Warsaw Read online

  "Keep it, or bring it back if it's not to your liking. You can always borrow another."

  "Can I leave now?"

  "Yes." Adam yearned to say something more, but couldn't. She wouldn't have wanted to listen to it anyway.

  Jessica placed the well preserved leather bound book on her food parcel and walked towards the door. She removed her overcoat from off the nail in the wall, where Duritz had carefully hung it when Jessica had first entered. He had also helped her off with her coat and gone out of his way to seat the girl in a gentlemanly fashion when she first arrived for her "appointment". Without staying to put her coat on Jessica left. Duritz heard the frantic patter of her heels as she ran down the wooden stairs.

  The ex-philosophy student and linguist (Adam was fluent in Polish, Yiddish, German and English) selected a book from the shelf but immediately put it back again, realising he was in no mood to read. He could feel the familiar bony hand of dejection wringing his heart. He decided to try and sleep to kill the time until he would have to go out and help enforce curfew. Do his duty. He had been up for most of the night before, in anticipation of his meeting with Jessica - even rehearsing what he wanted to say to her. But yet that script was almost like one from a Russian novel and would remain unplayable. Adam hoped for once that he would be delivered up to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Despite having a couple of drinks and feeling fatigued the policeman's eyes were still stapled wide open as he lay upon his bed. He felt like crying, but couldn't. He knew people cursed and condemned him behind his back but did any of them realise what he was trying to do? He always tried to select the infirm, those about to die anyway, or criminals and bullies. He never selected children, or a lone parent that would turn a child into an orphan. Nor did Duritz ever exceed his quota of five, like some of his colleagues zealously did in order to impress their masters. He never would have carried out his threat to select the Rubensteins. It was a bluff, which worked. In his careful selection of others it was people like the Rubensteins who Duritz was deliberately intending to save. Jessica, intelligent, beautiful, needed to survive the war; her father, a doctor, also needed to be preserved, although when Duritz had seen him again he seemed sick, defeated. The mother was the head of the household now Adam suspected. So too was not his own preservation essential? Whether it was the Russians or British who liberated them, the policeman could speak either language. Yet in the eyes of the people who he was trying to save he was worse than the enemy.

  A plane whined overhead. Was it an air-raid? They were few and far between. Sometimes the policeman prayed that he could just go to sleep and perish in the night, oblivious to his end, "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished" Duritz would muse. What was death but a sleep from which you may or may not wake up from? And if one didn't wake from it one would never know anyway - so Duritz sometimes reasoned.

  The plane was only a transport, carrying engineers for the trains.

  Dripping with sweat, brain-feverish, Duritz finally stumbled into asleep.

  2.

  Corporal Thomas Abendroth gazed up, squinting in the light of the brilliant blue sky, and followed the trajectory of the roaring transport plane. He allowed himself the optimism to think that a letter from his wife Maria and son Wilhelm would be on board. Thomas had just celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday but he looked younger, especially when he grew tanned and fair-haired in the summer. His athletic build and striking blue eyes might have been imposing but Thomas' features radiated friendliness and trust. Good humoured and informed, Thomas Abendroth was comfortable and confident in most company. The German possessed an amiable, open expression - yet if one caught him off guard in a private moment one might have suspected that his persona was but an act, for should you have witnessed the intellectual Corporal when he believed no one was looking, you might have observed a different man - a tortured figure ill at ease with the world, indignant. Tentatively, yet drawn with intrigue, you might then approach the Corporal - but once your presence was detected he would, as if by magic, re-ignite the light in his eyes and warmth in his heart to play the part of the experienced soldier and gregarious comrade again. He would have brushed off, as if ‘twere a fly in front of his face in the June sun, any questions or concern you might have had for his mood or what was troubling him.

