William Brodrick: The Day of the Lie

This time it was Roza’s turn to talk at the passing cars. She watched them chase one another’s lights, feeling cut loose from the rush of ordinary life.

‘What about your grandfather?’

‘The Terror tracked him down.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

Roza felt close to the young man, wanting to better understand him. At the same time she felt a kind of heat coming from his memory She said, anxiously, ‘Why are you interested in Otto Brack?’

His eyes followed the roar of a motorbike and he smiled, as if he’d just hitched a ride to make a getaway ‘I’ll tell you on the day he’s convicted.’

But Roza gently shook her head, knowing there would be no trial, suddenly and acutely sad that she wouldn’t meet Sebastian again; that there’d been no more letters, messages, or trailing; no final ambush A siren wailed far off as if to say the raids were over. But Sebastian hadn’t finished.

‘Roza… find a way, if you can.’

‘A way?’

‘Yes. Find a way out of your silence.’

‘There is none.

‘Think again.’ He looked at her with an expression of intimidating seriousness, no longer just a lawyer but something of a renegade, a young man who would never accept that his investigation was over.

‘Do the one thing Brack would never expect.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Speak to the informer.’

Roza visibly recoiled but Sebastian wouldn’t listen to any more objections. ‘You might as well, because one day someone else will do just that… a journalist, a scholar, another lawyer, someone with an interest in the Shoemaker. The file might be half empty, but now these papers have come to light, someone cleverer than me will start poring over the holes. If they ever find your informer, they won’t be chary, like you. There won’t even be a warning. Their name will appear on the front page of every newspaper. Capitalised. Why not beat them to it, while Brack’s still alive? Do it your way with decency Lower case.

‘What others do is their affair,’ replied Roza, fidgeting.

‘And what you do is yours,’ he barked, aggression getting the better of him. ‘You know their name already You’re half way there. Speak to them. If Brack thinks you’d never confront them, then speak without confrontation. If you’re scared they’ll end their life, give them another reason for living. Do anything, Roza, only do something beyond his imagination. Use Brack against himself. Make up with his informer. Become friends once more.

Bewildered by the challenge, Roza wavered; she felt her knees slacken. Sebastian was walking to the kerb, one arm waving in the air. A taxi swung out of the stream. She found herself seated by an open window with Sebastian stooped on the pavement, his face pale with cold, his lips blue.

‘Find your way back here, Roza,’ he urged without a trace of parting in his voice. ‘Don’t leave us with his story.’

As the taxi pulled away Roza muttered, ‘Powazki.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘The cemetery.’

The driver nodded and took her to the one place that haunted Roza more than the prison. She hadn’t passed through its gates since the evening of her arrest in 1982.

Roza faltered down a darkening lane.

On either side carved figures with bent heads grieved eternally A few candles flickered behind coloured glass. Vases with flowers stood propped by inscriptions. Roza’s hand slipped into her pocket and reached for the ball of crumpled blue paper… but then she remembered: she’d got rid of it, just like the guards got rid of Pavel’s body.

Her husband had no grave. Roza didn’t know what had happened to his corpse. Rumour had it that some of those who’d been shot in Mokotow were thrown into the back of a truck and taken to building sites or the main rubbish dump in Sluzewiec; others were tipped into empty cement sacks and buried without markers in an open field. In her waking dreams, Roza had stormed into a Ministerial office or she’d knocked timidly at the door of some underling. She’d screamed and begged and whimpered and pleaded. Where is he? Where have you put him? All to the air; no one listening, save her conscience.

Roza turned right.

Another man had been shot, too. Roza didn’t even know his name. She’d just seen him being dragged along the floor of the cellar, his two bare feet, angled in, broken or limp. Who was he? Who mourned him? What had happened to his body? Did he lie with Pavel in the foundations of an office block?

Awful questions. Questions that trailed you with a low whine.

Roza turned left.

Time was not a healer. Year after year Roza’s attention would fasten on to the back of someone’s head — the curls at the nape of the neck — and she’d wonder, insanely if it might be Pavel, expecting some magic to have occurred, even though she’d seen his broken face and heard the kick of the gun. Then, as if waking, she’d grasp that he was dead, and off she’d go to that imagined door in the Ministry, full of hell or timidity. It was an endless cycle, rolling across the sand.

Don’t leave us with his story.

Sebastian had brought the law close to Roza and she hadn’t seen it coming. Yes, he’d said he was a lawyer, and he’d pleaded with her about forgotten crimes, but to have him in her flat, to deflect his questions and divert his hopes, had gradually made the law come to life. It was there, dressed in a blue linen jacket with silver buttons. He’d made her feel afresh the pain of justice denied. Year on year Roza had read of men convicted of monstrous crimes against women and children. She’d seen photographs of judges and barristers in their robes, knowing that they would never sit to consider the case against Otto Brack. And now here was a lawyer who wanted to put Brack in a courtroom.

Don’t leave us with his story.

Roza turned right again and came, finally, to a large granite monument. It was the grave of Boleslaw Prus, the writer. This was where she’d been arrested. The light was fading, so she couldn’t quite make out the girl, carved in relief, reaching up to the inscription. But she knew the figure well enough: the thin legs, the pretty dress and the smart shoes. She’d always loved the little buckles by the ankles. Though she was the grey of stone, Roza had seen different colours, materials and textures, changing them every time she came.

You owe it to the children you might have had.

What a devastating phrase.

Speak to the informer.

How could she?

You might as well, because one day someone else will do just that

… someone cleverer than me.

Sebastian’s throwaway remark had nearly knocked Roza off her feet. He was right. The informer’s days of quiet obscurity were coming to an end. It was only a matter of time. Others would come to pore over the archives. And that changed everything for Roza. Why wait until the informer was shattered by exposure? She could get there beforehand and

…

Give them another reason for living.

Roza clung to herself, feeling cold and lonely All around stray lights flickered like scared moths trapped in a jar. A breeze unsettled the trees. Throughout, Sebastian’s voice repeated that final beguiling command. After a while Roza ceased to follow the words. She held her breath. She was staring at a troubled ghost. He was there, clothed in shadows before her eyes, offering to help while pleading his innocence.

Roza could barely sleep. An overwhelming sense of urgency came crashing into the night hours, sweeping aside the decades of submission, the patient acceptance of defeat. With each passing minute her imagination grew bolder, her resolve all the more firm. By the time dawn light filtered through the worn bedroom curtains she’d devised a simple plan to bring Otto Brack to court. Ironically, it involved handing over all the names she’d refused to disclose when in Mokotow But that time had come. They were all safe, now The epoch of fear and secrets was almost over.