Douglas Jacobson - The Katyn Order

She raised her eyebrows, but slid out of the pew after him. “Well, alright then, Mr. Wolf. I enjoyed our little chat.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude… it’s just that…” Adam backed up against the wall as an emaciated, middle-aged man and a hollow-faced, young boy squeezed past them in the narrow aisle. The man hobbled on a homemade crutch. He was missing his right leg. The blood-soaked trouser was pinned at the knee.

The woman waited until the man and boy moved farther up the aisle, then said, “Yes, I understand. You have to be somewhere. I do as well.”

“We shouldn’t leave together.”

“No, of course not, you go first.”

Adam started for the door but felt a hand touch his shoulder. He turned back to the woman.

“Natalia,” she whispered. “My name is Natalia. Maybe someday you’ll tell me yours.”

THE SUN WAS COMING UP as Natalia cautiously made her way from St. Jacek’s Church to the women commandos’ quarters on Trebacka Street. The streets of Old Town and the AK-controlled section of the City Center were feverish with activity as commandos lugging PIATs and mortars trotted through the rubble, heading for the barricades to relieve their weary comrades who had stood guard during the night. Gunfire cracked from rooftops, and artillery shells streaked overhead, exploding an instant later in the random destruction of houses and shops. Civilians burrowed deeper into their cellars as survival in Warsaw became a game of chance, with longer odds every day.

Near Trebacka Street, Natalia felt twinges of bitterness and anger as she passed the shattered remnants of the monument of Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s greatest poet. He was her father’s favorite, and she would never forget the winter evenings in front of the fire when her father would read Mickiewicz’s poems aloud, especially “Konrad Wallenrod,” with its thinly veiled depiction of the hatred between Russians and Poles. The monument had been destroyed by the Germans two years ago in their never-ending quest to stamp out Polish culture. Natalia’s stomach tightened. Between the Russians and Germans, it was hard to decide who she hated more.

She quickened her pace as she turned onto Trebacka and glanced up at the second story window on the corner of the block-long building that housed their apartment. A young girl, perhaps five or six years old, sat in front of the window, combing her doll’s hair. Natalia had seen her before, sitting in that same spot with her doll. As she’d done on the other occasions, the girl waved. Natalia waved back, wondering what would become of her.

The apartment building was a magnificent structure with meticulously carved stone pillars framing the entryways of the now vacant ground floor merchant shops. The first-floor windows were set deep in elaborate stone alcoves, and above the windows, wrought-iron railings projected gracefully from second-floor balconies. With the city falling down around her, Natalia thought it was a miracle the building was still intact.

She felt a bit guilty for not returning last night. But Ula and Zeeka were watching over Berta, and for the first time in three weeks she had actually slept soundly for several hours without nightmares. Who would’ve guessed that on a night when everything was falling apart—her best friend wounded, Falcon in a brutal drunken haze—that she’d actually be able to fall asleep… in a church?

She touched the side of her face. It was still tender, but her headache was gone, and she managed a smile when she remembered how she’d laughed when Wolf said he’d have to kill her if he told her any more. It was the first time in months she’d laughed at anything—and he was probably serious. And yet, he had acted as nervous as a schoolboy, tripping over his words as he was about to leave that morning. He was indeed a special case, she thought, reclusive and clearly dangerous. But there was something else, something under that hard exterior that intrigued her. In those few hours she thought there had been a connection between them… perhaps just a bit.

She entered the building through the arched doorway next to the vacant tailor shop and climbed the wooden stairs to the first floor. As soon as she stepped through the door of the apartment Natalia knew something had happened. The cots had been removed from the parlor and the bare, wooden-floored room echoed with emptiness. She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out her pistol and stepped slowly across the parlor, peeking into the kitchen. Glasses and plates filled the sink, and crumbs littered the table. She backed away and moved over to the stairway leading to the second-floor bedroom. At the base of the staircase she leaned against the wall, and pointed the pistol up the stairs. “Ula? Zeeka?”

Zeeka shouted back, “Up here, come quickly!”

Natalia took the stairs two at a time and rushed into the bedroom. Zeeka and Ula knelt on the floor next to Berta, who lay on a stretcher. “Good God, what’s—”

Zeeka stood up and wiped a film of perspiration from her forehead with her shirtsleeve. She was normally calm and unflappable, a longtime AK operative who had conducted sabotage against the enemy all over Poland. But this morning there was a decided edge in her voice: “Berta’s fine. But the Germans have breached the barricade on the north side of Pilsudski Square. We’ve got to get out of here and make our way to Old Town.”

Natalia looked around the tiny bedroom. The plaster walls were painted a light yellow, and frilly pink curtains framed the single window, reminding her of curtains she’d had in her own bedroom as a child. She remembered the first time she’d entered this room, almost a month ago. She’d wondered then if the tailor and his wife had shared it with a young daughter.

“The medic was here just a few minutes ago,” Zeeka said. “Rabbit and Bobcat brought him over. He’d found some morphine, which should keep her quiet while we move her.”

Natalia glanced at Rabbit, who leaned against the wall. Another boy stood next to him. He was about the same age as Rabbit but taller, with unruly black hair and a pockmarked face. She recognized him as Rabbit’s friend, the one they called Bobcat.

“Move her where?” Natalia asked.

“The medic said there’s a vacant schoolhouse on Podwale that’s being used as a hospital,” Zeeka said. Then she cocked her head. “What the hell happened to you?”

Natalia touched her face. “Ah… just a bump. They were a little wild at the pub last night.” She flinched as the building shook from a nearby mortar blast. Podwale wasn’t far—a little more than half the distance she’d just walked from St. Jacek’s Church—but it was daylight now and the snipers were out.

“Can we get there?” she asked Rabbit.

The boy nodded. “No problem.”

Slowed down by the stretcher, Natalia knew they’d have to stay off the streets or they’d be easy targets for the snipers and dive-bombing Stukas. The civilians still living in the area had taken to their cellars, many of which were interconnected with passageways hacked through the walls. Rabbit, who instinctively seemed to know how to get around the city with stealth, directed the stretcher-bearing group down three flights of stairs to the earthen-floor cellar of their building. Then, guiding the way with a flashlight, he led the way through a twenty-meter-long, two-meter-high passageway of slimy cobblestone that Bobcat said was an abandoned sewer main. The passageway led them into a foul, dimly lit labyrinth of cellars beneath the residential apartment buildings of the City Center.

It was slow going. The cellars were crowded with grim-faced, terrified people. The sick and wounded lay on cots, mattresses or the bare dirt floors. Ragged women hunched against rough, stone walls, clutching dirty, silent children on their laps. Others breast-fed whimpering babies or stirred pots of soup, while elderly men distracted the older children with stories and card games.