Nocturne

by Diane Armstrong

  ‘They’re not going above ground,’ Andrzej said. ‘They’re going through the sewers.’ He was squeezing her hand so hard that she winced. ‘Elzunia, we have to evacuate the hospital.’

  She stared at him. ‘Evacuate the hospital? How?’

  He told her what the major had said.

  ‘Listen, Zawadzki, I’m not going to mince words,’ he had barked. ‘There’s going to be one hell of a bloodbath here once the fighters pull out. Pick out all the patients who can walk, get your staff together, and be ready to leave the day after tomorrow. No stretchers or stragglers. It’s a tough journey even for able-bodied people but if anyone collapses in there they’ll endanger everyone else.’

  The next day, an unusual quiet hung over the hospital as word of the evacuation spread among the patients. They all knew why Dr Zawadzki was pacing up and down the cellar corridors, scrutinising each of them in turn. They knew from the doctor’s haggard face and the dull look in his eyes that he was assessing them and weighing up who could make it through the sewers, but although their lives hung on his decision, no one made his task harder by pleading their case.

  ‘Don’t take it so hard, Dr Zawadzki,’ one of the patients said. ‘We know you’ll make the right decision. God bless you for all you’ve done.’ Andrzej nodded briefly and turned away to hide his tears.

  At the end of the ward round, he flung himself onto a chair and buried his head in his hands. ‘This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,’ he told Elzunia. ‘They’re like people on death row hoping for a last-minute reprieve. My job is to heal people, not condemn them to death. I don’t want to play God.’

  Elzunia tried to console him but she was struggling with her own anguish. Stefan’s harrowing account of his escape through the sewers was still vivid in her mind and the prospect of having to make that journey herself made it difficult to concentrate on anything else.

  That evening, when she crept into Andrzej’s room, he wasn’t stretched out on the narrow bed as usual. He was standing up, fully clothed, a flashlight in his hand.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘We’re not staying here tonight.’

  Intrigued, she followed him up the broken stairs and into the street. By night, the streets were eerily quiet with the sinister silence of a volcano about to erupt. Without speaking, they held hands as they ran into a jagged shell that had once been a building. Mounds of pulverised bricks and broken slabs of stone filled the courtyard, which had once connected the neighbouring apartment blocks.

  Andrzej stopped and looked around to get his bearings. A moment later they crept through a small cave-like opening in a collapsed wall and climbed one step at a time to the top of a flight of stairs that swayed under their feet.

  They were standing in an apartment with no window panes. The blast had hurled pictures from the walls and books from their shelves, and the floor was covered with chunks of plaster and smashed glass. Elzunia bent down and picked up a copy of War and Peace with its cover torn off.

  ‘If Tolstoy were writing today, he’d have to call it War and War,’ she said.

  In the eerie silence of the devastated apartment and the debris of family possessions acquired over generations, she saw shattered hopes and broken lives. Suddenly a clock struck with a deep, sonorous tone that made her jump. At the far end of the apartment, behind a wall that had crumbled like a stale biscuit, stood a handsome grandfather clock in a walnut case, its brass pendulum swaying from side to side.

  Andrzej’s face lit up. ‘That clock has been part of the family,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I remember it striking the hour and half-hour since I was a small child. Sometimes I hid inside the case. I can’t believe it’s still ticking. But for how much longer?’

  He sounded so sombre that she looked anxiously into his face but he said no more.

  ‘Is this why you wanted me to come, to meet your family?’ she asked, moved that he wanted to make love to her in his family home, surrounded by the spirits of his ancestors. It was as though he had brought her here to obtain their blessing. As he folded her in his arms in front of the grandfather clock, she imagined that she could hear the heart of this abandoned household beating.

  ‘I wanted us to spend our last night here,’ he whispered.

  He pushed away the fragments of portraits and porcelain from the Persian rug, shook it out and they lay in each other’s arms. After the explosions and artillery fire during the day, the quiet of the evening lay like a balm on their anxious souls.

