In The Name of The Father (40 page)

It could have been minutes or hours. Time was in suspension. They lay in half light, one body undulating within itself. Her face was against his neck, her parted lips next to his ear. As the day dawned he felt her breath on his skin quicken. Against his knee the softness of her centre hardened. Her thighs gripped tighter. She moaned and her whole body stiffened and shuddered as it crushed against him.

She was rigid and fused to him and time passed. Then she sighed deeply and her body relaxed and became soft. She murmured something which he could not interpret and moments later her breathing was in the steady rhythm of sleep. He too passed into painless unconsciousness.

His pain had returned with a vengeance the moment he awoke. His whole side felt as though a branding iron was being held against it. He opened his eyes. The bed alongside him was empty. He heard faint words and lifted his head. She was beside the bed, lower down. He could only see the top half of her body. Her head was bowed, her right hand was clutching something at her throat. He realised that she was on her knees praying. He could not understand the words; they were in Latin. With a gasp of pain he sat up. She lifted her head and he saw that her cheeks were wet. She coughed, wiped a sleeve across her face and stood up. He thought how vulnerable she looked, but then she shook her head as though dispelling a mood and said firmly, ‘How is your side, Mirek?’

‘It hurts like hell. Are you all right, Ania?’

She nodded. ‘Yes . . . I will get you some breakfast and then change the dressing.’

She had gone into the bathroom, emerging five minutes later fully dressed and carrying a glass of water. She handed him two pills and the glass.

‘Antibiotics. I’ll go and get some breakfast and find out what’s happening. It’s quite late.’

He glanced at his watch and saw to his surprise that it was after ten o’clock. What had happened during the night was at once hazy and very real. She was at the door. He opened his mouth to say something but she held up a hand and said, ‘Later.’

Later was half an hour. She had come back carrying a tray laden with a pot of tea, wheatbread, smoked meats, orange juice and a bowl of fruit.

She had sat on the bed and eaten with him. She told him that early in the morning Jerzy and Antoni had taken walks in different directions to see what was happening. The security forces were in massive evidence. Everyone’s papers were being carefully checked and even units of the Russian army were in the city. They had also learned that the two safe apartments had been raided by the SB within hours of the rescue. They had been lucky to come back to the General’s house.

After this report they ate in silence until she said introspectively, ‘I have sinned very deeply.’

He had been waiting for this. He said quickly, ‘Look, Ania . . . about last night. . .’

She shook her head.

‘I am not talking about last night, Mirek. I have sinned because I took a vow . . . a vow to love only my Lord God. I have broken that vow.’

It took several seconds before the implications sank into Mirek’s mind. Then he said very quietly, ‘You’re saying that you love me?’

She nodded briskly. ‘Yes, Mirek. I have been running from it . . . but I can run no more. It is not gratitude for what you have done. Nor is it a reaction to my having been cloistered all my life . . . I don’t understand why it happened. I suppose that is one element of love . . . the lack of logic.’

‘I love you too, Ania.’

She sighed and nodded. ‘I know. Mirek, what is happening to us? What are we doing?’

He reached out and took her hands.

‘Ania, when this is over we shall make a life together.’

She shook her head. ‘I will not even think of that. Maybe it will never be over. How much longer can we be lucky?’

Fervently he said, ‘It will end.’

She pulled her hands from his and then grasped his hands in hers, looking down at them. In her harsh low voice she said, ‘I have fallen in love with a killer. I have watched you kill. What is it for, Mirek? What are you going to do in Moscow?’

Automatically he said, ‘I cannot tell you that.’

Bluntly she said, ‘Then you go on alone. I am involved completely or not at all.’

He raised his head and looked at her face and saw the determination in her eyes. He considered for only a moment, then said, ‘My mission is to kill Yuri Andropov.’

Seconds passed and then her fingers tightened around his hands. She shook her head and said, ‘That is impossible . . . you . . . they are mad . . . and why . . . why to kill him?’

Succinctly he gave her the background. When he had finished she released his hands and stood up and began to pace up and down the large room.

