the neatly planted fields, broken occasionally by small groves of trees. Farmers plodded behind mule-carts, finishing off the last of the late summer harvest. Cows grazed on the hillsides, and hogs wallowed in their pens. She thought that rural Poland had probably looked exactly like this for centuries.

  Henryk’s gravelly voice jerked her out of her lethargy. “Listen, can you hear it?”

  Anna glanced at him.

  He was leaning over, trying to look up at the sky through the windshield. He stopped the car to let the wagons gain a little distance in front of them and allow the dust to settle.

  Anna peered out the window, squinting in the bright sunlight, searching the sky.

  “What is it?” Irene asked, gripping the back of the seat.

  “Airplanes,” Anna said. She had just spotted them, a dozen or so, high and off to the right. She held her breath, watching the sky as the planes passed overhead.

  Justyn stuck his head out the back window as Henryk put the car in gear and started moving forward again.

  “Oh God, look!” Anna yelled, pointing out the window on Henryk’s side.

  Two of the planes dropped out of the formation and banked sharply to the right, circling back.

  Henryk cursed and honked the horn, trying to get the attention of the farmers driving the wagons.

  The planes circled around until they were directly in front of them then plunged toward the road, growing frightfully large. The high-pitched screeching noise sent a wave of fear washing over Anna as visions of the horrific attack in Warsaw came flashing back.

  Henryk bellowed, “Get down!” He jerked the steering wheel to the right and stomped on the accelerator.

  The shrill clattering noise of machine-gun fire drummed in Anna’s head as the car plunged into the field, bouncing wildly over the rough ground. She braced herself against the dashboard as Henryk struggled to steer the vehicle, aiming for the safety of a grove of trees. Suddenly the windshield exploded, and the car careened out of control.

  The last thing Anna heard was the jarring crunch of metal as the car plowed into a large birch tree.

  Chapter 5

  FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life, Thaddeus Piekarski felt helpless. His world had spun out of control, and he had absolutely no idea what to do next. He sat at the table in the white-tiled kitchen and stared into a cup of tea, stirring it listlessly. He was exhausted from lack of sleep but dared not close his eyes because every time he did he saw Anna’s face smiling at him. “For the love of Christ,” he said out loud, “what has become of my daughter?”

  There was no one around to hear him. It was Sunday morning, and his housekeeper, Janina, had gone to church. Perhaps her prayers will persuade God to intervene on the side of the Poles, he thought. He got up from the table and wandered through the quiet house, his mind detached, passing from room to room like a visitor in a museum. He shuffled through the formal dining room and the stiffly elegant parlor, pausing at the doorway of his study. It was a comfortable room, with oak-paneled walls and a soft, brown leather chair in front of the fireplace. The mail and legal journals he had been reading Thursday night were still on the desk next to the empty brandy snifter. Janina never touched anything on his desk.

  He entered the study, stepped over to the fireplace and picked up a picture of Anna from the mantel. It was one of his favorites, taken in Antwerp, Belgium, at the home of his friend Rene Leffard. Anna had lived with the Leffards during her university years. In the picture, she was laughing and waving her diploma in her hand. If only her mother had lived to see it, he thought every time he looked at it. He set it down and glanced into the mirror above the mantel.

  The reflection was unfamiliar. It was the same thin face, the same white hair and wire-rimmed glasses. But behind the glasses, the eyes were strange and alien, the eyes of someone who didn’t know what to do, the eyes of someone who was helpless.

  As he stared at the strange image in the mirror, the events of the last two days thundered through Thaddeus’s mind: the air-raid sirens, jarring him awake early Friday morning, Janina screaming from downstairs, the thundering roar of airplane engines and muted thumps off in the distance. He remembered how confused he had been, struggling to clear his mind of the fog of sleep, thinking it was a drill or an exercise of the Polish Air Force.

  The explosions got louder; Janina had screamed again. Thaddeus had grabbed a shirt and pulled on a pair of trousers. The stout, gray-haired housekeeper stood barefoot at the bottom of the staircase, clad only in her nightgown, clutching the banister, her eyes wide with fear. Thaddeus ran down the stairs, out to the front yard and stared up at the sky. Airplanes! Dozens of enormous airplanes were passing overhead, black-and-white crosses on their fuselages and swastikas on their tails.

  The rest of the day had been a blur of madness. Explosions around the city continued for several hours and then stopped. Nothing was damaged in their neighborhood, but the streets were soon filled with confused, terrified people. Thaddeus had tried to telephone Irene’s mother in Warsaw, but the lines were already down. He could still make calls within Krakow and, with s
ome effort, reached the main office at the university. They couldn’t get through to Warsaw either. Then, in the late afternoon, the air-raid sirens started again, and he and Janina went down to the cellar to wait it out until dark.

  On Saturday, there had been sporadic bombing raids over the city, and radio bulletins reported intense fighting as Poland’s Krakow Army clashed with the Germans southwest of the city. Statements from officials in the government encouraged Poland’s citizens to be brave and not panic. “Our armed forces are holding off the German onslaught. England and France will be at our side in just a few days.”

  Thaddeus had listened to all this, struggling to remain calm. But the German invasion had taken him completely by surprise. Negotiations between Germany and Poland had just begun. How could they have broken down already? Why had these idiots in the government continued to tell everyone that things were under control—and how could he have been foolish enough to believe them?

  What was happening to Anna, Irene and Justyn? He knew Henryk would do anything to protect them, but what can anyone do against airplanes and bombs? Were they still in Warsaw? Had they tried to make a run for it? He had considered taking a train to Warsaw but that was sheer folly. Even if he could get on a train, it might take days to get to Warsaw, if he got there at all. No, he had finally decided, the only sensible thing to do was to stay put and wait to hear from them.

  The image in the mirror was pathetic, and Thaddeus turned away. He plodded back to the kitchen and switched on the radio to listen to the latest news bulletin. He picked up the cup of cold tea as a crackling voice began reading an announcement.

  His hand stopped in midair.

  He stared at the radio, not sure if he had heard correctly.

  The voice repeated the announcement. “Krakow has been declared an open city. The Polish High Command has determined the city cannot be defended. The Krakow Army is retreating to the east.”

  Thaddeus dropped the cup, oblivious to the shattering china and the liquid splashing over his arm. He stood up and gripped the edge of the table. His chair toppled over. Krakow an open city, left undefended? The royal city—the Mecca of Poland for a thousand years—occupied by the Germans? Was this possible in just two days?