by Ben Pastor
“Was anything out of order in the kitchen, that you can tell?”
“I don’t know how orderly it usually was, Captain. There was no food out, if that’s what the captain means, no drinks, nothing. It really looked as if he just up and put his head into the stove.”
4 January
In the morning, Schenck called Bora into his office.
He had an expression of indefinable contempt on his leathery face, and for a stressful moment Bora thought he might have been approached by Salle-Weber.
Schenck said, “Sit down.”
Bora sat.
“I understand your wife has not come. What will you do about it?”
Bora checked himself. “There isn’t much I can do about it, Colonel.”
“Well, you must intend to do something with the germ plasma built up while waiting for her.”
Bora didn’t want to say that his germ plasma was now being laundered off his clothes.
Schenck added, flint-faced, “There are German women in Cracow.”
“I don’t think they’d be the proper receptacle.”
“And why not?”
“Because I do not love them.”
“Love?” Schenck’s disdain went to his mouth, turning it downwards in a grimace. “I thought we agreed that love is a bourgeois expression, having nothing to do with propagating the race. Being inherently opposed to the waste of masturbation, I cannot envision anything else for a German man to do in your circumstance but to find a racially compatible female. Clearly your wife has no sense of the demographic needs of the Country.” From the top of his desk, Schenck lifted a typewritten sheet which he handed to Bora. “These are the names of racially certified local women. I advise you to select from the list as soon as possible. As open-minded men, we can distinguish between profligacy and sexual health, can’t we?”
Bora ran his eyes down the list. Before leaving, his stepfather had struck him a blow from which he was still reeling. “They say,” he’d leaned out of the train window to inform him, “that she had an abortion before she met you.”
A veiled redness had stretched in front of Bora’s eyes then, as when the SS had nearly shot him. “That’s a bold lie!” he remembered shouting, and how he’d banged the side of the train with his gloved fist. “Take it back at once, it’s a bold lie!”
“Don’t get hot under the collar,” his stepfather had only added. “Nothing about the Coennewitz girls would surprise me.”
His numbness now was the only thing that kept him from overreacting to Schenck’s advice. Bora found himself looking, guiltily, for Ewa’s and Helenka’s name on the list, but of course they were not there.
Seated next to Bora’s army cap on the bench of the waiting room, Father Malecki looked disappointed. “Was that all Frau Hofer had to say to you?”
“Yes.” Bora was restless, but realized how irritating it was to watch someone pace back and forth, so he forced himself to stand still. “The phone connection was bad. She said their son has died, and she doesn’t wish to remind her husband of Poland at this time. He’s been very ill, and stays at a convalescent home. She expects him back in a week, at which time she’ll inform him of my call. So I’ll call again in a week. Meanwhile we’ll keep looking for our missing worker here in Cracow. The contractor supplied us with an accurate description of him, and I’m very hopeful in that regard.”
“But what if the colonel has nothing to add, and you don’t find the missing worker?”
“Miracles aren’t my province, Father. You know perfectly well I don’t even have a shell casing to go by. You and I were not in the convent when the abbess died, so it’s neither one of us who killed her. Everything else is dreams and half-baked prophecies.”
“Hardly what you can report to your commander.”
“Unless we’re enlightened between now and then, that’s exactly what I’ll report.” Bora reached for his cap on the bench. “Do you have time for dinner at the Wierzynek tonight?” When Malecki hesitated to answer, he couldn’t help himself. “That is, if the American consulate lets you.”
Malecki actually laughed. “I’ll come.”
When Bora arrived home to freshen up before dinner, the cleaning woman was washing the floors.
She looked at him, and he knew what was on her mind. “Forget about the towel.” He prevented her. “I said I’ll pay for it. Tell me something else, instead.” He gestured for her to let go of the mop, and come forwards. “Sit.” He pointed to a fancy chair, adding to her confusion. “Just tell me in what state was the apartment when you were called in to clean after the major’s death. Yes, of course it smelled like gas. What else? Was anything out of place, or was it as always? Think carefully.”
