Boris put the gun into the shoulder holster he had already put on that morning in preparation for this event. His immaculate suit was not distorted by the new article of underwear. A few minutes later he was summoned to his solicitor’s room and with Stephen assisting in the matter of English technical terms, completed his legal business. Afterwards, leaving Stephen with Bill Phillimore, he walked out into the street with feelings of deep gratitude and comfort.
By accident he had dropped a useful knife into Higlett Bay just before he reached the shore. For the last four months, though he had replaced the knife, he had been less than fully armed, not daring to approach an unorthodox source, certainly not a respectable gunsmith. As for his other contacts, he had dealt with some and ignored others, but always keeping his personal provision to himself.
Now the defect was remedied. An old-fashioned piece, perhaps, but useful. Loaded, too. Stephen had thought of everything. Ammo was always available, he had said, for the asking.
Walking down to the Embankment, Boris proceeded slowly along it, sitting down, at last, near Cleopatra’s Needle to watch the river and the busy crowds of the rush hour. The hard object in his left armpit gave him a sense of security he had missed for many years, for nearly half his life, he counted, wondering.
Chapter Five
The evening sun was still shining on the water at the far bank when Boris got up and walked away. During his long rest on the Embankment bench he had not read a newspaper nor smoked a cigarette. He had just sat and stared at the river, quite heedless of those who passed or of those who came to sit beside him for a few impatient minutes before jumping up and hurrying away.
Boris had learned the futility of haste, that exposure of bad timing. He had been forced by circumstances to scrape his life clean of everything but the bare essentials of existence. He was prepared, moreover, to accept a varying quality in these things, from a minimum just consistent with upholding life to a reasonable, if precarious, degree of comfort and at times, as now, to a temporary opulence.
He made no future plans as he sat there. Planning in advance, mapping out a future progression, were habits of behaviour, like haste, that he had long ago given up. Not that he allowed himself to drift into totally unprepared actions, unforeseen situations. On the contrary. His quick, practical mind was always at work on his surroundings and the possibilities of advantage that they offered. This, in his unending battle with circumstance, had become automatic. When he saw an advantage he never failed to secure it. When, after close inspection, it seemed to offer little, he let it go. Without regret or self-blame. He understood his own fallibility. That was another lesson he had learned over the bitter years.
When he decided to move he followed the Embankment to Charing Cross Underground station and from there walked up to the Strand and past St. Martin’s church into Leicester Square and beyond. The rush hour was slackening, but a crowd still poured towards the railway station and Boris felt that he was the only one walking against the tide, the sole eccentric, the lone rebel, the outcast. As he stood under the characterless representation of a national martyr, flanked by her very bas-relief lion, waiting to brave alone the privileged crossing that the traffic consistently ignored, he began to laugh inwardly at his thoughts. It all came, he decided, of accepting this invitation to dine with compatriots.
The interior of Kettner’s was warm, well-lighted, full of cheerful noise, preponderantly male. He hesitated just inside the entrance but was not overlooked for more than three seconds.
“Mr. Orloff’s party? Yes, sir. Upstairs.’’
It was to be in a private room, then, he thought, pleased to remember he was wearing his new suit. They must have funds, the free Poles. Or very good jobs. Both, decidedly. He gave his name at the door of a room near the head of the stairs. The waiter who had brought him up flung open the door and announced him. Nine heads turned from a bar in the far corner of the room.
Boris stepped forward, giving a quick look round him as he did so. Clearly this was an ante-chamber to the private dining-room, half seen through an open connecting door.
One of the nine moved to meet him, at the same time saying to the waiter, “You may serve now. We are all here.’’ The waiter acknowledged the order and disappeared.
“Count Sudenic. We are delighted. We apologize for being so long unaware of your arrival in this country.’’
Boris murmured suitably. He found himself taken by the arm and drawn gently farther into the room. Introductions followed, a drink was pressed into his hand. He repeated his usual condensed account of his escape and landing in Yorkshire. There were the usual grunts and exclamations of astonishment, pity, approval. Boris sipped his drink, waiting for the inevitable.
It came from an elderly, hawk-faced individual, whose bearing was in itself a sufficient uniform.
“We have been wondering why you have been here so long without getting into touch with us. Modesty? Embarrassment? Surely not. You an Army man – with your record?’’
The merest trace of a break in the last sentence held Boris’s attention. An afterthought? Then why? Did they not hold his record? Of course they did. This man had been a general. He had, to Boris’s knowledge, made up all possible records of the Polish army, man by man, that he could glean from saved files, individual recollection, Red Cross endeavour and so on. There had been perhaps six men in his prison group who were released by Stalin to fight with the Allies. He mentioned their names now, not at first answering the general’s question.
“You must have heard from them. They were in my lot in Siberia.’’
“We heard from one of them, only,’’ the general said, grimly. “The rest died, on the way out to Egypt or from disease or in North Africa.’’
“They were six out of thirty,’’ Boris said in the same tone. “As far as I know I and one other are the only survivors left.’’
