The Ice Saints Page 5

  ‘Come, come, Elzbieta, that is not a thing you must ask her, I know she is much too polite to tell us the truth. First she must try some of our very good cakes and then like silly women we will gossip about clothes and about people. Is that all right?’

  Rose was as much put out by this as by the blinking woman’s question.

  They talked about clothes.

  Though it was a weekday afternoon every table at the café was occupied and men with briefcases were waiting in the doorway for somewhere to sit down.

  ‘Of course we are following all the fashions from the magazines you are sending to Janet.’

  ‘And Janet, for you how is she looking?’

  ‘She works too hard.’

  Unlike Tadeusz, Mrs Kazimierska was inclined to dismiss this. ‘It is not so necessary, all this work. She is bad about asking enough money, our dear Janet. Look, I will tell you. A man goes to her and says: “I must learn English, I am going to Egypt, to Iraq, to Indonesia, please please teach me in three months, but I am so poor”, and Janet believes him and takes him for nearly nothing. But we all know that man is an engineer making good money, more than any of us will ever see.’

  ‘But she oughtn’t to do that. Why don’t you do something about it?’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Can’t you tell her who the people are when they come asking for lessons? Can’t Witek tell her?’

  It was the first time his name had been mentioned. The three round the table stiffened and the cake they were eating stopped dead in their mouths.

  ‘Dr Rudowski would think it beneath his dignity.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  They looked at each other. Mrs Blaut spoke first: ‘Here we are all friends of Janet, you see.’

  Rose examined her closely for the first time: a solid, handsome woman, by far the best dressed of the three. For her at least all the talk about clothes had not been academic. But, as happens when people speak a language with difficulty, her face was inexpressive.

  ‘Yes?’

  Mrs Kazimierska patted Rose’s hand. ‘Hala means there are no secrets from us. What Janet has not told us we can guess. We all of us know Rudowski.’

  From the gleams of accord in the eyes of the other two, you could see that they would not hesitate to go on. They did not know there could be such a thing as reticence. Whatever went wrong with anyone, however private or illicit the distress, they would be snuffling it out with the excited yelps of terriers.

  ‘She hasn’t told me anything,’ Rose said.

  Mrs Kazimierska smiled fondly. ‘You are so young, dear, but you can see when people are unhappy?’

  ‘Well, perhaps they are not very happy.’ She was going on to say that she could not imagine how anyone could be very happy in Biala Gora. The three women, however, would feel this as somewhat near the bone. People like to tell you their misfortunes; they do not much like you to tell them.

  ‘I’ve only been here one day. There hasn’t been time—’

  Talking like this Rose was going along with them in the subject, assuming their possession of superior knowledge, which was flattering to them and also humiliating to her. She was hemmed in by the three intent faces, by Mrs Kazimierska’s huge nose, Miss Barcik’s ceaseless blinking and Mrs Blaut’s solid calm. How well in fact did they know Janet? Were they fishing for more information?

  She wished she could turn on them and tell them to shut up. But she was naturally without pugnacity and hated to be rude. Compared with them, too, she was over-armed with peace and security, and therefore crippled.

  ‘And Tadeusz,’ Mrs Blaut asked. ‘How do you find Tadeusz?’

  ‘Oh really I—’

  ‘He is a nice boy, very good-mannered. Rose – may we call you Rose – we always talk of you as Rose!’

  ‘Oh, do.’ She did not ask them their names nor wished to know them. To her they seemed infinitely old.

  ‘I think Tadeusz is a little like you.’

  ‘Oh surely not. I mean, he’s so Polish, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not to us. To us he is very English.’

  Rose felt a spark of excited hope flash through her: If Tadeusz is really English he can be saved from this after all, he can go away from all these people and never come back. ‘He is not like Dr Rudowski, I think,’ Miss Barcik said.

  ‘You went to the University this morning and he showed you his magnetogram – how it is in English?’

  ‘Tape recorder.’

  ‘I think it is not very interesting. Hala, Krystyna and I, we are laughing at him for this. He is like a silly man with his little machines.’