The cleaning woman sat uneasily, neck stretched forwards. “It was as always, panie kapitanie.”
“All right. What about the bed? Was the bed - did it seem as though the bed had been made love in?”
The woman’s alarm grew and abated under Bora’s impassive stare. “No, sir.”
“What about the bathroom, could you tell if the major had been shaving?”
“He’d taken a bath. The bath towel was still wet.”
“Was the sink clean, or did it have shaving soap in it?”
“It was rinsed clean.”
“Now tell me about the kitchen. Anything out of place there?”
“No, sir. Only thing is, two drinking glasses had been washed. The major always left plates and glasses in the sink.”
Retz had probably had a drink with Ewa the night before, and she’d washed the glasses. Bora found none of the information useful. He dismissed the cleaning woman. Leisurely he shaved, changed, and although it was still early he had Hannes drive him to the fine old restaurant on the square, where he was to meet Father Malecki for dinner. Hannes was talkative, having just run into another veteran of the Spanish campaign. He jabbered about it all the way to the restaurant, and then asked for permission to have the evening off. What a fine land Spain was, and what an adventure! How young we all were! Who knows how many fine memories the captain has brought back, eh? Bora had grown thoughtful at the recollection, and had to be asked twice before dismissing him.
At the table, Malecki let him talk at length about Retz. So much so, in fact, that Bora caught himself, clumsily. “Am I not boring you, Father?”
“No, no. Keep talking.”
Behind Bora’s head, the large painting of a sun-bathed mountain scene seemed like a window on a remote world. Sipping his wine, Malecki heedfully listened to all Bora had to say - how he’d asked Helenka if she thought she was pregnant by Retz (not so, luckily), but hadn’t had time to ask Ewa for all the information he thought she could give him; how it bothered him not to be able to let Retz’s death rest. Then he commented, “It’s strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“That you notice details with such clarity, and yet have a blind spot.”
Bora said he didn’t understand.
“Well, you say that one of the towels disappeared on the day your colleague died. How do you know that it wasn’t taken away by the medics?”
“I checked with one of the medics. He told me no towel was found in the kitchen, and they used none. And anyway, why would anyone steal a towel from inside the bathroom shelf when there was one hanging from the rack?” Bora put fork and knife down, impatiently. “Why did you say I have a blind spot?”
“Because in your heart you don’t believe that Retz committed suicide, yet something keeps you from going the distance to admit that you think someone killed him.”
Bora felt blood rising to his face, as on the night he’d sat across from his stepfather and his stepfather had seen through him.
“After all, Captain, Retz had already quartered in Cracow years ago, and might have had old enemies. Is it such an impossibility?”
Bora wondered where Ewa’s first husband could be now. He replied, just for the sake of argument, “The only people I can associate with him with some certai
nty were busy elsewhere on the morning he died.”
“You mean his woman friend and her daughter.”
“Yes. They were both rehearsing.”
“I see,” Malecki said amiably. “And what is the play?”
“Aeschylus’ Eumenides. Not that it makes a difference.”
“And have you gone to see it?”
“No.”
“Have you read it, then?”
“No, I haven’t.”
Malecki nodded to the waiter, who’d come by to refill his glass. “You should.”
After dinner, Bora was relieved that Malecki had said he’d walk home, and that Hannes was gone. He wanted to be alone.
Although it was entirely out of his way, he drove in a circuitous manner north of the Old City to Święty Krzyża, where Ewa’s lit window on the grey stucco wall distinguished itself from the others by its trim of lacy curtains.
At the corner, he stopped the car. It would take less than a minute to walk to the doorway of her house and tell the porter he was here to see Frau Kowalska. She’d receive him, of course.
His distress resulted from a nearly untenable desire to ask Ewa to kiss him and make love to him, of which he was ashamed but no less desirous for it. In the crude dark, how different would her body be from Dikta’s, except that Dikta was younger?
