Over the next couple of months Amelia went back to the ghetto on various occasions, helping to transport the meager aid that Grazyna’s Resistance group had managed to gather.
The young Pole carried on stealing medicine from the hospital thanks to Sister Maria’s goodwill. The nun protested but allowed Grazyna to continue.
Ewa hinted on several occasions that there were students in the group, as well as a couple of young lawyers and teachers, but Amelia never met them. Grazyna was very careful about the group’s security, even though she knew that Amelia was working for the British.
On her visits to the ghetto, Amelia was witness to bitter arguments between Szymon and his brother Barak, even though their mother tried to insist on keeping the peace between her two children.
“How can you be so blind! The Judenrat are making you accept what is happening!” Szymon shouted at his brother.
“How dare you!” Barak seemed about to punch his brother.
“Because it’s true! You think that it’s alright just to administer the crumbs that we are being offered. I say we need to fight, we need to have weapons!”
“You don’t know everything, Szymon! We need weapons, of course, but what are we going to do while we’re getting ready? Or do you think we can face the German army as we are?” Barak replied, holding back the anger that his brother’s reproaches provoked in him.
Sarah told them to be quiet, that they needed to be together in order to face adversity with a united front.
“But I hate seeing the Judenrat dealing with the Nazis just in order to get a few crumbs of bread!” Szymon protested.
“Of course, you could do better than them!” Barak said ironically.
Amelia listened in silence. She was studying Polish in her free time and was beginning to understand a little of what she heard. But it was Grazyna who kept Amelia up to speed with what the two brothers were arguing about, and she agreed more with Szymon. Later she asked Tomasz why they never tried to bring guns into the ghetto along with the food and books and medicine.
“It’s not easy to find weapons. Where do you think we’re going to find them? Even so, we try. Szymon is very fiery, but he is probably right. But I also agree with Barak and Rafal, that the important thing is to make the situation in the ghetto better. But do you think that the Jews here would have a chance if they had to face the German army? They’d be cut to ribbons in a heartbeat.”
“But at least they would die trying to do something,” Amelia replied.
“Death is useless. They kill you and that’s that. It’s not a good idea for people to allow themselves to be killed.” Tomasz insisted.
“I’m not saying that they should let themselves be killed,” Amelia protested.
“And what else could possibly happen? Do you think you can get rid of the German army with a couple of pistols? Come on, Amelia, try to be a little realistic! It would be suicide. Of course we must fight, but only when the moment is right. The younger leaders in the ghetto have not given up on fighting, but they need weapons and ammunition to be able to resist for any length of time.”
Grazyna didn’t take part in the arguments, and so Amelia was surprised when she came round to her house one afternoon to find her and Piotr taking their leave of a man she did not know.
“I didn’t expect you,” Grazyna said when she saw her.
“I’m sorry to come unannounced,” Amelia apologized.
The man left without saying goodbye. Grazyna went back into her apartment, followed by Piotr and Amelia.
“You shouldn’t turn up unannounced, I’ve got my own life too, don’t you know?”
“I’m sorry, I’ll come back another time,” Amelia said, getting ready to leave.
“Well, now that you’re here... Well, stay. We’re waiting for Tomasz and Ewa to go to the ghetto.”
“I’m telling you, there are too many patrols and the countess has sent for me tonight,” Piotr said to Grazyna, ignoring Amelia entirely.
“I know, but do you want me to keep the weapons in my house? It would be crazy. The sooner we get them out of here the better.”
“Yes, but not today. You know it will be difficult for me to help you. The countess is not a supporter of the Nazis, but she doesn’t want to have any problems with them. And once she’s got me in her room it’s hard for me to escape. She’s even given the maids the night off, and so we’ll be alone.”
“Well, you’ll just have to think of something, Piotr, but we have to take the weapons in tonight.”
“What weapons?” Amelia plucked up the courage to ask.
“We’ve got some pistols and some hunting rifles. It’s not much, but at least it will stop the people in the ghetto from being so defenseless,” Grazyna explained.
“Weapons? But how did you get them?” Amelia’s surprise was displayed in her voice.