  ‘But everyone uses them now. I mean writers, actors, singers, all those... I know it’s very boring when people turn them on at parties, and everybody thinks they ought to be funny into them. But if it helps people to learn English, why not have one?’

  ‘It helps people to think Dr Rudowski is important and up to date. We would all like to have magnetograms, it would impress very much our private students. But we cannot have them. But of course it is easy for him. He is on the right side. He has only to ask for things.’

  ‘Elzbieta knows,’ Mrs Blaut said. ‘She works with him.’

  ‘I am teaching English to economists and it is Dr Rudowski who looks after us poor teachers and tells us what we must do. To mind our p’s and q’s, is that right?’

  ‘Tell her about the system of marking.’

  ‘Tell her how he changed the results of the examinations.’

  ‘He does many things,’ Miss Barcik said. ‘But it is all right for him. He is on the right side.’

  ‘What do you mean, he is on the right side?’

  ‘He is Party, ma chère,’ Mrs Kazimierska said.

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Of course we must understand that it was difficult for him. Coming back from the West with an English wife. And he wanted so much to be Professor of English.’

  ‘He will be,’ Mrs Blaut said. ‘He will be. His friends will arrange that.’

  Mrs Kazimierska lit a cigarette in a little tube of red glass. ‘I do not think so. My great friend, Rektor Markiewicz says not. And Elzbieta’s father is against him. There are standards to be kept up, whatever people say. Even Zwiersz agrees with that. Zwiersz is a very intelligent man. Naturally Rudowski thinks that Zwiersz is on his side but really he is not.’

  ‘Who is Zwiersz?’

  ‘He is one of the Deans of the University. He is the Party man and deals with all that in the Dean’s office.’

  ‘Zwiersz is a friend of Adam Karpinski,’ Miss Barcik said.

  ‘No, I do not think so.’

  The names proliferated. Even with regard to Witek Rudowski, their passion for gossip was hardly malice, but an intense curiosity about people and motives, as though these provided some energizing factor, some salt or spice that their usual fare lacked. They rushed to a foreigner like cats to catmint, yet at the same time could easily be distracted into speculations about anyone they knew of. The effect of their gossip was not trivial, but rather strong and stifling.

  ‘If only Adam would come here,’ Mrs Kazimierska said. ‘He is so very clever. There is somebody for Rose to meet, a true Polish intellectual. His thesis was quite brilliant. They wanted to publish it in America. I read it, it was brilliant.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.’

  ‘He was in Biala Gora last week,’ Miss Barcik said. ‘I saw him. Of course I did not speak with him. He was married to my cousin,’ she told Rose. ‘He was very bad to her and so we do not like him in our family.’

  ‘Magdalena is a stupid girl. So, Adam was in town and he did not come to see me! I expect he was making intrigue. He must hurry up with it now. You see he is a great friend of Rektor Markiewicz and when his term of office is ended, there are no more chances for poor Adam in Biala Gora. But if he comes here again, Rose must meet him.’

  ‘Do you think it is good?’ Miss Barcik asked.
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  ‘Oh yes, he will like Rose. Forgive me, dear, but you are very like a Polish girl. You have not seen any of our pretty girls yet. They are lovely. Before 1956 they were not pretty, now they are pretty. In a year’s time they will be ugly girls again, who knows?’

  Mrs Blaut said: ‘No, they are always pretty. In the war, I remember that I say to head of Gestapo in Biala Gora: “No wonder your soldiers are liking so much our Polish girls. Your German men are handsome but your Frauen, so big and fat!” He laughed and agreed with me. He was not so bad, that one.’

  ‘What was his name?’ Miss Barcik asked.

  ‘Fleischer.’

  ‘Fleischer, ah, yes. I remember when they take over my father’s flat. It was a beautiful flat, by the river – they dynamite it when they leave. My father said, where can we live? And Fleischer said, don’t worry, you’ll get a good flat. Then they cleared the Ghetto and we got a very good flat.’

