Читать книгу Chasing the King of Hearts - Ханна Кралль - Страница 17

Bolek

Jurek Szwarcwald has a talent for finding decent people. Not only does he know a doctor who operates on Jews (the man lengthened Jurek’s foreskin and shortened Jurek’s wife’s nose right before he was killed in a public execution in the middle of town), but he also manages to meet Bolek. Bolek crosses into the ghetto several times a week. By day completely legally, with a construction firm sent in to tear down buildings destroyed in the fighting. At night illegally, on other business, through the sewer system.

Jurek tells Izolda where to go and how many times to knock. She finds Bolek in a basement carpentry workshop, full of shavings and sawdust, planes, files. A few men are sitting on a stack of boards, thin, wiry, unshaven, with unbuttoned shirts and not exactly sober.

She explains who sent her.

So? asks Bolek.

She explains that her husband is in the ghetto.

So?

So we have to get him out. We can’t use the guard anymore, but my husband could go with you, through the sewers.

With me, love? Bolek gives her a patronizing smile. First someone would have to go and find him, and we can’t leave our site. It’s dangerous inside the ghetto, love. Terrible things happening there. Who’s going to fetch your husband?

I will, she says. I’ll go along and bring him to you.

Bolek stops smiling, stops calling her “love.” He buttons his shirt and gets up off the boards.

You mean you’ll go through the sewers, ma’am?

Where do I meet you? she asks.