Nocturne

by Diane Armstrong

  ‘I think the best profession is one that is always needed.’ Feliks was making wide sweeping arcs with his large hand as he spoke. ‘You made a good choice, Miss McAllister. Nurses are always in demand.’

  ‘So are undertakers.’ The retort was out before she had time to think. There was a surprised pause, then Feliks burst out laughing.

  ‘Adam told me you always say what you think.’

  She wondered what else Adam had told him.

  ‘You people are so formal, even among friends, with your hand-kissing rituals and the way you address people in the third person,’ she said, and immediately regretted sounding so critical. ‘Why don’t you just call me Judith?’

  Feliks nodded. ‘You are right. We belong to the old world, and you, Miss Judith, belong to the new.’

  ‘Judith knows more about the situation in Poland than just about anyone else in London,’ Adam cut in. ‘Probably more than Mr Churchill.’

  Her momentary glow of pleasure at the compliment was replaced by irritation. Was it her interest in Poland that Adam found attractive? Surely when men discussed the women they were involved with, it wasn’t their political acumen that they boasted about.

  She caught Adam looking at her but turned away. She wasn’t going to exchange glances that implied intimacy in front of a stranger. That was the trouble with Adam, she suddenly thought; he was so elusive and taciturn that she never knew what he was thinking.

  Feliks looked from her to Adam, and, as neither of them spoke, he turned to Judith. ‘Many hospitals in Warsaw have been bombed, and we’ve lost many doctors and nurses,’ he said. ‘When this is over, we will need people like you to help us organise our health system.’

  Judith nodded. This was a topic she could discuss with confidence and she found Feliks an attentive listener. But whenever she glanced at Adam, he was looking at them with such a dour expression that she wondered whether the conversation bored him.

  Over dinner, Feliks entertained them with anecdotes about politicians and generals, and several times she burst into such hearty laughter that people nearby turned and smiled.

  ‘Your friend is great company,’ Judith said after Feliks had gone. ‘Never a dull moment with him around.’

  Adam was staring into his glass. ‘So you like him?’ he said without any enthusiasm. ‘When you came in, you didn’t look happy, but he cheered you up in no time.’

  As he took out the cigarette case he always carried, she wondered why she was wasting her time with this uncommunicative man whose moods she could never read and who was obviously attached to someone he’d left behind in Poland.

  ‘If you didn’t want me to like your friend, why did you ask him to join us? Make your mind up what you want.’

  Adam leaned across the table and seized her hand. ‘I know what I want.’

  She surveyed him for moment and a smile broke over her face. ‘I’m no good at these games,’ she said, ‘but you wouldn’t be jealous, would you?’

  Not taking his eyes from her face, he said, ‘Shall we go?’

  Her palm was burning and it wasn’t just from the pressure of his hand. For once, she knew what he was thinking.

  Fifty-Three

  On the first Sunday in October, when rain leaked from a sky the colour of wet cement, the front-page item in the AK’s Information Bulletin made Elzunia’s heart race. Warsaw had capitulated. The Commander-in-Chief’s desperate pleas for Britain to send weapons and ammunition had gone unheeded, and the leaders had come to the conclusion that further fighting was futile. As part of the terms of the surrender, Warsaw was to be evacuated.

  As soon as news of the capitulation spread, the atmosphere changed and a spirit of enterprise energised the city.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it but some fellows have already set up a street market on Krucza Street,’ one of the nurses announced breathlessly. ‘They’re selling electric lamps and exchanging dollars. You can even buy filtertip Junaki if you’ve got twenty or thirty zloty to spare!’

  ‘What does capulation mean?’ Gittel asked Elzunia. They had both come outside for a breath of fresh air.

  An elderly woman who had emerged from a nearby shelter said tartly, ‘Capitulation is the humiliation we get in return for the torment we’ve put up with over the past two months.’

  Gittel tugged Elzunia’s arm. ‘But what does capulation mean?’ she repeated.

