Lukas had had no such welcome for some time, one reserved for close friends or family, and he was overwhelmed by it and gratified. Lozorius was a demigod, the man who had moved a printing press across Kaunas while the rest of them were quivering in fear of deportation.
Lukas looked at the doorman, who watched them warily. Lozorius followed his gaze.
“Forget about the old man. He can’t do you any harm. Nobody knows who you are in this town, and nobody cares. You’re free here. Get used to it. Besides, none of them understands Lithuanian.”
Lozorius was not a big man, but he had the energy of a host at a country wedding, all good humour, and this exuberance made him seem larger than he was. His ears still stuck out from his head and the hair was receding at the part, making his skull seem very large. Lukas thought of a gambler on a winning streak; cockiness and well-being came off him like a glow, brightening Lukas in its light.
Lozorius had not aged much since Lukas had last seen him on the streets of Kaunas in 1944, but he looked fuller, more substantial, and certainly well fed. His skin had a healthy sheen to it even by comparison with the Poles, who looked better than the Lithuanians.
“I’m glad to find you alive. You’ve become some kind of legend,” said Lukas.
“Legend? For what?”
“You’re famous, our man in the West, but everybody thought you were dead because no news of you has come in for some time.”
Lozorius laughed. “They can’t kill me. I sent letters in, but the lines must have broken down somewhere. Did you bring things out for me too?”
“Yes, I have them in my bag, checked at the train station.”
“We’ll get them later. Let’s find you a room and something to eat and then we’ll have time to talk.”
In a whirl of activity, often assisted by distracted nuns who seemed to want to indulge him, Lozorius found Lukas a room in the hospital on the third floor, where Lukas could see the people coming in and out of the front door. It was a simple nun’s room, with a narrow cot and a table with two chairs, but it was warm and dry, the best room Lukas had stayed in for weeks.
After he had eaten and rested, Lukas walked up to the station with Lozorius, who seemed to have a torrent of words locked up in him that he could let flow at an astonishing rate. Lozorius described the history of the town, once Poland’s only window on the Baltic, the number of patients in the hospital and the incidence of tuberculosis, life in Poland and in Sweden, and half a dozen other subjects. Lukas was bemused by the man’s words, but relieved as well because he didn’t want to talk until they were in some private place.
When they were finally back in Lukas’s room, Lozorius put a half bottle of vodka on the table as well as some sausage and bread.
“Now I need you to tell me a few things about the West,” said Lukas. “That’s what I was sent out here for. First, when can we hope for the war to start?”
“What war?”
“The war between the Americans and the Soviets.”
Lozorius cut off two pieces of sausage, offered one to Lukas on the point of a knife and took the second piece himself. “There isn’t going to be any war, or if there is, it won’t be any time soon. Everybody out here has their own problems.”
“How is this possible?”
“The West is sleeping. It’s like some kind of madhouse, where everyone is going about his own business on the second floor while a fire is burning on the first floor. But you can’t reason with them. They think we’re the crazy ones. They think that nothing is going to happen. If you push them, they concede that it might, and if the Reds attacked, they would take all of Europe to the Pyrenees. But they won’t prepare for it, as if ignoring the problem will keep it from getting worse.”
Lozorius cut another piece of sausage, but Lukas turned it down. “The West has the atomic bomb.”
“And what do you think they’ll do with it? Blow up Moscow?”
“Why not?”
Lozorius laughed in the most frightening way possible. It made Lukas realize he was being ridiculous, yet his line of reasoning was shared by almost everyone he had left behind. It was depressing to know he and the others were so out of touch.
Lozorius poured each of them a shot of vodka. “The world looks different from this place. You’ll see. The first thing you have to learn is that everything important to you is unimportant here. Nobody knows who you are. Nobody cares. The ones who do know about you sold you to Stalin. Don’t feel bad. You might be able to get something out of them if you prod their consciences, but for the most part they don’t want to see you and they don’t want to hear you. Believe me, I have seen the future. In a decade there will be children who have never heard of the Baltic States, or if they have heard of them, they will mix them up with the Balkans. Already most people think the Ukrainians are the same as Russians, and as for Byelorussians, you might as well forget about them.
“And all of us out here in the West, all of us who came from those places, if we’re noticed at all, are supposed to be fascists and war criminals. Stalin told Truman that there were no Russian prisoners of war, only deserters. So our first problem is that we don’t exist and the second is that if we do, we’re murderers and traitors.”
“Traitors to what?”
“Traitors to the Soviet Union, your homeland and the ally of the Americans, though that last part is getting a little tired now.”
“How can we be traitors to an occupying army?”
“Everything you say is bourgeois rationalization, the intellectual machinations of fascists. The West made a deal with Stalin to defeat the Nazis, and the deal was the Reds can do anything they want. We annoy the West, Lukas. We irritate them and we look funny to them. Especially the intellectuals, who love the Reds better than they love the Americans. It will become clearer to you over time.” Lozorius poured them each a shot of vodka and toasted Lukas wordlessly. Lukas found he needed the alcohol. When he looked up at Lozorius, he saw that the man’s prominent ears turned red when he drank, a trait Lukas remembered from their student days.
“I don’t see how we can ever expect to free ourselves if there isn’t going to be a war between the Reds and the West,” said Lukas. “What about help with arms for the partisans so we can keep harassing the Reds? Will they at least supply us in our own fight?”
“You’re going to have to pique the interest of the spy agencies if you want to get anything at all.”
The words made Lukas uneasy.
“We’ll speak about that later. Tell me what it’s like in the country now,” said Lozorius.
Lukas began to talk about the new partisan tactic of limited engagements, and of the old dream of centralizing the partisan command structure. Even as he spoke, he could hear himself dramatizing the situation, making the organization seem stronger than it was. He felt as if he were describing his family to an outsider and wanted to cast it in the best light possible. He did say they would not last very long unless the West came through with some kind of support.
“I tell you, you won’t get any support unless you offer them something.”
“Like what?”
“Information. Red Army troop disposition, airfield locations, fuel dumps, the number of ships in port and where they’re from, train schedules, economic news, lists of names and command structures…”
“We don’t have any of that.”
“What did you bring?”
“A letter to the Pope from the partisan command. Photographs of dead bodies laid out in marketplaces. Rough numbers of deportees. There have been thousands sent away, tens of thousands. We have identity card samples and various other blanks—passports, police identification, as well as samples of stamps of all sorts.”