by Ben Pastor
“So, Colonel Hofer, whether he planned it or not, made an accident appear like intentional murder by a Polish hand.”
“Exactly. Had the colonel really found the abbess lying in her blood, his first instinct as a soldier would have been to take out his gun, because theoretically the murderer could have still been around. I certainly had my gun in hand when I ran to this very spot. After my chat with Hannes, I had to wonder why Colonel Hofer kept his weapon out of sight on that day.” After replacing the gun in his holster, Bora looked strangely unaggressive to Malecki. “He had no choice, you see. He simply had no choice. No matter how distraught he was, he had to pull himself together enough to run out and fetch me.”
“So, you will prosecute.”
“No.”
“You promised you would, Captain Bora!”
“I can’t. When I thought I was being so clever by phoning his wife last week, I put into motion the one thing that would keep me from prosecuting. Even though I was only guessing at that stage, Colonel Hofer assumed I had found him out. Yesterday, when he came home on furlough, his wife informed him of my call, and how I would be calling again. He answered nothing, but walked into his room, locked himself in, and ten minutes later fired a bullet into his mouth. And that’s how clever I am, Father Malecki.”
“God keep us.”
“Yes. There was no abbess to stop him that time.”
Malecki had to hide the distaste he had for hearing a dispassionate description of murder and suicide. Still he said, “Did Hofer leave a note behind?”
“Just a scribble, apparently. Something to do with asking God’s forgiveness for what he had ‘unwittingly done’. The German authorities took it to imply his failure as commander here in Poland, but we know better. I also received confirmation that Radom cartridges were in the colonel’s pistol, and one of them was used in his own death.”
Malecki chose to look up at Bora’s composure. “Well,” he said, “I am the last one to want to admit this, but if things went as you say, your commander did not intentionally and maliciously kill the abbess. Could he not have tried to explain matters to all concerned?”
Bora was tempted to laugh, Malecki could tell. Unamusedly, but laughter was what seemed to well up in him at the idea. “Father Malecki, the German Army doesn’t take kindly to officers who attempt suicide. Even less to those who embarrass the corps by committing an accidental murder. No. The colonel had no choice, especially if he wanted to live long enough to see his child again. He was racked enough by grief, I’m sure. But by asking me, of all people, to look into the matter, he also made virtually sure I would not suspect him.”
“So, what happens after you conclude your investigation?”
“I know why you ask. There’s no one left to prosecute, which means that a scandal injurious to German interests in Poland can and will be safely avoided. Privately—”
“Privately, you will tell the archbishop the truth.”
“With my superiors’ permission, yes.”
“And the archbishop, in turn?”
“He knows what’s good for the Church in Poland. I trust you will advise him accordingly, Father Malecki.”
“And to the sisters? What will you tell them?”
“They’re better off believing I was unable to solve the mystery of the abbess’s death. Perhaps the archbishop will decide to inform Sister Irenka, privately.”
Visibly troubled, Malecki trundled off through the snow to re-enter the convent. Bora remained outside. He leaned to look into the well, where - far down-a round of hazy blue showed the ice seal on the water.
He was thinking about what else he had to tell Colonel Schenck that afternoon.
When the time came, Schenck had his usual starched look, even though Bora’s report was as unexpected as he could envision. He actually didn’t interrupt, limiting himself now and then to an involuntary wink of his good eye.
“Well, the son of a bitch,” he said. “The snivelling, hysterical son of a bitch managed to make fools of us all. And he’s dead, which is how he really fooled us for good.”
“We still need to secure the gun, and find out from his widow what he might have confided to her about the matter.”
Schenck snatched a stationery sheet from his desk, and uncapped his pen. “How much time do you need?”
“I think three days would suffice, if I take the first train to Germany. Less if I fly out.”
A concise emergency leave was handed to Bora. “Here. And I was beginning to think that you’d abandon the trail! But I see you dig until you find your bone! The Governor General will be stunned. There’ll be all kind of goings-on if it turns out to be true. Wait till I inform that jackass Salle-Weber!”
