Douglas Jacobson - The Katyn Order

A waiter appeared. Leopold ordered coffee, and the three of them waited in silence until it was delivered. There were only a couple of other people at the café, several tables away, engrossed in their own conversation.

“Jastremski has disappeared,” Leopold said abruptly. “So has his wife.”

Natalia felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “NKVD?” she whispered.

The caretaker nodded and sipped his coffee.

Natalia slumped back in her chair. It had to be Tarnov. She suddenly felt very warm, and sweat trickled down the back of her neck. If Tarnov had gotten to Jastremski, they were sure to find out about Adam. And they’ll know where he went!

Leopold leaned over the table. “What do you need?”

Natalia drummed her fingers on the table as a dozen thoughts swirled around in her mind. She had to decide exactly what to do, and in what order. She said to Leopold. “It’s best if Rabbit and I aren’t seen together. Do you have somewhere he can stay for a few days?”

Leopold studied Rabbit, sizing him up. “I have quarters at the church. There’s plenty of room. Do you cook?”

Rabbit smiled. “No, but I eat.”

“Can you scrape and paint windows?”

“I can if you feed me.”

Leopold patted the boy’s shoulder. “You paint and I’ll feed you. It won’t be fancy, but you won’t go hungry.” He turned back to Natalia. “Anything else?”

Natalia hesitated for a moment, trying to decide how much to say. The more she told this man, the more jeopardy they’d all be in if he were questioned. But if Adam wasn’t in trouble already, he would be very soon. She was going to need help. Natalia removed General Kovalenko’s letter from the breast pocket of her vest and slid it across the table. It was written in Russian, but she told Leopold what it said.

Leopold slid it back to her, his eyes darting around. Pigeons fluttered about on the cobblestone square among the pedestrians, clopping horses and creaking vendor carts.

“You met a man in the courtyard of the church last week,” Natalia said. “You gave him a message to board the tram to Podgorze.”

Leopold nodded.

“That man is a friend, and he’s on a mission.” She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “I’m concerned that he may have been… detained. I’m not certain, but I may need help.”

“What type of help?” Leopold asked.

“Right now, some advice,” she said, tapping Kovalenko’s letter on the table before slipping it back into her pocket. “What do I do with this letter, just waltz into a police station and tell them to ring up General Kovalenko in Berlin?”

“As crazy as it seems, that may be an option. A letter like that, signed by a general of the Red Army, should get their attention. On the other hand, the NKVD have planted spies among the police. Do you trust this General Kovalenko?”

Natalia couldn’t believe she was even thinking about this. Trust General Kovalenko? Am I mad? “Could we send a message to London—to a certain person at SOE?” From what Adam had said about him, Natalia wasn’t sure she trusted Whitehall either. But she didn’t have any other options, and at least he wasn’t Russian.

Leopold appeared thoughtful. “Yes, we could,” he said after a moment. “The location of the wireless was compromised recently. It’s been moved, and it will take a day for me to arrange it.”

In the background a trumpet sounded from high in the Gothic tower of the Mariacki Church.

“Three o’clock,” Leopold said. “Rabbit and I should go now. If you want to send a message, meet me here tomorrow at this same time.”

ON TUESDAY the weather was clear. Piotr hitched up the horses to the wagon, and he and Adam left the small cluster of cabins just as the sun crept slowly above the tall mountain peaks. Thin yellow rays filtered through dense conifers. Nuthatches and chickadees flitted about, and an occasional rodent scurried in the underbrush as the horses clopped along the muddy pathway, the wagon creaking along behind. It was a quiet morning, gradually warming as time passed and the sun cleared the treetops.

They had ridden in silence for awhile when Adam said, “You’re a lucky man, Piotr. Krystyna is a beautiful woman.”

Piotr smiled. “That I am. I don’t deserve her.”

“Was she in the AK before you married?”

Piotr gave the reins a gentle flick as the horses plodded up an incline. He kept his eyes on the path and nodded. “Her father, Borys, was Casimir’s second-in-command. He and Krystyna made regular trips over the mountains into Slovakia back in ’39 and ’40, guiding our soldiers on their way to France. Since then we’ve kept the routes open for supplies, weapons, couriers, that sort of thing.”

“Is Krystyna’s father still—?”

Piotr shook his head.

“What happened?”

“Russians got him, last October. Borys and three others from Prochowa were on their way back from Slovakia. Krystyna wasn’t with him, thank the Lord. We were married two months earlier and we were living down here. Borys’ group encountered a Russian patrol near the border trying to find their way to Zakopane. They were hunting down some Germans in the area when they got lost.”

Adam looked away. He knew from the pain in Krystyna’s eyes the night before what was coming next.

“One of the men from Borys’ group was wounded, but he escaped and managed to walk back to Prochowa and tell the story. Borys knew the risk, but there wasn’t much he could do once they happened to cross paths with the Russians. They were now our allies, of course.” Piotr spit into the path. “As soon as they got what they needed, the fuckin’ Russians just turned on them and started shooting.”

Adam thought about Natalia and the story of her village being burned to the ground by the Russians. Her family had disappeared, and her brother had been shot in the back of the head and buried in a ditch in the Katyn Forest. He’d been away from her for three days and it was killing him.

They stopped for lunch in a clearing alongside a stream, and ate heartily—cold chicken with black bread and cider. Piotr asked him again about America, obviously a subject of great interest. It reminded Adam of the night he and Natalia had huddled in the ammunition cellar in Warsaw and he told her about baseball.

“Do you miss it?” Piotr asked.

Did he miss it? It had been so long, and so much had happened that Adam could scarcely remember. In the years since he’d left, the years during which he’d shared the agony of war with the proud and stubborn people of his birth country, his previous life in America had faded to vague recollections. But there was one thing he remembered with complete clarity, one thing he knew he would never forget. “I miss freedom,” he said.

Piotr nodded and looked off into the mountains.

The air was crisp, the blue sky crystal clear as Adam watched a hawk gliding in a lazy circle high above the beech and aspen trees. The forest was still thick at this altitude, and he imagined a lynx, or a red deer, or a wild boar keeping a close eye on them from inside the tree line. He remembered Natalia saying she wished they could escape into the mountains. It sounded wonderful… if it could ever happen.

Half an hour later they climbed back on the wagon and continued on, climbing higher and higher up the mountain, the path twisting and turning through thinning forests. Eventually the terrain flattened into a plateau, and the path widened into a rutted road, passing through broad grassland meadows populated with long-wooled Podhale sheep. Cabins appeared, nestled between small, neat fields of oats, potatoes and cabbage. A farmer, trudging behind an ox and plow, raised his hand to wave as they passed by.