  ‘It means the fighting’s going to end, silly,’ Zbyszek cut in. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘It means that the Uprising’s over,’ Elzunia said. She stroked Gittel’s brown curls. The child had already lived through two uprisings, and the war still wasn’t over.

  She felt flat. The news of the ceasefire and imminent capitulation that heralded the end of this two-month-long struggle seemed an anti-climax. It was good to be alive but how could they rejoice when most of the city lay in ruins after an insurrection that had achieved nothing? It had been a display of courage, patriotism and defiance that had cost about two hundred thousand Polish lives, and the Germans were still masters of Warsaw. She thought of Andrzej and a tonne of sadness crushed her chest. If there was anything to celebrate, she had missed it.

  No longer listless and resigned, the people who emerged from the shelters had become animated, as though touched by a wizard’s wand. Elzunia listened to their conversations, but was in too much turmoil to take part.

  As she stood there, staring into space later that afternoon, Stefan rushed over, full of news.

  ‘I’ve just been to Polytechnic Square to watch the formal ceasefire,’ he said, and described the ceremony. A group of German officers with a white flag had entered from one side of the square and were met by AK officers coming from the opposite direction, holding a white cloth on a stick.

  ‘Anyway it’s all agreed now,’ he said. ‘The AK fighters are going to be treated as prisoners of war. Our captain has already divided up the food and cash that was left. Not that there was much left to share.’

  Hardly pausing for breath, he launched into a discussion about firearms. ‘We have to surrender our weapons but some of the guys said they’d rather bury their Stens than hand them in. One of the fighters in our unit shot himself through the head. He said he’d joined up to win or die, not to become a German prisoner.’

  He trailed off and looked more closely at his sister, realising that she hadn’t taken in a word he’d said.

  ‘What will you do?’ he asked. ‘The Germans said everyone has to get out of Warsaw but the women who helped the AK can choose to be prisoners of war with the insurgents or be evacuated, together with the civilians.’ He looked down at Gittel, who was clinging to Elzunia’s skirt. ‘You’d be better off to go with the civilians.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said in a dull voice. ‘But that means taking off the AK armband. After all we’ve been through, it feels like betrayal.’

  ‘You have to think of the children,’ he admonished her in his older-brother tone. ‘Anyway, why not make things easier for yourself?’

  She shrugged. ‘How easy will it be wandering around the countryside with two children? Where will I go? How will I support the three of us?’

  She was close to tears and he put his arm awkwardly around her. ‘If you’ve survived here with all this going on, you’ll survive anywhere.’ To distract her, he listed what he was taking on the march into captivity: a blanket, a coat and a spoon. Plunging his hand into the pocket of his trousers, he pulled out a small wad of notes and pressed it into her hand.

  She didn’t want to take it but he insisted. He kissed Gittel’s cheek, patted Zbyszek on the head, gave Elzunia a tentative hug and sprinted away.

  Out in the street, an anxious mood had replaced the earlier euphoria, as everyone discussed their options. Should they leave with the insurgents and be treated as prisoners of war, or leave with the civilians and hope to survive in the countryside without any means of support or a place to sleep? Women with old parents or small children wondered how they’d manage on t
he road. As long as the AK units remained in the city, people were reluctant to leave, but the alternative was to be left without any protection after they’d gone.

  Witek hobbled outside on his crutches and stood quietly beside Elzunia. ‘You know what I’m dreading the most? Worse than going into captivity even? It’s how the civilians are going to react when they see us leaving. They’re so mad at us for bringing all this on their heads — what if they throw things and curse us?’

  Back at the hospital, the patients had begun preparing for the evacuation. One of the patients, an architect recovering from pneumonia, was sitting on his camp bed, sketching.

  ‘I’m drawing up plans to reconstruct Warsaw when the war’s over,’ he explained when he saw Elzunia looking at his notepad with its neat sketch of apartment blocks and parks in a part of the city she’d come to know only too well.

  ‘But that’s where the Ghetto used to be,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘It was pretty run-down before the war, and now it’s just a heap of ruins, but we’ll transform it into a brand-new suburb with modern shops and buildings that will be the envy of all Poland.’