  Rose glanced quickly at Mrs Kazimierska and Mrs Blaut to see if there was any reaction to this. There was none.

  ‘Rose must also meet her compatriot,’ Mrs Blaut said.

  ‘I do not think she will find him interesting.’

  ‘He is learning Polish with me. He is clever, but’ – blinking furiously, Miss Barcik seemed about to commit a social indiscretion – ‘I think we must take what he is saying with a pinch of salt. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes – I mean, I don’t know. But why?’

  ‘For instance he is saying he was at Cambridge. Evidently he is not du monde, indeed his parents are quite poor, he tells me. How can I believe that?’

  ‘Believe what?’

  ‘That he went to Cambridge. Only the well-born can go there, I think.’

  Rose said: ‘No, that’s frightfully out of date. You see now- adays—’

  While she spoke their mouths turned down. It appeared that they regarded this opinion as part of Rose’s official instructions.

  Miss Barcik laughed shortly. ‘You see when you meet him. You will agree with me. He is a nice boy, but he is not always telling the truth.’

  Rose said suddenly: ‘Could I buy a bottle of vodka, do you think?’

  ‘Not today,’ Mrs Blaut said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Today is the day of paying wages. The drink shops are closed on such days. It is to prevent drunkenness.’

  ‘One moment,’ Mrs Blaut said. ‘You have dollars?’

  ‘Pounds. At least, I’ve got one pound note with me.’ Rose looked in her bag. ‘Yes, here it is.’

  ‘At Hoffman you can buy.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Hoffman is the hotel. Now it is called “July Manifesto” but before the war it was Mr Hoffman’s and we still call it that.’

  ‘Could I go there?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mrs Kazimierska said. ‘I’ll take you, I live near there.’

  Rose said good-bye to Miss Barcik and Mrs Blaut without any particular wish to see them again. She greatly preferred Mrs Kazimierska, though she knew now why Tadeusz had been so antagonistic to her. Mrs Kazimierska had a certain detachment: the pleasures of gossip did not absorb her so completely as they did her friends. Rose was pleased that it was she who was walking with her through the twilit streets of Biala Gora.

  The little shop windows were already lit, but most of them contained only scarlet and white decorations of crepe paper, and framed portraits of Gomulka and Cyrankiewicz. The windows of meat-shops, however, displayed painted plaster models of legs of pork; inside, people were queueing for lengths of sausage.

  Near the Hotel of the July Manifesto Mrs Kazimierska said: ‘Three years ago we were all too frightened to come here. It was only for foreigners and we did not want to be seen visiting them. And the staff were all U.B. Perhaps still are but they do not do anything now.’

  She strode imperiously into the foyer, which was gloomy and unwelcoming with its heavy red hangings and varnished wood. A magazine stall stood beyond the reception desk, loaded with copies of L’Humanité, the Daily Worker, Rude Pravo, Pravda, and behind it were two showcases. One was full of folk art, dancing dolls with cretinous expressions and some lumpy embroidery which looked like kettle-holders; in the other there stood a display of bottles of vodka and the various cordials that are made from it. Everything was priced in dollars and cents.

  Rose produced her passport, forms were to be signed in triplicate, she was sent twice to the reception desk and back again. She had to buy three half-bottles as they were not permitted to give change for her pound note. In the end, clutching her parcel triumphantly but with the grotesque vision of Miss Handisyde at the back of her mind, Rose said good-bye to Mrs Kazimierska and took a taxi home.

  Chapter Eight

  Rose unwrapped the bottles on the kitchen table. In the next room Janet was finishing an English lesson, the last of the day. Her voice sounded hoarse.

  Rose looked into some drawers, could not find a corkscrew and pecked at the neck of the bottle with a fork. The little paper-wrapped cork slid out. She got a glass and poured herself a shot. By the time Janet came in, she was half-way through the second.

  ‘Have some of this.’

  ‘Darling, three bottles!’

  ‘I need this, I can tell you. Your friends, I’m sure they’re very nice and all that, but they’re rather a lot for me to take, just at the beginning. They go on and on.’

