Chasing the King of Hearts (Peirene's Turning Point Series) Read online

  The city is called Cottbus. They see men on crutches and haggard, badly dressed women… An air-raid siren goes off. They take shelter in an entrance. I’m here, the Frenchman whispers, and shields her with his manly arm, to protect her from the bombs. Panes go flying out of the windows, his words get drowned out by the shattering glass. The planes quieten down one minute and come back the next, like a storm unable to pass. It reminds her of the air raid in Warsaw and the garrison church.

  There was this priest who asked me to pray for him, she tells the Frenchman.

  And?

  Nothing. I didn’t do it.

  Not once? That’s not nice, the Frenchman scolds. Not nice at all…

  She tries to explain as she walks him to the station: I’m saving all my prayers for one person, I don’t have strength to pray for anyone else. Do you understand?

  Of course he does, ça se comprend.

  The Frenchman goes back to Raddusch.

  An idea hits her and she looks around the station for a train schedule. It’s easy to travel from Raddusch to Cottbus and from there to Łódź, renamed Litzmannstadt.

  The Coat

  They don’t work Sundays… No one checks to see if they’re there… That means that all Sunday long no one will be looking for her…

  Saturday evening she takes the local train to Raddusch. She plans to spend the night at Józio’s and leave in the morning. The bed in the little room is occupied, but Józio has important information: he has an aunt in Łódź. Go to Nawrot Street, he says, find the linen press and tell my aunt that I say hello. And give her this (he reaches under his straw mattress and takes out a matchbox containing an oval stone he passed in his urine, in great pain because of his ailing kidney). What’s this for? A present. A keepsake.

  The Frenchman smuggles her inside the POW camp and takes her to the shower room. She can sleep there since it isn’t used at night. He spreads his coat on the floor. He brings her an envelope and a sheet of paper. She sits on the coat – the floor reeks of soapsuds and Lysol – and writes a letter.

  The Frenchman asks who she’s writing to.

  My friend Stefa.

  Is she pretty? asks the Frenchman.

  She has pretty dark-blue eyes, with long lashes.

  (Stefa had a grandmother from Vienna, a crazy mother who ran off with a younger man and a father who was bitter and not good at much. They rented out rooms. When they didn’t have lodgers, Stefa couldn’t afford textbooks or school trips. Izolda very much wanted to help and collected money from friends or sold film tickets at school. So Stefa went on the trip to Wieliczka, but didn’t even give Izolda so much as a crib for the algebra test. I didn’t have time – she explained – I barely managed to finish myself.) Thanks to her Viennese grandmother, Stefa is fluent in German and works at the offices of the Ostbahn railway. She has a locked drawer where she can keep valuables. Izolda left her silver compact there every time she went to see Franciszek.

  Sitting on a coat in the shower room of the French prisoners, she tells her friend that she’s been sick lately. ‘I don’t know if we’ll meet again. If we don’t, give the compact to my husband. If you don’t see my husband, keep it for yourself. I hope it brings you luck.’

  The Frenchman looks over her shoulder and asks what she’s writing about to her pretty friend.

  About a compact.

  The Frenchman is enchanted by her handwriting, by her hand that’s holding the pencil, by her knee that’s holding the paper, by her dusky, silken skin…

  She gets up, undresses, stands under the shower. She turns on the warm water and washes her neck, her breasts, her thighs, her stomach… Here she has no disguise. And here she is no worse than anyone else. She’s not Jewish, not Polish. And she’s prettier than the women who haven’t had teeth knocked out, who don’t get dragged out of rickshaws or shoved into an entrance at dawn.

  Early in the morning they go to the station. She asks the Frenchman to post the letter. He begs her to make it through the war. Promise that you will, he says, and he starts to cry. It’s nice that she isn’t expected to save that Frenchman, that she’s the one who’s supposed to survive.

  She climbs aboard the train.

  She doesn’t try to remember the French name or the address in Provence.

  She has to make a decision: Do I take a seat in the compartment? Stand in the corridor? Hide in the toilet?

  The Aunt

  On Nawrot Street the caretaker whistles as he clears the snow with a shovel. A child is building a snowman. The linen press is open, Józio’s aunt carefully removes the sheets from the rollers and folds them. She looks at the kidney stone, moved, and invites Izolda to spend the night at the press.

