“Yes,” she answered in a voice so crisp as to dispel the illusion.
“What the hell are you doing in the ghetto!” he roared. “How did you get in?”
“You are not the sole custodian of cleverness in the human race.”
“I demand to know—”
“Kindly don’t shout.”
“—how you got in.”
“I work for the Ursuline Sisters, remember? The convent has a church. My good friend Father Kornelli is the priest. Father Kornelli told me that Father Jakub at the Convert’s Church needed more candles for Christmas day, so I volunteered to bring them. Wasn’t that nice of me?”
Suddenly Andrei felt the presence of someone else in the flat. He turned his eyes slowly to the kitchen. Ana stood in the doorway. “Hello, Andrei,” she said.
He looked from Ana to Gabriela to Ana to Gabriela. He turned crimson. Caught red-handed!
“Really, Andrei,” Ana said, “you have become a frightful liar. I should be angry, for you assault my honor.”
“Which do you think is worse, Ana, Andrei’s story about you and him or the story about me rolling around in bed with my Polish lover?”
“Actually, both are corkers. By the way, Andrei, did you ever get around to telling Jules Schlosberg that his grenade works? Fortunately for us, the Gestapo has blamed it on Home Army.”
“All right—all right,” Andrei said, “enough fun. Ana, tell Gaby how Mira and Minna Farber died.”
The mood of foolery burst.
“Go on, tell her, Ana. No? Well, I will. After the Gestapo finished with them they were turned over to the Reinhard Corps barracks for sport. Stutze led the parade. A hundred more of his sportsmen followed. They continued raping them for hours after they were dead. Raping their corpses. Ana sent me to ask you to take their place in Warsaw.”
“That would never happen to me, dear. I carry a vial of poison.”
“I don’t want any of it to happen to you. None of it!”
“You’re shouting again.”
“Ana, for God’s sake—tell her.”
“I’ll tell you, Andrei,” Gabriela said. “I’ll tell you I have watched the only man I have ever loved come to me time after time after time with his heart eaten away because of the indifference of the Polish people. I am ashamed and I am humiliated for the way they have turned their backs on this terrible thing. Now you ask me, too, to be indifferent I am going to carry my share of this. I am going to work with Ana, whether you forbid it or not.”
Andrei turned his back on both of them and stared glumly, blankly, out of the window.
“I guess you don’t need me here,” Ana whispered to Gabriela. Gabriela saw her to the door. They touched cheeks and she left. Gaby drew the bolt on the door and walked to the center of the room. Andrei continued his sulking for a long, long time, berating himself for the rotten break he had given Gabriela by ever meeting her. Finally he turned around.
Gabriela had taken her dress off. It lay on the floor at her feet. She whisked her slip over her head in a delicate motion and let it crumple on top of her dress.
“Why, Andrei, you’re blushing.”
“For God’s sake, this is no time for ...”
She retreated to the bed and lay down and beckoned him with her forefinger. “Come,” she said, “let me show you how I take care of my other lover.”
Andrei Androfski surrendered unconditionally.
It was night. Gabriela came out of her sleep laughing. Andrei sat up, startled. When his heart stopped racing he turned to her. “What’s so damned funny at two o’clock in the morning?”
“I forgot to deliver the candles to Father Jakub!”
And Andrei roared. “Hell! They’re only converts. In a pinch they can de-kosherize some of Rabbi Solomon’s stock.”
They settled into each other’s arms and spoke with that particular endearment known only to those who are very much in love and who feel they have discovered something unique in the universe.
“We have had something, Gaby. More than most people have in a lifetime.”
“There is only one Andrei Androfski. He makes me very sad and he makes me very happy, but I am so glad he is mine. I have more wonderment—more fulfillment—than a hundred ordinary women have in their hundred ordinary lives.”
“No regrets?”
“No regrets. I have been happier with you than a woman has a right to expect.”
“I feel that way about you, Gaby. I wonder why God has been so good to me.”
“Promise me, Andrei, you'll never again try to send me away.”
“I promise—never again.”
“Because I am prepared to take anything. Whatever lies ahead, we go it together, and if the very worst comes, I am happy.”
“Oh, Gabriela ... Gabriela ... Gabriela ...”
“Love ... love ... love ... love ...”
Chapter Two
Journal Entry
GABRIELA RAK HAS GIVEN us all a shot in the arm. Why didn’t we use her earlier? I guess because Andrei tried to shield her. A natural, forgivable impulse. Her first action was to have Father Kornelli organize a dozen young priests about Warsaw who agreed not to register the deaths in their parishes with the authorities. In this way Gabriela (through the priests) can purchase the Kennkarten from the families of the deceased. We estimate in the neighborhood of twenty thousand hidden Jews on the Aryan side. With Aryan Kennkarten they can at least get ration books.
The Ursuline Sisters have always been sympathetic and have taken as many children from us as they possibly can. They have enlisted similar help from the Sisters of the Order of the Lady Immaculate and the Sisters Szarytki of the municipal hospitals in Warsaw.
Gaby has rented flats for three more of our runners (code names: Victoria, Regina, Alina), whose main job is to supply money to hidden Jews.
Andrei tells me her flat on Shucha Street contained a windowless alcove two meters deep. A bookcase was built across it on hinges. Andrei says it is impossible to detect there is a hidden room behind the bookcase.
Zygielboim and Schwartzbart in London radioed us that fifteen thousand dollars had been dropped for us to the Home Army. Tolek Alterman was able to get only $1650. We have put an urgent priority on establishing our own direct contact with England.
Gabriela traveled to Gdynia (where her father was a key engineer in building the port) to see an old friend, Count Rodzinski. He is almost unique, a sympathetic nobleman. His estate includes several kilometers of coast line and he owns several boots. He made a successful trial run to Karlskrona, Sweden. This could be an enormous break for us. From his estate we can smuggle out key people, and from Sweden we can bring in American funds as well as visas and passports. (Our forgeries here are expensive and crude.)
What could we accomplish with a thousand Poles like Gabriela Rak—or a hundred—or two dozen?
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Of the two, Father Kornelli was far more nervous than Gabriela Rak as they sat in the anteroom of the office of Archbishop Klondonski. The room had a bare, cold, dark, musty appearance. The walls were lined with expressionless statues.
Father Kornelli was young and highly excitable, one of a handful of priests moved to action by the happenings in the ghetto. To him it was a simple basic rule that the saving of lives was the carrying out of Christ’s work.
Monsignor Bonifacy opened the door to the archbishop’s office. “His Grace will see you now.”
Archbishop Klondonski studied them from behind his desk. He was a square, squat man with blond hair, blue eyes, and rugged features that revealed his Slavic peasant ancestry. He was deceptively simple in appearance.