He stared at her blindly. “But you say the soldiers are looking for me. For killing somebody...”
“If you didn’t kill him, there’s nothing to worry about. They’ll find the one who did. Colonel Gruber’s not an unfair person, he’s simply doing a job that has to be done.” Her hand went to his arm, urging him toward the door. “Now you have to go. I’ll keep them occupied in the drawing room while you get out.”
“Wait!” He pulled back, his voice bitter. “If you feel the way you do, why not turn me in to them?”
“Because Colonel Gruber might think we’re protesting too much.” Her voice was quite matter-of-fact. “He’s still not convinced of our beliefs. He might think we were using you as a smoke screen. No; it would be better for everyone if you just disappeared.” She studied the shocked look on his face quite impersonally. “Well, you wanted to know... Now you’d better be going.”
He stood numbly while she went to the door and turned the key. Her eyes came up briefly for one last enigmatic look at him. “Goodby, Mietek...” And then she was gone.
“Goodby Mietek...” Today, fifteen years later, the hurt of that last meeting, the confusion of it, the bewilderment of it, had faded, although it had never completely disappeared. What had not faded, but instead had grown in intensity with each return of memory, was his consuming, passionate hatred of Wilhelm Gruber. And why didn’t he hate Jadzia equally? Or did he? Huuygens stirred restlessly in his chair, his jaw clenched tightly.
Where had he been when he had heard the news of his family? In Volócz, actually; he had just crossed the border into Hungary, traveling on false Dutch papers the student committee had managed to arrange. Dutch, he recalled, because he spoke the language, having studied it to further his interest in the Dutch painters, and because Holland was not in the war as yet; and also because the rarity of such a passport in Poland at that time made critical examination less likely. It had proven to be a good selection.
In any event, he had gotten as far as Volócz and was in the small café attached to the ramshackle railroad station, waiting for a train to take him to Budapest, and the radio was blaring martial music...
The coffee was terrible, tasting of chicory and moldy wheat; the curdled milk skimmed the grayish surface in weird and obscene swirls. The cake was stale and looked as if the mice had been at it and had rejected it. Still, one had to eat, and he preferred not to be seen unnecessarily pushing his way through the corridors of the train, or seated across from an unknown companion in the dining car, attempting to make — or avoid — conversation.
He managed as much of the distasteful combination as he could, and came to his feet, reaching into his pocket for some change. Over the babble of voices in the smoke-filled room, he noted that the martial music had stopped, that the announcer was now speaking in Polish.
“This is Radio Warszawa...”
The words were barely distinguishable above the chatter of the diners in the room and the drinkers at the bar; he heard them without conscious volition. He studied the coins in his hand, picked out the exact amount of his bill to conserve his limited funds, placed it on the counter, and was just turning toward the door when the words coming from the small box in one corner made him pause. It was a news broadcast, as most of them were, lately, and he suddenly felt homesick at hearing his native tongue spoken amid the strange jargon about him. At the moment it satisfied his needs even more than the facts from the front. In any event, as he had already bitterly learned, the news these days was so colored either by direct Nazi broadcasts, or by more-than-willing collaborators, as to be almost meaningless.
“...in Radom. In Praga, the destruction of the oil-storage facilities, two miles from the center of this suburb of Warszawa, continues under constant dive-bombing attacks by Stukas. Fortunately, due to the extreme accuracy of the trained pilots, civilian casualties are practically nonexistent... In Warszawa itself, the family of terrorist Mietek Janeczek, the student who murdered a sergeant of the 88th Tank Regiment in cold blood in Kielce last week, has been seized by the authorities and shot on orders of Colonel Wilhelm Gruber, S.S. Oberfuehrer of the Warszawa district, as an example to all other assassins and saboteurs that acts of terrorism will not be tolerated by the government.
“Colonel Gruber made it clear that this announcement is being made as a warning to all subversives, and that he is certain that all right-thinking Poles, aware of the dangers of communism and its ally, International Judaism, will recognize the justice of the act...
“In Poznan, the pacification of the city continues. German troops have opened their field kitchens and hospitals to women and children, and plans are under way to establish temporary housing for innocent victims of the Polish aggression... In Berlin...”
He remained, half-bent to retrieve his suitcase by the door, frozen in shock and disbelief. A waiter, passing, paused to frown at the wide eyes and twisted face, and then shrugged and went on about his business; drunks were becoming more frequent with every passing day, and younger, too. Mietek forced himself to come erect, his suitcase locked in a grip of iron, and stumbled through the doorway.
The brisk, fall breeze blowing across the railroad platform did nothing to revive him. A choking sensation and a dangerous buzzing in his ears made him realize he was near to fainting; he let his suitcase slip from his hand and slumped upon it, bending his head in his hands, locking his fingers in his thick hair. They could not be dead! It was impossible! The man on the radio was lying — it was a trap to bring him back to Warsaw! Dead? His father? Impossible! And even more impossible, his mother and younger sister.
It was all a mistake; he had misunderstood; he had heard the radio incorrectly. Who would possibly want to harm any of them? Riesek Janeczek, gentle scholar, retired from his medical practice to dabble in his laboratory, always sitting as far back as possible in his easy chair, looking at the foibles of the world with a faint smile on his face as he calmly puffed his pipe... Frania Janeczek, nee Lochner, mother, teacher, confidante; always bustling about on one friendly errand or another, always cheerful, so proud of her family, and pretty in a way he had never realized until this moment... Little Marysia — little? Almost fifteen... He groaned and swallowed the bile in his throat, and then raised his head to stare blindly along the deserted tracks.
Return? Even as the thought flared up in him of getting back to Warsaw somehow, some way, to strike down the vicious criminals who had done this monstrous thing, he rejected it coldly and firmly. Those few moments on that railroad platform had transformed him from an adventurous boy into a dedicated man; a man prepared to play the murderous game by the rules established by the enemy. Revenge? There would be revenge! But it would be on his terms, and not those of Colonel Wilhelm Gruber, S.S. Qberfuehrer of Warsaw. And at a time and place of his choosing.
His jaw locked painfully as he thought of his parents and sister. Exactly where had they been killed? In that large, airy apartment he had always loved so much? Immediately after the sharp rap on the door? In the street below, with the neighbors watching in horror, a few minutes later? In a prison, lined up against a wall, blindfolded, handcuffed? Had his father kept his calm smile throughout, taking it as only one more frailty of a world sick with madness? Had any of them begged for a life taken without any justification? Had Marysia cried for all the lost things she would never see, never know, never experience? And when they had fallen, had anyone taken a revolver and walked over, thrusting it down, brutally pressing the trigger? First on one, and then the second, and then the last? He turned swiftly and vomited violently over the edge of the platform and then leaned back, his face ghastly, wiping his lips convulsively, shuddering, trying to erase the gruesome image from his mind.