The arrival of waiters in the dining-room next door halted this exchange. Boris foresaw that he could get out of answering the general’s question at present, but saw too that he would not be forgiven for doing so. As the assembled party began to move towards the clink of dishes and cutlery he said, raising his voice a little, “I had the good luck or perhaps the misfortune to be adopted on my arrival, by an English family. It so happens I had English friends who had not forgotten me.’’
There was some laughter at this, a few exchanged glances. The general, however, was not amused. His back, a few paces ahead of Boris, stiffened slightly. Let us hope it will not break when he sits down, Boris thought, laughing inwardly. Aloud he went on, in a serious voice, “I wanted to find work first. Not to appear to ask for – charity.’’
It was lame, but no one could with politeness reject it. Looking round the group as they took their places, Boris even wondered if he had been less than tactful. Apart from the general and an old gentleman with a white beard, neatly trimmed, he saw that he was the best-dressed man present. Orloff, who seemed to be acting chairman on this occasion, wore a very old-fashioned dinner-jacket, while one or two of the distinguished company were very shabby and even not altogether clean. Boris rebuked himself for criticizing hands probably used in manual work. He thought of his own past activities and nearly swore aloud at himself. His present life must be corrupting him.
“You don’t remember me then, Boris?’’ asked the white-haired old gentleman.
He had come up silently behind the new-comer as he stood waiting for direction. When Orloff handed Boris to a seat beside himself, this man sat down on his other side.
“You don’t know who I am?’’ he repeated.
“No,’’ Boris said. “Should I remember?’’
“Not even my name? You heard it just now.’’
“It was bewildering, when I came in. So many names. Polish names. I was overwhelmed.’’
“I will repeat it. Scziliekowicz. Now do you remember?’’
Boris stared, a painful flush spreading slowly over his whole face.
“You were
my father’s friend,’’ he said and bowed his head before all that might follow.
Nothing followed. Or nothing painful. Nothing accusatory. The old man even reached out a hand to pat his shoulder.
“We will speak later,’’ he said, gently.
The meal, a very good meal, took its course. Coffee and liqueurs followed. The chairman made a few announcements. For the enlightenment of their guest, he went on, he would describe the constitution of their society, its close links with and distinction from, the political body representing a government in exile. Having thus drawn Boris into his remarks he turned to him and said, “You will not deny us the pleasure of hearing some account of your experiences since the end of the war. We know of your captivity and can imagine it. We have had many accounts of the life in Siberia. It is afterwards. Unless you would find it too painful.’’
Too familiar, too often repeated, to rouse feelings any longer. Too far away now. He told them, in words he had already used to the police in Yorkshire, to the authorities in London, to the Brentwood family, the rough outlines of his experiences. There was much that he did not include, but nothing false, exaggerated or spoken for effect.
“We see clearly that he is one of us,’’ Orloff concluded his little speech of thanks to the speaker. There was prolonged applause.
When the party broke up Scziliekowicz was just behind Boris on the stairs. The general was just in front. Boris heard the gentle voice at his ear.
“You will want to ask me many questions,’’ the old man said. “You must come for a final brandy at my home.’’
Boris accepted the challenge. It was the only thing he could do. They waited together for a taxi and when they got into it the general followed.
Scziliekowicz lived in an attic flat in a large, old-fashioned house between Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush. There were a great many stairs to climb but the flat itself was comfortably furnished, suggesting that the old man was not so badly off as the neighbourhood and type of dwelling might indicate. The furniture in the sitting-room was heavy, but good. There were some well-polished silver and brass ornaments, an abundance of books lining two walls, plain dark crimson velvet curtains at the window, falling to the floor, and several well-placed, shaded wall lights, besides a reading-lamp on a wide desk and a standard lamp beside the fireplace. Through the unscreened, closed window-panes the late evening blue dusk was cut by a sharp silver crescent moon.
Scziliekowicz urged the two others to be seated, then fussed about switching on lamps, drawing the curtains, finding glasses and a decanter of brandy in a small ornate cupboard against the wall near the desk.
“For you, count,’’ he said to Sudenic, coming close to his guest. The general, who had not yet sat down, came forward to receive a glass and then moved away with it to look at the bookshelves.
“That is the second time tonight I have been addressed by that title,’’ Boris said, steadily, looking up. “Are you breaking certain news to me?’’
“If you interpret correctly.’’
“My father is dead?’’
“Yes.’’
Boris sat without moving, still looking up at the kindly face above him.
“And the others? My mother – my sisters?’’
“The same.’’
“I have never allowed myself to hope. But I find I have always done so.’’
Scziliekowicz’s hand went out for the second time to press the younger man’s shoulder. He seemed to be very much moved, for he took away his hand a moment later to find a large handkerchief which he pressed to his face in unashamed grief.
Boris stood quite still, looking now at the floor between his feet. A flood of memories assailed him, tearing him apart, swamping his mind, stopping the questions he most wanted to ask, nearly drowning his heart, choking his breathing, above all washing away his new-found confidence. He struggled to keep back a purely animal cry of pain. Four months free from daily fear, secure from physical punishment, had weakened him, he thought bitterly, struggling now with tears that would not be held back.
