They were silent for several moments. Finally she looked directly into his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get you, to tell you about the evac—”
“No, I don’t mean right now,” she interrupted. “I already know that. I’ve been coming here every night hoping to see you, hoping we might… and when you finally show up… it’s to deliver a news bulletin.”
“I’m sorry, but I just got the word and I thought—”
“What are you doing in Poland, Wolf? In this war, what are you doing here?”
He felt his face flush, but there was nothing he could tell her.
She persisted. “Seriously, I’d like to know. You’re an American. Why would you come back here and get involved in all this?”
Adam abruptly stood up. Goddamn it, get out. Get out while you can. He took a step toward the tunnel, then stopped and stood facing the opposite wall. Fighting back the anger that could so quickly rise to the surface, he silently recited the mantra: Focus on the mission. The past is over. You have no past.
“My, there’s an awful lot going on in that head of yours,” Natalia said.
He turned and looked down at her. “I’ve got to go.”
“No, you don’t have to go, Wolf. You have to run. Run away from whatever it is you’re trying to escape from.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” Adam snapped. “You don’t know a thing about me!”
“Oh yes I do, an awful lot more than you think. I can see it in your eyes. You’re hurting. You lost something that was very important.”
“So, now you’re a psychologist? I met a psychologist once, a long time ago, and broke the little prick’s nose.”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere,” she said.
“No we’re not. I said I’ve got to go.”
Natalia shrugged and motioned toward the tunnel. “OK, go on, run off. But let me tell you something, Mr. Wolf, or whatever the hell your real name is, you’re not the only one who’s lost someone. We all have—some more than others. I lost my parents when the Russians invaded. And I lost my brother, Michal. He was a cavalry officer, captured by the Russians and probably murdered in that forest in 1940—the Katyn Forest—where those Bolshevik bastards slaughtered thousands of our officers, then blamed it on the Germans.” She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, turning her head away. “So go ahead and run off.”
Adam stared at her for a long moment knowing that he should leave right now. There was no point in doing anything else. He stood there for what seemed like a lifetime, then finally sat down next to her. The ground shuddered and the support post in the center of the room creaked. He thought about what she’d just said about her brother, and wondered if there was anything that any of them could do now that could possibly make a difference.
“It’s Adam,” he said quietly. “My name is Adam Nowak. And I know about the Katyn Forest and… I’m sorry.”
Seventeen
THE MEMORIES DRIFTED BACK. Adam could feel them pushing their way out of the darkness where he’d left them. He had managed to get through years of brutal warfare and to reconcile the killing, the assassinations, because he’d so successfully buried his past. Adam Nowak had ceased to exist, as much in his own consciousness as in the clandestine world of the dark and silent.
But now, as he sat on the cold, dirt floor of an empty ammunition cellar next to this annoying woman, who had somehow managed to bore into his soul, the memories returned… and he was powerless to stop them. There was something about Natalia that he couldn’t explain, something that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to explain.
He said quietly, “You asked me why I came back to Poland.”
She nodded.
He pressed his fingers to his temples, a part of him still wondering what he was doing here. They hardly knew each other, and yet…
When he spoke again he barely recognized his own voice. It was as if someone else were telling the story. “My father died while I was in the American Army. I never really knew him when I was a boy living in Krakow. He was away, fighting with the Polish Legions in the Great War. My mother died when I was a baby, and I was raised by my uncle and aunt.”
Adam paused, listening to the pulsating throbs of artillery shells. “My father worked hard during our years in America and managed to send me to college. I knew he wasn’t happy when I dropped out of law school and joined the army, but he never said anything, and when he died… I don’t know… everything changed for me. I loved America. I loved being an American soldier, but that was 1936 and there was no future in the army. I served out my three-year enlistment, but something was missing.”
Natalia touched his knee. “You came back to the uncle and aunt who’d raised you when you were a little boy?”
Adam nodded and swallowed hard, thinking of his uncle—the larger-than-life presence who had always seemed to be there when he needed him, the steadfast Polish patriot who helped shape the country’s hard-won freedom yet took time to tutor his young nephew in philosophy, history and literature. “His name was Ludwik Banach,” Adam said. “He was a law professor at Jagiellonian University, and when I returned to Krakow he arranged for me to resume my studies in law school. I lived with them for three years. It was the closest thing I ever had to a family.”
Adam stood up and paced slowly around the cellar room. Shadows danced off the rough stone walls. The constant thump of artillery and cracks of rifle fire echoed through the subterranean chamber.
“What happened to them?” Natalia asked.
“My uncle was arrested by the Nazis in November of ’39 and sent to a prison camp in Germany—a place called Sachsenhausen. They sent hundreds of professors and teachers there. My aunt was arrested the next day. I’m sure they’re both dead by now.”
Adam closed his eyes and thumped his fist against the post, rattling the lantern. He recalled every detail of the moment when the German SS officer told him about his uncle’s arrest: the moment he became consumed with rage, consumed with his quest for revenge. He hadn’t talked about this with anyone—not since Whitehall sent him to see that psychologist before recruiting him, a sniveling little weasel who declared that he was too angry to be of any value. It was apparently just what Whitehall needed to hear.
“I wanted to kill someone,” Adam said, “or have them kill me; it didn’t matter.”
He looked at Natalia. There was an expression on her face that said she understood.
“It’s ironic,” he said. “My uncle was like you. He always feared the Russians more than the Germans. He was an internationally known legal scholar who traveled all over Europe, especially to Germany. And right up until the day the Wehrmacht marched into Krakow, he was convinced that Hitler was bluffing. ‘It’s the Russians we have to fear,’ he always said.”
“I think he got it right,” Natalia said sharply, “despite what happened to him.” She got to her feet and stepped up to him. “The Russians could stop this, Adam. They could have stopped it a month ago. But they’re not going to. They’re going to sit on the other side of the river like vultures and let the Nazis destroy us. Then they’ll destroy the Nazis. The Russians will sweep through Poland, seal off the borders and hunt down every last one of us in the AK. Then they’ll turn everyone that’s left into good little communists.”
Natalia kicked a stone across the room. Adam watched her, fascinated by her passion. She cocked her head and looked at him. “So, how was it that you got away from the Germans when your uncle and aunt were arrested? You were related to them, after all.”