Bora took a deep breath and let it out.
“I have another report to make, Colonel.”
Unexpectedly Schenck grinned. “Let me guess. You took my advice and made an ethnic German pregnant.”
“Hardly. It concerns my room-mate.”
A moment later, the grin had been wiped off Schenck’s leathery face.
Bora said, “I’m positive about it. It’s from her friend, Kasia, that I learned she had a key to the apartment, which Major Retz provided her: a breach in security, to say the least. Whether her decision to kill him originated in his infatuation for her daughter or not, though I think jealousy was the primary factor, I have no doubt that Ewa Kowalska left the Old Theatre shortly after nine hundred hours on Saturday morning, reached our quarters and let herself in. She had no way of knowing that the major had just phoned Helenka to arrange a date.” Bora relaxed enough to pace across Schenck’s office with hands in his pockets, and Schenck let him. “You and I, Colonel, are aware of how the major was fond of drinking on weekends. I saw him polish off whole bottles of straight cognac or vodka, and down a few shots before breakfast. On Saturday morning, either he had a drink already poured, or Ewa prepared a drink for both of them, adding what for lack of better identification I must simply call a barbiturate, possibly my own Veronal, which she’d certainly noticed during her previous visits to our place. The major gulped his drinks without even tasting them. He must have done the same that morning, whatever conversation he and Ewa were carrying on. I can only speculate at this stage: recrimination, pleading, who knows? If Ewa did in fact bring Helenka up, it’s possible that Major Retz showed insufficient remorse or even lack of concern about his incest. Being on duty later that day, he began shaving while she was there, but never had time to finish. When the drug had its effect - depending on the amount, it could be a fairly quick matter according to Colonel Nowotny - all Ewa had to do was drag his groggy or unconscious body to the stove. She put his head in the oven, turned on the gas, washed the glasses, the sink and the razor, unthinkingly leaving the blade in it. So that the detail of his partly shaven face wouldn’t be too obvious, she wiped his face clean with one of the towels stored in the bathroom shelf, and took the towel along. Then she returned to the theatre, in time to appear on stage at the end of the rehearsal.”
Schenck made a very small movement which might be interpreted as a complacent nod. “Wouldn’t the porter be aware that someone had come to see Major Retz?”
“Not necessarily. It’s likely that Ewa had been given the key to the front door as well. I have more than once gone by without the porter noticing me.”
“And you built all this construction on the unlikely foundation of a misplaced razor blade?”
Bora stopped pacing. “Not only. Also by reading a Greek play, by being tempted by an older woman and through the fortunate enlightenment of a blind spot, thanks to the American priest. It was an instance of seeing the light, Colonel. Lumen, if you wish, had its part here as well.”
“Well, well.” Schenck had a grin so brief, it was a mere baring of teeth. “What will you do now? Arrest the Kowalska woman on this evidence?”
“I think it has to be done.”
“Surely not for that scoundrel Retz’s sake.”
“For justice
’s sake, then.”
“There you go again, with your fixation on upholding the law. Take two men with you.”
Bora hesitated. “I thought I might begin by going at it alone.”
“No.”
The street seemed cut in two by the low winter sun, with an azure line limning on the snowy sidewalk the roofs of the houses across from Ewa’s apartment. A blue quilt was airing across the sill of her window.
The army car stopped at the Święty Marka end of it. One armed soldier stationed himself at the corner. The other had already been dropped at the opposite end of the street. Bora alighted last, and was soon past the doorstep of her house.
It didn’t take long, nor was it as awkward as Bora had expected.
Ewa slipped a nightgown in the small suitcase, locked it and removed it from the dresser to stand it by the bedroom door. She closed the window, folded the quilt, lifted it over her head to place it on the wardrobe. She couldn’t quite reach, so Bora did it for her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Do I have time to put some make-up on?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m ready, then.”
