The Day of the Lie (31 page)

‘I love you,’ he said,
for the first time.

John dialled 55876. Celina’s passport was
organised for the same day Later in the afternoon, he tried to call back. He
had to know if the Dentist had spoken to Róża about CONRAD; and he wanted
to ask about the file … the file at the heart of their relationship. But it
was too late. The line had gone dead.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Anselm walked away from Father Kaminsky’s
church like Róża had once left Mokotów prison: wondering where to go when
he reached the junction. The collapse of his theorising had an immediate and
profound effect: a loss of confidence in his judgement and the utility of Róża’s
statement which finally showed itself for what it was —altogether useless.
There were too many names on the quarterdeck. There was no way to allocate a
stronger suspicion to one above another. Standing at the intersection a flood
of irritation filled the void left by Father Kaminsky’s innocence: all he could
do now was accuse someone. If they were guilty he might reach their conscience;
if they were innocent, then they might be enraged enough to point the finger at
someone else.

Half an hour later
Anselm passed beneath an eagle on the elaborate entrance to Warsaw University.
Neoclassical grandeur — rebuilt of course — was home to the one suspect likely
to speak a language known to Anselm. Róża had watched him grow from boy to
man; she’d never want him exposed for what he was. Having found a reception
desk, Anselm passed over a name written on a scrap of paper. Moments later, the
telephonist handed him the receiver. Anselm skipped any introduction and went
straight to the point, opting for French, the idiom of intellectuals across
nineteenth century Europe.

‘I’m in Warsaw to find
out who betrayed Róża Mojeska in nineteen eighty-two.’

There was a very long
pause, followed by ‘You are?’

‘I am. You could say I’m
Róża’s representative. I thought we might talk through the circumstances
of your sudden release from internment.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes, because the word
convenient springs to mind.’

Anselm placed Bernard Kolba at sixty or so.
He wore loose jeans, a black roll—neck sweater and scuffed suede shoes. His
hair, chestnut brown and rimed with age, was short and smart. The felt hat in
his hand evoked an artist rather than an academic philosopher. Without speaking
he led Anselm to a car park and a yellow Fiat with a dinted passenger door. He
seemed neither insulted nor troubled. In fact, he had the air of a man ready to
talk.

‘I thought we’d go the Powązki
Cemetery,’ he said, struggling with the ignition. ‘Lots of national heroes are
buried in quiet out-of-the-way corners — heroes, of course, according to your
convictions. It’s a good place to talk about the past.’

In that spirit of
openness, he invited Anselm to say a little more of his mission. Anticipating
reciprocity Anselm hid nothing of substance, recounting all that had taken
place between John’s coming to Larkwood and Anselm’s departure from the church
by the railway line, leaving out, of course, the distraction of the blue paper
whose private character commanded Anselm’s continued confidence. He’d just
about finished when Bernard parked and yanked the handbrake. Walking in step,
they passed through another ornate gate to enter the graveyard where Róża
had been arrested by Otto Brack.

‘I’m here to make an
appeal to conscience,’ said Anselm, in conclusion. ‘Róża seeks an
admission, freely made, without any preliminary accusation. Your thoughts on
the matter would, I imagine, be instructive.’

Bernard nodded with
appreciation, as if a professor in the law department had come up with a novel
scheme to deal with plagiarism. He turned right, his hand guiding Anselm down a
long lane flanked by carved angels, bare trees and a scattering of lit candles.

‘I used to think that it
was my teachers who’d shaped my mind,’ he said, as if taking up the proposal
raised by his learned colleague. ‘But it was Róża. As a child she told me
the story of the Shoemaker and how he’d destroyed the red dragon with a
homemade bomb.

Later she told me that
words were more powerful than any explosion and that set me reading.’

The fairytale had led
him to academic philosophy non-violent resistance, factory work, Union activism
and, finally a return to the formal pursuit of wisdom. After the collapse of
communism in 1989 he’d gone back to university and finished the studies which
the government of another day had suppressed. Six years later he’d begun his
career as a junior lecturer.

‘By and large my
doctoral thesis set out the ideas I’d have published already if Róża hadn’t
been arrested by the SB. They’d have appeared in
Freedom and Independence.
That’s
why I wanted to meet the Shoemaker. To talk things out and get his guidance. In
those days ideas weren’t kept in the academy they were running wild on the
street. He was the giant on the block and I was the pygmy wanting to climb on
his back and see that little bit further.’