He remembered stripping off his uniform at the foot of the hotel bed on their wedding night, when every button and lacing had been an enemy to his haste. They had made up for it by not bothering to get up on the following day, at the end of which he had to phone his parents to say that he’d got married. Now Ewa would do the same with him, blond like Dikta but wiser, more appreciative of a young man’s worth, of how the man she’d kissed in the theatre would perform with a racially compatible female.
Schenck’s inane words were a sobering shower to him. Bora cursed as he welcomed them, those political notions of “sexual health” that undid all lovely images like the turning of a kaleidoscope. Half-heartedly he sat for close to an hour, trying to rearrange them even as they ran into a blur of glitter, and it was no use. No use, Bora. In a cold anger, he started the car, jerked it into reverse and drove through the narrow streets towards his house under the Wawel.
5 January
The young Pole extended his hand towards the intact cigarette pack that Bora had laid on the table. There were fresh bruises on his face, and his front teeth were missing. Bora observed him insert the cigarette in the bloody-rimmed gap and expectantly stretch his torso for the lighter’s flame.
“I hope they’re getting something out of you,” he said.
“They ain’t.”
“The way you’re going, you’ll get shot one of these days.”
“I know.”
“As long as you know.”
The prisoner sucked the smoke in avidly. “These are good cigarettes.”
Bora had carelessly removed his gloves but now put them back on. He’d caught himself anxiously fingering the gold band on his left hand lately, and had resolved to break the habit before anyone remarked on it. He said, “Perhaps you should talk. You’d save everyone much trouble.”
With visible difficulty, the prisoner attempted a laugh. Smoke came out of the gap between his teeth as he did. “It’s not like I’m trying to save you all any trouble.” Whether the offer of cigarettes emboldened him or he’d travelled further on the road to hopelessness, he was merrily impudent. “If it was me holding you, Captain, would you talk?”
“You wouldn’t hold me.” Bora reached for the pack and took it back. Under the Pole’s alarmed eyes he held it in the gloved hand as if wondering what to do with it, whether he’d crush it or not. “The other day you told me you saw the nun in the garden. Was she sitting, walking, was she standing still?”
“She was lying on the ground.”
“After she was shot, naturally—”
“No, no. She’d been lying there a good part of the morning.” On the edge of his chair, the prisoner kept watch on any threat to crush the cigarette pack. “I’m telling you, she was lying there spread-eagle.”
“How did you know she was alive, then?”
“I’d seen her do the trick on other days. I didn’t pay attention to it any more, except that later I saw the blood. I was just turning around after checking the street through the field glasses: I happened to see the blood and that’s that. I can’t say if she was lying down when she was shot, because I didn’t see it happen.”
Bora put a cigarette in his mouth and tossed the pack back on the table. Before leaving, he said, “We’re closing in on one of yours. It’s all over for the lot of you, so take my advice. Talk.”
Kasia crossed the Market Square with her eyes to the squat, long building of the ancient Clothiers’ Hall. German army cars parked alongside it behind the trees, and uniformed men could be seen under the archway. She headed for the theatre under an immense overcast sky, quickening her pace.
Ewa waited for her in a doorway at the corner of Święty Anny Street, where the cutting wind could not enter. She seemed about to ask something, but Kasia didn’t give her the time.
“He hasn’t left!” She took the initiative. “You said he’d be gone by morning, and your son hasn’t left.”
Ewa’s shoulders rose and sank in the old fur. “He will, be sure. He’s a prudent young man.”
“Sure. It’s been a week! If he’s so prudent, how come he’s got to hide from the Germans, and how come he isn’t staying with you?”
“We’ve been through all this already, Kasia dear. He’d be noticed at my house, and you know how cramped Helenka’s quarters are. If he said he’d leave, he’ll leave. It’s only nine o’clock.”