Finally she stopped and said scathingly, ‘I do not believe it. No matter how much danger His Holiness is in, there is no possibility that he would condone such a sin.’

In a tired voice Mirek had said, ‘He knows nothing about it.’

At first she had been puzzled, thinking back over the weeks. She said, ‘He must know. He gave me his dispensation for what I have been doing.’

Mirek had great difficulty finding the words. In one way he wanted everything out in the open. In another way he was frightened of the effect it would have on her.

Tentatively he said, ‘Ania, I promise you that the Pope is totally unaware. It is . . . or was, a group of three. Cardinal Mennini, before he died, Archbishop Versano . . . and the Bacon Priest. They called themselves
Nostra Trinita
and they called me the
“Papa
’s envoy”.’

She shook her head. ‘No. I saw the dispensation. His Holiness had signed it. . . his seal was on it.’

Mirek just looked at her, not knowing how to tell her. He did not have to. Realisation dawned. She put her hands to her face, drawing in breath.

‘A forgery! What have I done . . . What have they done?’

He had pushed back the covers and, in great agony, swung his feet to the ground. He walked to her and put an arm round her shoulders and led her to the bed. They sat side by side while she came to terms with her situation. He thought she would cry, but she did not. He expected that her mind would be numb from the experiences and revelations of the past hours and days. It was not.

She composed herself and said, ‘I understand their motives, the
Nostra Trinita.
I think they are terribly wrong but I understand their concern for His Holiness . . . But Mirek, I don’t understand yours. It cannot be money.’

He remained silent, considering again, then said, ‘No, Ania. It is not money. Nor is it concern for the Pope. It is hatred.’

She turned to him and he explained.

He told her of his early life. Of his conversion to Communism and his absorption by it. He explained that it suited his character. He was ambitious and single minded. Also selfish. The family of his best friend at school had been hard-line Communists for three generations. He was much influenced by them and ended up spending more time in their home than his own. His parents were virulently anti-Communist but he felt that their arguments had no logic; that their minds were only ruled by emotion. The estrangement progressed rapidly. His friend’s father arranged for him to get a scholarship to university which would result in recruitment to the SB. It had suited Mirek perfectly. He was a dedicated atheist and considered the Catholic Church to be the most reactionary element in Polish history. He blamed it for the propping up over centuries of a corrupt aristocracy and for being the main cause of Poland’s historic ills.

For his parents, his joining the SB was the final straw. His father told him that he no longer had a son and that he would never look on his face again. His mother told him that he no longer had a mother and that she cursed her womb for producing him. He did not care. His vision was straight ahead. The past was finished. His only regret was his sister. She was three years younger, and as children, they had been close. He had deliberately closed his heart to his parents but could never totally close it to her.

His family had lived in Bialystok. He had been posted to Cracow far away. A deliberate move by the SB to keep him at a distance from a residual familial influence. It had been unnecessary. He never contacted them or heard from them again; or from any other relatives or childhood friends. When you joined the SB the regime became your family.

As the years passed he worked hard and intelligently and served his new family well. He explained to Ania that within the SB there is an unofficial inner group. It bears the nickname
Szyszki
- the circle. Many totalitarian security organisations have such groups. They form an elite. They keep themselves secret. They select their candidates with great care and test them well beforehand. Of course everybody in the SB knew about the
Szyszki.
Everybody knew that to be invited to join was the guarantee of success and promotion. The
Szyszki
carried out a lot of dirty work that could never be talked about or put into a report. It was the dark and silent arm of the SB.

As soon as Mirek had been promoted Major he waited with mounting impatience to be asked to join. The invitation came two years later. He was taken to lunch by Colonel Konopka; a very good lunch at Wierzynek. Mirek had been impressed. The Colonel had heaped compliments on his head and then told him that he was being considered for entry into the
Szyszki.
Mirek told him that he was deeply honoured. The Colonel had explained that before entry a candidate had to prove himself and in so doing tie himself for ever to his fellow members. Mirek had assured the Colonel that he would pass any test.

