Александр Абрамов - The Time Scale

He went downstairs into the cellar and his metal-shod boots gave a familiar clang on the steps. But, the name! It made me jump in my seat. Could that be a coincidence, too?

‘Elzbeta!’ I cried. ‘You must know that I don’t have any letters, it was me at Ziga’s. And he gave me a medal: “He lived for the fatherland and died for honour”!’

Janek’s hold slackened immediately. Elzbeta – could I be mistaken after all – came slowly round from behind the bar. ‘Let him go, Janek.’

Janek let go of my hands without protest. ‘The gentleman knows how to drive?’ I nodded affirmatively, not understanding why she was asking me.

‘Give me the keys of the car, Janek.’ Just as obediently he held out the keys to her. ‘Delay Woyekh in the cellar and don’t come out till I call.’ Elzbeta spoke with inexplicable authority, accepting as her due the military obedience of Janek. She didn’t look at me, just went out into the street, opened the door of the car with one key, thrust the other into the ignition and motioned me silently into the driving seat. ‘Keep your foot to the floorboards till you get to the bridge,’ she warned. ‘They’ll try to catch you up but you’ve got ten minutes’ start. Get across the bridge before them, turn off somewhere and abandon the car. Get back on foot or by bus. Woyekh has a yellow Plymouth like this one, but the motor’s trashy and I don’t know if he’s got enough petrol. And don’t thank me – you haven’t time.’

I nodded silently, turned on the ignition, moved into first gear and moved off as gently as possible. I was very much afraid that I would have forgotten how to drive, I hadn’t had any practice for a long time, but the Plymouth moved easily and obediently. I regained my courage completely and, putting my foot right down on the accelerator, I caught up with an ambulance roaring ahead of me, and tailed it. When I saw the yellow Plymouth behind me I decided to overtake the ambulance. Then at least they wouldn’t dare shoot.

Why had Janek led me to that bar? What had they wanted? How was it that Woyekh bore such a resemblance to the dead gunman? Why had Elzbeta, at first so totally indifferent to me, come to my aid so determinedly? What had roused her, the mention of Ziga, the medal, the motto? I couldn’t find any rational answer to these questions.

There wasn’t time in any case. The yellow Plymouth flashed behind me after all, or perhaps I had only imagined it. We were already approaching the bridge and, overtaking the ambulance, I flew on to this almost luminous structure, flickering with lights. Police on point duty in hooded raincoats flashed past. The rain saved me. Without it I could hardly have crossed here at such a speed. I turned down the first side street I saw. At the next less brightly lit corner I turned again, and repeated this manoeuvre again and again, avoiding the wide busy street, and then braked. The crossroads seemed familiar. I opened the door of the car and ran to the awning under the lamp where an hour before I had stood with Leszczycki. I pressed up against the wall where it was drier and jumped – Leszczycki was standing next to me as before, watching the raindrops separating in the light. It was as if he had just risen up out of the night, the rain and the fading light of the streetlamp. And some confused, involuntary movement of thought made me glance at my watch. Just as I thought: five to ten. Something absurd was happening to me, events and people were coming and going and time itself seemed to be doubling up like the rain in the light. In one orbit I was whirled in a turmoil of riddles and surprises, drawn into events, strokes of luck and frightening experiences, and in the other I stood prosaically under the awning waiting for a taxi.

The flight of time always began with Leszczycki’s doleful phrase: ‘It’s still raining and there’re no taxis’.

Now he was beginning it again and I couldn’t stop him: I was no longer in control of myself, time controlled me as it did my watch, persistently returning it and me to one and the same moment. Only this time I didn’t see the taxi. What if I were to go on foot? ‘You’re not made of sugar, you won’t melt,’ they used to tell me when I was a child. And I set off determinedly in the pouring rain, without even saying goodbye to Leszczycki. Time was in control of me and it would have been unnecessary.

I walked for half a block and stopped: two figures in raincoats with bulging pockets were coming towards me. ‘It’s beginning,’ I sighed, and was reminded of comic strips with their changeless repetition of stock characters. One of them wore a fedora pulled down over his eyes, and I recognized at once the twisted mouth and the scar on his cheek; the other stood farther off in the darkness which was full of the sound of rain.

‘Got a light?’ Woyekh asked, either not recognizing me, or pretending not to do so. I could play that game, too. I took a lighter from my pocket and a crumpled packet of cigarettes.

While he lit his cigarette, he flicked the lighter, each time lighting up my face, and a voice out of the darkness asked:

‘You don’t happen to be a Pole?’

‘I do as it happens, so what?’ I said in reply.

‘You don’t by any chance know a place near here where compatriots can get together?’

‘Of course I do,’ I said delaying things – I still didn’t Understand their game. ‘There’s Marian Zuber’s – coffee, tea and home-made cakes.’

I heard a restrained laugh, and Woyekh slapped me on the back.

‘You’re late, Mister Contact Man. We’ve been waiting for you a long time,’ and he drew me towards something that had up till then been hidden by the rainy darkness and now turned out to be the yellow Plymouth.

Getting behind the wheel, Woyekh’s companion smiled at me, showing a row of broken teeth – Janek! He, too, didn’t recognize me. I decided to pursue the battering-ram technique. ‘Haven’t we met before, fellows? Your dials are familiar.’

‘A marked man is a bloodhound’s joy.’

Woyekh agreed. ‘Maybe we have met, who remembers?’ and he added, ‘What does Copecki want?’

‘As if you didn’t know,’ I grinned as carelessly as I could. ‘The letters, of course.’

‘We want them, too,’ laughed Woyekh. Turning round, he even winked at me. Could he really not have recognized me? ‘You mean Dziewocki has the letters?’ he continued. ‘I thought so. So we grab Dziewocki and present him to Copecki. Right?’

‘Right,’ I agreed, not very confidently.

‘You ready to go shares?’ Woyekh asked suddenly. I hesitated.

‘He has to think it over! You know how much the letters will fetch? A million? So why drag Dziewocki anywhere? We’ll get those letters out of him somehow by ourselves. And the million’s ours. Say the word and it’s a deal.’

‘It’s a lot of money,’ I said doubtfully.

‘Crap!’ he drawled scornfully. ‘You’ve got all the fathers of emigration there in one dust heap. The late Leszczycki knew things about them that puts angel’s wings on us by comparison. And it’s curtains for Copecki and the Krihlaks and the rest.’

Janek finally stopped the car. On the cafй window was the familiar sign: ‘coffee, tea, home-made cakes’. But instead of Marian Zuber was written Adam Dziewocki. The bar wasn’t locked, but it had closed down. The chairs and tables were piled up on one another. A young Italian with black sideburns was sweeping up the wet sawdust from the floor.

‘Where’s Adam?’ growled Woyekh, and he spat his chewing gum into the barman’s face. ‘You’re crazy!’ shouted the other, wiping his face. ‘Don’t beat about the bush, where’s Dziewocki?’

‘You mean the last owner?’ the Italian said, guessing.