Bora looked at her and past her, at the framed photograph of a younger Ewa holding Helenka in her arms.
She followed his stare. “You never liked me, did you?”
“On the contrary, I did.”
“You didn’t act on it.” She seemed truly old today, much older than his mother. “Ah, but I forget you’re a married man.” She bound the blue scarf around her neck. “Though I wager not nearly as happily married as you say.”
Bora took her small suitcase. “Let’s go.”
After they left Święty Krzyża, they found that some of the other streets were blocked. Armoured columns were in transit through the city, so Bora’s car was redirected alongside the Vistula in the direction of the bridge. Like an island the massif of the Wawel, castle- and cathedral-crowned, seemed to pivot to their left as they approached the curve of the river.
Ewa did not look out of the window, but Bora did. Her profile against the hill betrayed no emotion, only some weariness. He felt very lonely.
They had nearly come to the curve when the driver had to slow down to a halt. Under the watch of German engineers, workers were unloading heavy equipment from a barge, and two trucks obstructed the sidewalk. One of the trucks was being weighed down with road-constructing machinery even now.
Ewa was layering rouge on her lips, the small round mirror firm in her hand.
Bora’s driver turned the engine off. “There’s nothing much we can do, sir.”
“I can see that.” Bora waited for some minutes, then walked out of the car to speak to the engineers overseeing the operation.
They told him all towing had to be done before the river froze. “It’s going to be a little while yet, Herr Hauptmann.” But they recognized his impatience, and how he’d stay there to make them feel pressured. “We’re moving as fast as we can, Herr Hauptmann.”
Bora didn’t move from where he stood. A brutal wind arose from the riverside and along the shore, making the men tearful and stiff. No matter how he turned his back to the wind, Bora had to give up trying to light a cigarette in the open.
Crates packed in tarpaulin were followed on the trucks by the road-constructing machinery. Jointed steel bodies like gigantic insects, powerful belted gears, grooved chains.
Bora was considering the alternative of driving through the deep icy snow off the side of the road, when not so much a commotion of voices behind him as the reaction of the engineers made him wheel around.
Ewa had broken out of the car and was running away from it, headed for the rise of the land that rimmed the south end of the Old City and the Wawel. Both escort soldiers were also in the open. They’d lifted their rifles and were yelling at her to stop, aiming at her already.
“Don’t shoot!” Bora bolted from the disconcerted group of workers. By long strides he made for the direction Ewa had taken through the high snow, towards the Wawel Hill. Behind him, the soldiers trundled on a little more, then halted at his command.
Ewa had a frantic quickness about her, a scared-animal ability to scamper off. Hands and knees acted in concert to part the snow, her race was improvident but effective and through the white clumps she moved in nearly a straight line, unhampered by her short fur coat.
Bora’s metal-clad boots slipped on the ice under the snow. Height and a man’s body weight worked against him in the race. His greatcoat was heavy and long, it impeded free motion. He lost balance and time while Ewa started up the incline that ran lush with grass most of the year, but was stark now and nearly unbrokenly white.
Already the guards from atop the Wawel bastions had noticed the escape and were crying out their own guttural warnings from above.
“Don’t open fire!” Bora shouted at them, though the wind took his voice and they might not have heard him.
Ewa’s neck scarf flew off and, like a blue disorderly bird snatched by the current, it was borne aloft behind her.
From this point, she could only hope to get to the closely guarded ramp that led to the gateway to the castle. Bora knew it wasn’t safety she was looking for. Anger threw him into a fury to keep her from getting herself killed, out of spite and refusal to give her that choice, to be a part of her death.
“You have to stop!” he shouted at her. “I command you to stop!”
Ewa looked back, midway through the incline. The terrain was very steep at this point. The snow was piled high on this side of the hill, where it had accumulated due to the wind, and she stood in the middle of it nearly to her thighs. Her face was small and livid in the distance. She seemed about to renew her race, then let her arms fall to her sides, and didn’t move.