  In a voice hoarse with suppressed emotion she said, ‘Do you realise you’ll be building over the ashes and remains of half-a-million people? That’s like desecrating a cemetery by tearing out tombstones to make room for apartment blocks. You should be designing a memorial instead of obliterating all trace of them.’

  ‘This whole city is a pile of ruins and ashes,’ he said. ‘We can’t let the past stand in the way of the future.’

  ‘But it’s all about the past,’ she retorted. ‘Everything we do is governed by the past. We carry it inside us. Covering it up with bricks doesn’t turn it into the future. It just cements in the anger and the pain.’

  She was still shaking with anger when she reached her room, where Gittel and Zbyszek were playing with their paper cutouts. She pulled out her haversack and tried to figure out what to pack. They’d be on foot and she might have to carry the children from time to time. If only Andrzej could be waiting at the end of the journey. She blinked away the tears and straightened her back. She had to be strong.

  The following morning, she watched as the insurgents marched through the city towards the surrender point. While the Germans watched with impassive faces, thousands of fighters walked four abreast, heads held high, their red-and-white armbands on their sleeves and the white eagle emblems pinned to their shirts.

  The commanding officer at the head of the long procession turned and issued an order, and the insurgents stood smartly to attention. Clearing his throat several times, he thanked them for their courage and sacrifice. In response, the fighters started singing the Polish national anthem, and bystanders took up the chant with so much emotion that chills ran down Elzunia’s spine. ‘Poland hasn’t perished yet and it won’t perish as long as we live,’ they sang as they were about to pass into German captivity.

  As the column proceeded slowly along the road, Elzunia was moved by the extreme youth of the fighters. The street was lined with civilians watching the exodus, and glancing around at the emaciated bodies and gaunt faces in the crowd, she remembered Witek’s anxiety. Suddenly, a woman pushed forward towards the column and Elzunia held her breath waiting for the stream of abuse, but the woman pressed an enamel cup into a young fighter’s surprised hands. Her action was a signal to others who started bringing out little gifts that the fighters might need during their internment: handkerchiefs, spoons, bowls, socks and combs. Someone pressed a dog-eared exercise book into a girl’s hand and called out, ‘Make sure you write to your mama!’

  A woman with a big peasant headscarf tied under her chin climbed onto some broken masonry and, making the sign of the cross in the air above their heads, shouted in a voice trembling with emotion, ‘They’re taking our children away!’

  Those around her repeated her words and stretched out their arms to bless the long column of young people passing before them. The lump in Elzunia’s throat was so huge she couldn’t swallow. As the fighters acknowledged the bystanders with waves and brave smiles, they looked like proud soldiers, not a defeated army.

  As the long column slowed and came to a halt, Elzunia felt someone staring at her. She turned and caught her breath. It was her father. Her first instinct was to run, melt into the crowd and disappear, but she froze, and a moment later he was standing beside her.

  ‘Elzunia!’ he cried in a strangled voice. ‘Elzunia! I can’t believe it! You’re alive after all! This is incredible! It’s you, isn’t it?’

  He broke into harsh sobs and held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. He was less solid than she remembered and no longer smelled of the expensive pomade he’d once rubbed through his hair. His hair had thinned, his jacket hung loosely on him, his moustache looked bigger than ever on his thin face, and the lines on his forehead had deepened. His embrace, though, was as enveloping as ever and in its warmth she felt her anger and resentment dissolving. She had her father back.

  But a moment later the pain returned. ‘You deserted us,’ she said bitterly, pulling away. ‘You just left us to rot inside the Ghetto while you ran around with your girlfriend.’

  He gripped her shoulders with both hands. ‘What are you talking about? I was told you and your mother and Stefan were dead.’

  ‘That must have been convenient.’

  ‘Elzunia, listen to me. They kept me in Szuch Avenue for five months because of my Underground work. The minute I escaped, I went home but the three of you had gone. I nearly went out of my mind trying to find you. I asked everyone I knew. No one had any idea where you were but I never stopped trying to find you.’