  Józio’s aunt is officially in the Reich, Warsaw is in the Generalgouvernement. The border isn’t far, you just take the number 12 tram, make your way to Stryków and find someone to take you across. Everybody knows who they are: they trade sugar for stockings and vodka for warm underwear, or else sugar for warm underwear.

  Józio’s aunt generously gives Izolda some socks for the smugglers and a pair of stockings for her, with a long black arrow pattern. She assures Izolda that arrows are the latest fashion, they start above the ankle and have to be darker than the stocking.

  Armchair. More Urgent Matters

  One year she will say: I have to look them up. I have to thank Mr Bolek, who led me through the sewers; Józio’s aunt, who gave me presents; the woman in Stryków who cooked dumplings; the German family in Berlin…

  A few more years will pass and she will say: It really is high time I pay them a visit. Mr Bolek. Józio’s aunt. The woman in Stryków…

  She won’t visit anyone. Not that she was ungrateful, on the contrary – she will think about them time and time again. That’s just how it will work out, because there will always be more urgent matters that need attention.

  Number 12 Tram

  She takes the tram. She reads the German names of the streets and tries to guess (she doesn’t know why) what they used to be called. The tram comes to some barbed wire and slows down. There’s a guard post and behind it a bearded man wearing a yellow patch on his overcoat. The patch is in tatters, in the shape of a star. In Warsaw they had different stars – blue, on armbands. Seconds later it dawns on her: that man is a Jew. This is the ghetto. She didn’t realize that number 12 went through the ghetto. A few passers-by stop and peer inside the tram. She’s sitting by the window and they fix their gaze on her, on no one else but her. She turns away, but there are people on the other side as well. They just stand there stony-faced, peering inside…

  At the end of the line she gets off together with a young woman her own age. She tells the woman about the forced labour and her escape, the woman invites her home. The woman’s mother is very kind, makes her feel welcome. What do you like, she asks Izolda, dumplings? The mother cooks a pot of dumplings especially for her and mixes in some crackling: eat up, she encourages Izolda, for your health. Well, here things aren’t so sweet for us either, she explains that evening. Business used to be better, the gendarmes were fewer, and now they’re searching everywhere for Jews. They’re looking for Jews and finding all the goods. Eat, child, for your health. They make her bed, cover her with a down duvet and wake her in the middle of the night: the smugglers are here.

  The men look tired and dirty, a little like Bolek’s crew. They take vodka and sugar out of their rucksacks and pack women’s underwear. Izolda trades the socks from Józio’s aunt for a white sheet. They give her instructions: we hold the sheet over our head, we move by jumping and every few metres we crouch down. Then we keep still for a while. Make sure you’re covered by the sheet, it has to touch the snow. Please remember: keep absolutely still. Then we take a few more jumps and crouch down again. We call it rabbit-hopping, think you can manage?

  She runs with the men – across the snow-covered field, through the forest, across another field – she crouches, doesn’t take off the sheet, keeps absolutely still, then runs ag
ain. A pale, cold sun appears. They’re in the Generalgouvernement. She hands back her sheet and asks the way to the nearest train station.

  Joy

  She dyes her hair (her favourite colour – ash blonde).

  She replaces her tooth (the new tooth comes on a little screw, very practical, the technician assured her, you can take it out if you need to. She found that strange: why would you want to take out an artificial tooth?).

  She retrieves her compact. (Stefa cried so much when she received your letter, says Stefa’s colleague, a typist at the Ostbahn. She was so sorry she didn’t give you that crib for algebra… But I’m giving you a hat instead, Stefa announces, and sure enough she hands Izolda a beautiful black hat, with a large fancy brim, a keepsake from her romantic mother.) The typist gives her a pair of patent-leather shoes with high heels (custom-made on Nowy Świat right before the war) and Mrs Krusiewicz painstakingly alters the overcoat left by her husband.

  Izolda stands on the corner of Piękna Street, waiting for her acquaintance, an excellent translator of German poetry (the excellent translator is supposed to find a buyer for the pearl ring – if the price isn’t exorbitant).

  She’s cold and stamps on the wet snow.

  Wearing the patent-leather shoes from the machinist.