  ‘Listen,’ she whispered. ‘Can you hear it?’

  He held her more tightly and nodded.

  Across the courtyard, someone was playing a Chopin nocturne. She closed her eyes. Grandeur and intimacy, nobility and grace, poetry and passion were all mingled in each exquisite phrase and, as she listened, she stroked Andrzej’s hand. ‘The last time I heard that,’ she murmured, ‘Szpilman was playing it in a café in the Ghetto.’

  The music stopped but its magic hung in the air. Without speaking, Andrzej bent down and kissed her. Gently at first, then more passionately. Instead of the comforting and affectionate sensations she usually felt, this time his kiss sparked an unexpected rollercoaster ride that started slowly but became wilder and more intense. She heard herself moaning in a voice she’d never heard before, as her body arched and rocked with a primal rhythm of its own until it ended in a shuddering rush of joy. For the first time, she hadn’t imagined that it was the airman making love to her.

  ‘I thought my head was going to blow off,’ she said.

  ‘You should always keep your head.’

  ‘I suppose I should, now that I’ve lost my heart.’

  She recalled later that he didn’t smile at her quip.

  ‘I wonder where we’ll be this time tomorrow,’ she mused.

  ‘You’ll be safely out of the sewers, in the Centre,’ he said.

  ‘So will you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Elzunia, I’m not going.’

  She thought she must have misheard but a drum was already pounding a warning beat inside her chest. ‘What do you mean, not going? Are you leaving later?’

  ‘I’m not leaving.’

  Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘You can’t mean that! It’s crazy! You can’t stay here after the fighters pull out!’ She was shouting and he took hold of her hands.

  ‘I can’t leave knowing that the patients I’ve left behind will be at the mercy of the SS.’

  She tried to control her rising panic. ‘Andrzej, that doesn’t make sense. You can’t save them by staying. You’ll just get killed as well. What’s the point? You can’t stay here! It’s not heroic, it’s suicidal!’ She didn’t realise she was shaking him.

  He stroked her hair. ‘I’m not trying to be a hero. No one knows what will happen here, but I can’t abandon my patients.’

  ‘What about me?’ She was shouting and sobbing at the same time. ‘You’re abandoning me! How come your noble conscience lets you do that?’

  ‘Elzunia, believe me, I want to live. I want to be with you. But sometimes our worth as a human being is distilled into a single choice. I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned the patients. Please try to understand.’

  ‘Then I’m staying too! I won’t go without you!’

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Elzunia, listen to me. That’s out of the question. You must go.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m tired of trying to survive.’

  ‘You must,’ he insisted. ‘Being alive is a unique gift; that’s the real blessing — not the rituals and myths concocted by priests. You can’t throw it away. The patients you’ll be accompanying tomorrow are counting on you.’

  She turned away from him. There was nothing more to say and she had no emotions left. Everything inside her had been scooped out and only a hollow shell remained. She should have known that there was nothing to hold on to, that there was no one she loved who wouldn’t die or leave her. She couldn’t even cry.

  Fifty<
br />
  Stefan rushed into the hospital early next morning, looking for his sister. Her face was expressionless and she moved like an automaton as she washed and dressed the patients who would be leaving that evening.

  ‘Are you ill?’ he asked

  She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, not even to ask why he’d come.

  ‘Krasinski Square’s under fire and some of us will be escorting you to the manhole at ten tonight. Our unit’s going down there as well and they’ve asked me to be their guide for the evacuation because I know the sewer system.’

  He seemed proud of being entrusted with this mission, but all she could do was nod.

  All day, time had stood still and every hour had lasted a lifetime, but suddenly it was time to leave. During her fitful sleep the previous night, she had dreamed that Andrzej was telling her he’d be leaving with her after all, and she’d almost burst out of her skin with joy. But when she woke and realised it had been a dream, she felt such paralysing despair that she could barely find the strength to get up.