  Thomas was often unshaven, permitting himself the lazy indulgence of shaving but twice a week, but his uniform and rifle were well maintained. His hair was cropped short, narrowing his odds from contracting lice. So too it held the advantage of him not needing to brush or wash it so frequently. His hands were large, but dextrous - and one could often find the soldier with a piece of wood or scrap of metal in them, which he would fashion into a tool or toy to distribute to the nearest child when finished.

  At present however Thomas held a glass of beer in his hand as he sat outside a cafe in the ghetto - which was strictly for the use of soldiers - and conversed with a couple of men from his unit. Both the weather and the music in the background, courtesy of a Jewish violinist, were agreeable to him. After all three companions paused to watch the plane fly overhead, each with his fancy as to what the transport might contain, they resumed their discussion. Oscar Hummel, a gruff veteran of the Great War with a good, cynical head on his shoulders - when it wasn't doused in too much beer or vodka - warned that:-

  "As much as I admire him, I worry for Rommel in Africa. The more he advances the longer his supply lines become."

  "Then he should press home any advantage he has now. The enemy can supply him as he advances" Dietmar, a young Private, enthused whilst moving the empty glasses on the table forward as if they were Rommel's infantry and armour. The handsome youth covertly glanced at his Corporal to check whether he was impressing the well respected, well liked leader of his platoon. Oscar thought the new recruit "a shiny toad".

  All but ignoring the nonsense of the wet-eared boy the grouchy Hummel continued to speak to his Corporal, who knew what he was talking about and was not too blind to sometimes criticise his own army (and the Party) in private.

  "This is where we could learn something from the English; they know how important supply lines are. It all goes back to Marlborough - who was an ancestor of Churchill's would you believe? - and Wellington". Oscar enjoyed and appreciated his European History and the great characters from its pages.

  Thomas knew Oscar was correct, but unlike his Private perhaps he wanted the army to keep on making the same mistakes, in Africa and Russia. Germany, Hitler, deserved, needed to be defeated. His only disappointment would be that Rommel, a genuine hero and figure that Germany could be proud of, would have to be defeated as well. Sensing that an argument could ensue between his two polarised companions - the Corporal knew all too well how much Oscar enjoyed testing the mettle of the new recruits - Thomas decided to subtly alter the direction of the conversation.

  "Rommel will be all right. Apparently the joke that is doing the rounds at the moment is that we offered to sack Rommel as long as the Allies retain all their Generals."

  Oscar grinned and Dietmar, more than a little tipsy now from being unable to hold his drink, banged his glass approvingly on the table as if to simulate clapping. Oscar deemed the display to be but another example of the boy's toadying towards anyone superior to him in rank. It was embarrassing, unmanly, and the veteran frowned to himself and at the youth. The other story that Thomas saved for his friend that evening, in between Oscar's Nestor-like stories of the Great War and comparing his generation to that of the automaton youth under the Reich - was that of when Rommel disobeyed the Fuhrer's direct orders. A Commando unit was sent in by the British to kill Rommel at his headquarters. Although the mission failed Hitler, in a piece of returning fire, ordered that all captured Commandos were to be shot. According to the rumour Rommel, an officer and a gentleman, burnt the order on the spot.

  Realising that Dietmar would soon become a little worse for wear - and wishing to spend some time on his own before they were all on duty toge
ther this evening - Thomas asked Oscar to take the young Private back to their quarters to let him get a couple of hours sleep. When Dietmar protested Thomas threatened to turn it into an order so the fresh-faced recruit assented. They left with Oscar shaking his head disapprovingly at his comrade for not being able to take his drink. He would also rib the youth about his vanity - always playing with his hair and cleaning his fingernails - on the way back to their billet. Dietmar was "too pretty to be a soldier" Oscar judged, and laughed to further goad the adolescent.

  Thomas enjoyed coming to the corner of the square where the cafe was situated. He could hear himself think, though he was a little ashamed of this as the reason was that the Jews stayed away out of fear from the often raucous, sometimes violent soldiers.