Anselm had a rather
depressing sense of déjà-vu. The tenor of these winsome disclosures carried no
hint of an impending declaration of guilt. Bernard’s conscience was evidently
clear; but he was talking and moving with purpose.

‘I’ve always wondered
why Róża just threw her hand in,’ he said, turning left. ‘She’s never
spoken of that day to me or, as far as I’m aware, to anyone else. We’ve all
been wondering why We’ve all been trying to figure out who tipped off the SB.
Obviously it had to be someone close to her, someone she wouldn’t suspect: His
hand directed Anselm to the right. ‘Someone like me, you might think.’

Shortly Bernard came to
a halt. He looked around, gathering in a memory. ‘This is where it happened;
this is where Róża was betrayed … at the grave of Prus.’

Bernard pointed to a
large distinctive monument. A small girl, carved in relief, was reaching up
against the stone. Her arms were spread out and her head was thrown back. At
her feet were yellow and red flowers. A candle burned in a green glass jar. The
surrounding trees seemed to reach out to the atmosphere of sadness.

‘Róża chose this
place for a specific reason,’ said Bernard. His hands were in his pockets as if
he were extemporising in a lecture hall. ‘She picked it because of the girl.
She saw herself in those shoes.’

Like Prus, Róża had
been a child soldier. They’d both joined an uprising; they’d both been
imprisoned and never quite recovered. Prus … he’d fought in eighteen
sixty-three against imperial Russia. The succeeding experience of prison gave
him lifelong problems with panic attacks and agoraphobia. He’d turned to
writing, but couldn’t decide if resistance was best through ideas or guns.

‘Róża was scarred
by Mokotów,’ said Bernard. ‘But she was always sure of the ground where the
fight would eventually be won; in the mind and heart. Which is all the more
significant now that I know of her husband’s execution:

He began walking away
with that steady purpose, so Anselm followed, his intuition tingling with
anticipation, undecided as to whether it was agreeable or not.

‘We’d all seen the two
rings, we’d all wondered what they meant,’ said Bernard. ‘We’d all been stunned
when she turned out to be linked to the Shoemaker. We’d all been baffled when
she went silent in eighty-two — realising, with retrospect, that she’d done the
same thing in fifty-three … and that the wedding rings were part of her
silence.’ He slowed down and took a narrow pebbled lane to the left. ‘Róża
is the most mysterious person I’ve ever known. Without speaking she was always
crying out for help and I couldn’t do anything … I didn’t know how to reach
her. So I’m glad you called. I’m glad, at last, for the chance to do something
significant.
I’ve waited thirty years for this.’

Bernard took off his
brown felt hat and scratched the back of his head. He turned his face sideways
to find Anselm.

‘You’ve heard of Mateusz
Robak?’

‘Yes.’

‘He got close to Róża,
too. He’s another man with a doubtful profile.’

There was a sliver of
irony or sarcasm in those strong, hazel eyes, but the surrounding light carried
a heavier regret.

‘We fell out, once, over
a play by Mickiewicz,’ resumed Bernard. ‘And we nearly fell out again over Róża’s
arrest. But he was a very careful man. And he had to be careful for Róża.
So he followed her sometimes, even when she thought she was alone, just in case
of trouble. So when I accused him of collaboration, like you accused me —
though I failed to choose my words as finely as you did — he had a reply He
brought me here:

Once more Bernard
pointed towards a grave. The headstone was a fraction too tall, making Anselm
think the incumbent had been given a straitjacket for eternity. He stepped
closer to read the inscription. There was only a name and some dates: the
barest elements of identification. No loving words had come to the husband’s
mind. It read:

Klara
Fielding

8th March 1925 — 1st July 1953

Anselm read the inscription several times
as if more information might suddenly appear on the stone. This was John’s
secret. He’d only told Róża. It was why he’d come to Warsaw.

‘A BBC journalist wanted
to interview the Shoemaker,’ said Bernard. ‘Róża told Mateusz to arrange a
meeting. When the guy arrived, Róża tailed him … and Mateusz tailed Róża.
In turn, they came here, before convening at the agreed location as if nothing
had happened. Mateusz thought nothing of it until much later, when Róża
walked into a trap.’