  Throughout the day, the wild hope evoked by her dream tantalised her. Dreams were sometimes prophetic. Perhaps he really had changed his mind; perhaps she could still persuade him to leave. But there was so much to organise and prepare that they hadn’t spent a moment together, and time was running out.

  Shaking all over, Elzunia swung her knapsack onto her back and led her group towards the stairs. She felt as though each part of her body was disconnected from the rest, and was being pulled in different directions. Andrzej was standing near the entrance, his tram-driver’s cap perched on the back of his head as usual as he chatted with the patients to lighten their spirits and defuse the anxiety.

  ‘Make sure you don’t run too fast along those sewers or the fighters won’t be able to catch up with you,’ he told a lad hobbling around on an injured leg.

  At last the moment she had dreaded arrived. She clenched her fists and looked straight ahead to avoid breaking down, but when she looked into Andrzej’s face, her strength melted away.

  ‘Andrzej,’ she cried and fell into his arms. ‘Oh, Andrzej. Please, please, come with me. Please. I can’t live without you.’

  He held her tightly for a moment, pressed his cheek against hers and looked deep into her eyes.

  ‘Remember the grandfather clock,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘You have to keep ticking. For both of us.’

  There was so much she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t gather her thoughts and the words wouldn’t come. The patients behind her were becoming restless and the moment passed. Blinded by tears, she stumbled up the stairs and out of the hospital.

  The manhole in Krasinski Square was so close to the German positions that the group was under constant attack as grenades exploded and machine guns stuttered around them. Although it was evening, and a new moon as thin as a fingernail paring hung in the sky, the blaze from surrounding buildings brightened the square like daylight.

  As they waited behind a wall for the signal to run to the manhole, Elzunia looked around for her last glimpse of the Old Town. There was nothing to remind her of Sunday afternoons spent in the old part of Warsaw, of the doroszka rides with her parents along the quaint cobbled streets, their visits to the royal palace, or afternoon teas at outdoor cafés where she drank iced coffee piled with whipped cream and ate sugary doughnuts filled with rose marmalade. Even the Sigismund Column, that proud symbol of the old city, now lay in fragments on the ground. Smoke and dust rose from the rubble of the ancient buildings. Here and there a forlorn red-and-white flag hung in shreds from a splintered window frame.

  Over in the ruined courthouse on Bonifraterska Street, the Germans were setting up machine-gun posts and she couldn’t bear to think of the fate awaiting Andrzej and those who had stayed behind. Domes and towers had been ripped off churches and cathedrals, and, instead of pavements and roads, there were piles of rubble and deep craters. Six hundred years of Warsaw’s history lay in ruins. Like her life.

  The manhole was well concealed by sacks of sand and paving stones but every few minutes shadowy figures broke away from the waiting column, dashed across the open space and disappeared among the sandbags.

  Stefan had emphasised the need for total silence inside the sewers. The Germans were patrolling the streets overhead and if they heard anything they’d hurl grenades and poison gas into the sewers.

  Finally it was Stefan and Elzunia’s turn. Bent over, they bolted across to the manhole. She looked down and froze. She was looking into a deep, black, bottomless well.

  ‘Lower yourself down by the metal hooks,’ Stefan whispered.

  Her legs trembled so much that her feet could hardly find the slippery metal hooks that were so far apart that she had to stretch to reach them, terrified each time that she’d slip and plunge to the bottom. Finally there were no more hooks and she was standing in mud that gleamed in the sickly greenish light.

  She was in a low vaulted tunnel with black mould on the walls and an overpowering stench that made her gag. It was the fetid odour of rotten-egg gas mixed with the rank smell of excrement, rotting plants and slime. The sewer was so low that she had to bend her head as she crept along. She longed to straighten up and thought her neck would snap off. Occasionally the current of muck flowed faster, and she had to grit her teeth and cling to those slimy, stinking walls so she wouldn’t fall.

  Behind her, someone was moaning and she looked back in alarm. The lad with the injured leg had fallen over and was being dragged along by his companions. Overhead, she heard the grind of metal and the crunch of loose stones, and felt the vibration as a tank rolled overhead. Germans. Elzunia’s heart pounded as she noticed the open manhole above her head. Stefan held up his arm for them to stop moving. Even a splash could betray their presence.