“We got the rifles from some friends of ours who are hunters, and as for the pistols... Well, it’s better not to say. The less you know about some things, the safer you’ll be,” Grazyna replied, after exchanging warning glances with Piotr.
“I could help you take them to the ghetto,” Amelia offered.
“Yes, now that you’re here you might as well be useful.”
It was barely dark when Ewa and Tomasz arrived at Grazyna’s house. Ewa had a basket of sweets.
“We’ll take the sweets another day,” Grazyna said. “The weapons are heavy and we can’t take everything.”
“Oh, let’s try it, the children will be so happy...”
Piotr led them through the night to the countess’s house. He opened the back door that led to the kitchen and pushed them into his room when he heard a noise from upstairs.
“Piotr, are you there?”
It was the countess’s voice.
“Yes, Madame, I’ll be up directly.”
“No, don’t worry, I’ll come down. It might be fun to change rooms.”
Piotr tensed and started to hurry up the stairs. He had to stop the countess from finding his friends.
“Oh, but Madame, it’s not a good idea if you come down here, my room is in no condition for you.”
“Come, come, come, don’t be so prudish. Imagine that I’m not the countess, but one of the maids, it will be fun.”
“No, never,” Piotr said, trying to stop the countess from coming further down the stairs.
Grazyna shut her eyes, fearing the worst. Ewa and Tomasz hardly dared breathe, and Amelia seemed to be saying her prayers under her breath.
They breathed with relief when they heard Piotr’s footsteps, and those of the countess, moving away, and spent almost two hours without daring to move a muscle, speaking in whispers. At length Piotr came back. He was sweaty and half-naked.
“We’ve got five minutes. The countess is insisting on coming down to my room. Hurry up, if I don’t go back soon then she’ll come down and look for me.”
They went out into the street and Piotr lifted the drain cover and helped them into the city sewers. He had managed to get the cover back on, and then turned back to the house, where he saw the figure of the countess standing in the doorway. She looked at him without saying a word, then turned away and headed back to her room. Piotr followed her upstairs, but she had locked the door and did not reply to his call.
At the pre-arranged time, four o’clock in the morning, Piotr went back into the alley to lift up the drain cover. Grazyna was the first out, and she immediately noticed that Piotr was worried.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I think she saw us.”
“My God! And what did she say?” Grazyna asked.
“Nothing, she went into her room and locked the door. Maybe she will fire me, I don’t know. We’ll talk later, you should go now.”
“We can’t go now! The curfew is still in place,” Tomasz said.
“And what will happen if she comes down to my room? What shall I say? That you’re a group of friends who came through the sewers to visit me? I know that you’re in danger, but you can’t stay here.”
“We are going to stay here,” Grazyna said, surprising them all by her firmness.
“No... no, you can’t... ,” Piotr protested.
“Your countess may turn us in if she finds us here, but it’s a certainty that if they find us breaking the curfew they’ll hang us all. I prefer to risk the countess.”
Piotr shrugged. He was too upset to stand up to Grazyna, and no one else said anything. It was clear that it was Grazyna who gave the orders.
At half past seven Grazyna left the house along with Amelia, and a couple of minutes later Tomasz and Ewa departed as well. As soon as they had gone, the countess came to Piotr’s room.
“Have they gone?” she asked.
He did not reply, but he went up to her and hugged her as he guided her back to her own room. The maids would be back at eight o’clock, but if the countess wanted to be treated like a maid, then he would be only too happy to oblige.
Major Jürgens was still bothering Amelia with his shameful insinuations, and she did what she could to avoid him, but from time to time she ran into him at the hotel reception or in the dining room.
Every now and then she received a letter from Max at the front. They were formal letters, of the kind that one would write to a close friend, but nothing more. Amelia was not surprised that there were no words of love, as she knew that all the letters from the front had to go past the military censor.
She was not prepared for what happened in mid-November. One afternoon when she was coming back from Grazyna’s house, she came into the hotel and bumped into the last person she would have expected, or wanted, to see.
