William Brodrick - The Day of the Lie

The door opened. Roza walked hesitantly away from the man who’d filled in the forms, turning round when she reached the thin, terrified woman.

‘My name is Mojeska,’ said Roza, quietly, to Mr Bondel. ‘M-o-j-e-s-k-a.’

‘Quite right. I’ll make a note. Olga, jot that down, will you?’

When she’d left the antechamber and walked twenty or so yards down the corridor.’ Roza swivelled on her heels and strode back to the reception desk, her limbs shaking, her teeth grinding. The lean assistant recoiled and made a weak scream as Roza reached over and grabbed the typewriter. In a wild swinging movement, ablaze with rage, she hurled the machine straight through the panel of frosted glass.

Roza stepped out of the alley and began her long walk back to the Old Ghetto, choked by impotence, blinded by tears. The Temporary Fourth Assistant to the Second Deputy Director knew exactly how to find her child, but he wouldn’t; and probably couldn’t. He was just as much a cog in the wheel as she was. They turned in opposing directions, that’s all, their teeth meshing in a kind of obedience to the vast grinding machine that shaped their lives, determining what was possible, establishing an order of right and wrong, free from appeal or question. The only difference was that Mr Bondel moved willingly In a way he was a collaborator — the most contemptible kind because he knew he would never be blamed: all he’d ever done was go through the motions. Just then, Roza’s hand found the bullet in her pocket. Pausing in the middle of the street, she took it out.

Brack said it had been meant for her.

Why, then, had he kept her alive?

Roza stumbled on, turning the thing around in her hand. He’d kept her alive not from any residue of affection or friendship, but because he hoped she’d lead him one day to the Shoemaker. His commitment to the machine was without limitation. He would never tire or waver in his purpose. Roza was only alive so that someone else might be brought to death. At that instant, she felt watched, tabbed and tailed. She heard the clatter of a typewriter and the clang of the return carriage. Her file would never be closed.

‘Why have you gone this far, Otto?’ said Roza, out loud, stumbling forward aimlessly ‘Wasn’t killing my husband enough?’

Shouts of warning rang out, seemingly far off.

‘Is it all because I went north and you went south? Is this my punishment?’

Roza was wavering on the pavement holding up the bullet as if she were Hamlet talking to that skull. Passers-by looked on as if she were mad. Suddenly, she closed her fists and started walking, head down, wondering how she would ever face tomorrow.

Roza moved on to the day shift. Sitting between two other women at a long table she sewed ribbons on to hats for export to the Soviet Union. Each evening on the way home she found an empty pew in Saint Klement’s and listened to the silence. After an hour she went home to her side of the wardrobe. Then she ate, slept and went to work again. Occasionally like a drunken masochist, she’d rise to watch Bernard sleep, listening to his breathing, feeling the cut of a saw’s teeth with each intake of air, with each long, slow exhalation. Events passed her by Talk of riots and deaths somewhere in the north or strikes on the coast were like distant noises, not entirely real, sounds from other people’s mouths. If Brack had arranged for someone to follow her.’ he’d wasted his time. Roza was going nowhere that would interest him. He’d played too hard and gone too far. He should have left her with some purpose in life, something to fight for, a reason to go back to the Shoemaker. Whereas she had nothing left. Her days were empty Their meaning had gone, flown from her own hand.

Anselm examined the sequence of framed maps on the wall of an airy well lit office, situated on the fourth floor of the IPN. They charted the loss of national sovereignty to the Prussians.’ the Austrians and the Russians.’ their invasions in blue, brown and red constantly rearranging the green homeland throughout a hundred and fifty years of resistance, at one point erasing it completely I’m in an obstinate country, he thought; one that waits for spring.

The display had been brought to his attention by a red-haired woman dressed in a white trouser suit, who’d then left him to retrieve the Shoemaker material for his inspection. Presently she returned carrying an oblong cardboard box. She placed it on the desk beneath the maps and turned on a lamp. Unable to speak English or German, she pointed once again at the maps, as if seeking confirmation that Anselm had got the message. Loud and clear, he nodded. After she’d gone, clipping the door shut behind her, Anselm polished his glasses on his scapular, conscious that his task to find a secret police informer was part of that greater picture of shifting boundaries; that the losses and gains were moral and spiritual and not just national; that even a single betrayal in 1982 carried the entire weight of a people’s devastated expectations. John had warned him as much.

With that sense of solemn engagement.’ Anselm sat down and removed the lid from the box. Inside were two files, one thick and orange, the other thin and green. He took the first and untied its bow with a quick tug. Opening the cover, he paused.

The text had not been translated. Glancing down the three short paragraphs, Anselm gleaned two names: one in lower case.’ Roza Mojeska, the second capitalised.’ OLEK. Beneath this document Anselm found two prison photographs, the first of a girl with wavy hair, the second of a haggard woman, someone so absent that Anselm thought she’d just risen from an autopsy table. They were each marked ‘MPB WARSZAWA’ and dated 1951 and 1953 respectively Then he realised they were one and the same individual. This was Roza Mojeska.’ before and after. The rest of the file held page after page of meticulous pencil-written notes — these presumably being a contemporaneous record of Roza’s various interrogations. This was the neatness of that most frightening of individuals, the bureaucrat and torturer, whose violence is a kind of humdrum administrative activity Anselm moved them to one side, grateful that he couldn’t understand the questions and answers. Reaching into the box he withdrew the file with the green cover. It was so flimsy it might have been empty This, presumably was the Polana material from the joint Stasi-SB archive.

Anselm was right. Inside were two letters in German. The first was dated 17th June 1982, reference MW/MfS/XV1/1982. It had been sent by a Stasi major in Warsaw to a general in East Berlin. A single paragraph was relevant to Anselm’s purpose:

Contrary to the protocol of December 1978, Colonel Brack declines to share key intelligence. Day to day running of Polana is left to his deputy, Lieutenant Frenzel who keeps matters firmly in the SB camp. We know, for example, that an agent named FELIKS has been reactivated but to date we have not been told who that might be.

The second letter was dated three weeks later. It came from Colonel Brack to the general, copied to the major, reference IO/ SB/XVI/1982. Again one element spoke to Anselm:

As you know, agent running is a delicate task resting upon the absolute trust of the informer with their handler. Their contract is with the SB, not the Stasi. To disclose their names at this stage is neither necessary nor desirable. That said, at the completion of the operation I am sure some accommodation can be found.

That was it. John had assumed the file would contain everything that had been compiled to catch Roza, which would include the name of the informer. But there was nothing of the sort. The bulk of the contents had evidently been removed. Anselm pushed back his chair to seek the woman in white. He found her ticking boxes in another office some distance down the corridor. Behind her stood a man in a dark suit examining a photocopier as if it were a lethal gadget made by Q.