Alan Furst: The Polish Officer

He turned off the ignition. The sky was fading above the hills, night was an hour away. It was colder now, much colder. They lay down on the seat and held each other beneath the worn blanket. “I am so cold,” she said. The wind that night made it even colder, but the fog blew away, and a vast white moon rose above the hillside. A field of reeds sparkled with frost, and they saw a wolf, a gray shadow trotting along the river. It stopped and looked at them, then went on, pads silent on the ice. At last the world has frozen, he thought. A winter that would never end.

They tried in every way not to go to sleep, but they were very tired, and there was nothing more they could do. She fell asleep first, then him.

The truck stood silent on the ice. A few flakes of snow drifted down, then more. The cloud began to gather and the moon faded away until there was hardly any light at all. The snow fell heavier now, hissed down, a white blanket on the river, and the hills, and the truck.

He woke up suddenly. The window of the truck was opaque, and it was not so cold as it had been. He touched her, but she did not move. Then he held his hand against her face, and she stirred, actually managed a smile, putting her hand on top of his.

“We’re going,” he said.

She opened one eye.

He didn’t move his hand. “Shura, look at the window,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t drive on ice. But you can drive on snow.”

They drove through the war that night, but it didn’t want them just then.

They saw panzer tanks and armored cars positioned on a bridge. An SS officer, a dark silhouette leaning on the railing, watched the truck as it passed beneath him, but nothing happened. A few miles north of there a village had been burned down, smoke still rising from the charred beams. And twice they heard gunfire, machine gun answering machine gun, tracer rounds in the darkness like sparks blown across the sky.

Sometimes the snow fell in squalls; swirling, windblown. Then it cleared, the clouds rolling east, the frozen river shimmering in the moonlight. De Milja drove with both hands gripping the wheel, coaxing the truck along the ice, riding the snow that gave them traction. Shura pointed out a small road that led up a hill from the river; perhaps an abandoned ferry crossing. De Milja stopped the truck and climbed the hill. He found a well-used dirt road and an ancient milestone that pointed the way to Biala.

It took a long time to get the truck off the river. De Milja and Shura knelt by the tires and studied the surface like engineers, finally building a track of branches to the edge of the shore. It worked. Engine whining, wheels spinning, the truck lurched, swayed sideways, then climbed.

Once on the upper road, de Milja let the engine idle while he got his breath back. “Where are we?” Shura asked.

“Not far from Biala. A few hours, if nothing goes wrong.” He eased the clutch into first gear, moved off slowly on the rutted road.

Midnight passed, then 1:00 A.M. They drove through snow-covered forest, boughs heavy and white bent almost to the ground. Shura fell into an exhausted sleep, then woke suddenly as they bounced over a rock. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”

“I’m all right,” de Milja said.

“I should have helped to keep you awake. I can sing something, if you like.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I can discuss-oh, well certainly music. Chopin. Or Rachmaninoff.”

The engine steamed as the truck climbed a long hill. At the crest, de Milja braked gently to a stop. They were on a wooded height above Biala. Directly below, a poor neighborhood at the edge of town. Crooked one-story houses, crooked dirt streets, white with frost. Wisps of wood smoke hung above the chimneys in the still air. De Milja drove the truck to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. “Now we wait for dawn, for the end of the curfew. Then we can go into the open-air market with the produce trucks from the countryside. Once we get there we can make contact with the local ZWZ unit-our luck, it’s a good one. Very good. They’ll move us the rest of the way, into Warsaw. In a freight train, maybe. Or hidden in a vegetable wagon.”

They sat and stared out the window. It seemed very quiet with the engine off.

“Perhaps it would be best if I stayed here,” Shura said.

“You know somebody here?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t last long.”

“No, probably not. But at least. .”

“You’d have it over with?” De Milja shook his head angrily. “No, no. That isn’t right. We’ll hide you,” he said. “Not in the ghetto-somewhere in Warsaw, one of the working-class neighborhoods. With friends of ours. It won’t be easy, but if you’re able to stay in the apartment, if you avoid people, in other words if you can live in hiding, you’ll survive. You’ll need some luck, but you’ll see the end of the war.”

“And you?”

“Me?” De Milja shrugged. “I have to keep fighting,” he said. “The Germans, the Russians. Perhaps both. Perhaps for years and years. But I might live through it, you never know. Somebody always seems to survive, no matter what happens. Perhaps it will be me.”

He was silent for a time, staring at the sleeping town. “There was a moment, about a year ago. Someone I knew in Paris, ‘Let’s just go to Switzerland,’ she said. I could have, maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I missed my chance, but I don’t really know why. I had a friend, a Russian, he had theories about these things-a world of bad people and good people, a war that never seems to end, you have to take sides. I don’t know, maybe that’s the way it is.”

He paused, then smiled to himself. “Honestly, Shura, right now I will be happy when the sun comes up. The marketplace will be full of people-there’ll be a fire in a barrel, a way to get a hot cup of coffee. It’s possible!” he laughed.

“Hot coffee,” Shura said.

“And some bread. Why not?”

They sat close together in the truck, trying to stay warm. He held her tightly, she pressed against his side. In time the darkness faded and the first sunlight hit the rooftops, a flock of pigeons flew up in the air, a dog barked, another answered.