The woman, of aristocratic bearing, was talking to Major Jürgens and two other SS officers, and she recognized Amelia when she turned round.
“Goodness, it’s the little Spanish girl!” Jürgens said, raising his voice and calling the attention of the woman and the two officers with her.
Baroness Ludovica glared at Amelia and looked her up and down. Her eyes were filled with hate and contradicted the smile that played over her lips.
“Amelia, what a surprise! I didn’t know you were in Warsaw. How lovely to see you!” the German said.
Ludovica came up to Amelia and pretended to kiss her cheek, enjoying her nervousness.
“Baroness... I didn’t know you were coming to Warsaw.”
“Of course you didn’t! How could you? It’s a surprise... I want to surprise my husband, and I’m sure that you don’t know that he’s coming back tomorrow on leave. We’ll be able to enjoy some days together after a few months that have seemed like years to me... Also, I’m bringing him a present that I don’t mind you knowing about before he does: We’re going to have a son! You must admit that it’s the best present you can give a man.”
Amelia felt her legs shaking and her face burning. The baroness’s mocking smile hurt her more than Major Jürgens’s guffaws; he made no effort to hide how much he was enjoying the scene.
“Aren’t you going to say anything, Amelia? Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” the baroness said.
“Of course. Congratulations,” Amelia managed to say.
“Join us, Amelia. The baroness is going to honor our table tonight with her presence,” Major Jürgens said.
“I’m sorry... I am... I’m very tired... Some other time... ,” Amelia excused herself.
“Of course, my dear, some other time! I am sure that Max will be happy for us to have dinner together to celebrate the news,” the baroness said.
Amelia hurried toward the elevator, trying to control the shuddering that threatened to take over her entire body. Her room was just next to Max’s, and although the door between them had been closed ever since he went to the front, she was scared of being so close to Ludovica, who had moved into Max’s room without any qualms.
It was not her lucky day. An hour after getting to the hotel she was pacing up and down her room when there was a knock at the door. She was scared that it might be Major Jürgens, but was shocked when she heard Grazyna’s voice.
“For God’s sake, Amelia, open the door!”
Grazyna’s appeared shaken, and it was difficult for her to talk.
“They’ve taken Sister... ,” she managed to say.
“The sister? Who do you mean?”
“They’ve taken Sister Maria... Someone reported the missing medicine in the hospital pharmacy. They did an inventory without telling her and they’ve had a list of everything that was missing. The director called her to his office this afternoon; she said she didn’t know anything about the disappearances, but they didn’t believe her and took her away.”
“Good Lord! And how do you know all this?”
“When I heard that the director had summoned her I went to see the mother superior. She was very nervous, and said that she hadn’t said anything because she didn’t want to know anything about the subject, but she was worried that they would make Sister Maria talk. I haven’t gone home, that’s the first place they would go and look for me.”
“What are we going to do?” Amelia asked worriedly.
“I don’t know... but if Sister Maria talks... they’re going to arrest me, Amelia... I’m sure of it.”
“And you came here! Are you mad? Most of the German officers and a good number of the SS officers are staying here.”
“That’s why I came, I thought it was the safest place, they won’t look for me here. I have to stay here, you have to let me stay... ,” There was both order and plea in Grazyna’s tone.
“Of course, you can stay here, but I’ve got problems too. I met Max’s wife in the lobby this afternoon, and she was with the SS major who hates me so. I don’t know... It’s not a coincidence that Ludovica should be here...”
“It’s not important. You must go and tell Ewa, she will know how to send the alarm to the others. We were going to take more guns to the ghetto tonight...”
“Tonight? You didn’t tell me,” Amelia complained.
“No... we weren’t going to,” Grazyna said. “The person we got the weapons from was very nervous to see a stranger. It’s a larger delivery this time and... well, other members of the group were going to help us carry them. They were going to take the weapons directly to Piotr’s house. Ewa and I were going to take the other members of the group there. We have to stop them from being arrested.”
“But Sister Maria doesn’t know anything about your group, she can’t give you away.”
