As the train rattled along the tracks, Elzunia stumbled through the narrow corridor with her straw basket until she found a seat. She squeezed in between a burly man with the shoulders of a carter, and a bird-like woman wrapped in a threadbare shawl who conducted a long conversation with herself in a dull monotone. Elzunia placed her basket in the overhead rack. She would have preferred to hold it, but that would merely draw attention to it, and that was the last thing she wanted. This was the most important mission she had been sent on since joining the AK six months before, and she was determined to prove herself.
The burly man fixed his inquisitive gaze on her, so, to avoid being drawn into conversation, she kept her eyes fixed on the windows. They were so thickly encrusted with grime that the cornfields were blurred and the sunflowers looked faded.
The train chugged along at an agonisingly slow pace with frequent stops between stations to let trains pass that were carrying German soldiers and supplies to the Eastern front. Each time the engine lurched to a halt, throwing the passengers forward, Elzunia glanced up at the basket and prayed it wouldn’t fall.
The stations all resembled one another, dismal waiting rooms on grimy platforms crowded with dejected people gripping their bundles and baskets.
Shortly before they reached her destination, the little market town of Ozarów, the train screeched to a halt. Elzunia was wondering whether she should risk getting off when the compartment door slid open, revealing two Gestapo agents standing there.
‘Papiere, bitte,’ one of them snapped. Elzunia fumbled in her pocket, and hoped they wouldn’t notice that her hand was trembling as she held out her Kennkarte. They scanned the identity card, which stated that she was Anna Wilczek, a trainee nurse working at the Infant Jesus Hospital in Warsaw.
‘Why are you going to Ozarów?’ one of them demanded, staring hard at her.
She didn’t drop her eyes. ‘I’m going to see my grandparents,’ she said. ‘They’re too old and ill to look after the farm so I help them out whenever I get a bit of time off.’ She hoped her voice sounded strong and confident.
The other agent’s eyes rested on her basket. ‘Is that yours?’ he barked.
She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart thumping as she nodded and said breezily, ‘Mama always bakes them some bread. She says they don’t eat properly. I’ll get it down if you’d like to have a look.’
Her nonchalant manner paid off because, making an impatient gesture with his hand, he turned his attention to the other passengers. After a perfunctory check of their papers, they left the compartment and she closed her eyes in relief.
Several minutes later, the train crawled into the station at Ozarów. As Elzunia was getting off, she caught sight of the two Gestapo agents leaning against the wall at the far end of the platform, talking and smoking with another man. She took a deep breath, and, swinging her basket, controlled her urge to quicken her step. As she drew closer, she could hear the three of them laughing together. Just as she was passing, the third man raised his hand to his mouth to puff on his cigarette. She noticed the mangled red stumps where two of his fingers used to be, and averted her face as he blew the smoke in her direction.
The long summer’s day was coming to an end and it was twilight by the time she reached the Janowskis’ farmhouse. A curved gravel path between straggly lilac bushes led to the old gabled house, a solid building that looked as though it had withstood battles, invasions and uprisings.
‘I hope you’ll enjoy the bread,’ she told the couple with a conspiratorial smile as she placed the basket on the table.
Ryszard Janowski was a hard-grained man of few words. With a curt nod, he took the basket and went out into the yard. From the small kitchen window she watched him remove the contents and lower them quickly into a deep hole.
After filling it in, he placed a large wooden barrow on top and heaped it with chopped logs.
His wife bustled around the large country kitchen, wiping her plump face on a corner of her apron. Placing a glass of buttermilk and a bowl of steaming potatoes in front of Elzunia, she urged her to stay the night. ‘The Germans patrol the roads at night searching for Underground activists from Warsaw,’ she said with a sigh. ‘They’ve caught quite a few of the partisans lately. Get some sleep and leave early in the morning.’
Elzunia had been instructed to return to Warsaw as soon as she’d delivered the revolvers intended for the partisans in the forest near Ozarów, but with all the delays, the journey had taken much longer than usual and she was exhausted.
As she followed the farmer’s wife up to the attic at the top of the stairs, she felt a surge of long-forgotten pleasure. As a child, she had often stayed at her grandparents’ estate in summer and as her head sank into the goose-feather pillow it seemed as though nothing had changed and she was back in the innocent days of her childhood, unaware that her hopes and dreams would soon be swallowed by a black void.
Something woke her and she sat up and peered through the small dormer window. It was a moonless night and she couldn’t see anything, but there it was again, a tinkling sound. When her eyes had become accustomed to the dark, she saw a man under the cherry tree. He bent down and a moment later she heard the tinkling sound again. He was tossing handfuls of gravel at the downstairs window to wake the owners.
Elzunia paced around the room. She should have left straightaway. But as she stood shivering by the window, consumed by self-recrimination, she realised that this visit couldn’t be sinister. Anyone coming to arrest or kill them would have burst into the house instead of using such a delicate method of attracting attention.
A moment later the front door opened a fraction and the man looked around before making a dash for the house. The door closed silently behind him.