He let them fall. He gulped his brandy, drew the back of his hand across his eyes and at last looked up, still seeing in place of his father’s friend, his father’s own form and face, his mother’s gentle questioning eyes, his younger sister’s thin beauty.
“How?’’ he asked, in a low harsh voice. “Why? When?’’
“It has not been established exactly when or how. During the upheavals of the Russo-German pact. Your estate lay on the border of the two zones. The border was disputed, naturally. Not least on the spot. The German side was occupied territory – brutal, Teutonic, uncompromising occupation. The Russians were careful and busy with their propaganda. Their political agents were everywhere with promises of land. They found willing ears among certain of your father’s peasants.’’
“It was the Russians then? They took them—’’
“No. Worse than that. Your own peasants, in your own house.’’
“No! No, that is too much!’’
The general turned from the bookcase when he heard this cry and moved quietly forward until he could see Boris’s face. He stood there, watching, while the revelations continued.
“That is the report I had, but years later, from your head groom, Vassili, I think his name was.’’
“Vassili was in the stables. Ivan Fedorowicz was head groom, with Voliniak. But Ivan came away with me when the war broke out. He was lost in the retreat. Where did you find Vassili?’’
“In Egypt. Let me tell you, from the beginning. In the retreat – I was in the government service, you may remember – I was put in charge of certain archives, to get them out of the country. I set off with a small party. The route I planned, through Rumania to Greece and so to France, would pass near your estate. I determined to take your parents and sisters with me. I had resources and a guard of a sort. I went to the house and found them gone.’’
“And then?’’
“There was no time to delay. The Germans behind in the west, the Russians coming in from the east. I had to travel south in the narrowing corridor between the two enemies. The two traditional enemies. Alas for Poland!’’
There was a silence. Boris waited.
“Well, I got through. It took a long time. The frontiers were closed. It was a matter of bribes and bargaining and sometimes naked escape, without explanation, fortunately without trace. We reached Rumania in mid-winter and spent it among friendly peasants. The next summer France fell and our future seemed to have been swallowed up too. But we followed our plan to Greece and when the next threat came, to Egypt, to the British in Egypt. There I found more of my countrymen and among them, your Vassili.’’
Boris lifted a pale face.
“Go on.’’
“Your father had received a message to leave his house, to hide in a certain place and to wait there until he was rescued. He obeyed the instructions. Nothing happened. After a week he went back to the house. He found it was taken over by his peasants. They had broken in, destroyed, desecrated, were still enjoying a drunken orgy on stolen wine from the cellar. A Russian was in charge. All the servants left behind, except Vassili, had fled.’’
“They murdered my father, my mother, Anna, Nadia? Their own people murdered them?’’ Boris raised haunted eyes. “I sent that message,’’ he said. “For their safety. I had been carried in the retreat far behind the line of the Russian zone. We knew nothing about the pact until three days after it was signed. We were surrounded and virtually made prisoner. But they were in a hurry, the Russians. They could not delay just then to dispose of us. We escaped massacre. I had a plan to get away from them, I and two others and my batman, Ivan. As we got nearer to my home, into country Ivan and I knew as well as our own faces, I managed his disappearance with a message to my father. That they should leave and hide and I would meet them.’‘
“You! It was you who should have got them out? Vassili did not know that. He managed to get away after the killing.’�
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“My father will have told no one. Not even my mother.’’
The old man nodded, understanding very well the desperate secrecy needed in those appalling times.
“And then?’’
“Our direction was changed. For no reason or for very good reasons. Ivan never came back. Perhaps he never delivered my message—’’
“He must have done so, since they were gone the day I passed through.’’
“Perhaps he was killed – or captured – or turned traitor – to either enemy. We shall never know. The plan failed. I was taken into Russia. You know the rest.’’
“Ivan was killed with the rest of your family.’’
It was the general who spoke. He had been so quiet since their arrival that Boris had almost forgotten his presence. His harsh voice, stating a harsh fact, struck a sudden flush into Boris’s cheek. His own voice was harder than usual as he answered, “What evidence have you for that?’’
“The word of a brother officer, now dead.’’
Scziliekowicz, aware of the sudden tension in the room and suspicious of its cause, took refuge in the decanter.
“Let me fill your glass, general,’’ he said, quickly interposing himself between the other two as Boris rose slowly to his feet. “Count?’’
“I shall never use that title,’’ said Boris, grief and anger mixed in his tone. “It died with my father and with the land stolen from him. I am Boris Sudenic, without any prefix, to you and to all my friends.’’
The general’s eyes gleamed with sudden amusement, but he said nothing, turning away with his drink in his hand to sit down for the first time since he entered the flat. Scziliekowicz also sat down near Boris, who slowly followed the example of the others.
Their death-laden revelations, their sharp emotions, had exhausted all three. Now they could only sit, cut off by the long crimson velvet curtains from the happy lights and moving London crowds outside under the warm summer sky, each turning over the sad pages of a cruel history, stunned by its excessive horror, its indecisive, lamentable sequel. They saw the scenes of their childhood, the country of their love and allegiance, as it were through a coating of transparent ice, a thick, terrifying icicle of slow-dropping perpetual frost, a never-ending winter of imprisonment.
The Alien Page 5