He did. The test was simple and straightforward. There was a subversive group in Warsaw led by a group of three. The group was very clever and had always avoided normal prosecution. They were dangerous and caused both damage and embarrassment. Mirek’s initiation test to the brotherhood of the
Szyszki
would be to eliminate them. If he blundered and was exposed the SB would naturally disown him.

Mirek had accepted with alacrity. The Colonel told him that it was simple. The group would be at a certain house on the outskirts of Warsaw at a certain time. Their car would be parked outside in a quiet street. Mirek was to wire up the car to a powerful incendiary bomb. When they turned on the ignition - end of problem.

Mirek was shown how to do the job and he carried it out with total proficiency. Nothing appeared in the newspapers.

Some years later Mirek was sitting on the toilet in the officers’ luxurious rest rooms at SB headquarters in Cracow. There were wide gaps above and below the door. He had almost finished when two senior officers came in. One was Colonel Konopka, the other a visiting Colonel from Warsaw. They must have enjoyed a good lunch. They were jovial and slightly drunk. They talked as they urinated.

The Colonel from Warsaw asked, ‘How’s young Scibor getting on?’

Konopka answered, ‘Brilliantly. He will go far.’

Behind his door Mirek had preened himself. Then the Warsaw Colonel said, ‘Yes, but I think we went too far with his initiation.’

Konopka said, ‘Well, maybe. But he’ll never know. You know, it was Andropov’s idea . . . he has a weird mind that one. He was visiting Warsaw at the time and they were comparing our
Szyszki
with the KGB’s inner circle. We were talking of the trauma of initiation being equal to the dedication. Someone mentioned that Scibor’s parents and sister were becoming a nuisance but were not indictable. Andropov laughed and said, “So have Scibor kill them . . . if he gets caught it will be put down to a family quarrel.” Well, old Mieszkowski went along with it. . . you know what an arse-licker he is . . .’

After they had left Mirek had sat on that toilet for an hour. When he stood up he was a different man.

Ania had listened to it all in silence. When he finished she said, ‘So I understand your hatred. What he did was despicable, especially as he never intended you to know. He did it for his own obscene pleasure . . . but, Mirek, I cannot understand what kind of man you were. You callously killed people of whom you knew nothing, never mind that they were your parents.’

“That’s true,’ he admitted. ‘Ania, I would probably have gone on doing it. But the experience in that SB rest room was like having a lobotomy. It put me outside of myself and allowed me to see what I was. What I had become. I jumped at the Bacon Priest’s offer not just to expiate my own hatred and guilt but to try and redress the evil that I had done and become . . .’

She nodded. ‘I believe that. I believe you are a man who would now not be evil.’

He smiled slightly. ‘If that’s true, Ania, then your involvement has been a big influence . . . So what happens to us now?’

She shrugged. ‘Well now we are both changed. You for the better. Me for the worse. I don’t know what I am any more. I take physical pleasure and then rationalise that I have dispensation. Then I find out that I don’t. It’s confusing. I feel used by your so-called
Nostra Trinita.’

‘It’s true,’ he agreed. ‘They used my hatred and your faith. Ania, we can call it off now. Get out of here. Make a new life far away.’

She had shaken her head. ‘No. I cannot even contemplate that, Mirek. Whatever they have done to me I am still a nun . . . And if what you say is true - and I believe it is - then the Holy Father is in terrible danger. We must finish what we have started. Then I will examine myself in God’s light and, I hope, His sympathy.’

The train passed through the city of Radom, then into rolling farmlands. Mirek had made this journey many times before but never in such luxury. He was sitting up in a double bed covered by a goose-down duvet. A little chandelier swung overhead. The walls of the carriage were panelled and mirrored. He felt languid. His mind went back again to Ania. Between that momentous night and this journey they had settled into an undemonstrative but very affectionate relationship. They had slept together, in each other’s arms, for two more nights but nothing had happened beyond a mutual warmth. She would kiss him in a way that was neither chaste nor salacious. She had, in her mind, put everything into abeyance until this mission was over. It was obvious to the others that they were very close. Presumably lovers. They acted as if they had been together for a very long time.