Elzunia crept to the top of the stairs, wondering who the visitor was and why he had come in the middle of the night. From what she’d been told, the Janowskis arranged the delivery of weapons to partisan groups in the forests nearby, organised false papers for those on the run from the Gestapo, and helped to hide people who escaped from the transports heading for the camps.
She supposed the visitor was connected with their clandestine work. They were speaking in hushed voices, too muffled for her to make out. Instead of using their kerosene lamp, which might attract the attention of their neighbours, they had stuck a candle inside the neck of a bottle, which cast elongated shadows on the floorboards.
As she leaned over the railing to overhear the conversation, Elzunia dislodged a loose plank, which crashed onto the floor below. The trio downstairs leapt to their feet, and the farmer was already pointing a pistol at her, while the visitor had backed into the darkest corner of the kitchen.
As she mumbled her apologies from the top of the stairs, Elzunia was relieved they couldn’t see her flaming face. She was mortified to be caught eavesdropping.
‘Go back to bed,’ Pan Janowski said gruffly.
The visitor seemed to draw back into the furthest recesses of the room and it seemed to Elzunia that he wanted the darkness to swallow him up. ‘I’ve got to get going,’ he mumbled. ‘Show me the stuff.’
So the midnight visitor had come for the weapons she had delivered. Just as the farmer raised his arm to unbolt the door, the light from his candle fell on the visitor’s hand and Elzunia saw that the last two fingers of his right hand were missing.
Back in bed, she tried to make sense of the situation. This was the man she had spotted chatting cosily with those Gestapo agents, yet he was supposed to deliver the weapons to the insurgents in the woods. She wondered whether to tell the Janowskis what she had seen at the station, but didn’t want to make a fool of herself. There was probably some logical explanation.
The sun was already streaming in through the open window when she woke, and she sat up with a start. She had overslept. The noise that had woken her was the sound of loud German voices in the yard.
With trembling fingers she started pulling on her jacket when Pani Janowska ran into the room holding out some clothes. ‘Quick, they’re looking for AK people from Warsaw. Put this apron on, pull on the rubber boots, plait your hair like a country girl, and stick this scarf over your head,’ she panted. ‘Then run down to the kitchen and start peeling potatoes. Pretend you’re deaf-mute and backward.’
Elzunia barely had time to pick up a knife when two SS men with savage dogs at their heels burst into the kitchen and started yelling that there was an activist from Warsaw staying there. Pani Janowska stared at them in amazement. ‘Here?’ she asked. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Bring the girl here immediately or we’ll string you and your husband from that cherry tree,’ one of them snarled.
‘You can look around the whole farm,’ she said. Indicating Elzunia, she added, ‘The only girl here is poor Ola, who’s as deaf as a post and can’t say a single intelligible word. She can hardly figure out which end of a knife to use to peel the potatoes, so I can’t imagine her doing intelligence work.’
One of the officers strode over to Elzunia and wheeled her around. She went white. They were the officers who had checked her papers on the train. Any moment now they’d recognise her. Thank God Pani Janowska had told her to change her hairstyle and had disguised her in peasant clothes. Averting her face, she started twitching, making incoherent sounds, and dribbling saliva from the corner of her open mouth. Repelled, the officer pushed her so hard she fell against the sink and flopped onto the floor, her limbs flailing. She covered her face with her hands.
‘Disgusting,’ he spat. ‘When we have won the war, there will be no more Slav idiots like this.’ He reached towards his leather holster.
Elzunia held her breath and closed her eyes. She was about to be killed for being an imbecile instead of an insurgent. The incongruity of her predicament suddenly struck her as so comical that her shoulders started to heave. I must be hysterical, she thought calmly as she watched the officer taking the revolver from its holster. Any second he’s going to shoot me and I’m actually going to die laughing.
Just then, Pan Janowski strode into the kitchen. ‘Good morning, officers,’ he boomed in a jovial voice. ‘I hope that stupid girl hasn’t caused any trouble. I’d get rid of her myself but my wife can’t find anyone to help around the house.’
The SS man lowered his weapon and looked uncertainly at Elzunia, whose knees were trembling uncontrollably at her last-minute reprieve. Having managed to distract their attention from Elzunia, Pan Janowski said, ‘Now that you know we’re not hiding any activists, don’t waste your time up here. I’ve got some cherry brandy in the cellar that will curl the hair on your head. It’s better than that schnapps of yours. Come down and, if you like it, I’ll give you a few bottles.’
At the prospect of homemade cherry brandy, they lost interest in Elzunia and followed the farmer down the cellar steps.
After the SS men had gone, Pan Janowski sat brooding at the big oak table in the kitchen. ‘They’ve caught a lot of our boys in the forest lately, and now this. Someone must be tipping them off,’ he said to Elzunia.
Her face was still white from her narrow escape.
‘I have an idea who it was,’ she said quietly.
They listened intently as she told them what she had seen at the station. ‘Those SS officers who came here, they were the ones I saw talking to your guy at the station,’ she said.