  Elzunia felt dizzy. She longed to believe him but there were too many questions buzzing around in her head.

  He saw the doubt in her eyes and intensified his grip. ‘You have to believe me. By the time I was told you were all in the Ghetto, it was closed.’ His voice was unsteady. ‘Then one of the AK operatives who had a contact inside the Gestapo told me he’d got hold of a list of people who had been killed in there and you three were on it.’ His voice was dull with pain. ‘How could you possibly think I’d abandoned you?’

  Elzunia blinked back tears, and, seeing her distress, Gittel tugged her arm.

  ‘Can we go now? I want to go back,’ she whimpered.

  ‘Can’t we stay and watch the soldiers?’ Zbyszek chimed in.

  But Elzunia didn’t hear either of them. ‘What else could we think when we didn’t hear from you?’ she retorted. ‘And then that business with Marta. I never told Mama you had a girlfriend. I didn’t think she’d be able to cope with it. It was better to let her think you were still in prison. Or dead.’

  His face was drawn and white. ‘Marta was my liaison girl.’ He looked around. ‘Where is your mother? Let me explain to her.’

  But he didn’t need a reply. He could tell what had happened by the tears streaming down Elzunia’s face.

  ‘Where’s Stefan?’

  ‘He escaped from the Ghetto and joined one of the AK units. He’s probably somewhere in this column.’

  Her father was holding her against him and she didn’t have the strength to pull away.

  ‘My little Elzunia. I can’t believe I’ve found you. It’s like the Resurrection. Thank God you and Stefan survived. What you must have been through.’ He looked down at her lovingly. ‘You were a little girl when I was taken away, and now you’re a woman.’

  Elzunia sighed. It wasn’t just her appearance that had changed. So much had happened since they’d seen each other and so many doubts filled her head that she feared the gap between them could never be bridged.

  The column started moving again.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said. ‘Listen. My sister Amalia has moved to Saska Kepa in Praga, across the river. Go to her. We’ll get together after the war is over. It can’t last much longer. God bless you my darling,’ he said. Giving her one last hug, he marched off with the insurgents, and kept
looking back until she disappeared from view.

  ‘Who was that man?’ Gittel asked.

  ‘My father.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a father.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ Elzunia said. She could feel her heart skipping with joy.

  Gittel looked at her quizzically. ‘Was he lost?’

  ‘That’s silly. Grown-ups don’t get lost,’ Zbyszek said.

  ‘Sometimes they do,’ Elzunia replied.

  That evening she listened as the announcer at the AK station, Radio Blyskawica, recited his elegy for Warsaw.

  We are relaying a message from Warsaw.

  An extraordinary message from Warsaw.

  The AK station would like to report that the fight is over.

  There’s nothing left but honour.

  So we’re bringing the news to every nation.

  To colleagues, friends and brothers:

  The people of the capital have paid for freedom

  With their lives.

  A hundred thousand insurgents lie dead in the rubble of Warsaw.

  Free. Free from shackles and from life.

  We end our transmission.

  The AK station has broadcast its final program.

  Blyskawica. Warsaw. Victory.

  Trumpets. Fanfares.

  Curses.

  The following afternoon, in the fading rays of the setting sun, Elzunia joined the river of people trudging into the unknown. Laden with knapsacks, bundles and parcels, and carrying babies and small children, they stumbled over piles of rubble and tripped over craters in the road. The more fortunate among them pushed barrows laden with bundles tied together, or prams overflowing with small children.

  Many people supported old parents who hobbled on the broken pavements, or held children in their tired arms. They moved in silence, preoccupied with their own thoughts and focused on getting across the next stretch of potholed road or mound of rubble, afraid of losing one another. The procession, slow and sad, took up the entire width of the road and wound as far as Elzunia could see. Warsaw was disgorging the last of its inhabitants. She took Gittel and Zbyszek by the hand, took one last look at the ruined city, and wondered where this journey would end.