Bernard had tracked down
Klara’s family Not the English one, by marriage — they’d left the country — but
the Communist Party members who’d come to Warsaw from Poznań after the
war: her parents .

‘They were still
fiercely proud of her memory,’ said Bernard, stepping to one side, moving his
shadow off the grave. ‘Even though they knew nothing of her work for the state,
they clung on to the fact that it was significant. That’s what the man in the
dark suit had said at the funeral. He’d come round a week later with her
medals, recognition from Warsaw and Moscow of her service to the people …
difficult service.’

Anselm did the maths. ‘She
was only twenty-eight.’

‘Yes:

‘What happened? She had
a husband; she was a young mother.’

John, the child, had
only just been born.

‘Suicide.’

Anselm breathed back the
word.

‘She hung herself. But
not in the garage or her bedroom. She chose an unguarded section of railings
around the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Her parents didn’t know that, of
course — it would have shattered the myth. And myths, even false ones, can heal
if you believe in them.’

Mateusz had also tracked
down her friends. She’d been carefree and funny Talented, too, a musician who’d
won prizes at home and abroad. She’d been naive, thinking she could marry an
English diplomat without attracting the attention of the security service.

‘Not one of these old
friends knew she’d been recruited,’ said Bernard, buffing the felt with the
back of his hand. ‘All they noticed was that she’d lost her sense of fun. They’d
thought it was because of the Englishman, you know, that stiff upper lip and
the stiff embassy parties. But then she made a confession of what she’d done,
to these people that mattered. She planned to tell her husband, too. A couple
of days later she vanished.’

One of those shattered
friends, a former love — kindly rejected — hadn’t accepted the police
explanation of a road accident. So he’d gone to the undertaker’s with a bottle
of vodka and a Molotov cocktail and given him a choice. They’d got smashed
making vows of secrecy about the tell-tale bruising to Klara’s neck and the
laugh of the
ubek
who’d unhooked the body from outside his place of
work.

‘But how does all this
relate to John?’ asked Anselm, moved and sad, his mind drained of curiosity. ‘Did
Mateusz ask himself that question? Did you?’

‘Yes, we did.’ Bernard
scratched the back of his head again, not especially enjoying the moment he’d
waited for since 1982. ‘Your friend told Róża that he’d come to Warsaw to
make up for a mistake … that’s what Róża told Mateusz. She’d been
overwhelmed by his honesty; she’d wanted to help him; she’d brought him into
the struggle. But things looked very different once Róża was back in
Mokotów and Mateusz had unearthed the nature of Klara’s mistake. There were
only four people who’d known about that planned meeting with the Shoemaker:
Father Kaminsky Mateusz, me and …’

Bernard left a sort of
gap for Anselm to fill but, not wanting to name his friend, he made a kind of
last-ditch loyal defence. He thought of his father sighting the Indians at
Little Big Horn. He sensed an impending death and grief.

‘But John has no motive.
He’d mapped the failings of communism from East Berlin to Bucharest and
everywhere in between. He told me once of a betrayal — he meant her abandonment
of him. He’d never forgiven her …’

Bernard listened,
nodding with agreement, following the steps in Anselm’s thinking, not accepting
— with immense regret — where they were leading. He stepped back, as if to get
some distance from Klara, not wanting her to hear what he was going to say.

‘I’d imagine that for a
child, the suicide of a parent could be a sort of betrayal. They weren’t
important enough. Something was bigger. But that doesn’t mean they cease to
love them, deeply and all they stood for.’

Anselm didn’t respond
because he knew it was true.

‘You know, a child can
grow to spend their life trying to find what they’ve lost. To reach the person
taken away. They can seek out the streets on which that vanished parent walked
… to see what they saw, to smell the air they breathed, to feel the same breeze
on their skin. And they can do something even more desperate, a gruesome act
of necrophilia: they can dig deep into the grave to salvage what their mother
or father cared about. To bring those ideas and feelings back to life. To live
them out, in the flesh, in mystical union with the person who turned their back
upon them. Everything’s forgiven. They’re together again. It’s another kind of
suicide. This time the child is dead. Everything they might have thought and
felt has been buried in an unmarked grave. They’ve made the ultimate sacrifice,
dying so that someone else might live.’