The Janowskis discussed the situation for a long time. Finally Pan Janowski pushed back his wooden chair, took a firearm from the recess behind the stove and walked out of the house with a purposeful expression.
It was late afternoon when Elzunia returned to Warsaw. The city was sweltering in midsummer heat that seemed to rise from the footpaths and envelop passersby in vapour that beaded their foreheads and ran down their necks. On her way to her group leader to report on her mission, Elzunia reflected on her narrow escape. You couldn’t trust anyone. Life was a succession of punches that came at you from all directions without any warning. All you could do was keep fending them off and hitting back, and hope that with each punch you grew stronger and more confident.
After giving her superior officer a detailed report about the mission in Ozarów, Elzunia couldn’t wait to get back to Granny’s. In the thirteen months she had been living there, she had come to regard the old woman as her grandmother. It was the only place where she felt safe and wanted.
She was about to turn the key in the lock when she noticed that Marta’s door was wide open. There were sounds of a scuffle coming from inside, a piercing scream that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and then two Gestapo agents were hustling her neighbour towards the landing. As Marta tried to pull away from them, Elzunia saw that her mouth was swollen and blood was trickling from her left nostril. Shocked, she stepped forward but one of the agents shoved her aside so violently that she fell.
They were dragging Marta down the stairs. She turned to Elzunia and gasped, ‘Take the bread.’
Shaken, Elzunia went into Marta’s room and looked around, wondering what she meant. The basket she always carried was lying on the floor, empty, its lining ripped away. Obviously they’d found what they were searching for. Suddenly, everything became clear. Marta must be a liaison girl in the Underground, and under the lining of that innocent little basket she must have concealed maps and plans that she delivered to the AK. The room was austere, with nothing to reveal the occupant’s personality, interests or taste. A small table and two chairs, a hard sofa, a few unmatched cups and plates. Not a single photograph, picture or ornament.
Elzunia rummaged around in the kitchen drawers but they contained only basic items of cutlery. She pulled out the paper that lined the drawers in case there was something concealed underneath, but found nothing. Not even stray crumbs. She picked up the wicker basket again. As she turned it over, something scratched her hand. At one end of the handle, a strand of rattan had begun to unravel. As Elzunia began to unwind it, a scrap of brown paper fell out. At first she thought it might have been inserted into the handle by the weaver as a base, but she noticed that it was perforated with tiny pin-pricks. Back at Granny’s place, she turned the paper this way and that to work out what these perforations signified. At first they looked like random marks but eventually she realised that she was looking at numbers. Perhaps a telephone number. The other dots were letters that formed one word.
Elzunia’s heart was hammering as she dialled the number. It rang several times, then cut out with a click as though someone had lifted the receiver and replaced it. She dialled the number again, but this time, the instant she heard the receiver being picked up, she blurted out the name on the paper.
‘Zenon? It’s about Marta,’ she said, but the man at the other end cut her short.
‘Come to the corner of Jerozolimskie Aleje and Nowy Swiat Street at twelve tomorrow. I’ll be reading page four of the Nowy Kurier Warszawski.’
Long after he’d hung up, she couldn’t get his voice out of her mind. Was this the voice she’d heard whispering late at night when the man left Marta’s room?
The busy corner in the heart of the city at midday was a good place to avoid suspicion. All morning, Elzunia had been on tenterhooks, intrigued at the prospect of coming face to face with the man she believed was Marta’s lover.
She was hurrying towards the meeting place when she noticed a man striding one block ahead of her. Something about his measured gait and the way he held his head made her heart race. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. She was imagining it. But when he moved his head, she bit her lip and crossed her fingers.
He turned to glance at something and all her doubts vanished. She couldn’t believe her eyes. At last. After all this time. A miraculous coincidence had brought her here just as her father happened to be passing by.
Any moment now he’d fold her in his arms and all the questions she had about him would finally be answered and she wouldn’t be alone any more.
Elzunia glanced anxiously at the corner of Nowy Swiat Street. Marta’s lover hadn’t arrived yet. She quickened her step, feeling that her heart would burst from her chest. Nothing mattered except that in one moment she would run into her father’s arms. She could already smell his cologne and feel his moustache nuzzling her cheek. She was almost sobbing with anticipation.
She craned her neck through the crowd, to make sure she didn’t lose sight of him. He was only a few metres away; she was catching up to him. She glanced nervously at her reflection in a shop window. As she smoothed down her hair and tucked the worn blouse into Granny’s old skirt, she hoped her father wouldn’t be disappointed in the way she looked. She hadn’t yet turned fifteen when he’d last seen her; now she was nearly eighteen. What if he didn’t recognise her? Only a few steps separated them now. Her heart was pounding against her throat. Another few seconds. She took a deep breath to try to compose herself because she was trembling so much she could hardly stand.
She saw him reach the corner and glance at his watch. Then he leaned casually against the wall and Elzunia’s mouth went dry as she watched him unroll the Nowy Kurier Warszawski and turn to page four.
She doubled up and vomited into the gutter and retched until there was nothing left but bile and the bitter taste of betrayal.