The Ice Saints Page 17

‘The money. Why didn’t you tell about the money?’

  ‘Oh. That.’

  ‘Yes. Speak, please.’

  “We – we thought it might make things difficult for you.’ Rose was determined not to be alone in this. ‘Janet knew, too.’

  ‘She is always against me now,’ said Witek quietly. ‘But you, Rose, can you tell the truth?’

  ‘That is true. And because of your beliefs.’

  ‘My beliefs! Boze, you think I am a child?’

  ‘I wanted to be helpful, really I did.’

  ‘So you did not tell me about this money. Because you wanted to be helpful. Because of my beliefs. Yet why are you telling everyone else?’

  ‘That’s not true. And I won’t be shouted at. I never told a soul, did I, Janet?’

  ‘I don’t know, Rose. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, blast you, you might at least help. Can I have a cigarette?’

  Witek pushed the box towards her. ‘You told this Dr Karpinski who you know wants my job.’

  ‘No, that’s not true, Witek.’

  ‘It is true, you went off to Zakopane with him?’ The place name for him had a sexual weight: something like Brighton or Atlantic City. ‘It is true?’

  Rose was silent. She twitched her shoulders and said: ‘Very well. Yes.’

  ‘Then you told him. You knew who he was and what he was trying to do to me, to my career. You and he...’ His voice ran into a dry patch. He seemed ready to weep again. ‘You told him.’

  ‘I didn’t. It may sound silly when I explain it. But here in Poland there is something competitive about misfortune. When we come from the West we don’t want to say how well off we are. You make us feel ashamed, as though we had cheated to get what we have. So I didn’t tell Adam. In fact, if you want to know another silly thing, I told him Daddy had been a master at a grammar school, not a public school.’

  Witek was not much interested in these subtleties. ‘Whether you tell him or not, he knew. Perhaps he was reading your letters.’

  ‘I didn’t have anything written down. I was advised not to—’ She broke off. When she remembered who had given her this advice, everything was quite clear.

  ‘It makes no difference, Rose. Whatever happened, he informs the Party and they accuse me that I have large reserves of foreign currency which I have not declared. Not only my future job is in danger but also my present one. In fact, we are all in danger.’

  ‘Oh, Witek darling, how awful.’

  ‘Darling, now. And you still deny it?’

  ‘Yes, I do. You must stop bullying me. I know I was wrong about Adam Karpinski but so was everybody else. I didn’t believe anybody could be like that. I happen not to be used to lies.’

  He pounced on this last phrase.

  ‘Not used to lies! She says, not used to lies! Rose, you have been lying since you first set your foot through that door.’

  At this point she broke into tears.

  He watched her closely. He was extremely conscious of the erotic aspects of distress. When she bowed her head, with the fine hair scented by the fragrant shampoos she brought from England and her face damp and agonized, she was at least half-raped in his mind. He ached with unused violence because he could not hit a woman he had never slept with. Trembling, he recovered himself.

  Janet patted him on the shoulder. ‘Better leave her, old boy.’ There was more understanding in her voice than was quite decent. The thing resembled those moments of extreme intimacy when all behaviour is imperiously dictated.

  The sisters were alone.

  ‘Here’s some tea.’

  ‘I don’t want any, thank you.’

  ‘Cheer up. Things like this have happened before and we have always managed to pick up the pieces.’

  ‘You sound like the w.v.s.,’ Rose said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Rose blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘Actually, I know now exactly what happened. It was that frightful bitch who told Adam. She probably thought it was fearfully amusing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Alexandra Tatham. You see, old Mark has always been a bit of a coureur and when she saw that I—’

  ‘Oh God. Here we go again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing, Rose.’

  Rose kept an offended silence while Janet drank her tea.

  ‘Witek and I’ll get over this, never you fear. In the old days it was dangerous to admit you had relatives abroad. You remember those desperately cheerful letters I used to write? Now, it’ll be all right. It isn’t as if we had ever seen any of the money. Witek will be able to explain it all away, he is very good at that sort of thing and he has the right friends.’

  Rose was doubtful. She was the only one who knew Adam personally. Whatever they might think of him, he had twice the brains and force of Witek, and he would not be easy to choke off. To Rose the path was still wide open to disaster.

  ‘Witek doesn’t know about our plans for Tadeusz?’

  ‘No. But that’s done with now, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, ‘Rose said. ‘What’s going to happen to you?’

  ‘You might have asked that a bit sooner, I must say. All I want is some peace. It will be better when you have gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rose. ‘It will.’

  When Tadeusz came in, Rose questioned him about the May Day Parade. It was her last chance to make him feel close to her. ‘You didn’t seem to be enjoying it very much, if I may say so.’

  Tadeusz blushed. ‘I was.’

  ‘Were you? Sorry.’

  ‘I was enjoying it very much,’ he said sullenly. ‘I was proud to be with my school-mates.’

