Underground (19 page)

Elena came to him then, leaning into his side so he could almost feel the weight of her. He did not want to look that way, preferring to think she might really be there, just outside his peripheral vision, and hoping against all reason that she might move into some place where, out of the corner of his eye, he could at least catch a glimpse of her.

Two weeks later, Lukas stood out on the sidewalk at the corner of the street in the city of Gdynia, waiting until a lingering woman left the bakery. She was an old woman, probably chatting up the cashier.

From where he stood on the cobblestones he could smell the sea, but he could not see it, the port one block over but obscured by the backs of the warehouses at the waterfront, some still shattered. A crane swung into view between two buildings, but he could see neither the ship nor the pier from where he stood, just the finger of steel and the cable hanging from it.

The smells of the city were coal smoke, dust, tobacco, diesel exhaust and, beneath them all, the salt tang of the sea. He could hear the call of seagulls as they fought over scraps, their harsh maritime tune the nautical equivalent of the screeches of crows in the countryside.

“I'm not going out to the West,” Lukas had said to Flint when he first received his orders. “Elena died here and I'm going to die here too, but before I do I'll find her body and give it a proper burial.”

“You'll never find her body if you haven't found it by now, and as for dying here, what good is that supposed to do?”

“At least I'll be in the same country.”

“Others would leap at a chance like this.”

“Not me.”

“No. But you'll follow orders like anyone else.”

“Why choose me?”

“Because you have some English and a little French. Because you're wallowing in depression. You're dangerous to me here.”

“Then release me from my oath and let me go.”

“And lose a good fighter? Absolutely not. Listen to me. We need to re-establish ties with the West. At this rate we'll be crushed slowly and no one will ever know the difference. Get to Sweden and find out if Lozorius is still alive. Contact the Americans and the English. Carry a letter to the Pope.”

“I'm not a diplomat.”

“No, but you speak well enough and you can write. Lakstingala will help you get out.”

“Is he coming too?”

“Only as far as Warsaw. I need him here.”

“And what happens once I get news out to the West? How am I supposed to get back here?”

“Any way you can.”

The old woman finally left the bakery, and through the window Lukas saw the shopgirl at the counter begin to take the short, dark rye loaves from a basket and set them out on a shelf. She turned to face him as soon as he came in, a working woman, economical in movement, a little reserved to discourage male banter.

She was a few years older than him, her dark hair tied up under a baker's cap. Her name was Sofia, but he did not address her.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Andrew's cousin sent me along,” said Lukas.

“What for? I don't know anybody by that name.”

“Julius said I should come too.”

Lukas heard the knob of the bakery door turning behind him. The cashier leaned toward him to speak quietly before another customer entered.

“We close for lunch in an hour. Come to the back door then.” She set half a loaf of bread on the counter. Lukas took it and left the bakery.

He walked down to the quay to look at the ships being loaded out on the piers. The port had been heavily bombed during the war, but most of the damage had been cleaned up, if not repaired. There were inner and outer harbours, a distant breakwater, and long piers with ships at their sides. It would not do to draw attention to himself by dawdling, so he walked as if he had some purpose, trying to memorize the layout of the port in case he ever needed it. After twenty minutes he turned back up toward the city and bought a glass of tea at a kiosk and ate some of the bread with it. Then he made his way back to the alley behind the bakery and knocked on the door.

Sofia unbolted the door and opened it, looked him over and beckoned him inside. They were in a warm antechamber with steps leading down to the bakery ovens below. She took him downstairs, where the baker was sitting at a small table with honey cake and three small glasses set out before him. The baker was a barrel-chested man named Dombrowski, a Pole, Sofia's husband. He beckoned Lukas over and Sofia joined them at the table. He poured three measures of Zubrowka into their glasses, they drank it, and then Sofia poured tea.

“I have some bad news first,” said Dombrowski. “We might as well get that out of the way. One of your companions was killed on their way back in to Lithuania.”

“Which one?”

“I don't know.”

Lakstingala or someone else? One more to join the ranks of the dead. Lukas felt as if a kite string had been snipped and he was now in danger of zigzagging down to earth. He held the edge of the table to maintain his balance.

“How did it happen?”

“An ambush of some kind. Maybe the border patrol expected them.”

“So some of them got away?”

“We're not sure. Someone might have been taken prisoner. But the point is this: if one was taken prisoner and he talks, there will be a description of you sent around to the police stations. There's some chance we're going to be watched, if we aren't being watched already. Whatever the case, you can't come back here.”

“I won't put you in any danger,” Lukas said, and stood up and reached for his bag.

“Don't be so dramatic. Sit down. Where would you go, anyway?”

“I have to get out to Sweden. I have a contact there.”

“Yes, I know. His name is Lozorius, and you're in luck. He's not far away, though not in Gdynia. He got tired waiting to see if you made it here without getting killed.”

“Lozorius is alive?”

“He's had a few close calls, but he's lucky. Sometimes the dead rise again.”

“But usually they don't,” said Sofia.

Her face clouded. There was something bothering her. Dombrowski put his hand on her shoulder and Lukas wondered about the two of them. They were speaking Polish because Dombrowski had no Lithuanian; his wife was the Lithuanian one. How had he come to act as a letter box for the Lithuanian partisans? As a favour to his wife, but for what?

“How do I find Lozorius?”

“I'll tell you, but keep this in mind: you must not come back here, no matter what trouble you might find yourself in. For all we know, the Polish secret police are sniffing around already.”

The modest city of Puck was a fishing port up the coast. Lukas was to ask for Lozorius at the kitchen door of a convent that housed a tuberculosis hospital just outside town. A sour old doorman in a torn cap barred the door, but the man was swept away by another, younger man who threw his arms around Lukas and embraced him as if they were brothers.

“Thank God you made it!” Lozorius said, and kissed him, an old-fashioned gesture more common among their parents than their own generation.

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.