“But if they make her speak, then she’ll say that it was me who took the medicine. Maybe she’s already said so, and if that’s the case, then they’ll know where I live and they’ll be looking for me. And it won’t be too difficult to find out about my friends and arrest them.”
“That’s only what you suspect might happen,” Amelia said, trying to calm her friend.
“Don’t be so naïve! Do you think it’ll be hard for the Gestapo to make a nun talk? We’re in danger and we need to act fast, or else the group will fall. Go to Ewa’s cake shop as if you were going to buy sweets. You have to learn a phrase, and remember it exactly, because it is important: ‘I love sweet things, but sometimes they get stuck in my throat.’ You’ll remember it?”
“Of course. And you think that Ewa will know what it means?”
“Yes, and she’ll tell the others. Go now, there’s only half an hour until the cake shop closes.”
“And if I don’t find Ewa?”
“Then come back as soon as you can, it will mean that she’s been arrested.
“But... well... what if they arrest me?”
“You? Well, it’s possible, but I think they’d arrest us before you, you are the lover of a German officer.”
Amelia followed Grazyna’s instructions and went quickly to Ewa’s cake shop, which was not far from the hotel. Grazyna waited for her in the hotel room.
Amelia reached the cake shop in ten minutes. The shop was sealed off, so she asked the doorman of the neighboring building what had happened.
“Oh, the police came a while back. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
“But something must have happened... ,” Amelia said, trying to make herself understood in her shaky Polish.
“Yes, I suppose so. Don’t ask questions and leave me alone.”
The doorman turned his back on her and Amelia felt completely lost. What could she do? She made a decision; she would go to tell Piotr, certain that he would know how to warn the rest of the group. It was a risky decision, but she had no other option: The only other members of the group she knew were Piotr and Tomasz, and she didn’t know where to find Tomasz.
She took a bus to Countess Lublin’s house. She walked quickly, looking to the left and to the right in case she saw anything suspicious, but nothing she saw seemed out of the ordinary. She walked to the back of the house and knocked gently on the service door, almost holding her breath.
One of the countess’s maids opened the door and asked her sullenly what she wanted.
“I’m a friend of Piotr’s and I need to see him urgently... It’s... it’s... a family matter,” Amelia begged, hoping that she would be understood.
The maid looked her up and down before telling her to wait outside while she went to tell the countess’s chauffeur he had a visitor.
Piotr arrived a few minutes later, accompanied by the maid. He drew himself up short when he saw Amelia, but he didn’t say anything and only took her by the arm and led her into his room.
“Are you mad? How can you even think of coming here?”
“They’ve arrested Sister Maria, and Ewa. Grazyna is hidden in my room. You have to tell the group not to come tonight with the weapons, or else you’ll all be arrested.”
As soon as he realized the danger they were in, Piotr seemed to grow immediately old. It was difficult for him to think about what they should do.
“Ewa may have talked, they may all be under arrest already and may be coming for me now,” he said, after pausing for a few seconds.
“I don’t know, but you could still try to do something... If Ewa hasn’t spoken, then you and your friends could still escape. I have to go back to Grazyna.”
“No, don’t go. It’s easier for you to go all over town... I’ll give you an address on Castle Square, where you can find one of our men, Grzegorz. It was he who had the weapons for tonight.”
“And what will you do?”
“I’ll try to run away.”
“And what if they’ve already arrested Grzegorz?”
“Then it’s only a matter of time before they arrest us all, including you,” Piotr said, shrugging. “But you should go now.”
Piotr opened the door and looked both ways down the alley, but didn’t see anything that caught his attention. Each wished the other luck, and then Amelia left.
She took a bus to Castle Square. She kept looking impatiently at her watch, and prayed that she would be able to find Grzegorz.
She got out of the bus one stop before her destination and walked fast toward the address that Piotr had given her. She climbed the steps and rang the bell anxiously. The door opened and she saw a man silhouetted in the darkness.
“Grzegorz? You don’t know me, I’ve come from Piotr to warn you...”