  Wearing the romantic hat from Stefa.

  Wearing the silk stockings with the black arrow print from Józio’s aunt.

  Wearing the overcoat from Mr Krusiewicz.

  Two women wearing civilian dress look her over and come up to her. Waiting for someone? one of them asks, her hands in a fur muff. May I see your identity card? She takes a police badge out of her muff. I don’t understand… Izolda says in a very sweet, pleading voice, why are you asking? Just don’t pretend, says the other. And don’t smile. You’re all alike, first all innocent smiles and then nothing but tears. Let’s go.

  She follows the policewoman.

  The nearest station is on Poznańska Street. Not a good place, getting out won’t be easy.

  She has her pearl ring. She thinks: Should I give it to her right away? And why did she say you’re all alike? By all she means Jews. Excuse me, ma’am, she risks the question. What did you mean by all alike? Stop playing dumb – the policewoman now makes no effort to be polite. I’m from the vice squad, now do you understand?

  Now she understands.

  They’re not taking her for a Jew but for a whore. What a relief, thank God, they’re just taking me for a whore.

  She now walks more lightly, like any other woman genuinely amused at such a preposterous idea.

  The policewoman sits at a little desk, unfolds the identity card and reads out loud. So you’re married, well, well. And where is your husband passing the time?

  She says: He’s passing the time in a camp. He was in Auschwitz.

  You aren’t lying? The policewoman looks up from the desk and changes her tone: Are you sure that’s true?

  My husband is in a camp, she repeats. I have a letter…

  The policewoman gets up, as if she intended to escort her to the door. I’m going to check everything, she says sternly. You can go, but I’m going to check… And you better… she pauses for a moment. Couldn’t you make an effort to dress more decently?

  Armchair. Everything in Life

  If she hadn’t been loitering on the street so absurdly dressed, she wouldn’t have been taken for a prostitute.

  If the policewoman hadn’t sent her away, she wouldn’t have stopped in on Mariańska Street to see Mateusz the caretaker.

  If she hadn’t visited Mateusz (she wanted to warn him that the vice squad would be enquiring about her), she wouldn’t have learnt that the postman had been there.

  That he had delivered a letter.

  That her husband was asking for food. And that he had sent a new address: Mauthausen, Block AKZ.

  In short, everything in life is interwoven in enigmatic ways.

  Enough

  Shayek’s father and sister will stay in Józefów – Lilusia rented them a room in one of the summer houses from before the war. Izolda looks around, moved. Nothing has changed, except the hedge has grown… 115 centimetres, according to the owner, that’s twenty-three centimetres a year, I’m waiting for my husband to trim it when he comes back.

  (What are they talking about? – Halina’s father doesn’t hear well.

  That the war’s been going on for five years, Halina explains.

  Are they saying how long it will last?

  No, Papa, but I’m sure it won’t be over any time soon…)

  The room is sunny, the air outside is healthy, but Halina keeps saying she’s had enough.

  I’ve had enough, she tells the owner.

  As you wish, the woman replies, but Captain Szubert’s wife paid in advance.

  I’m very grateful to you, she tells Lilusia, you’ve been so generous, it’s just that I’ve had enough.

  Halina travels to Warsaw. Without any reason; she simply wants to go, and so she does. She keeps saying: I’m fine, really, I’m doing very well, except…

  You have to stick it out, Izolda tells her. Here you have fresh air, no one pays any attention to you…

  No one? Halina smiles. But someone is paying attention, you see. That’s right, a man. He’s very nice but not very young. We understand each other… Halina smiles again, somewhat secretively. We understand each other without words…

  That makes Izolda nervous.

  Halina isn’t as tall or pretty as her sisters, her legs aren’t very attractive and her hair is a uniform bleached yellow from the peroxide. Who would be interested in her? Izolda has a bad feeling, but Lilusia isn’t worried. Good that she has a man, things will be easier for her.

  Lilusia rides out to Józefów to pay the next rent. The owner is surprised: Miss Halina isn’t here any more. Nor is the older gentleman. How should I know where they are? They went away.

  They’ve gone, Lilusia says when she comes back. The landlady thought I knew all about it. Some man came, the landlady hadn’t seen him before, but it was clear that Halina knew him. He helped them pack up and put her rucksack on his shoulder. They took the path through the woods, towards the tracks. The man with the rucksack, Halina with the flowers and her father.