  Rose sighed with disappointment. Even that compensation was to be taken away. But perhaps Tadeusz’s social activities were a phase parallel to that of the boys at Barnham, who would lose all charm and grow sourly humourless just before Confirmation. It was the sore, creaking stage in the evolution of the dragonfly.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  A few days later he departed at three in the morning on his excursion to the mountains. Breathing like a pack animal under his apparatus of canvas and rubber, he clumped through the room in which Rose was lying awake, and went out into the asphalt silence before sunrise, when pigeons and motor-cycles were still locked away, and a taxi was depositing the last drunks outside the doors of the apartment buildings:

  Rose spent most of the day typing out translations for the Rudowskis. There were times when she imagined she would go to Warsaw to look for Adam. But she knew she would not because, like Janet, she was tired. She was glad to have a firm booking on the LOT plane to London, leaving in five days’ time.

  In the late afternoon she went into town to visit Mrs Kazimierska.

  ‘Come in, Rose. My husband is at a hospital conference, so you will not meet him after all. In any case he is not very interesting.’

  The flat, which Rose was visiting for the first time, was half-dark, crammed with furniture and heavy with the smell of furniture polish and cabbage.

  ‘These things were all mother’s. You see, our own house was in Warsaw. When we returned after the Rising – look, I will show you what we found.’ She rummaged in a drawer and brought out half a blue and gold china plate. ‘I found that in what used to be our garden. Our son and daughter were both killed, you know, so this is all we have from before the war.’

  Rose looked stiff and slightly offended.

  Mrs Kazimierska laughed suddenly. She put back the plate and slammed the drawer. ‘And how has it been, dear Rose?’

  ‘Terrible.’

  ‘That I can easily believe. Mr Rudowski is a difficult prop- osition.’

  ‘It is my fault, too. It seems none of us can say anything we mean. When I was a child we had a nanny like that. She was so easily shocked that in the end everybody told her lies.’

  Mrs Kazimierska looked at her with some detachment.

  ‘We had an English nanny,’ she said, ‘and everybody co
nfessed everything to her, even my dear brothers. The water is now boiling. Nescafé?’

  She mixed in the sharp-smelling powder and poured out two cups.

  ‘It is because Rudowski is so stupid,’ she said. ‘Intelligent people can always converse, whatever their politics.’

  ‘I’m afraid it isn’t just him. When I first saw Janet again and realized properly all she had suffered, I thought I couldn’t do enough for her. But in fact it made me hate her. Not just because we are sisters, I mean – she was always quite nice to me when I was small. It’s because of everything here.’

  ‘I think I understand. When relatives sometimes send me a parcel, I can hardly bring myself to thank them for it.’

  ‘Has this happened to everyone?’

  ‘When our friends come from abroad it is often like that. It is so impossible to explain things, we give up trying. When I told you just now about the Warsaw Rising, you were very, very bored.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Young people here are the same. It is sad but it is true. All the same, I am sure you are glad you have been here.’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I wish I’d never come, if it meant finding them both so miserable.’

  ‘You must know enough about the Rudowskis now, but perhaps they are not so miserable as you think. One thing perhaps I can tell you: she will never leave him.’

  ‘I know she won’t,’ Rose said. ‘Isn’t it awful?’

  On her way home, carrying the parcel for Mrs Kazimierska’s niece, she went into the Self-Service, looking for something to take back with her. Beyond the bare necessities the only things on sale were greyish packets of soup-mix and the glass jars of Bulgarian apricots which, when you attempted to open them, left your hands covered with blood. Instead she bought a bottle of Georgian wine.

  Janet was still out. Rose opened the bottle of wine, sweetish, tasting slightly of prunes. She searched in Janet’s shelves for something to read. She pulled out an anthology of modern verse and leafed right through it, finding nothing to attract her attention beyond the first few lines, until she got to Yeats:

  That girls at puberty should find

  Original Adam in their thought –

  She banged the book shut, put it quickly back in the shelf even adjusting the other books so that no one could see it had been taken out. Then she heard the clink of the bicycles in the passage and knew Witek was coming through the flat towards her.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  He stood in the doorway, visibly making up his mind whether or not he was about to step into the middle of a baited trap. When he saw her lying on the divan, quick and tricky as she was, the project became worthwhile.

  ‘Witek, have some wine,’ she said sharply.

  The effort at welcome in her voice did not work out as she meant it to, but he was too intent to notice. Chuckling at something – perhaps it was the fact that she had been out, had actually bought the wine and then opened it all by herself – he sat down at the table. He picked up the bottle and examined the label closely.

  ‘Please translate what it says.’

  ‘“Sweet Table Wine”. Is that correct?’

  ‘Damn, I thought it must be. Anyway, have some. I’ll get a glass.’

  He looked appreciatively at the glass and laughed again. Then formality descended on him: he had already decided on no account to be put off. Pulling a small memorandum out of his pocket, he proceeded to install his own special type of social unease.

  ‘I—’ they both said at once.

  ‘No, please.’

  ‘No, you go on, Witek. I had nothing important to say,’ she shrugged. ‘How could I?’

  ‘Very well, I have one or two points that I wish to discuss.’

  She put her feet up again, getting more comfortable. ‘Go ahead.’

  He gave her legs a haggard look.

  ‘I was wondering if before you leave us you will be willing to record your voice for our department? It would be most helpful to us in our work. Janet has not the time, also it seems to me her voice acquired some Polish intonations which cause it to be less good for us.’