  Thomas wondered again if indeed the transport could've been a mail plane. Maria promised that she would try and enclose another photo of Wilhelm. So too he had asked for another photograph of her. The last one, six months old, had alarmed him a little when he first glanced at it. He barely recognised his wife. She had cut her long blonde hair and her face had become a little gaunt. The smile was also forced. The Corporal's reverie was disturbed however as the violin music in the background began to distort. He turned around to find that a couple of Ukrainian soldiers - who had just recently sat down and could not therefore blame their behaviour on the drink - were tossing lighted matchsticks at the violinist. The skeletal musician, who flinched in abject terror almost at each missile fired in his direction, nevertheless attempted to keep playing.

  "I do not believe that the German army supplied you with matches for that purpose. That's enough. You're ruining the music for everyone." Thomas flashed them a displeased and combative look to accompany his words.

  One of the Privates apologised, whilst the other tut-tuted and fancied that he'd have his fun with the Jew once the Corporal left. Witnessing the look in this petty sadist's eye Thomas thought it best to dismiss the violinist now. It was here that he realised that, having seen him playing in the morning when walking past - and having spent the afternoon at the cafe - the musician had been working all day under an unforgiving sun.

  "What is your name?" Thomas amiably asked the violinist in his own language and smiled, to put him at ease.

  "Henryk," the still suspicious and nervous musician replied.

  "You're an accomplished player Henryk, although I fear that too much practise and playing may be bad for you. You're free to go home. Here, for your trouble," Thomas said and removed the few remaining coins in his pocket. The Corporal well knew the change could hopefully feed the man and his family for a week and, smiling kindly, he placed the various coins into the musician's withered fingers.

  The incident received a couple of raised eyebrows and turned a few heads - not least because the Corporal spoke in Polish and placed the money into the vermin's hands (usually the Germans threw their coins to watch the Jews comically scramble around like ants after them) - but then everything carried on as normal. The scene was perhaps worth noting, but not regarding.

  The flaky complexion of the buildings made them appear diseased. Jaundiced, feral faces covertly eyed the intruding soldier who was walking down their street; alternatively some were so dead to the world that they vacantly ignored the Wehrmacht Corporal. The blistered feet of vagrants, of men and women alike, jutted out beneath lice-ridden blankets. Shrivelled up torsos of newly orphaned children, some no more than toddlers, wailed and wandered aimlessly down the once thoroughfare, clinging to their flannel rags. Not one face displayed resistance, dignity, or even resentment. At times Thomas had to raise his handkerchief to his mouth, such was the fetid stench in the infernal heat. A few corpses, wrapped in white paper, even populated the street. Some of the soldiers joked and called them Mummies’, especially when they had been lying out in the sun and, as the gasses in their stomach were inflated in the heat, the bodies began to move. They could've died from any number of epidemics: stomach typhus, influenza, dysentery, tuberculosis. Thomas indignantly recalled to himself the conversation he had overheard between two officers a week or so ago. They argued how the ghetto could almost have been described as a laboratory that had proved the government's doctors right. Jews were sub-human, one need only observe their appearance and environment; had they not proved themselves to be carriers of disease, especially, as suspected, of spotted fever?

  Every so often Thomas Abendroth would expose himself to such scenes as these. It was an acid test to prove his humanity. If he continued to feel compassion and guilt then he reasoned that he still possessed a conscience - and if one still possessed a conscience then Man was still worth fighting for, having faith in.

  Thomas also exposed himself to the ghetto in order to consciously record these inhuman injustices for History's sake. People must know.