  ‘Hala and Elzbieta and Krystyna are the best friends I’ve got. They’ve always stood up for me.’

  ‘I’m sure they have. They know far more about you than I do.’

  ‘Rose, we know so little about each other at all.’

  ‘I felt a terrible fool,’ Rose said, turning away.

  ‘You’re tired, ought you to drink like that?’

  ‘I told you I need it. Janet, I must ask you something. It’s about Witek.’

  ‘What about Witek?’

  ‘Your friends talked about him like a sort of monster.’ The drink and her impatience made Rose exaggerate and dramatize.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I like Witek. You didn’t tell us much about him when you were in England. Only about Tadeusz.’

  ‘We were taken up with Daddy, weren’t we?’

  ‘There was lots of time to talk, those last days. You could have told me about it then. I’d have understood. We’d always suspected, Daddy and I, but we didn’t know for sure.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘About Witek being a Communist.’

  ‘Oh that. That doesn’t matter at all.’

  Rose was silent for a moment, wondering how to get to the point. ‘It seems to matter, to your friends.’

  ‘They’re my friends, not his. I can’t explain very well. Perhaps we’d better leave it till you know this place better.’

  ‘Perhaps we’d better leave it.’ Rose was being soothed down, and objected. ‘If it doesn’t matter, why won’t you speak to him. It isn’t very pleasant for me being in the house.’

  ‘There isn’t much Witek and I can discuss any more. We’ve been through it all. We look at things quite differently.’

  ‘What about Tadeusz?’

  ‘Especially Tadeusz.’

  ‘But Tadeusz is all right, surely. So frightfully nice and intelligent. Honestly, I adore Tadeusz.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better take over from me, you seem to like everybody so much. Except for me. I seem to be the odd man out.’

  ‘That’s not fair. I’m trying to be helpful. All this makes it very difficult.’

  ‘You can’t help, Rose. You can’t really.’

  ‘Oh, I can. That’s what you don’t know.’ Rose clutched Janet’s arms excitedly, her eyes full of sparkle and distress. ‘Only it’s all going to be difficult.’ She began talking very fast. ‘You know last night I said I wanted to come here because I wanted to know about things here? You were hurt, you said you thought I wanted to visit you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Janet, I have got some exciting news.
If I’d told you before I found this thing about Witek, something might have gone wrong.’

  Janet sat down, huddled and tired. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You remember about Aunt Louise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know how she only wanted to leave her money to men, and when Nicholas was killed, our side of the family was out?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well, she changed her mind. At least, she didn’t really.’

  ‘You mean, she left something to us?’

  ‘It’s a lot more difficult than that. She left it to Tadeusz.’

  ‘Oh, my God. A lot of money?’

  ‘Yes. A lot.’

  Tears began streaming down Janet’s cheeks, She sobbed and laughed. Rose could do nothing any more. She sat back exhausted on the divan, picking at the rough cloth under her fingers.

  ‘It’s all over then.’

  ‘What’s over?’

  ‘This.’

  Rose felt that for the last moments they had both been shaken, half-laughing and half-crying, on a large slightly out-of-control machine. Now she was worried that the shock might cause Janet to behave foolishly.

  ‘We must be very careful to do the right thing.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  ‘She died just after Christmas. You remember, I wrote to you. I didn’t say anything about what the solicitors told me. You know you said not to put important things in letters. I decided to give up my job and come here.’

  ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have come?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Anyway, Mickey was still around then. I told you about him. Actually, there was another thing.’

  ‘Was there?’

  ‘I was afraid to find you were unhappy. And not to be able to do anything about it.’

  ‘Unhappy!’ Janet laughed wildly. ‘Just look at this flat. It took five years on a list to get it, and it’s falling to pieces already. I’ve worked till I’m dog-tired every day. They’re trying to take my own son away from me. You were afraid I might be unhappy.’

  Rose was beyond listening to all this. Instead she thought of the complications ahead. Janet’s whole life was disorganized by the news. Until some decision had been reached, there was a risk of more misery and even disaster.