Читать книгу Chasing the King of Hearts - Ханна Кралль - Страница 29

The Prayer

There are cells on both sides of the corridor. One is for Jewish women. Every day, on her way to the toilet, Izolda steals a glance at them through the spyhole. One morning she notices her husband’s mother. She’s sitting sideways, resting her chin on her withered, wrinkled hand. That evening she’s facing the door, as though she were looking straight at her daughter-in-law.

Izolda shrinks back in a panic.

She returns to her cell.

She asks a new arrival who else the Germans had arrested the day before.

Several people.

Was there a tall young man with straight blond hair?

Yes, there was a man with blond hair.

And how about a dark-haired man with a beard . . . No, what am I saying, without a beard, quite a bit older . . .

Yes, there was a man with dark hair.

And a girl? With bleached yellow hair?

No, no girl.

It’s all clear: they caught her husband and his parents, but his sister managed to escape. Izolda struggles not to shout: Listen, everyone, they took my husband! I don’t have anyone to live for! But what sense would that make, the women in the cell can’t help her, the guards even took away their hairpins. She looks at the others with envy. They wound up here at Pawiak for an important cause, for some act of patriotism. They taught children Polish history or carried secret messages or printed underground leaflets . . . Is it her fault that her only cause is her husband?

For exercise the women are let out into the prison yard.

They totter about, one behind the other, under the eye of the female guard. After a moment five figures appear on the steps—the women from the Jewish cell. Izolda knows—everyone knows—that the Jewish cell is headed into the ruins of the ghetto. Where they will be shot.

Izolda sees her husband’s mother.

The Polish women walk four abreast and turn to the left just as the Jewish women pass by, so the two groups are facing each other.

She is frightened.

His mother will recognize her.

His mother will give her away with a look, a gesture . . . Will she smile? Will she say something?

Izolda starts to pray. The way she always does, to the Mother of God on Lilusia’s medallion. May she not look in my direction . . . Let her walk past me . . . She breaks out in a sweat, she’s wet with fear, she tries speeding up her pace and slowing down . . . The Jewish cell keeps moving across the yard, her own mother-in-law is walking to her death and Izolda is asking the Mother of God to make her step more quickly.

The Jewish women march out of the yard.

The Polish women walk in a circle, in silence, one behind the other.

Shots ring out.

She counts to five.

She thinks: Now it’s my husband’s turn, now Shayek will be taken out and shot.

The women return to their cell.

The next day someone hands her a smuggled message, from her husband.

The Germans had hauled in a different tall young man with blond hair.