Read Online The Katyn Order by Douglas W. Jacobson - Free Book Online Page B

the shirt.
    Ula shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
    Natalia nodded. “OK, I understand.” She buttoned it up and tugged at the bottoms of the sleeves. “It even fits . . . sort of.” Then she noticed that Zeeka had something in her hand. It was wrapped in brown paper, and she held it gently as though it were a precious gem. “What is that?”
    Zeeka glanced at Berta, who had fallen asleep again, then passed the mysterious package under Natalia’s nose and, with a conspiratorial wink, began to unwrap it.
    The aroma hit Natalia, and she grabbed the package out of Zeeka’s hand and peeled back the rest of the paper revealing two golden brown, plump
pierogi.
She picked one of the small, semi-circular dumplings off the paper and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. “Onions and mushrooms! Wherever did you get it?”
    â€œRabbit brought them into the pub about a half hour ago,” Ula said. “An elderly man handed him the package outside. He said it was for the women who killed all those Germans at the telephone company. His wife used the last of their flour and what was left in the garden to make them.”
    Natalia held the vegetable-filled dumpling in her hand, almost reluctant to eat it because then it would be gone. But, with her stomach growling and her mouth watering, she finally gave in, eating it slowly with baby bites to make it last. “My God, I’d forgotten what they taste like. It’s heaven.”
    Zeeka re-wrapped the last one in the brown paper and set it on the table. “We’ll give it to Berta when she wakes up.” Then she pointed at the door. “Now
you
get out of here.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about? I can’t just leave her.”
    â€œSo, you don’t think
we
can take care of her? It’s your birthday, for God’s sake, and you need a break. Go over to the pub and have a drink.”
    The Bomb Shelter Pub was located in the cellar of an abandoned warehouse on a narrow, twisting street behind St. John’s Cathedral in Old Town. It was a makeshift operation, born during the first week of the Rising when euphoric AK commandos hauled in an eclectic mix of tables and chairs from deserted homes in the neighborhood, cleared away the dust and cobwebs, and opened for business. Red-and-white Polish flags hung from the ceiling and, when the electricity was on, a phonograph played the beloved melodies of Chopin, heard in Warsaw for the first time in five years. AK banners were tacked to the posts. A painted caricature of a death’s-head wearing a Nazi helmet, along with the words
One Bullet – One German,
adorned the wall directly opposite the stairway.
    As the fighting dragged into the third week, Warsaw’s western districts were being pounded into oblivion. But Old Town and much of the City Center remained in the hands of the AK, and the pub was bustling with activity twenty-four hours a day. It was alternately a soup kitchen, a medical clinic, a meeting hall, a wedding chapel and, during long tension-filled nights, a tavern where beleaguered AK commandos roused each other on to a victory that seemed less likely with each passing day. As in the rest of the city, food and water were scarce, but vodka plentiful. So they gathered, glasses in hand, sometimes mourning losses, other times celebrating victories, turning up the volume of the phonograph to drown out the shelling.
    Despite the desperate struggle, the night of 21 August was an occasion for cheer, and the revelry in the sweaty, smoke-filled cellar was more boisterous than ever, celebrating the destruction of the PAST building the night before. More than a hundred German soldiers had been taken prisoner and dozens more had jumped to their deaths as a vital link in Germany’s battle communications had been severed.
    The vodka flowed freely. Glasses were raised in toasts to the Minerki team amidst raucous cheers and shouts of