Mila 18 - Leon Uris

“Chris, you don’t even make a third-rate Fascist. You think those fellows at the Italian Embassy are going to vouch for you? You’re so American you may as well be wearing a sign.”

“It happens that America isn’t at war either. I’m keeping the bureau open.”

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Rosy answered. “I know that within two weeks the Germans will put us out of business.”

“I’ll get around it somehow.”

“Why?” Rosy persisted. “You won’t be able to get any news out but watered-down potato soup.”

“You know damned well why I’m staying!” Chris said angrily.

Rosy set his camera down and walked up behind Chris’s chair and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “It’s not like I don’t want you to stay, Chris. I have a good job. I’d really have to struggle if the bureau closed. But ... when a friend is in trouble, sometimes you don’t think too much about yourself. That’s why I tell you, pack up and leave with the Americans tomorrow.”

“I can’t leave her, Rosy.”

“My Susan has known Deborah Bronski since college days. When two people like you and she come from different ends of the earth there has to be a great ability on both parts to be able to give. She is controlled by inner forces that make it impossible to change, even if she wanted to.”

“It’s not true. Bronski has been cutting away at her beliefs for a decade.”

“Only on the surface. When the final showdown comes she’ll return to them. She doesn’t have the ability to do otherwise, and that is why you are walking down a blind alley.”

“Oh hell—women in Italy and Spain and Mexico and India and half the damned world are driven to a wall of mysticism and superstitions in order to be able to keep existing in a world which fights them every inch of the way. The trouble with you Jews is that you make yourselves believe you have the priority on suffering—”

“But there is a difference, Chris. In all of the world, no matter how sordid the life, no matter how evil and bare and fruitless, almost every man can open his eyes in the morning in a land in which he had his beginning and a heritage. We can’t. And I know what this does to women like Deborah Bronski. I know too many like her.”

“No, you’re wrong, Rosy. If you really know Deborah, then you’d understand that I am unable to ever leave her.”

The bell rang. Rosy answered. It was Andrei. In only a week he had made a remarkable recovery. Much of the pain was still with him and his face showed great weariness, but he pulled himself together for that last battle which had not been fought.

Two days after his return to Warsaw he reported to the commander at the Citadel and was given a spot promotion to the rank of major and placed in charge of a battalion on the southern perimeter. The truce to evacuate the Americans was to take place at his position.

“How is it out there?” Chris asked.

“The same,” Andrei answered. “The bastards won’t attack.”

“Why should they?” Chris said. “They can sit back and blast the city till kingdom come.”

“I want to get one more look at them,” Andrei said.

“We may be looking at them for a long, long time,” Rosy said. “And how are you feeling, Andrei?”

“Never better,” he answered, lifting the glass filled with scotch whisky that Chris had poured. “I’m only in for a few hours. I’ve got to get back. Something has come up that may be of interest to you on that truce tomorrow morning to evacuate the American Embassy personnel.”

They both nodded.

“The Germans contacted us a few hours ago by radio. One of our officers just finished speaking to them personally beyond the lines. The Germans have asked for a trade of prisoners of war at the same time the Americans are evacuated.”

“How many Germans do you have here?”

“A few hundred, more or less. Most of them are ethnics.”

“Seems like a normal procedure,” Chris said.

“No, there’s something fishy about it,” Andrei said. “The Germans are offering us five to one.”

“Why would they do that, I wonder?” Rosy asked.

“I don’t know—but something’s wrong with the whole business.”

“We might as well go down there and cover the truce,” Chris said. “There may be a story, although God knows when we’ll be able to get it out of Poland.”

Chapter Fourteen

THE AMERICAN EMBASSY WAS closed except for a half dozen token personnel. There had been a final tear-filled farewell with Thompson, who was to evacuate during the truce in the morning, and then Gabriela went to Andrei’s flat to wait for him as she had waited for two harrowing nights through shellfire and air raids.

It was just turning dark when he arrived after leaving Chris. They embraced wearily. He slumped into the big armchair while Gabriela poured the last of the vodka. The liquor felt good and warm going down. Gabriela stood behind him and rubbed the knots out of the muscles in his neck.

“I managed to save a large pail of water,” she said. “You will feel better when you have washed.”

He clumped into the bathroom and dunked his head, trying to wash away the exhaustion, then shaved with a cup of heated water.

Gabriela had the food ready. He shoved some stale bread into a bowl of beans.

“I’m sorry there isn’t more to eat,” she said. “When we closed down at the Embassy I came straight here. I didn’t want to risk standing in line and possibly miss you if you came in. I’ll go out and get some things at Tommy’s house later and fix you a good warm meal.”

“It’s fine,” Andrei muttered. “I can only stay a few hours anyhow.”

He chewed the hard bread without speaking. Gabriela became uneasy. “You’d better take a little nap. You look as if you’re ready to cave in.”

“Stop nagging me!”

The air-raid sirens cried out. Gabriela turned quickly from his testiness to draw the curtains and put out half the lights.

“Bastards,” Andrei mumbled. He pushed the bread through the beans. “Bastards.”

In a moment the sky was crackling with the sounds of the motors. Andrei listened for the first whistling screams of the dives and then bombs. He did not have to wait long.

“Mokotow,” Andrei said to himself, “the airdrome. Only there’s no airdrome left. They’re methodical. Every part of Warsaw is like a number on the clock. Mokotow, then Rakowiec, then Ochota, then Wola. Why not? We know where they’re coming, but we can’t shoot back. Why not? I’ve seen those sons of bitches face to face. I’ll see them again before this siege is over. They won’t break us with air raids—they’re going to have to make an attack, and when they do—”

“Stop it, please.”

Andrei ate and listened. The Germans were passing in from the north, starting their unimpeded diving patterns into the southern fringe of the city from directly over his apartment. As the Stukas and Messerschmitts screamed down on the undefended city, Gabriela became shaken. A miscalculated bombing run dropped a rack just a block away from Leszno Street. Andrei’s flat shook from the blast. “Perhaps we’d better get to the basement,” Gabriela said.

“Do I look like a mole or a gopher? I will not live under the ground.”

“That arrogant Polish Ulany pride will get us killed.”

“Go to the basement then!”

“No!”

“Well, make up your mind.”

It was not a long raid, for there was nothing of military value left to bomb in Warsaw. The Germans had had their sport for the day and departed. Gabriela examined the empty vodka bottle with disappointment. Andrei drew the curtains and watched the dancing flames in the distance. He turned back to her, and she became frightened. He had a strange look on his face that she had never seen before.