“Ten days. Two weeks,” Andrei answered. “As quickly as it arrives from America.”
“Then, Andrei, we have to get one of our people there when it is dropped.”
“Forget it. Roman won’t permit that. Take what he gives us and keep our mouths shut.”
“But we can’t hold the line,” Alex cried. He was about to accuse Andrei of skimming too much off for his fool weapons inventions in the basement but thought better of it. “Dave Zemba told me this morning that he has a plan to obtain zlotys here in the ghetto,” he said with desperation in his voice. “But we must have the other money.”
“One thing is obvious,” Ana Grinspan said. “With Romek gone, we must have a new contact on the Aryan side. As soon as we do we must get in direct contact with our people in London and arrange our own drops.”
Andrei looked up from the toe of his boot, sensing Ana’s thoughts, anticipating her next words. She stood over him. “What about Gabriela Rak?” she asked.
Andrei did not flick an eye. He shrugged. “Why not?” he said. “I’ll ask her.”
He left the meeting knowing what he must do. Andrei had always felt that someday he must lose Gabriela, that his time with her was borrowed time. When the ghetto was formed he knew, too, that it would be only a matter of time before someone brought up her name for underground work. The moment had arrived. He had carefully rehearsed for it so that when her name was mentioned he would show no evidence of concern.
Andrei sat alone in his flat, meditating and gathering himself for the task ahead. He began collecting memories of her from that first moment at the grand ball of the Ulanys. It was so very long ago. He had been sitting right here at this table reading—what was it?—Steinbeck, when Gabriela came through the door and begged for the right to love him. And he remembered all the individual episodes of the warmth and comfort always there when he plunged into depths of despair.
The next day, still showing no outward sign to his friends, he went to the basement of Mila 19 where Jules Schlosberg had completed his first pipe grenade. Andrei, of course, was most anxious to test the weapon somewhere in an open field away from the ghetto. He tied the pipe to his left forearm. It had been designed so that it could be hidden on a man, fitted between the elbow and wrist. He told Ana that he would see Gabriela about setting up her place on Shucha Street as a contact point, then left the ghetto.
At Gabriela’s apartment, the moment he saw her he thought he would falter. She wore that same expression that told of the strain of listening for him, anxiety, relief at the sight of him. The weak smile. The trembling embrace. When she touched him he thought he would die before being able to go through with it.
“Come, dear,” she said, “I have some dinner.”
“Sorry. I can’t stay.”
“You’ll be back later tonight?”
“No.”
“You look so strange, Andrei. What is it?”
“I want to talk to you about something.” He managed to look placid, almost bored. “We’ve had to do a lot of reorganizing. It’s getting more and more difficult for me to get in and out of the ghetto. Today I had to tag onto a labor battalion going out as a road gang. Anyhow, everyone feels I should stay in the ghetto,” he lied. “Besides, it’s getting extremely dangerous for me to see you. It would be only a matter of time until I’m trailed here.”
“Then I’ll come into the ghetto with you, of course,” she said.
“Well, as a matter of fact, that wouldn’t be suitable.”
“You never did make a good liar,” she said. “What’s really on your mind?”
“This is the last time I’ll be seeing you, Gaby. I came to say good-by. It’s not easy—”
“Why? I have a right to know.”
“I don’t want a scene.”
“I assure you there will be no scene.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Ana has been in Warsaw since a week after Pearl Harbor. We’ve had a lot of business together and naturally have been seeing a lot of each other.”
“Go on.”
“I wish you wouldn’t insist.”
“I do insist.”
“Very well. The night that Romek and the Farber sisters were taken to Gestapo House she was at my flat. Ana was pretty tired and upset as you can imagine. Well, one thing led to another ...”
Andrei watched Gabriela’s back stiffen with the hurt from his words and he watched her eyes grow watery. “I don’t have to draw you a diagram. You know that Ana and I were once ... Well, she’s older and better now. All things equal, it is a very good arrangement for both of us.”
He stopped when she abruptly slapped his face. Then he shrugged. “I don’t see why you have to take that attitude. Frankly, let’s admit it. We are getting a little tired of each other. At least I am. Well, that’s life. We should be civilized and shake hands and wish each other luck. After all ...”
“Get out!”
Andrei walked briskly down the street, knowing that her eyes were on his back. He turned the corner out of her sight and stopped and leaned against the building and touched the place where she had slapped him and choked back the tears. Insurmountable grief overcame him, and he sank to a sitting position on the pavement and dropped his head into his arms, which were drawn around his knees.
“Drunk,” several people commented, passing him by.
A pair of Polish Blue policemen hovered over him. “Get to your feet,” one ordered, prodding him with the club.
“Leave me alone,” Andrei mumbled, “just leave me alone.”
They bent down on either side of him, grabbed him under the armpits, and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s see your Kennkarte!”
Andrei grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks and banged their heads together. Both of them reeled about, bloody and half-senseless. Andrei staggered down the street, blinded by his own tears.
Across the street a pair of German soldiers crisscrossed in square movements before the iron gates of the home of a high Nazi. Andrei became aware of the pipe grenade tied to his arm. His right hand fished up the sleeve of his left arm and pulled it free.
He waited until the Germans approached each other and timed his throw to hit at their feet as they crossed. The pipe arched end over end, hit the sidewalk, gave one short clatter. Then a flash and a racket and then screams.
Ana waited in Andrei’s flat. His dazed eyes, his incoherent movement alarmed her.
“Andrei!”
He shook his head hard, spiraling back to reality.
“What happened? What’s wrong? What did she say?”
Andrei lurched for the cabinet holding his hoard of a half bottle of vodka. A stiff drink straightened him up. “What would you expect her to say when I broke in unannounced and found her and her Polish lover rolling around on the bed?”
“Oh, Andrei! I am sorry.”
“Never mind—never mind. I’ve been suspecting it for a long time. No matter. Tomorrow I’ll go out and start setting up other contacts.”
In the days after, Andrei suffered a torment he did not realize existed. Throughout the nights he sulked in agony, trying to find a secret source of strength to keep him from crawling back to Gabriela. He was unable to eat. He became weak. He slept only when drugged exhaustion came over him, and his sleep was in snatches filled with teasing, hurting dreams. Each memory of his Gabriela plunged him to a new depth of torment. He moved about the ghetto with a listlessness that matched the listlessness of life around him. It was as though the will to live had left him for the first time.
A few days before Christmas, Andrei dragged himself up the stairs to his flat.
Gabriela Rak stood behind the table. He had seen her in dreams with haunting reality. But now—a hallucination in the middle of the day! The end was coming. He knew he was losing his mind. The vision refused to disappear. “Gaby?” he said, half frightened.