“Well, you owe me big on this one. After he goes his way, I want you to pay me. You pay me and introduce me to Richard’s room-mate. Promise.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Promise.” Kasia’s freckled face, livid with cold, had an unfriendly, peevish pout. “Your son is still at my house, and there are German cars all over the Rynek Glowny. You owe me. You owe me big. If he’s gone by the time I go back, I expect you to call Richard’s friend tonight and introduce me to him. Why? Because I just want you to, that’s why.”
Ewa rolled her eyes. “Very well. Are there any messages for me?”
“No. He’s slept most of the time, and twice I had to shake him because he snored.” Kasia turned away from the door when a German car drove slowly past, tires squelching the mushy snow. “Knowing you, it’s better if I don’t know what your son’s real trouble is, or I’d piss in my pants from the worry.”
Bora understood from Pana Klara that Father Malecki was at the Curia, and thought better than going to wait for him there.
“Arkusz papieru, prosze,” he asked. After the landlady rummaged around to find a blank sheet of paper, he wrote on it.
“Something today alerted me to a possibility we hadn’t yet considered in regard to the abbess’s death. Bear with me if I don’t discuss it here. I must absolutely meet you tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning.” Bora signed his name, then jotted down a postscript. “I believe Mother Kazimierza was right, when she said that the light in us can be darkness.”
The matinee was half an hour away, but Kasia was good for nothing. “I’m too nervous,” she whispered to her understudy. “I think it’s my period. I just don’t feel well. I don’t feel well, I have to go home. You can stand in for me, can’t you? Just for today. I’ve got to go home. Don’t tell Ewa I went unless she asks.”
It was sleeting outside when she left the theatre and went south to avoid the Market Square. She was still angry at Ewa, and so upset that she couldn’t distinguish between her fear and a premonition of danger. What good would it do to go home if something had gone wrong, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that this morning the theatre made her sick, and she had to go home.
She prolonged her way home so that her shoes were soaked by the time she came in sight of her house. There were n
o people and no parked cars in the street. Her doorway stood ajar as always.
Kasia crossed quickly, entered the dark space at the bottom of the stairwell and looked straight ahead into the inner court. Through the low archway, it looked empty and forlorn.
Up the worn cement tiles forming the steps she went, one hand on the shaky iron railing. Everything was quiet. The usual silence, the usual smells. Opening the door she was relieved to notice the key turned twice, as she had locked it. The dank little kitchen was in order, and what bread and milk she had put out for Ewa’s son had not been touched.
A twinge of disappointment reminded her that he’d still be in the other room, sleeping. Careful not to step on a squeaky tile, she peered into the parlour, where the sofa had been turned into a bed. The sofa was empty, and the quilt folded neatly at one end of it. Kasia breathed out in relief.
Gone. He was gone. Thank God, and without fuss!
She switched the light on, and kicked the wet shoes off her feet. In slippers she went to place the milk out on the window sill to keep it cold.
Back in the parlour, she turned the radio on, leaving it on even though the broadcast was in German, only to hear the noise.
Well, Ewa’s son was gone. Thank God for that. She’d figure out later a better excuse for leaving the performance today. There was no hurry. Suddenly, all she had to worry about was what she’d wear tonight to meet Richard’s room-mate. She smiled. The key to his apartment jingled in her pocket. Ewa had resisted giving it to her, but in the end she’d handed it over. Whether she’d use it or not, it was a victory over Ewa. How easily one could move from anguish to delight.
Kasia filled a pot of water and placed it on the gas stove to warm it up before washing her hair. A familiar song came on the radio, and humming to the tune of it she went to the bedroom to pick out a dress. “I know - one day - something so wonderful..”
The bedroom was dark. “You and I will meet aga..” Kasia halted on the threshold with the song in her throat. She didn’t remember leaving the shutters folded so tightly. Spiteful rage grabbed her at the idea that Ewa’s son wasn’t gone, but had simply moved into her bed for comfort.