  ‘All right. Tell me when.’

  ‘Monday morning, then? Now to my second point.’

  He was silent for a while and she watched him labouring at it.

  ‘With regard to this second point we must be very careful. It is about this money.’

  Another silence.

  ‘I think, I think’ – he coiled a little with embarrassment – ‘that you were discreet, and that Dr Karpinski found out through other sources.’

  ‘Well, thank you!’

  He laughed miserably. ‘In fact you were so discreet that I was not informed! However, you have appreciated that the situation is difficult for me to understand. You see, here the salaries are – well, in higher education they are – well, most people have no money at all. Also it seems to me, if this money comes to Tadeusz, it must by law be transferred into our currency.’

  ‘I know that, Witek.’

  ‘You have observed our position. It is not easy. With a car, for instance, you see—’

  ‘But it all belongs to Tadeusz.’

  ‘A car.’ He sipped some wine. ‘That would make all the difference.’

  He was much out of his depth about the money and could be fuddled by an appeal to English legality, which is universally considered respectable.

  ‘We have laws, too, Witek. I don’t even know if the money can leave England. In any case you keep saying it will damage your position with your job.’

  ‘That is my third point.’ He gently hiccuped. ‘Today I have a long and very valuable talk with Dr Zwiersz. I think you don’t know him, he is the chief representative of our Party at the University. Naturally I was explaining to him how this rumour about the money is false. And he in return told me that it is very uncertain that Karpinski comes here. He is unwilling to give up all his jobs in Warsaw. Dr Zwiersz insists he must, for the students’ sake. Dr Zwiersz is very good to the students.’

  ‘So, after all this bloodiness, there is no danger for you at all?’

  ‘There is always danger when nothing is certain. I have many problems still. There is Janet, she is very unsettled, And Tadeusz. You wanted him to visit England, he is impressionable and not sure of himself. That is the fourth point I had for discussion.’

  ‘I thought as much. I have no rights now, have I?’

  ‘After all this trouble of course he must stay here. With this money of his you might keep him in England.’

  ‘What a beastly thing to say!’

  He shook his head. ‘Rose, you have shown you do not understand some problems here.’

  She ran her hands through her hair. ‘Oh, what’s the use? You meet nobody, you and Janet. The other Poles aren’t like you: they – they have free souls.’

  He looked nasty at this. ‘I think you did not know those people so well. You could be disappointed.’

  ‘All right. All right.’

  Witek sat back and finished his wine.

  He had won. At every moment his score was going up. His future expanded and soared like a balloon hard with gas. In a short time he would have a permanent place in the academic world, and earn a respect that he would never have known as a language teacher. He would be able to tap that reservoir of deference that still existed years after the death of an aristocratic society; he would be called ‘Professor’ by concierges and sellers of cabbage. His promotion would help Tadeusz as well, for university examiners were benevolent to the children of academic colleagues.

  And in addition there now might be the bonus of a car, perhaps even a summer cottage in the mountains.

  At the same time he knew that when Rose left he was going to be as miserable and unsettled as Janet was. On all counts Rose had bequeathed nothing but disquiet. Witek had always thought he agreed with arguments against the West; in his wartime memories, England had looked very like Biala Gora today. But he was the child of Silesian
farmers, and materialism was a terrible temptation to him. He hated to be ascetic: let others play chess and listen to Szymanowski! He wanted to feel things solid in his hands, the good finish, the safe shininess that would not wear away. He thought of Rose’s stockings, the neatness of her pants and suspender belt lying round the flat. He would have pretty students from time to time but he would never again get in range of anyone like this girl who was sitting in front of him, her complexion dulled a little by tiredness, but her hair bright and her body small and firm.

  ‘Rose,’ he said very quietly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Rose, please let us part as good friends. It is important to me.’

  ‘You’ve won, Witek. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘No, it is not.’

  ‘Please, Witek. No!’

  She stood up and pushed the round table at him, so that the edge caught him in the stomach. Then they were both quiet, hearing Janet come in.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  The telephone rang while they were at supper on Sunday evening.

  Janet spoke briefly and handed the receiver to Witek.

  ‘Tu Rudowski.’

  With his tongue exploring his teeth for a fragment of sausage skin he listened.

  ‘Tak.’

  His mouth was still, and his face gradually set rigid.

  ‘Tak.’

  From across the room the women could hear an urgent voice rising and falling on a flood of narrative. Witek did not move.

  ‘Tak, tak.’

  Rose looked inquiringly at her sister. So far Witek had said nothing more than ‘Yes’, but Janet’s head was bowed towards the table and her fists were clenching and unclenching.

  ‘Janet!’ Witek called to her and she stared fixedly at him. Now he began to speak, with his face still grim and his eyes held by hers. The words buzzed, repeated and insisted until, after about four minutes, he put the telephone down and there was silence. Witek was gazing straight at Rose and she put on an inquiring expression to attract his attention, but he was not seeing her at all. Still in silence he dialled a number, then spoke again.

  Janet gave Rose a small indifferent smile.

  ‘Is it something about Tadeusz?’