  Ahead of her, sewage had banked up over the wire entanglements that the Germans had erected during the Ghetto Uprising to stop the Jews from escaping. Somehow they’d have to crawl over the obstruction. Every cell in her body screamed to keep moving, to get out of this hellhole as fast as possible and get into the fresh air, but she knew that many of the patients would need help to get through, and she forced herself to swallow her terror and wait for them to catch up.

  Past the entanglements, something ran across her feet and scurried away. A moment later her feet sank into something soft and she covered her mouth to muffle a scream. She was standing on a body, on several bodies. These people had tried to get through the sewers but had drowned. A little further on, the passage was barely a metre high and they had to crawl on their hands and knees, or double over, gasping. A new terror gripped Elzunia. If it rained, and the water level rose, they’d drown in a river of filthy sludge. The nuns at her school had spent a great deal of time warning them against sin and describing the torments of hell. If I survive this, I’ll be able to tell them what hell is really like, she thought.

  Stefan was pointing to something small and dark dangling above their heads on a string. A grenade. Even brushing against it would be sufficient to cause an explosion. Hardly daring to breathe, they crept under it, one by one.

  ‘I’m going to see what’s happening further back,’ Stefan whispered. ‘Some of the people are having trouble. I’ll go and help.’

  Seeing the alarm on Elzunia’s face, he added, ‘Don’t worry. It’s quite straightforward from here on. Just follow the main sewer until you come to the third manhole. When you see the sign that says Ulica Warecka, go up. Our people will be waiting. See you there.’

  Before Elzunia could say a word, he was clinging to the edge of the sewer wall as he made his way towards the back of the column of terrified people inching step by step behind her.

  Elzunia’s heart pounded with every tentative step. What if she missed the manhole? The current was stronger here and carried not only excrement but bits of stone and large gravel that tore the skin off her legs. It was impossible to dodge them, and each time they struck her she bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood in
her mouth.

  Stefan had said to keep to the main sewer but suddenly it divided, and she wasn’t sure which branch to take. There was a commotion behind her and she smelled gas. People were screaming, surging forward, panicking. ‘We can’t breathe!’ they were shouting. ‘We’ve got to get out or we’ll suffocate!’ They were pushing and trampling over each other in their panic and confusion. It was impossible to calm them down. The Germans must have thrown poison gas through the last manhole after she’d gone past. Someone was laughing hysterically and behind her she heard someone say in a clear, resonant voice, ‘I’ll just sit down here a moment and have a glass of tea.’

  She was weak and dizzy but something drove her on. Like the insistent ticking of a clock, a voice in her head kept repeating, ‘Don’t stop, keep going. Don’t stop, keep going.’ The street sign below the next manhole looked blurred and she couldn’t read the street name, but she had to get out of the poisoned sewer. With the last of her strength, she hauled herself up the metal rungs and tried to push the manhole cover. It was too heavy. She wasn’t strong enough.

  Was she dreaming or had all this happened before? All she wanted to do was sleep. She could feel herself slipping away when she felt a draught of cool air and saw a chink of light. Someone was raising the manhole cover. She wanted to laugh with relief. Our people are waiting for us, she thought, just as Stefan had said.

  Someone was lifting her out. She blinked in the sudden dazzle of morning light and looked down at a pair of shiny black boots. She sank onto the ground but the hands pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Over there, you Polish bandits. Go and join your friends!’

  On the other side of the street, against a wall, stood a group of fighters who had entered the sewers ahead of her.

  ‘Hande hoch!’ the SS officer yelled.

  So this is where the clock stops ticking, she thought, amazed at her calmness. She might as well have stayed with Andrzej. At least they could have died together. As they stood with their arms raised, a car pulled up and an SS man got out. She watched him stride towards them with a disdainful expression on his thin lips and wondered whether Wolfman would recognise her in this state.