Bora struggled to join her but did so quickly on his longer, booted legs. Ewa breathed hard, and so did Bora. Clouds of condensing vapour fled in front of them.
“I don’t want to be arrested, Captain.”
“There’s no choice.” Bora kept an eye on the dark, puppet-like figures of the guards atop the incline, armed with machine guns. “If you were to tell the judge about Retz and Helenka, you might get clemency from the court.”
Ewa’s painted lips were the only brightness in her pallor. “As if I’d speak to any court of my lover’s incest with his own daughter. How perfectly German of you. No, thank you.”
“Come along, then.” Bora extended his arm towards her. She noticed, with a little surge of flattery, that his holster had remained latched.
“My son’s dead, my lover’s dead. You could let me strike you, and then your men would have to kill me.”
“No.”
“It’d be easier.”
“Frau Kowalska, you’re neither Tosca nor Clytaemestra. This is not the stage.”
Bora’s hand reached her elbow, taking it firmly. Except for the kiss, it was the first time he had touched her. He led her back through the convulsed snow without looking at her, the boyish angle of his face turned away from her as on the night in her dressing room.
The car seemed very small down by the slow, icy ribbon of the Vistula, there where the equipment had been finally unloaded and the road was clear.
12 January
On his way to the train station in the morning, Bora had been reading a letter from home, and did not at first notice the slowing of the car.
“What is it, Hannes?” he asked automatically, without glancing up.
“Street’s blocked ahead, sir.”
Quickly orienting himself, Bora saw they’d come quite near the station, driving through the working-class quarter that separated the Old City from Army Headquarters. Twenty or so feet in front of the car, a helmeted, gloved SS man had stood with his right arm raised, and Hannes was slowing down more.
Even from here, Bora could see that bodies lined the street: civilian bodies in bloodied nightclothes, and the SS had barbed wire, cars, dog. A truck parked in the street where snow had been trampled into mud. Peopl
e already crowded under the tarpaulin, pinched white faces anxiously peering out in a double row. Entire families, it seemed, were being herded out of doors.
The helmeted SS man flagged the car down with deliberate, imperious slowness, so that Hannes’ braking became a full stop.
Bora rolled down his window.
Just ahead, furniture and clothes were being thrown from balconies on the tenements’ higher floors. A sewing machine came crashing down, attached to its skinny table, metal pieces flying. Papers sailed in mid-air and floundered like shot birds. The car idled at the edge of an unspeakable disorder of objects and people.
There was shooting going on inside the houses. Bora recognized the smacking reverberation of gunfire within four walls. Echoing cries followed, shouted commands. More gunfire.
“What is happening?”
He had to shout the words to be heard. The SS man answered from where he stood, near the sidewalk where the bodies lay, not bothering to draw close even though he certainly knew an officer was addressing him.
“Haven’t you heard? We caught those who killed the Catholic nun.”
“What?”
“It was the Polish swine who were hiding on the rooftops near the convent. The Army tried to cover it up, but we got them. Now it’s just a matter of flushing their accomplices out. All trains have been cancelled, so you’ll have to go back.”
Staring, Bora folded his mother’s letter and slid it in the cuff of his sleeve.
The SS man had turned away from the car. Blood flowing from the bodies was finding its way down from the street. When it reached the snow crust rimming the street, red flowers bloomed at the point of contact, a transitory efflorescence that flared out, and at once was no more than the mingling of blood and icy water into a pink slush.
“Move on and turn,” the SS man wheeled around to order.
Hannes started out again at a snail’s pace, aiming the car amidst the litter from above. Glass shards rained down, more debris.
Those who killed the Catholic nun. The Army tried to cover it up. Bora knew what it meant, what it all meant, and yet a dullness of body and soul let him keep watching without any visible reaction. Hannes drove hunched over the wheel, his big ears translucent in the cold morning light like those of a sensitive, mute animal.