  With flowers?

  Yes, a small bouquet. The man had brought them. Early spring flowers, probably from the florist. A modest bouquet, but from the florist, the landlady says. She didn’t know anything more, Lilusia adds. They left and that was all. With an older man. About a month ago.

  The Plaid Blanket

  She has a great idea: she’ll go to Vienna. Why are you looking at me like that? she asks Lilusia. He’s in Mauthausen, isn’t he? In other words, Austria. In Vienna I’ll be closer and it will be easier for me to get him out, am I right? You’re right, dear, Lilusia agrees, with the soothing kind of smile a healthy person uses when speaking to a lunatic. Why shouldn’t you go to Vienna? Go there and find him.

  But Lilusia doesn’t know how to get to Vienna.

  Terenia sees an office clerk next to the queen of hearts, but the cards don’t say where to find him.

  Vienna… my God… the sad tenor is visibly moved. Zosia and I saw The Barber of Seville there. Izolda cuts him off after the first few measures and promises to listen to the entire cavatina when she returns.

  She goes to see Stefa. Then the chemist with cyanide. Franciszek in Skarżysko. Kangur near the Slovak border. The Hungarian Jew in Krakow. Roman the waiter at the Rose. My husband’s in Mauthausen, she explains to each, it will be easier to get him out if I’m in Vienna, can you tell me how I can travel to Austria? My husband’s in Mauthausen…

  Mrs Krusiewicz sends her to a woman for whom she used to sew bedlinen. The woman’s husband was a judge, she now runs a nursery school (and will take in Jewish children for limited stays).

  Outside it’s cold and dark. The judge’s wife is lying sick in her wide double bed, with a lamp on the nightstand and a glass of tea. Her legs are covered
with a plaid blanket. Soft and fluffy, with a colourful check pattern.

  The judge offers Izolda tea with a slice of lemon, then fixes his wife’s pillow. After that he adjusts her plaid blanket, carefully and tenderly wrapping it around her legs to keep out any draughts.

  The judge doesn’t have the faintest idea how to reach Vienna. Izolda responds: What a nice plaid blanket. It must be very warm… And it’s light, isn’t it? So light and at the same time so warm… It’s a plaid blanket like any other, the judge is puzzled. Where did we buy it, dear?

  She rises from the chair, takes a biscuit for the road, wishes a speedy recovery and promises to greet Mrs Krusiewicz.

  Closer

  Viennese children are running to school with their satchels, Viennese bakers are carrying trays of rolls, the cafés are pouring genuine mocha and the restaurants are serving Viennese breakfast. Except you need a ration card to buy a sausage. The waiters cut out the coupons with small, elegant scissors that dangle on chains from their belts. If need be, ration cards may be acquired on the black market at Mexikoplatz. The waiter at the Sacher recommends their famous cake and patiently explains to the regulars that there’s a legal battle over the name ‘Sachertorte’ but he personally has no doubt the court will award exclusive rights to the hotel.

  In the evening it becomes clear a war is on. Windows are covered and streets are dark. People have torches. There was a shortage of batteries and someone invented a torch activated by a button. The buttons give off a high-pitched, penetrating noise, which resonates in the darkness and that’s how you can tell Vienna is at war.

  (She travels to Vienna on an excellent pass, thanks to the waiter at the Rose, who had introduced her to one of the new clients held in special esteem by the owner. The man was completely grey and very short, a full head shorter than Izolda. She was quick to sit down so he wouldn’t feel bad, but he wasn’t at all self-conscious. He didn’t let them take his hat off the hook – he stopped the waiter’s hand, then quickly jumped up and grabbed his hat. She laughed. He gave her a stern look; she was scared she had offended him, and didn’t say a word. The grey-haired man arranged for her to meet a German he did business with, an engineer from the Todt Organization, which built military barracks, bridges and roads – and issued work papers as well as travel permits. The engineer in Warsaw told Izolda that his colleague in Vienna would give her the address of her assignment. Assuming you want to work for us… the engineer began. Of course she wanted to, and he issued her a Marschbefehl. The engineer didn’t want money, he preferred tobacco, ten kilos, whole-leaf only.