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Authors: Alan Furst
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time.” The words trailed off into the evening sounds by the lake.
“And you think, do I love you? Yes, I do.”
“But you always . . .”
“Left on the train,” he said. “You have to forgive me.”
She burrowed closer to him, he could feel the tears on her face.
On the train back to Warsaw he made a mistake.
He went north from Tarnopol, to Rovno. Stayed overnight in the railway station—technically illegal but tolerated, because people had to wait for trains, yet dangerous, because security police knew that railway stations attracted fugitives.
A uniformed NKVD guard looked through his documents, reading with a slow index finger on each word, then handed them back silently. He got out of Rovno on a dawn train to Brzesc, near the east bank of the river that formed the dividing line between German and Russian occupation forces. On this train, two men in overcoats; one of them stared at him, and, foolishly, he stared back. Then realized what he’d done and looked away. At the very last instant. He could see from the posture of the man—his age, his build—that he was
somebody,
likely civilian NKVD, and was about to make a point of it.
De Milja’s heart hammered in his chest, he felt prickly sweat break out under his arms, he did not even dare a glance to see if the man had accepted his “surrender”: breaking off eye contact. Could not put a hand on the VIS, just tried to shrink down into the seat without a single sign of bravado. He
was
strong. And unafraid. And the way he carried himself, people knew that, and it would bury him in a hurry if he didn’t learn some other way to be in public.
The two men got off the train one station before Brzesc. From the platform, his enemy squinted at him through the window. De Milja stared at his shoes, a proud man subdued. The Russian didn’t buy it; with a certain casual violence he turned to get back on the train and, de Milja was sure, haul him off. But his partner stopped him and grabbed the shoulder of his coat, pulling him, with a joke and a laugh, along the platform—they had more important things to do. From the corner of his eye, de Milja could see the Russian as he glanced back one last time. He was red in the face. The man, de Milja knew beyond a doubt, had intended to kill him.
In the German sector it was different. Much easier. The black-uniformed border police did not hate Poles as the Russians did. Poles to them were truly
untermenschen,
subhuman, beneath contempt. They were to be treated, like all Slavs, as beasts, controlled by “
zuckerbrot und peitsche
”—sweets and the whip. They checked his identity card, then waved him on. He was nothing, they never even saw him.
Of equal interest to de Milja was a siding some fifty miles south of Warsaw: eight German tank cars, pointed east, clearly going to the Soviet ally, marked NAPHTHALENE.
Yes, well, what couldn’t one do with that.
23 October, Warsaw. Saint Stanislaus Hospital.
An excellent safe house: all sorts of people went in and out at all hours of the day and night. There were cots for sleeping, meals were served, yet it was far safer than any hotel ever could be.
Room 9 was in the basement, adjacent to the boilers that heated the hospital water. It had a bed, a steel sink, and plaster walls painted pale green in 1903. It had a military map of Poland, a street map—Baedeker—of Warsaw, two steel filing cabinets, a power-boosted radio receiver with an aerial disappearing through a drainpipe entry in an upper corner, three telephones, several tin ashtrays, a scarred wood table with three chairs on one side and one chair on the other. Illumination was provided by a fifteen-watt bulb in a socket in the middle of the ceiling.
Of the three people facing him, de Milja knew one by acquaintance: a Warsaw hellion called Grodewicz who was not, as far as he knew, in the military and who should have been, as far as most of his friends were concerned, in prison. One by reputation: Colonel Jozef
“And you think, do I love you? Yes, I do.”
“But you always . . .”
“Left on the train,” he said. “You have to forgive me.”
She burrowed closer to him, he could feel the tears on her face.
On the train back to Warsaw he made a mistake.
He went north from Tarnopol, to Rovno. Stayed overnight in the railway station—technically illegal but tolerated, because people had to wait for trains, yet dangerous, because security police knew that railway stations attracted fugitives.
A uniformed NKVD guard looked through his documents, reading with a slow index finger on each word, then handed them back silently. He got out of Rovno on a dawn train to Brzesc, near the east bank of the river that formed the dividing line between German and Russian occupation forces. On this train, two men in overcoats; one of them stared at him, and, foolishly, he stared back. Then realized what he’d done and looked away. At the very last instant. He could see from the posture of the man—his age, his build—that he was
somebody,
likely civilian NKVD, and was about to make a point of it.
De Milja’s heart hammered in his chest, he felt prickly sweat break out under his arms, he did not even dare a glance to see if the man had accepted his “surrender”: breaking off eye contact. Could not put a hand on the VIS, just tried to shrink down into the seat without a single sign of bravado. He
was
strong. And unafraid. And the way he carried himself, people knew that, and it would bury him in a hurry if he didn’t learn some other way to be in public.
The two men got off the train one station before Brzesc. From the platform, his enemy squinted at him through the window. De Milja stared at his shoes, a proud man subdued. The Russian didn’t buy it; with a certain casual violence he turned to get back on the train and, de Milja was sure, haul him off. But his partner stopped him and grabbed the shoulder of his coat, pulling him, with a joke and a laugh, along the platform—they had more important things to do. From the corner of his eye, de Milja could see the Russian as he glanced back one last time. He was red in the face. The man, de Milja knew beyond a doubt, had intended to kill him.
In the German sector it was different. Much easier. The black-uniformed border police did not hate Poles as the Russians did. Poles to them were truly
untermenschen,
subhuman, beneath contempt. They were to be treated, like all Slavs, as beasts, controlled by “
zuckerbrot und peitsche
”—sweets and the whip. They checked his identity card, then waved him on. He was nothing, they never even saw him.
Of equal interest to de Milja was a siding some fifty miles south of Warsaw: eight German tank cars, pointed east, clearly going to the Soviet ally, marked NAPHTHALENE.
Yes, well, what couldn’t one do with that.
23 October, Warsaw. Saint Stanislaus Hospital.
An excellent safe house: all sorts of people went in and out at all hours of the day and night. There were cots for sleeping, meals were served, yet it was far safer than any hotel ever could be.
Room 9 was in the basement, adjacent to the boilers that heated the hospital water. It had a bed, a steel sink, and plaster walls painted pale green in 1903. It had a military map of Poland, a street map—Baedeker—of Warsaw, two steel filing cabinets, a power-boosted radio receiver with an aerial disappearing through a drainpipe entry in an upper corner, three telephones, several tin ashtrays, a scarred wood table with three chairs on one side and one chair on the other. Illumination was provided by a fifteen-watt bulb in a socket in the middle of the ceiling.
Of the three people facing him, de Milja knew one by acquaintance: a Warsaw hellion called Grodewicz who was not, as far as he knew, in the military and who should have been, as far as most of his friends were concerned, in prison. One by reputation: Colonel Jozef
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