  Awkwardly, absurdly, Thomas tried to smile and greet a few of these innocents as they accidentally made eye contact with the strange looking soldier. But the German tried in vain for an opportunity to practise and improve his Polish. He had first been taught the rudiments of the language by a Jewish student, who was also fluent in German and even English. At first it was a business arrangement, with Adam preferring it that way, but yet after a while the two men began to like and esteem each other. Thomas and Duritz owned a lot in common, they were both intelligent, well read and shared the same dry sense of humour. In return however, as well as payment in money and food, Adam had asked the favour that Thomas arrange it for him to become a policeman in the ghetto. The Corporal had tried to dissuade him from the decision but Thomas had given his word and he made good on his promise. It was shortly after Adam became a policeman when Thomas noticed a change in the young man's character. Duritz wouldn't speak about himself as much - particularly his day as a policeman - and Thomas rightly suspected that Adam was beginning to abuse his authority. He witnessed him take bribes one afternoon, auctioning off positions at the front of the queue to obtain a work card. There was a new hardness, cynicism to his words and actions. He learned of his bribe-taking and other abuses of his power. Was he going even further nowadays and extorting more than just valuables from mothers and daughters? No, Thomas hoped and even believed. The Corporal couldn't remember who ended their acquaintance, but both seemed comfortable with the fact in the end. Naturally they had seen each other since but neither admitted to their past friendship so, once again, their relationship was at best formal - that of German soldier and Jewish policeman.

  Yet still Thomas was interested and concerned with speaking to Adam again. He wondered how the daily selections for resettlement were affecting him. Duritz was already susceptible to mood swings before becoming a policeman. There was always a dark part of his psyche, a fatalism or ego-centricity, which Thomas could not shed light upon. It couldn't be easy for him, the German had thought to himself.

  Jessica scampered down the stairs of the policeman's building. The anxious thought that he might try to follow her, or call her back, quickened her heart and pace. When she got to the exit of the building however her purposefulness became frayed. Her nerves addled, Jessica became temporarily disorientated and nauseous. The light strained her eyes and she was at pains to remember the most expedient way back to her district. She grew distressed at the way a few people looked at her, or how she imagined they were staring at her and what they were thinking. Tears began to stream down her hot cheeks again which she tried to wipe away whilst simultaneously holding onto the bulky brown paper bag and her coat. Jessica walked briskly for a couple of blocks until she was about half way home and decided to stop for a rest. Not only was she physically exhausted and a hive of nerves but Jessica pictured how distraught she must've looked. She thought it prudent not to return home until she had recovered her self-possession and appearance.

  Although the weather was far from inclement, Jessica began to shiver and so she put on her chocolate brown overcoat. She sat upon a step, placed the parcel between her legs, bowed her head and sobbed. Jessica retrieved an already oft
used handkerchief from her coat pocket, doused it in spittle, and attempted to wipe the tears away that were drying upon her skin.

  She tried to reason it out again. Hadn't she temporarily saved the family? No one knew of her sacrifice and no one would know, except her - but that was enough. It could've been worse. And it was over. She had heard stories of how other policemen had raped and stolen from families and still murdered or selected them for resettlement. Jessica Rubenstein yearned to make herself feel better with such logical arguments, but in vain. Hate, shame, revenge, powerlessness, emptiness consumes. She could smell the room and the policeman's own vinegary odour. She wished him dead and would later picture him being shot or hung, or arrested and paraded through the streets along with the rest of the collaborators. He was revengeful and conceited. He coldly treated it as but a trade or barter when he had first proposed the "deal" on the stairs of her building, when she had run after him and pleaded for mercy. And now he had further tried to buy her off with bread, rancid butter and some rotten vegetables. And he had tried to justify his crime by insidiously arguing that he was giving her a lesson in morality and survival. At no point in her thoughts did Jessica use the word "assault", she had to use "blackmailed". That he ultimately did not carry out the full extent of his crime exonerated him not.

  Not having kept track of time and fearing that it might be getting late, Jessica bested the paralysis in her legs and got up. Unfortunately Jessica picked her bag up too hastily and the potatoes ripped out of the bottom and shot off in different directions in the street. The stricken girl's nerves at that point shattered like glass and the rest of the contents of her bounty fell into the squalid street. The sound and sight of the drama attracted the attention of a few passers by and Jessica knew from experience that soon the beggars and thieves would be swarming around her. But amazingly they did not appear.