She couldn’t finish the sentence: The man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her forcibly into the house, dragging her into a large salon, which was also half dark. When Amelia’s eyes had grown accustomed to the absence of light, she was able to make out a man stretched out on the floor in a pool of blood. She hadn’t time to scream before the man who was holding her arm threw her down on the floor.
From this new position she could see another man, seated comfortably on a sofa and surveying the scene.
“Who are you?” the seated man said.
Amelia was too scared to speak. The man kicked her in the face, and Amelia felt the metallic taste of blood on her lips.
“It’s better if you talk, unless you want to end up like your friend.”
She couldn’t talk, she was too distraught.
“Boss,” the man who had opened the door said, “it’ll be better if we take her down to headquarters, they’ll know how to make her talk there.”
“Your name,” the man on the sofa insisted.
“Amelia Garayoa.”
“You’re not Polish.”
“I’m Spanish.”
“Spanish?”
The two men appeared confused.
“What’s a Spaniard doing fighting against the German people? Aren’t our countries allies? Or are you a bloody Communist? Or a Jew?” the man insisted.
He kicked out at her again, but this time Amelia managed to cover her face. She felt them pulling her arm and making her stand upright. There was a sticky liquid on her hands and her legs, she realized it must be Grzegorz’s blood.
“So you’re a member of Grazyna’s little group, like this bastard. Well, now you see how our enemies end up,” the man said as he pushed her toward the door.
They put her in a car and drove her to Aleja Szucha where the central office of the Gestapo was to be found.
During the journey, Amelia realized that however hard the torment she was going to have to face, she would have to endure it. If she told them that Grazyna was in her hotel room then they would arrest her at once, and Amelia had only one thing in her mind: Ludovica had told her that Max would arrive the next day. If that were the case, then maybe Grazyna would be able to find a way to get close to Max and tell him what had happened. He was the only one who could save her. It was her only chance.
They took her to a damp basement and pushed her into a cell. She saw straight away that there were bloodstains on the walls and she began to shiver. Nobody had ever treated her badly before, and she did not know if she would be able to endure being beaten.
They kept her in the dark, without giving her anything to eat or to drink, until she lost all track of time. She thought about Pierre: The Lubyanka couldn’t have been all that different from this Nazi cell. She went back over her life, deeply regretting the path she had taken that had led her to this cell. And then she told herself that it was entirely down to her. Then she started to pray, with the same faith she had had as a child. It wasn’t that she no longer prayed, every now and then she would mutter a prayer when faced with some difficulty or other, but it was something she did almost automatically, remembering that her mother had always told her that God would be her best help whenever she needed Him. And now more than ever she needed her mother to have been right. She said all the prayers she remembered: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Apostles’ Creed, and she felt sad that she didn’t know any others.
When the door was finally opened, it was to admit a fearsome-looking woman who pushed her up to a higher floor, where they said that she was going to be interrogated.
Amelia felt dirty, hungry, and thirsty, and she prayed to God to give her strength to deal with what was coming.
The jailer told her to undress, and several men came into the room. One of them was an SS captain, the other two were dressed in workers’ clothes, and they took off their jackets without even looking at her, hung them on hooks in the walls, and without saying anything tore off her clothes and started to hit her. She received the first blow in the stomach, the second in the ribs, and the third in the gut, and then at the fourth she fainted. When she came to, she felt that she was drowning. The two men were shoving her head into a bath filled with dirty water. They pushed her in and pulled her out without giving her a chance to breathe. When they got tired of this, they tied her hands together with a rope that rubbed against her skin and hung her from a hook on the ceiling. With her hands above her head, completely naked, and held up only by the rope around her wrists, Amelia felt that her bones were crunching and that every single muscle in her body was aching. She tasted her own salt tears as they rolled over her lips, and could hear, as if at a distance, her own cries of pain.
“Well, Fräulein Garayoa,” she heard the SS officer say, who had been silent up until that moment, smoking cigarette after cigarette as he impassively watched what was being done to her. “I think that we can talk now. Alright? I want you to answer a few questions: If you do, then you won’t have to suffer anymore, at least not until after you have been sentenced. And now, tell me, where is your friend Grazyna?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia managed to say.
