Alan Furst - The Polish Officer

It was near twilight when he reached the clinic. The wicker wheelchairs stood empty on the overgrown lawns, the white pebble paths were unraked; it was all slowly going back to nature.

He walked up a long path lined with Lombardy poplars, was not challenged as he entered the hundred-year-old gabled house, formerly the heart of a grand estate. There were no bearded doctors, no brisk nurses, no local girls in white aprons to bring tea and cake, and there seemed to be fewer patients about than he remembered. But, on some level, the clinic still functioned. He saw a few old village women making soup in the kitchen, the steam radiators were cold but a fire had been built in the main parlor and several patients, wrapped in mufflers and overcoats, were staring into it and talking quietly among themselves.

His wife was sitting a little apart from the group, hands held between her knees-something she did when she was cold-face hidden by long, sand-colored hair. When he touched her shoulder she looked startled, then recognized him and smiled for a moment. She had sharp features and generous, liquid eyes, the face of a person who could not hurt anything. Strange, he thought, how she doesn’t seem to age.

“Helena,” he said.

She searched for something, then looked down, hiding her eyes.

“Let’s sit over here,” he said. Often it was best just to go forward. He took her hand and led her to a sofa where they could be private. “Are you all right?” he asked.

A little shrug, a wry smile.

“Have you seen soldiers? Russian soldiers?”

That bore thinking about-she simply did not hear things the way others did, perhaps she heard much more, echos and echos of meaning until no question could have an answer. “Yes,” she said, hesitantly.

“Was anyone. . hurt?”

“No.”

She was thinner, her eyes seemed bruised, but they always did. She disliked the Veronal they gave her to calm down and sleep, and so hid it somewhere and paced away the nights.

“Enough to eat?”

She nodded yes.

“So then?” he said, pretending to be gruff.

This never failed to please her. “So then?” she said, imitating him.

He reached for her, resting his hand lightly on the soft hair that fell to her shoulder, it was something she allowed. “Helena,” he said.

Her eyes wandered. What did he want?

“The Russians,” he continued, “are here now, perhaps you know. I-”

“Please,” she said, eyes pleading. She would not stand for exegesis, could not bear it.

He sighed and took her hands. She took them back-gently, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, she simply wanted the hands-folded them in her lap and gave him a puzzled look. Usually he was so courteous.

“I have been thinking that I ought to take you away from here,” he said.

She considered it-he could see a certain shadow touch her face as she reasoned. Then she shook her head no. The way she did it was not vague, or crazy, but sharp, completely in control. She’d thought through everything: soldiers, what they did, how bad it was, that she was not vulnerable to whatever he feared might happen to her.

He dropped his hands into his lap. He felt completely helpless. He considered taking her away by force, but he knew it wouldn’t work.

“To go where?” she asked, not unkindly.

He shook his head, defeated.

“Will you walk me to the lake house?” she asked. She could be soft and shy to a point where he came near tears-the ache in the back of the throat. He stood and offered her his arm.

What she called “the lake house” had once been a pavilion, where guests were served cream cakes, and tea from a silver urn, and the doctors could speak frankly in peaceful surroundings. Now it was dark and abandoned and some bird out in the reed marsh beyond the lake repeated a low, evening call.

She stood facing him, almost touching, reluctant to speak at first, and, even for her, very troubled. “I want you to make love to me as you used to,” she said. One last time- her unspoken words were clear as a musical note.

Looking around, he found a cane deckchair, gray with years of weather. He sat down, then invited her to sit on his lap with a flourish, as though it were a masterpiece of a bed, all silk and wool, in some grand hotel. She liked to play like this, raised her skirt just an inch, settled herself on his legs and laid her head against his shoulder. A little wind blew across the lake, the reeds bent, a few ducks flew over the marsh on the horizon. Idly, he stroked her dry lips with an index finger, she raised her face to it, and he saw that she had closed her eyes.

He took the hem of her sweater in his fingertips and lifted it to her shoulders, then lowered her slip, pulled her coat tight around her for warmth, wet his finger in her mouth and rubbed her breasts for a long time. They were heavier than he remembered but that had always been true of her, even when she was nineteen-her body full and round for a girl with a small face. She sighed, sentimental, yes, this was what she’d meant. Then she hummed softly and where her weight rested on him he could feel the V of her legs widen. When he slid his hand beneath her skirt, she smiled. Covertly, he watched her face, wondered what sort of dream she was having. Her lips moved, drew back slowly, then parted; her breathing became louder, shallow and rhythmic, until her weight suddenly pressed into him.

“Stand up,” he said. He stepped behind her, slid her coat down her arms and spread it on the broad, dry planks of the pavilion floor. She took her skirt off, then stepped out of her underpants. He knelt, embraced her hips, hard, as though something in the sky meant to sweep her away. She smoothed his hair-it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter. Then she settled herself on the coat, and swung her knees to one side, hands clasped beneath her head, a girl in a soap ad. He laughed.

They made love for a while; like strangers, like husband and wife, eventually like lovers. “I want to ask you,” she said quietly, almost to herself, as they lay curled around each other to keep warm. “You didn’t bring flowers, this 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.