One of the torturers punched her in the gut and Amelia howled with pain.
“Come on, come on... Let’s start this again. Where is Grazyna Kaczynski? It’s a very simple question. Answer me!” the officer shouted.
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her for days.”
“So you admit that you know her, that’s good. And given that you’re such good friends, you can now tell me where she is to be found.”
“I don’t know... I promise you. She... she works... We only see each other every now and then...”
“Especially on the nights when there’s no moon, right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about... ,” she said, while they hit her legs again, this time with a stick.
“I’m talking about weapons... Yes, who would have said that a young lady as delicate as you appear to be would help a band of dangerous delinquents to stockpile weapons to kill Germans. Because that’s what those weapons were for, to kill Germans, right?”
“I... I don’t know... I don’t know anything about... any weapons.”
“Of course you do! You and your friends are part of a criminal group that helps those dirty Jews, and prepares to attack our army. Scum!”
The captain made a sign to one of the workmen, who hit Amelia near the temple. She lost consciousness again, and regained it only when she felt a stream of cold water on her face. The jailer had a bucket in her hand, it was she who had thrown the water and she seemed to enjoy watching Amelia suffer. Amelia realized that she could barely see anything, everything she looked at was blurry and she burst out crying with whatever force she had left.
“I can send you back to your cell only if you tell me where your friend Grazyna Kaczynski is; if you want to suffer more, let me tell you that the worst is still to come,” the SS captain said.
“Please, leave me alone!” Amelia begged.
“Where is your friend?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
One of the men came up to her holding something in his hands. Amelia could barely see what it was, but then she screamed to feel two clamps grasping her nipples. Her own cries frightened her, but the men in the room looked at her in an indifferent silence. She did not know how long the clamps were on her nipples, because she fainted again. When she woke up, she was on the floor of her cell once more. She had no strength to move, and she did not want to, in case they decided to take her up to the torture chambers once again when they saw she was awake. She lay there curled into a ball and felt the cold floor through a pool of blood that came from her own wounds.
She was afraid to move, she didn’t even want to cry in case the pain was unbearable. Her breasts ached and she wondered if she still had her nipples.
She lost all idea of time and trembled with fear when she heard the cell door opening again. Her eyes were shut, but she could feel the presence of the guard.
“She’s destroyed, I don’t think she’ll last that long,” the guard said to the man who was with her.
“It doesn’t matter, the captain said we should do whatever it takes to make this bitch talk.”
Amelia cried, thinking that if they tortured her again then she wouldn’t have the strength to keep her mouth shut.
The captain was still in the torture chamber and looked at her tiredly, disgusted that she was making him lose his valuable time.
They tied the rope round her wrists again, and hung her from the ceiling. She felt the men’s fists punching her in the ribs, in the stomach, in the chest, then they hit the soles of her shoes with a bar. Her mouth was so swollen that she could hardly shout, far less tell them to stop, that she was prepared to talk. She couldn’t do it, they put her head in the tub of dirty water once again. Barely giving her time to breathe, until they finally gave her a break. They laughed as they made her eat her own vomit.
When they were tired of hitting her, the captain came up to her.
“We have arrested all your friends, we only need to find Grazyna Kaczynski, and I promise you we shall. Don’t be stupid, and tell me where she is.”
One of the men came up with the clamps in his hands, or at least that’s what she thought, and then she cried with all the strength she had left. Scarcely had the clamps touched her nipples than Amelia fainted.
When she came to, she was sitting in a chair in the torture chamber. The captain was talking on the phone and seemed extremely excited.
“Hurry up, let’s go to the Hotel Europejski! They’ve arrested a woman, it looks like it’s Kaczynski.”
Amelia looked at him through the fog that covered her eyes. She was sure she hadn’t said anything, or had she?
“She’s coming round,” the guard said. “Maybe she’ll say something.”
“No, let’s go to the hotel,” the captain ordered. “We’ll carry on with her later.”
As he walked past Amelia, one of the torturers could not resist the temptation to punch her again.